thanks. I'm "kinda" back. I'm trying to read and catch up but like today... whooey, like 42 new pages to catch up on! I'm not posting a whole lot but I'm here sometimes.
Well that's one thing that can be said about Disney that is still quite different than most "companies" or businesses or whatever you want to call all those things. You know what I mean.

And that one thing is- Disney may not be perfect but they darn sure try to make things right when they mess up!
We had a "similar" situation... our very first trip to WDW a few years ago and our very first time to get pictures taken with Mickey. This was "sort of" a big deal for my children but it was a MAJOR deal for me. When you see DH on the cruise- ask him how he felt about my Mickey obsession from the day we met. LOL I've always wanted to go to WDW and Mickey has always been my favorite character. (no princess for this tomboy! LOL) We were never able to go- but I had tons of Mickey stuff, clothing, you name it. He hated that I'd wear so much Mickey stuff- said it was "kids stuff" when we first dated. (he did not hinder me from wearing it by the way. Even then I knew who wore the pants in my house. LOL)
ANYWAY, our first day of our first trip to WDW and the first time to take pictures with Mickey. Stood in line at toontown for about an hour... and finally it's our turn. I saw others getting their pictures taken with their own cameras so I knew that was allowed and I was glad- please keep in mind that this was like in 2002 and DH had only been at his job like a year and a half and this was a spur of the moment cruise BECAUSE the entire plant had been closed down and everyone laid off for "atleast" 2wks so he took his vacation instead of taking the vacation pay in lieu of vacation (like he normally does- or did... until we actually started taking vacations). Anyway, point is he was laid off right before Christmas and we made a spur of the moment decision to go and we weren't doing all that great financially. We spent our vacation pay on that and had no idea how long the lay off would continue after we got back (turns out it wasn't any longer than 2wks but we didn't know that at the time!)
ANYWAY, point is we were not spending money like it was going out of style and I didn't really want to spend around $20 a picture while there- so I was using my digi camera. So I was glad to see everyone else was doing the same thing...
To make a long story short- I asked the lady (now I know she's a CM LOL) to take the picture of us as she'd done with others but I tried to explain to her that there was a slight delay after she pushed the button. To just hold it down and there would be like a 1 second delay and it would take the photo. She couldn't grasp that concept and kept pressing it and then putting the camera down to tell me it's not working and it would flash and take a picture of the floor.

She did that 3 times and then MICKEY GOT RUDE AND ABRUPT WITH ME! He stalked over to her- obviously upset and yanked the camera out of her hand- stuffed it in my face for me to take it and then turned around to take the photo of all of us with him. Everyone was smiling but I'm there standing with a camera in my hand and NOT smiling... I was on the verge of tears. Because of the way he acted and because I didn't think I'd buy the picture.
I did end up buying the picture because it would be the only time I'd ever have a picture of my "first" time with Mickey -and now I had the proof of how upset I was and camera in hand/etc. to remember the moment forever.
Also as we were walking out- I was getting visibly upset (ie: eyes started tearing up you know) and as we were walking out I was telling my husband (in a hushed voice no less- swear!) that I couldn't believe Mickey had behaved that way and no sooner had I got the words out of my mouth as we were walking out that door than the other young (very young) male CM at the door made a rude comment to me saying it's your own fault, your camera doesn't work. I, being who I am, turned around, stopped and said excuse me? First off my camera DOES work, she wouldn't listen to me and secondly I'm talking to my HUSBAND and I'd appreciate it if you'd stay out of my conversation and I walked out.
Might not sound all that nice but remember I didn't say it in a mean voice because at that point tears were falling, my voice was cracking. Try to imagine someone in tears saying that- it doesn't come out "mean". Yanno?
Oh, did I mention this was CHRISTMAS DAY when this happened? Guarantee it was the first time I ever cried sad tears on Christmas day (and we were poor as kids so that's saying a lot LOL) and it was supposed to be the happiest place on earth!
Anyway, after we returned from that trip, I found this board, read all the wonderful things and saw how that was NOT how a character greet should be- I wrote to WDW and they wrote me back and then called me... and I talked to someone "higher up" and they offered me on our next trip (I had planned to go back in Jan myself on a solo trip and then we had already planned a long family trip -onsite that time/only WDW that time instead of US/IOA also/etc.) that he would have us meet with Mickey again and promised it would be different that time.
It was wonderful and made up for the first time (even though really the "first time" can't ever go back and change it, yanno? But I'm healing slowly but surely.

) - we had a meeting with Mickey our first day at MK on that trip and then they had us meet (without lines- took us back ways into rooms!) some other characters and Cindy (Rita was in

) and Goofy even got Jeff to laugh at him! (for my non-disney husband that's huge...) and we then got to go with the CM they had managing this to take us the back way to ride Goofy's ride and they gave us a special moments certificate from Mickey and they took tons of pictures of us with Mickey and those characters and gave them to us for FREE. (it was a total of about 6 or 7 pictures, the rest were on my camera anyway) It was a very special meeting, not unlike your daughter's/her friends with the princesses.
So that's why I say- Disney may not be perfect... but they do give it the good old college try- to make it up to you if they mess up.