Good Afternoon, my friends!!
Has anyone heard from Tracy? I'm a bit concerned - hope things are okay with her and her family.
Kathy, thanks for the heads up about the letter posted on the Lost the Magic thread.
I posted on that thread way back in the beginning...and while I think her letter is absurd and with an almost unbelievable amount of entitlement, in essence I understand what she is saying (please don't throw anything at me!!!). I also think she is an obnoxious snob.
Ya know, I
LOVE the GF...it is my absolutely all time favorite, but our first stay we were not treated well at check-in at all...when I inquired how much it might be to upgrade to a lagoon view, the CM actually said to me, "You have a very good rate and probably could not afford it" - excuse me?? Since when did the CM know what I had in my bank account? I was not certainly not dressed like a slob (although some wealthy people do lol). After calling to change rooms (he put us in the one and only type of room we asked not be in - a dormer), we then had the most wonderful CM. I dropped off a note of thanks to the front desk that evening and when we returned found a lovely gift basket with a card wishing us a wonderful stay signed from Minnie and Mickey. WOW...just because I said thank you!!
I am with the crowd who has experienced the changes at the Parks and resorts since we first began going (twice a yr) back in 1981. I've posted this a trillion times, but we only stayed at monorail resorts back then and CBR when it was brand new in 1988.
Sooo....I do think Disney has changed over the years - guest service is not even close to it what it was 20 yrs ago, cleanliness is not close to what it was (my mother, who is the cleanest person on earth, loved Disney because it was so clean - she would faint now. LOL). But these things are mostly due to cutbacks, but perhaps also because (imho)WDW became so big - adding more and more resorts to compete with off-site hotels. In the early days, this allowed more guests to stay on-site - now the cost of a value is higher than what we paid for the Poly or CR in the 80's...even early 90's.
I also feel the food quality has gone down and prices up. Hate that darn
DDP!! LOL Because I am selfish and want to make a reservation when I arrive or snag a walk up now and then. LOL
Nevertheless, I still find walking down Main Street enchanting as ever...just like hearing the music when we walk into Future World or seeing the palm trees on Hollywood Blvd.
Have guests changed? Well, yeah, I run into more rude guests than years ago - but the place is so big and can be stressful...but mostly, they are few and as shocking as it may be to us, some never get the enchantment and treat "our place" like any old amusement park.
That poster is as obnoxious as they come....and those are the type of guests I hate running into at GF or YC or even the parks...they reek snobbery and entitlement - for some reason they seem to frequent GF and YC resorts more. She had not been then since 1998 and she calls herself a frequent guest? Because she had 17 trips prior to that?
Yes, GF did have a full mini-bar even in 2004, but guests complained and sometime since October 2004 GF emptied the mini-bars at the requests of guests.
After AS opened we noticed that AS buses came more frequently, but we never once thought we deserved better being at the Poly etc...we actually thought it was because AS was /is a larger resort and therefore needed more buses to accommodate more guests. Common sense rather than entitlement?
I also remember the days when a resort ID was required for the monorail and buses...and I've missed it at times....what she forgot is that it did not have to be resort specific - a guest with
any resort ID could board a resort monorail or resort bus.
Disney does odd things - our first stay at CBR the room had a fridge...I always chuckle when I see posts saying how happy guests were when Disney put a fridge in the mod rooms - actually, they had removed the fridge and put new ones in a couple of yrs later.
I'm old and have been staying in Disney resorts a long time (not as long as those who went in '71 lol)....I remember the good ole days..but these days are pretty good too...
Sorry about the vent!!! And thanks for not throwing anything at me!