A very disappointing visit - results of my email to DLR 7/9

[DisneyJamieCA]

I fail to see where some of you are getting that I have a bad attitude or am a negative person. Is everyone who has a different opinion than yours negative? Should I have been happy about the ride breakdowns? Do you allow yourself only happy feelings? We are blessed with the time and the money to travel frequently and I'm appreciative of that. In the grand scheme of things, a bad day at DL is something most people would love to have as their biggest problem and I get that. My post was not meant to be anything except a factual account of our disappointing day. If only positive reviews are wanted here on the DIS forums then make that clear in the rules.

Nobody said you were a negative person, but that your negative attitude about THIS did make it a bad trip. And no, you can have a bad review of DLR. Most of us won't agree with you, but doesn't mean you can't have it. I think most of us were very sympathetic to your plight until you said you wouldn't be back because you wouldn't be fooled again. Fooled by what? You make it sounds like Disney did this on purpose.

There have been plenty of complaints about the breakdowns this year, so you aren't alone in the disappointment over that. But most of us have left it at disappointment, where it seems to have turned into anger for you. You may not mean it that way, and I'm the first to acknowledge that tone is near impossible to read online, but it is the way it comes across. And many of us think there are things you could/should have done differently that may have alleviated some of those issues.

I personally feel your vow to never to return to DLR, less you be fooled again was highly overdramatic; but your vacation money is yours to spend how you want. Like I said before, I hope you'll give it another chance with more time.

 

[Pastalady]

We returned from our latest visit on June 6. Before DH and I spoke about how we would wait to return until closer to 2016.

Yeah, not happening lol! DH and I decided we enjoy DL with our DD more than solo Vegas trips, etc. so we are headed back for spring 2015! So excited!

And my whole family is coming! My parents are getting older and my sister has health issues. They decided who knows when everyone will be healthy enough so let's do it now, well spring 2015 lol!

Does anyone know anything about dapper days for spring? I registered on the website so I know they will announce sometime in the next few months. Historically does anyone know when it's occurred?

Anyways I am doing a happy dance! So happy to be planning another trip.

 

[auteur55]

She has every right to be mad. She paid 4-$500 dollars for a day at Disney land and quite a few of the major rides didn't work. To say well you should have gone more days is condescending and unfair. Some people save up for years to go and other people like me go for specific rides and purposely plan our trips around when closures and refurbishments are. Imagine if you saw an ad for the new Cars Land ride RSR and it influenced you to take a day to go see this new ride. You arrive and it's down the whole day and makes planning other things at the park tough because you don't know when it's going back up. Sorry but if someone advertised a product to me and I paid money for it and they just said "sorry but it's not working go do something else." Why is that ok?

I frequent an amusement park here in Utah and when I lived in Ohio had season passed to Cedar Point. Now I know those aren't as high tech as some of the DL rides but I can't think of one time several rides shut down unexpectedly throughout the day as a common occurrence. Maybe I can think of it happening briefly to one ride but it just doesn't happen. So for Disney to have this happen frequently, it's frustrating and kids and parent come from miles to see these rides.

I know it's unrealistic to think things won't happen but it's Disney's job to be sure people get the experience they advertised for and the consumer paid for. If they can't do that to some realistic degree they should issue refunds to customers on days like this or give them a free return pass to come back another day. There also should be a cheaper ticket price for off season times when many of the rides are down.

 

[Mariep26]

She has every right to be mad. She paid 4-$500 dollars for a day at Disney land and quite a few of the major rides didn't work. To say well you should have gone more days is condescending and unfair.

Maybe it needs to be another thread but I appreciate those that give suggestions on how the scenario could be avoided in the future as I find it to be valuable information. As long as the information is given constructively without being rude, I don't see it being unfair or condescending. I understand that is a matter of opinion but I appreciate the OP as well as the suggestions of others.

This happens a lot here and on other boards. A person posts and perhaps wants to vent but many of us are problem solvers so we begin to analyze the issue and figure out how it would be done different or better.

 

[Jennafoo]

She has every right to be mad. She paid 4-$500 dollars for a day at Disney land and quite a few of the major rides didn't work.

Fair enough, but it would have been interesting to see if DLR would have tried to make it right if the OP actually said anything or asked them to make it right, considering it was her only day and the big attractions weren't available. But she didn't.

 

[JadeDarkstar]

honestly here's another thing, had she went and talked to them they may have upgraded her ticket to a two day. I know issues happened and we got comp tickets once. Its rare but happens

 

[HydroGuy]

I was going to stop at guest services to complain on our way put but I really didn't want to aggravate myself further. I'll be sending them my thoughts via email which I'm sure will fall on deaf ears. There's really nothing they can do to make it right.

OK, a lot of being heard is having the right approach. I happen to know for a fact that complaints like yours do not fall on deaf ears. That you "are sure" they do tells me something about your attitude.

Thanks, yes, fortunately the rest of our trip was very good. DLR was the sour note on an otherwise wonderful Pacific Coast tour. I knew when I posted my complaint that many would point to the only one day as the reason for our bad experience but we were fully aware that we were limiting ourselves and I think our expectations were not unreasonable. We had a relatively short list of favorites and unique to DL must dos. If it had just been Splash or just RSR I would have been disappointed but not upset. I purposefully didn't post until I had time to look back and revisit the experience to see if I still felt cheated. I do.

Edit to add a thank you for all the sympathetic "ears". Much appreciated!

Folks are more inclined to be sympathetic if they have had a similar experience and/or have gauged your attitude to be realistic and balanced.

As it is, I think you have a valid reason to be disappointed. But I am not sure how balanced you have been.

Our trip wasn't centered around DL, we visited several areas of CA from San Diego up to San Fran. We had planned to add a day if we felt like there was more to see but frankly, I shouldn't have to pay for 2 days instead of 1 because they can't keep the attractions in decent working order. We would have had more than enough time in the 1 full day to see all we planned and had the rides not been in such a sorry state we could have easily hit all of our "must dos". I can understand a few hiccups but it seems from reading here and from speaking to other park goers during our visit that it's quite common for Splash, IJ, RSR and several other attractions to be down throughout the day. In all our visits to WDW and US Orlando, I've never run into anything like this. The only ride i ever recall being down at WDW is Fast Track.

I was going to stop at guest services to complain on our way put but I really didn't want to aggravate myself further. I'll be sending them my thoughts via email which I'm sure will fall on deaf ears. There's really nothing they can do to make it right.

LOL, I have. On my very first ride of my very first day of my very first trip to WDW. I guess if I was on a day trip I could have written off WDW as well.

My first experience at WDW was at AK and soon after the opening of the new ride EE in 2006. It was closed at opening which caused a chain reaction of bad experiences that day due in part to poor communication from the CMs and a lot of heat and humidity in June.

When I posted this on a WDW forum (TGM - which I was active on at the time and I hear has gone way downhill since) I was told "that type of stuff happens and you need to roll with the punches".

LOL (again), my first day ever to Epcot just a couple days later was in a tropical storm and the rain was torrential - most all the shows I was so looking forward to seeing such as Off-Kilter were cancelled and I never got to see them on that trip. Plus rides like TT were closed. ALL DAY.

As it so happened, over the balance of the 10 days on that trip and we had other days which were good and overall it was a good trip. But I could have taken those two days together and dissed WDW for good.

Since DLR has almost as many rides as WDW's 4 parks put together, IMO the only way you could make a fair comparison of 4 rides down at DLR is to visit all four WDW parks within the same amount of time as you were able to at DLR. I daresay based on my experience that WDW as a resort does have significant trouble with four of their rides on the same day many times. TT itself seems to constantly have trouble.

As I said earlier I understand your frustration and frankly think you have a right to complain. I think your conclusions about DLR and comparisons to WDW are not at all reasonable or fair.

 

[mikedoyleblogger]

honestly here's another thing, had she went and talked to them they may have upgraded her ticket to a two day. I know issues happened and we got comp tickets once. Its rare but happens

Very true. And City Hall often gives out same-day Fastpasses to help make up for issues like OP describes that she experienced. I'd bet that would have happened in this case. Hell, we complained about our APs working last year and were given a three-night on-site stay. Disney definitely listens.

 

[mikedoyleblogger]

I fail to see where some of you are getting that I have a bad attitude or am a negative person. Is everyone who has a different opinion than yours negative? Should I have been happy about the ride breakdowns? Do you allow yourself only happy feelings?

We are blessed with the time and the money to travel frequently and I'm appreciative of that. In the grand scheme of things, a bad day at DL is something most people would love to have as their biggest problem and I get that. My post was not meant to be anything except a factual account of our disappointing day. If only positive reviews are wanted here on the DIS forums then make that clear in the rules.

You have *every right* to complain. I guarantee you almost everyone in this thread has posted somewhere, sometime in this forum about a rotten experience at a Disney park that really got to them. I'm probably infamous on the WDW side of things (and especially in the WDW CM community) for my really unhappy trip report about visiting WDW last May.

But--as I definitely learned last year--just because you have a right to complain doesn't mean you have a right for everyone to agree with your opinion, or for those who disagree with you to not voice their opinions, too.

I agree with you, on the WDW side of things people definitely get smacked down when criticizing WDW as if WDW is above criticism. That isn't the way the DLR forum rolls--that rarely happens here and I don't believe it's happening in this thread.

What I think many of us are trying to say--and others please forgive me for trying to summarize here--is that although we've all been there, in this instance it sounds to us--people who know DLR's agonies and ecstasies very well and have read complaints like yours before--that it sounds like you could have helped your day go better than it ultimately did. We're not saying that to be mean. We're saying that because this is a forum full of DLR vets, so there's a lot of longtime knowledge here being shared with you by many people.

You say you're blessed with the resources to travel frequently. That's wonderful. I'm glad your bad experience at DLR didn't weigh quite as heavily on you financially as some may have assumed. With your resources in mind, you might consider returning to DLR someday and using some of the advice you found in this thread.

If you never come back, that's fine, too. WDW can be a wonderful experience, too, so enjoy!

 

[whoever]

Why? There ARE folks who get a huge kick ( or used to) from bouncing through all 4 WDW parks for two E-tickets rides per park. And in lesser seasons, using old FP this was accomplished by some.

Her willingness to vigorously hop would have been rewarded IF ONLY the rides had worked.

Why is it wrong to only want a handful of great rides over a dozen okay rides? If you are willing to do quality over quantity (in the eye of the beholder) why shouldn't you?

OPs only "mistake" was preferring frequently broken rides.

The mistake was not taking advantage of what was open and working instead of continuously setting oneself up for disappointment. They could have rode tons of great rides even if they weren't headliners. Instead they wandered around aimlessly between the parks trying to ride FOUR rides out of FIFTY-THREE between the two parks.

If I go only wanting to ride POTC, and its 101, do I get upset? NO. I ride the other FIFTY-TWO rides in the parks. You reap what you sow.

 

[momof2n2]

The mistake was not taking advantage of what was open and working instead of continuously setting oneself up for disappointment. They could have rode tons of great rides even if they weren't headliners. Instead they wandered around aimlessly between the parks trying to ride FOUR rides out of FIFTY-THREE between the two parks. If I go only wanting to ride POTC, and its 101, do I get upset? NO. I ride the other FIFTY-TWO rides in the parks. You reap what you sow.

I politely disagree.
What you consider a bunch of great rides she might consider garbage. She certainly COULD HAVE ridden other rides, but still left disappointed and disgusted.

We did not go to WDW this year b/c there was no way I was going to risk not doing our favorites. I may have been able to visit the American Film Institute three times and ridden Star Tours twice, but unless I get on RnRC & TSMM it'd be a wasted day.

It's subjective

 

[hyperminimalism]

The mistake was not taking advantage of what was open and working instead of continuously setting oneself up for disappointment. They could have rode tons of great rides even if they weren't headliners. Instead they wandered around aimlessly between the parks trying to ride FOUR rides out of FIFTY-THREE between the two parks.

If I go only wanting to ride POTC, and its 101, do I get upset? NO. I ride the other FIFTY-TWO rides in the parks. You reap what you sow.

This all kind of circles back to having a certain attitude about it. If you are going to the park on one day with the idea of riding the rides that are ridden the most and that frequently break down, that's essentially a risk you're willing (or unwittingly) taking. It's like being asked to sign a Terms of Service contract and then getting upset when something occurs that was clearly stated in the verbiage. Although you don't have to sign any kind of contract to enter the parks, I would think it's common knowledge that you're stepping in through the gates on a day that could potentially result in SO MANY incidents. Power outage. Power surge. Guests didn't load fast enough. Guest got off too slowly. Earthquake. Someone dropped something on the track. The computers are sending mixed messages or the ride can't be restarted immediately and so it has to go through a full cycle by being taken offline (goodness, I'm not too technically knowledgeable, but yeah, sure that's what happens!)

I'm mimicking what's been said. It's all in how you deal with it. You can piss and moan (not saying you're doing this, sharona), or you can take it all in stride. There's nothing wrong with letting the right people know about how disappointed a day you had at this supposedly fun and awesome park. In fact, it's been proven that other park goers have benefited from it greatly. So to claim that Disney was just trying to fool you into something or that they don't care about their guests and their experiences sounds mighty overly dramatic to me. They quite obviously listen and comp you if you approach them with your legitimate concerns.

Sharona, you have every right to be upset and disappointed. No one is telling you you shouldn't be, or that you shouldn't have an opinion. I can't say I've had the one-day-visit-with-many-rides-down thing happen to me. I've been there on a 3-day trip and a couple rides we wanted to go on were either down or being rehabbed, but having allowed myself extra days meant we could go on the rides when they came back. But if you feel you were gypped out of time and money at a place you have no desire to return to, that's just fine as well. It's your decision and it doesn't affect anyone of us here on this board aside from the fact that it'll be one less body in the park. Should you go to DL/DCA again in the future, I do hope you have a much better experience.

 

[sharona]

OK, a lot of being heard is having the right approach. I happen to know for a fact that complaints like yours do not fall on deaf ears. That you "are sure" they do tells me something about your attitude.



Folks are more inclined to be sympathetic if they have had a similar experience and/or have gauged your attitude to be realistic and balanced.

As it is, I think you have a valid reason to be disappointed. But I am not sure how balanced you have been.




LOL, I have. On my very first ride of my very first day of my very first trip to WDW. I guess if I was on a day trip I could have written off WDW as well.

My first experience at WDW was at AK and soon after the opening of the new ride EE in 2006. It was closed at opening which caused a chain reaction of bad experiences that day due in part to poor communication from the CMs and a lot of heat and humidity in June.

When I posted this on a WDW forum (TGM - which I was active on at the time and I hear has gone way downhill since) I was told "that type of stuff happens and you need to roll with the punches".

LOL (again), my first day ever to Epcot just a couple days later was in a tropical storm and the rain was torrential - most all the shows I was so looking forward to seeing such as Off-Kilter were cancelled and I never got to see them on that trip. Plus rides like TT were closed. ALL DAY.

As it so happened, over the balance of the 10 days on that trip and we had other days which were good and overall it was a good trip. But I could have taken those two days together and dissed WDW for good.

Since DLR has almost as many rides as WDW's 4 parks put together, IMO the only way you could make a fair comparison of 4 rides down at DLR is to visit all four WDW parks within the same amount of time as you were able to at DLR. I daresay based on my experience that WDW as a resort does have significant trouble with four of their rides on the same day many times. TT itself seems to constantly have trouble.

As I said earlier I understand your frustration and frankly think you have a right to complain. I think your conclusions about DLR and comparisons to WDW are not at all reasonable or fair.

I'm not sure why you highlighted my thank you to those who were sympathetic. Perhaps you mistook my response as sarcasm when in fact it was a quite sincere thank you with a silly pun about mouse ears.

 

[JadeDarkstar]

wow free three nights at the DLH id have loved that, oh yes I do know many times I have complained and got fp's when somethings been down. It happens but Disney cares and trys to make up for it.

 

[rootbeer]

Sorry for your DIS-appointing visit OP. I suppose you needed to vent. Mission accomplished. I'm guessing also you're not surprised by some of the responses. Really, all you had to do was finish your original post with something like; "well, our plan didn't quite work but hey, a bad day at DLR is better than a good day at work", or something like that. It has made for entertaining reading though, so thanks. Listen (and I'm serious here), why not go back sometime on a two, or three day visit? It can only get better right?

 

[HydroGuy]

I'm not sure why you highlighted my thank you to those who were sympathetic. Perhaps you mistook my response as sarcasm when in fact it was a quite sincere thank you with a silly pun about mouse ears.

Sharona, I took it as sincere. It was clear (to me at least) you felt some folks here were not being sympathetic. I was trying to explain why that might be for some.

I think DLR is struggling right now with lots of ride refurbs (and thus closures for some folks that disappoint them) and lots of breakdowns. I think DLR is being "too successful" and getting lots of wear and tear. Anyways, this forum this year has had a lot more unhappy folks than normal. I think with a lot of justification.

My point is that DLR is really an awesome place - just as awesome as WDW but in its own unique way - and that a one day experience is not enough to draw broad conclusions. I explained this in the context of my first day at AK and Epcot which both were quite negative. I have become attached to both and am glad to have visited WDW five times now.

I also have been fortunate to have visited DLR Paris and Tokyo Disney. All Disney resorts have things that can emerge as negative in the short term. But they all have gems as well that are unique to that resort. I hope time will change your perspective and you might see things differently at some point.

My consistent experience is that folks who love Disney in their hearts and give the different Disney resorts a fair chance come to love all of them.

 

[Pastalady]

No idea why my post ended up here lol!
Carry on and ignore my totally off topic questions

 

[superlarz]

I briefly considered stopping off at guest relations on our way out but at that point, we were done in and we just wanted to get out of there. We had planned to either extend our tickets or spend the next morning at DTD but decided to cut our losses and move on.

Its unfortunate that you didnt stop and say something while you were still there, or at least in the area. They most likely would have done something to make things right. Waiting and emailing them about it later will get a response, but it is going to be a lot more difficult for Disney to make things right.

What a lot of people dont realize is that ride breakdowns are outside of Disney's control. By that I mean it is not bad maintenance or anything like that often bring down rides. Of course there are occasional maintenance issues, but in my experience most ride shut downs are due to guests doing something. Either taking to long to load or unload, losing personal artifacts on the track, standing during the ride, etc. Power outages or surges are common in the summer and can also require a ride computer to reset which takes time.

I am lucky to be able to go whenever I want, living about 90 minutes away, but I do go to the park with family and sometimes it is just for one day, and for some they have only been once. I have had very successful park hopping one day trips, and have had others basically be a disaster. The trick is, when things aren't going right, you have got to be able to throw the planning out the window and go on other rides. Most "breakdowns" involve resetting a computer or cycling a ride though after whatever the issue is cleared up. Your days are what you make of them. It is a shame yours was not great. If I was you, I would not feel a need to visit Disneyland again. But if you are ever in the area, consider spending 2 days at the resort. Be open to new experiences and dont set a rigid schedule for yourself.

 

[scociny]

Sorry you had such a disappointing time! We went last May, and had a similar ad experience with rides breaking down. We had a three day hopper though. We stayed on site and despite doing MM, RSR was down as soon as we got over there. The next day, we had early entry to Disneyland and headed over to Nemo and it was down! We waited in line for it to open, and it took a good 40 minutes just hoping it would open. I would check my app to see if rides were closed, head over to a specific ride and it would be closed. Some of it is beyond Disney's control. We headed over to Space Mountain to ride it and it had just closed. Talk about unlucky! But, someone decided it was a good idea to try to stand up on the ride and they had to shut it down. We got stuck on Grizzly River Run-20 minutes, TSMM-10 minutes, Splash and were in line several times when rides broke. But, despite all that, I know for a fact my boys had a blast and we are going back next month. Don't get me wrong, I think Disney should get their stuff together. I know the rides are abused but don't you think with all of the revenue they bring in, they could have this all figured out. I know Disney guests can cause some of the issues but I was just shocked at the ride closures as well. I would definitely contact Disney, only once did I get a CM that was less than delightful.

 

[whoever]

I politely disagree.
What you consider a bunch of great rides she might consider garbage. She certainly COULD HAVE ridden other rides, but still left disappointed and disgusted.

We did not go to WDW this year b/c there was no way I was going to risk not doing our favorites. I may have been able to visit the American Film Institute three times and ridden Star Tours twice, but unless I get on RnRC & TSMM it'd be a wasted day.

It's subjective

If not getting on a ride or two makes for a wasted day in one's opinion than maybe DLR isn't the place to vacation. I simply can't understand how a ride or two would destroy a visit.