AWFUL experience AT art of disney downtown

IwasatWDWforamonth

<font color=red>Has a sweetie named Hope<br><font
Joined
Oct 5, 2004
Messages
1,979
Hi everybody:)
Ive been waiting to tell about this ever since we got home from our trip but ive hesitated because sometimes people will take the side of the cm and say that a disney cm could never be that bad,trust me this was BAD
Im a huge fan of WDW and problems like what im about to tell you have never happened to me,
Ok here it goes im , Im actually getting upset thinking about it, hopefully this will get it out of my system,

My mom and I were staying at POFQ we were staying there for a few days our second night there we planned to take the boat downtown, mainly for the ride at night and we thought we would look in a couple stores, it was late so we wanted to get back to get a snack at the room and go swimming.
So we decided to just go to The art of disney, after looking for about 2 minutes we found a glass display of the leftover Happy haunts stuff, and there was this awesome mickey with goofy in a doommobile, The haunted mansion is my mom's and I's favorite ride and we were shocked when the cm said it was only 150, he acted like it was the only one too.

Well we decided to buy it, we get to the check out to our suprise he whips out another one, well ok there is 2 , well this one didnt work, the light switch was stuck, so he goes and gets the one in the display, My mom payed for it and then the girl helping him was packing it, in the process she broke the horn on one of the ghost,
The guy cm TAKES my moms debit card out of her hand along with the receipt and proceeds to try and figure out how to cancel the order,
I say wait a minute I dont care if its broke, Im just a collector I want because i like it, He said YOU CANT HAVE IT YOURE NOT LEAVING THE STORE WITH IT, I say I dont care if she broke it.
Ok im a mush and im attached to this thing I know I shoulnt get so upset but at this point im crying and HE LAUGHS AT ME, Im crying and saying why cant you let me have it,He just stands there with a nasty look on his face saying there is no way im leaving with it, he cant sell damaged merchandise then I keep saying what you're doing is illegal I told him to call the police, My mom has paid for this how can you keep us here, About 20 minutes later he calls a manager( Please remember I was not mad at the girl who broke it AT ALL it was an accident and she felt really bad)

Ok about ten minutes later the manager comes with another man, she was such a nice lady, said she could hear me crying on the phone we told them the entire thing showing her the receipt with the item on it after talking to them for say a half an hour she tells him to call and make sure there were no more of these anywhere, there were not, so she told him to pack that one up for us, The next day she sent me a poster of mickey mouse a really nice one.
And a week later they found us another one and let us us exchange it at our resort. So she really helped us, offered to have him write us an apology but I didnt want it.
But the whole thing was do draining for me, I know it seems silly for me to be so upset, most people would'nt paiy full price for something that was broken but I really really liked it and it had been paid for BEFORE it was broken.
Ever watched boiling points on mtv? well thats what this felt like, I could not believe he wouldnt let us leave the store. We spent over an hour and a half in that store thanks to him, almost missed the boat back I know we could have taken a bus but we were only staying at pofq for a few nights and wanted to make the most of it.
In hindsight I say I just should have packed it up myself and left, what could he have done Called the police, to say a lady just left with an item she paid for and we broke?
I know this post isnt written very well it just feels good to let this out.
thanks for listening and if ive posted in the wrong spot gently move me:)
kathy
 
I'm so sorry you had such an upsetting experience. Hope it didn't affect the rest of your trip.
 
I'm with Gina... I'll be there in July and I'd love to ask this guy why he's still working at Disney if he doesn't want to contribute to the Disney Magic!!!
 

IwasatWDWforamonth said:
I say wait a minute I dont care if its broke, Im just a collector I want because i like it, He said YOU CANT HAVE IT YOURE NOT LEAVING THE STORE WITH IT, I say I dont care if she broke it.
First off, let me say that I hate that this happened to you. The CM was rude, cruel, and abusive. But as a former CM, I hate to tell you he was "technically" following corporate policy. Not the rude/mean/nasty part, that was his own judgement call, but the part about not being allowed to purchase damaged merchandise. The policy doesn't apply only to people who offer to purchase a damaged item for a percent off; technically no one can purchase damaged items even at full price. The way he went about this, however, was WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! I'm so glad that a new one was found for you before you went home.

Ever see the Adam Sandler movie Big Daddy? His character dents cans on purpose in the supermarket so he can buy them at a reduced price. Maybe that's why Disney has this policy, but their strict enforcement of the rule punishes the innocent people who still really want a damaged item and are willing to pay full price for it. Again, I'm so sorry this happened to you.

Did you tell the manager how awful the CM was about the situation? I'll bet that he's been "counselled" about it, if not fired over the incident.
 
Thank you:)
While it didnt ruin the trip, I was pretty rattled for a couple days,
His name was Ray, im pretty sure he is still there, they say he has been there forever, another cast member my mom told this to knew without her saying that it must have been Ray. In my opinion someone with his people skills should'nt be WDW.
I cant look at the item know without thinking of him(Im still gald I fought for it though) and there is a guy on the weather channel that reminds me of him, I cant watch the weather channel when he is on:)
 
Hi:)
We were told of disney's policy and I agree with it, but in our case we had paid for it before it was broken so although im not a lawyer but I believe we had every right to the item, and with a debit card our money would have been tied up for days regardless of any refund. and its true it was his attitude that was so upseting he could have at least said he was sorry it got broke.
I do wish I could remember the managers name she was such a sweetheart to me I think it was barbara, not sure though
 
sorry to hear of such un-magic at wdw... reminds me of when we were there last year and a cm refused to trade a pin w/my son... i was some sort of twisted i tell ya! it was the perfect pin for ds, he was brand new to trading and the cm said "nope, you can have this one though" and i was confused, sure i had read that if they've got 'em they gotta trade 'em but he said no... ds got over it but (obviously) i didn't! LOL!

now, on the upside... i cannot wait to go harass ray at art of disney in august ;)
 
oh, and i meant to ask... were you really at wdw for a month?! if so, i am insanely jealous! LOL!
 
Gigi, yes:)
My mom and I stayed at all star sports for 30 nights, 31 days:) december 2003/january 2004
You can see im obsessed:) 29 of those days were spent in the parks:)
Most people including my dad think im a nut:) for liking WDW so much.
 
I am so sorry to hear of your experience! I hope the rest of your stay was wonderful!(wow, a whole month?!?I like the way you do Disney! :rotfl: )

gigi1313 said:
sorry to hear of such un-magic at wdw... reminds me of when we were there last year and a cm refused to trade a pin w/my son... i was some sort of twisted i tell ya! it was the perfect pin for ds, he was brand new to trading and the cm said "nope, you can have this one though" and i was confused, sure i had read that if they've got 'em they gotta trade 'em but he said no... ds got over it but (obviously) i didn't! LOL!

When we were at DTD last week, there were some CMs standing around talking at one of the DVC booths and my son went over to ask if he could see their pins. One of the CMs was really rude and says to my son "sorry kid, I just got off duty, check somewhere else" I was standing about 10 feet away and could not believe what I heard! :mad: Fortunatly for the rude CM, the other CM that was standing there immediatly jumped in and started talking to my DS and offered his pins to him. I'm not much for making a scene, but the CM is really lucky my DH didn't hear him...
 
reminds me of a dissappointing shopping experience I had when we were last at WDW.
We bought one of those pictures of ourselves in the glass things in Epcot. (it was actually very expensive)
And had it sent to our hotel.
Well we go to pick it up on the day they tell us to, and first we wait for someone to help us cause the store was crowded, then we wait some more as they look for it, then we wait some more, then they finally come back and tell us they can't find it, we wait some more as they call the store we bought it in, they tell them they sent it, so its basically lost.But they will make another one and send it over and we can pick it up the next day. Fine
But the really weird part was the lady at the store told us to wait for the manager to come to talk to us. So we wait some more.
The manager walks up with a box of stuffed animals and I'm saying to myself here's where some disney magic kicks in and they tell my kids to pick out a stuffed toy for losing our package and then wasting our time looking while they tried to find it.
Nope she just apologizes and tells us to come back :confused3
 
:rotfl: :rotfl:
GinaGrumpyDwarf said:
what was his name??? I'd LOVE to give him a hard time when we're there in june...ROFL
lets give him a double helping of grumpiness gina :rotfl:
 
I think disney needs to teach their employees better people skills,
I have had more good experiences than bad but had this been my first trip to disney, I may not have come back, their lucky I was addicted long before ray:)
Ive seen cm's be mean to kids about the pins too, If I was a cm id never want to disapoint a kid, I quess we are just going to run into few grumpy cm's now and then. I did make a fuss about ray, im usually very calm and try my hardest to not say a word when dealing with rude people especially on vacation
, this was over the top though, I told him I staying there all night if I had to:)
kathy:)
 
I'm sorry you had such a bad (and weird!) experience. That guy totally went about it the wrong way.

You did just touch on a huge pet peeve of mine. I absolutely hate it when any cashier thinks they have the right to just take a credit card from your hand when it's not being offered. And it really burns me up when they'll reach over the counter to start pressing buttons for you on the credit card machines! I know they think they're being helpful, but they have absolutely no right to do this without being asked. :mad:
 
ksoehrlein said:
First off, let me say that I hate that this happened to you. The CM was rude, cruel, and abusive. But as a former CM, I hate to tell you he was "technically" following corporate policy. Not the rude/mean/nasty part, that was his own judgement call, but the part about not being allowed to purchase damaged merchandise. The policy doesn't apply only to people who offer to purchase a damaged item for a percent off; technically no one can purchase damaged items even at full price. The way he went about this, however, was WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! I'm so glad that a new one was found for you before you went home.

Ever see the Adam Sandler movie Big Daddy? His character dents cans on purpose in the supermarket so he can buy them at a reduced price. Maybe that's why Disney has this policy, but their strict enforcement of the rule punishes the innocent people who still really want a damaged item and are willing to pay full price for it. Again, I'm so sorry this happened to you.

Did you tell the manager how awful the CM was about the situation? I'll bet that he's been "counselled" about it, if not fired over the incident.


It doesn't seem as though they would be able to employ that policy AFTER the woman has already made the purchase. If it were broken prior to her paying I could understand, but once it was charged to the card, it was hers.
 
Wow, what a strange man he is. I'm glad it all worked out though!

Cripes 31 days!! I wish I could be a stowaway in your luggage!
 



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