Back from Disneyland (Albort, Dreams, and some not so Disney attitudes)

[Pezalicious]

I'll post a longer trip report (hopefully) later this week, but I thought I'd say a few quick things about my trip.

I accidentally found Albort in DCA when my boyfriend and I decided we needed a frozen lemonade because it was so hot. I went up to order, saw the name tag, and blurted out something like 'You're from the Disney boards!' I'm one of the few who has tracked down our little mini-celeb. It was nice meeting you!


On my last day in the parks, my boyfriend and I were so tired and sore, so we decided to do mostly the shows so we could sit down in cool places and be entertained. We did the tiki room and as we were leaving, the dream team showed up and handed out Dream Fastpasses!!! Unfortunately, we had to leave a few hours later, so we took off the fast passes for Soarin' and decided to Dream an elderly couple I saw. I asked if they were there alone and if they were doing both parks. They said yes, so I gave them their dream. I figured if at 30-ish, my boyfriend and I were hurting, they must feel it even more. If I saved them a little time in lines, I feel good about giving it away.

This was my boyfriend's first trip to Disneyland and his comment about a lot of the cast members was 'everyone seems so surly.' There were many cast members who were very sweet and acted the way I remember from years ago (Albort is a great example!), but there were others who I think skipped the whole Disney college/class thingie that I thought was required. When I got off of California Screamin, the entire coaster of people started going out the wrong way. I guess it was kind of the crowd mentality where we all follow each other. A cast member came rushing over and yelled 'Come on people, it's not that hard!' in a really sarcastic/mean voice. He could have said it a bit nicer, IMO. The worst, though, was my lunch at Billy Hill. I had the cheese sticks and in the middle of the show, I discovered a long black hair in my fries. Stuck to the hair was dirt - the kind you find under the fridge or near corners of a room. Fuzzy, greyish brown, linty dirt that sticks to hair. I was so incredibly grossed out, but I stayed in my seat until after the show. I went up to one of the people behind the counter and told her (very politely) what happened. All she did was take a step back and say 'Okay.' That was it, I was so shocked. Not even an apology. I plan to write to Disney about what happened, but I wasn't in the mood to deal with it that way. The meal wasn't that expensive, so I didn't care about being reimbursed, but it would have been nice to have an apology or to haveitt Disney act like they cared about ruining my meal and making me feel disgusted, even just a little.


Anyway, that's the short trip report, with the great and not so great. Oh yeah - I mailed out the Fairy Godmailers, so look in the mail later this week if you requested one!

 

[momshadow]

Sorry for all the sour CMs last time we where in DCA we where treated the same way. It was like they where stuck on that side of the park and didn't really care about how they treated the customer or if they worked at all. I didn't complain last time was kind of in shock. But on our upcoming trip I will be saying something if we are treated like we don't exist. Really am sad when I hear about people going for the first time and experiencing this. Hope that your next trip is better. Do go on to disneyland.com under customer service and let them know how your trip was.

 

[lilpixie]

Eeeew -- a hair in your food! That probably would have set off my gag reflex in a big way. You really should have been reimbursed for that -- even if it wasn't an expensive meal. At least an apology or a replacement food item -- something! I mean, if it happened at McDonalds, even they would reimburse you for it. That is too bad. I hope most of your trip was fun
We were lucky on our first trip to DL (february of '06) -- we didn't run into any nasty guests or CMs. Everyone was so nice! We even commented on how amazing everyone was. We are going again next month and hope to have the same great experience.
Thanks for the heads up on things!!

 

[XTinabell]

haha, thanks for the mini-report. Albort told me about you the day you ran into him. He said this lady and her husband or boyfriend came up and she said Hey you're from that forum That's pretty cool, did your man also have a video camera? It's possible it was someone else that found Albort and said something similar

Anyways sorry to hear about the crappy treatment not much you can do about it except remain with a positive attitude yourself. And the hair in your food is disgusting. She probably didn't know what to do so I think if you had walked her through the steps like "um do you think I should have to pay for this?" then she probably would have gotten a manager or someone who knew what to do to help you out. That really sucks. I hope you guys still had lots of fun.

 

[Pezalicious]

I still had a GREAT time and I can't wait to go back. I didn't let anything ruin my time at all, though I'm still shocked that I didn't even get an apology about the hair in my food. And it wasn't just that it was a hair, it was that the hair had obviously been somewhere very dirty before it made it's wait to my fries. It's gross enough pulling a hair out, but hair with dirty floor fluff put it over the top for me.


And yeah, that was me. My boyfriend had a video camera that also takes still shots, so he snapped a pic while I bought the lemonade. I was really surprised I found him because I hadn't really looked much during my trip and thought it would be impossible.

 

[IluvDISNEYLAND!]

Sorry to hear about the rude Cms!! I've never had a bad experience with customer service from any CM but it seems as if it is happened quite often from some of these reports. I'm glad you enjoyed the rest of your trip

 

[famograham]

I'm so sorry you encountered that!
We were there Sept 19-21 and saw nothing but positive CM's, other guests...everybody. Do you think it might have been due to the weekend being more crowded, or something like that? I must admit that when we were there, the crowds were very low, and the weather was nice, not too hot or too cold. Maybe those things really do contribute to attitude?

Hope you have a better CM experience next time!

Linda

 

[jemilah]

congrat's on finding Albort.