Bad Experience with the Guest Experience Team... Am I Wrong??

[MinniWiz]

So we just got back from a week-long trip at WDW. We had a great trip up until the last day (last Friday). We early-entry rope-dropped at HS and headed towards Tower of Terror but it was having a delayed opening so we got in line for Rockin' Roller Coaster. Once they let us in the line for Rockin' we stopped and were waiting for about 10 minutes before a large chunk of the line started turning around. In the meantime, I had gotten a text from my mom who was waiting outside, saying that Tower had opened. So we turned around with everyone and head towards Tower since that was the ride we really wanted to get on for our last morning. We got on Tower, but the ride broke down just as we got to the show-scene where the car moves forward over to the main drop shaft. We sat in the car for around 30 minutes while the overhead person kept saying "powering on to the wire" then "powering off", over and over. Finally a mechanic showed up and then "operations" got us out. They gave us "recovery" but didn't really explain what that meant, we assumed it was a Lightning Lane. After they scanned our MagicBands as we exited, we looked on our My Day screens on the MDE app and it showed that we had gotten TWO "Multi-Experience" Lightning Lanes. We were excited because we figured that we could use one on Rockin' and then come back to Tower once it reopened with our 2nd LL. I really wish I would have taken a screenshot at this point of the two LLs.

We headed over to Rockin' and scanned in for LL. We looked at our My Day screens again, and both LLs had disappeared. After the pre-show on Rockin, it then broke down and we waited in that line for another 30 minutes for it to start back up. We rode it at that point. Remember that my mom has now been sitting, waiting for us, for over an hour at this point.

Prior to our trip, I had read that the Cast Members under the blue umbrellas (Guest Experience Team) were there to help in a situation like this, so after Rockin' we headed to one and talked to a girl who was immediately rather snippy with us. I explained the situation (nicely!) and she was adamant that they could not help us. She said standard recovery was one LL, which makes sense, but our apps all showed we had gotten two LLs. All I was hoping for was to get a LL for Tower since we had been mis-lead in the app, but I felt like they thought we were trying to game the system and get a free LL ...we only got on one ride in the first two hours and my mom had been sitting on a bench waiting for over an hour and a half. Not an ideal morning.

Am I wrong to think they should have helped more here? We generally aren't complainers and I understand things happen, but I felt like this was a situation that should have been handled differently. Curious if anyone has any ideas on how we should have handled this... or should we have just dealt with the bad luck?

 

[Pyxie]

It sounds like you were never supposed to have 2 LLs and was likely a glitch. The CM should not have been rude or snippy but I also don't think they should have necessarily given you another LL because that isn't really what you were entitled to.

 

[Meriweather]

When one of us couldn't fit on Fo(calves too big), we all (5) got 2 LLs that were good for that day and the next in any park.
Other than that, I don't know what is normal.
But they did show on our MDE.

 

[Narcoossee11]

YOU even thought it was a mistake to get 2 recovery LL.
Remember the good times and move on.

 

[TinkerPan]

When it comes to Disney, the saying that plays over and over in my brain is: "Some times you get Pixie Dust and sometimes you get the Hook." You thought you had gotten some Pixie Dust with the two recovery LLs and then they were gone. You got the Hook. It's just how things work out sometimes. I feel for you and your bad luck and your mom's inconvenience. But, you just have to chalk it up to "that's the breaks, better luck next time". Sorry.

 

[Dulcee]

I don't think you are wrong to be upset or annoyed about how the morning went down but without a screenshot there really wasn't much more that guest services could have done for you.

 

[jimmymc]

I don't see anything wrong with the cast member's response. They get hundreds of guests a day wanting free stuff who may or may not have even been in the lines. The fact that you got a pass and were able to use it is more than 95% of theme parks do.

 

[NothingClever]

I would also be annoyed. Even if you weren't "supposed" to get the two LL, it would have been very easy for them just to give you the extra LL to account for the inconvenience and delays (not to mention the extraordinary price they charge for everything). It would have cost them little-to-nothing and you would be singing their praises instead of posting a moderate complaint on a message board. Short-sighted on their part.

 

[danceintherain]

I've seen duplicates on MDE so many times that I doubt I would have assumed the second one would be valid, until it was still there after using the first.

 

[JodyK]

I think they could have helped you more but can also understand the cast member who was probably getting a bunch of requests from a ton of people, given that the morning at HS sounds like it was a mess and who knows what information they were getting.

It was your last day, but if this happened in the future and you genuinely weren't happy with your experience, I would express that at your hotel to the front desk/concierge, and they may be able to do some things to make it right with you.

 

[Kerr84]

I think you had 2 MEPs but they were for only 1 guest each. If they were manually adding them by scanning each band, then it would show up as 2 separate MEPs when you looked on the app. (Just a thought, I'm not saying this for sure.)

 

[Orion Nebula]

I wouldn't say you are wrong, I mean it sounds frustrating. But I would say you be making a bigger deal out of it than warranted. However I have dealt with much bigger issues during my trips, so I am probably biased.

Luckily they did give you a LL pass in general, it's something.

 

[Mrs.AMC]

Is it possible you simply misread the Recovery ILL?
How many of you were there?
I've gotten them before, for 2 of us, and it reads 2, 1 for each. Not 2 for each.
If yours was not for just 2 people then that may not be the case. Just relaying what I've seen from recovery ILL

 

[DLgal]

Sorry, but you weren't owed anything other than a LL for Tower. They never give out 2 for one ride. You got 2, one per person that was riding.

If the app showed 2 listed on the same screen, that was a glitch that clearly resolved itself.

You had some bad luck. It happens and it's annoying. Curious why you couldn't text or call your mother and tell her to go do something else while she waited for you. She could have walked around, gotten a snack, done some shopping, etc.

Sure, the CM shouldn't have been snippy. But she wasn't wrong. There is nothing they can do for you. It happened to you, and also probably close to 100 people also.

 

[revdon64]

I understand the frustration you feel, but realistically you received exactly what was offered. Guest services isn't responsible for what amounts to a glitch. Now you know in case it ever happens again.

 

[MousetersInc]

I put a burden of blame on the MDE app. Without seeing a screenshot, what you experienced was either a bug or a misleading design. Just for the sake of the thing, you might leave a polite but negative review on the app store, or even go through whatever channels there are for reporting a bug. In the app I work on, this would light a fire under us to fix the bug quickly. Sadly, if everyone with a bone to pick with MDE saw results, it would be a heckuva app right now. But might be a constructive way to do something.

 

[MinniWiz]

Sorry, but you weren't owed anything other than a LL for Tower. They never give out 2 for one ride. You got 2, one per person that was riding.

If the app showed 2 listed on the same screen, that was a glitch that clearly resolved itself.

You had some bad luck. It happens and it's annoying. Curious why you couldn't text or call your mother and tell her to go do something else while she waited for you. She could have walked around, gotten a snack, done some shopping, etc.

Sure, the CM shouldn't have been snippy. But she wasn't wrong. There is nothing they can do for you. It happened to you, and also probably close to 100 people also.

There were four of us and each of our apps showed two LLs. This was our first trip using Genie+ so we wouldn't be aware of what standard procedures for "recovery" after a break down would be. When we were given the recovery LL, they never said how many we would get so why wouldn't we believe the app? The reason I nicely asked about it was because had our apps not glitched and showed two, we would have planned our next steps differently. It is not our fault the app glitched, it's Disney's. And that glitch ended up meaning we couldn't ride one of our favorite rides. Had the CM been more sympathetic and apologetic about it, we wouldn't have thought much about it afterwards and I would not have posted this.

 

[MinniWiz]

I've seen duplicates on MDE so many times that I doubt I would have assumed the second one would be valid, until it was still there after using the first.

This was our first trip using Genie+ so we didn't have any previous experience to base our decisions on. Up until that point in our trip, everything on the app had been accurate. We assumed this was as well. I guess we know now not to always believe what we see in the app on future trips. But then how do we ever know what's real and what isn't?!

 

[DisneyCowgirl]

There were four of us and each of our apps showed two LLs. This was our first trip using Genie+ so we wouldn't be aware of what standard procedures for "recovery" after a break down would be. When we were given the recovery LL, they never said how many we would get so why wouldn't we believe the app? The reason I nicely asked about it was because had our apps not glitched and showed two, we would have planned our next steps differently. It is not our fault the app glitched, it's Disney's. And that glitch ended up meaning we couldn't ride one of our favorite rides. Had the CM been more sympathetic and apologetic about it, we wouldn't have thought much about it afterwards and I would not have posted this.

I totally understand your frustration. You saw 2 LLs, had no reason to believe you didn't have 2 LLs, so you planned based on that. (And I don't think it was at all unreasonable to think they might have given 2--we got 2 LLs just for being nice to a waiter that was having a hard time once.) I get it that CMs have difficult jobs, but that is what their job is--to be nice to guests that need help. The CMs should not have started out being snippy.

 

[MinniWiz]

I put a burden of blame on the MDE app. Without seeing a screenshot, what you experienced was either a bug or a misleading design. Just for the sake of the thing, you might leave a polite but negative review on the app store, or even go through whatever channels there are for reporting a bug. In the app I work on, this would light a fire under us to fix the bug quickly. Sadly, if everyone with a bone to pick with MDE saw results, it would be a heckuva app right now. But might be a constructive way to do something.

I definitely agree with this and will look into this. I knew right when the LLs disappeared that I should have taken a screenshot. We had been taking some screenshots of other things during the trip, but we were in such a hurry (since we had been delayed a while) it didn't even cross my mind.