MarissaLonardo
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Feb 15, 2018
I wanted to share an experience I had that went from bad to much much better with the help of a fantastic cast member. The past two episodes of the DIS Unplugged have been cast-member centric and it motivated me to write about this very special cast-member, Bobby from Collingswood NJ.
I went to DW with my family from February 18-28 2022. And by family I mean me, my husband, my 3 daughters (8yo, 6yo, 2yo) my parents, my aunt and my in-laws. It was challenging planning and traveling with a group of 10, from 3 different generations to say the least. On February 21st I planned to go to EPCOT for my birthday. It was the LAST day of the Festival of the Arts. I was already getting slightly disappointed because FROZEN was down the whole day (FROZEN means a lot to my girls) and I paid for Disney Genie Plus for the Lightning Lanes and was able to only use it twice. I had reserved a dining package with the Disney on Broadway performance. We had an early dinner reservation in the Germany Pavilion at Biergarten, which was amazing! So much fun listening to the live entertainment! When we finished dinner I decided to stop and check out the stage for the Broadway Performance and saw a couple different lines and decided to ask the cast-members how we get in later for the 6pm show. That is when I found out that the restaurant was supposed to give us a special sticker that signified we had the special package seating. In order for us to get these stickers the restaurant was supposed to charge us more for the reserved seating for the show. When I showed the cast-member my receipt he said that they didn't charge me for the show and I wouldn't be able to get in to the reserved seating line but I could wait in the regular stand by line. And he also said that it didn't matter anyway because they OVERBOOKED the package for this event. Why would a guaranteed seating reservation package have a line in the first place? So what he was basically telling me was that I wasn't going to get a seat anyway??? I also think it is silly to wait in the long standby line and listen to the entire performance of the earlier show time just to then get in at the next show time and listen to it all over again. I was so disappointed. At that point he went to see if his manager could do anything and a lot of time had past during this confusion. Not to mention it was a VERY CROWDED and CHAOTIC evening at EPCOT. The cast-member came back to tell me the manager said to go back to the restaurant and work it out with them "this happens all the time". Frustrated I started to walk back by myself since I didn't want to drag 10 people back and forth especially since half of our party are in their late 60's. And then I STOPPED. I was like "NO, this is ridiculous. The kids are tired. The parents are tired." I decided to cut my losses on this issue because it was just wasting valuable park time that I didn't have to waste. We were only spending one day in EPCOT and it was my BIRTHDAY after all. So I decided to send everyone back to our AIRBNB (they went willingly) and I stayed at the park with my husband. We headed over to the France pavilion to check out the line for Ratatouille and the 210 minutes had us turn right back around. That's when I decided to head over to the Guest Experience Booth in the France Pavilion at about 6:30pm. And this is where my not so great Birthday completely changed. I explained my situation to the cast-members working the booth. I was calm but visibly defeated. The man who ended up helping us was Bobby from Collingswood NJ. One of the first things I said to him was that we are from NJ too!
He was VERY understanding, VERY apologetic, and VERY good at his job! Since we had a Hollywood Studios park reservation the next day he flat out asked me what could he do for me there, since our day was pretty much over in EPCOT. My ears immediately perked up! I said "anything STARWARS??????" HE GAVE MY ENTIRE GROUP OF 10, Lightning Lane passes for RISE OF THE RESISTANCE and SMUGGLERS RUN!!!! I literally started to tear up! And he said "don't cry this is the happiest place on earth". I mean come on! After that point everything turned around. My husband and I got to spend time just the two of us. We went on some rides. We tasted the strange soda at Club Cool. AND we even ran over to Ratatouille just before the fireworks started. Posted wait 60 minutes only waited 25!!!
I went to DW with my family from February 18-28 2022. And by family I mean me, my husband, my 3 daughters (8yo, 6yo, 2yo) my parents, my aunt and my in-laws. It was challenging planning and traveling with a group of 10, from 3 different generations to say the least. On February 21st I planned to go to EPCOT for my birthday. It was the LAST day of the Festival of the Arts. I was already getting slightly disappointed because FROZEN was down the whole day (FROZEN means a lot to my girls) and I paid for Disney Genie Plus for the Lightning Lanes and was able to only use it twice. I had reserved a dining package with the Disney on Broadway performance. We had an early dinner reservation in the Germany Pavilion at Biergarten, which was amazing! So much fun listening to the live entertainment! When we finished dinner I decided to stop and check out the stage for the Broadway Performance and saw a couple different lines and decided to ask the cast-members how we get in later for the 6pm show. That is when I found out that the restaurant was supposed to give us a special sticker that signified we had the special package seating. In order for us to get these stickers the restaurant was supposed to charge us more for the reserved seating for the show. When I showed the cast-member my receipt he said that they didn't charge me for the show and I wouldn't be able to get in to the reserved seating line but I could wait in the regular stand by line. And he also said that it didn't matter anyway because they OVERBOOKED the package for this event. Why would a guaranteed seating reservation package have a line in the first place? So what he was basically telling me was that I wasn't going to get a seat anyway??? I also think it is silly to wait in the long standby line and listen to the entire performance of the earlier show time just to then get in at the next show time and listen to it all over again. I was so disappointed. At that point he went to see if his manager could do anything and a lot of time had past during this confusion. Not to mention it was a VERY CROWDED and CHAOTIC evening at EPCOT. The cast-member came back to tell me the manager said to go back to the restaurant and work it out with them "this happens all the time". Frustrated I started to walk back by myself since I didn't want to drag 10 people back and forth especially since half of our party are in their late 60's. And then I STOPPED. I was like "NO, this is ridiculous. The kids are tired. The parents are tired." I decided to cut my losses on this issue because it was just wasting valuable park time that I didn't have to waste. We were only spending one day in EPCOT and it was my BIRTHDAY after all. So I decided to send everyone back to our AIRBNB (they went willingly) and I stayed at the park with my husband. We headed over to the France pavilion to check out the line for Ratatouille and the 210 minutes had us turn right back around. That's when I decided to head over to the Guest Experience Booth in the France Pavilion at about 6:30pm. And this is where my not so great Birthday completely changed. I explained my situation to the cast-members working the booth. I was calm but visibly defeated. The man who ended up helping us was Bobby from Collingswood NJ. One of the first things I said to him was that we are from NJ too!
He was VERY understanding, VERY apologetic, and VERY good at his job! Since we had a Hollywood Studios park reservation the next day he flat out asked me what could he do for me there, since our day was pretty much over in EPCOT. My ears immediately perked up! I said "anything STARWARS??????" HE GAVE MY ENTIRE GROUP OF 10, Lightning Lane passes for RISE OF THE RESISTANCE and SMUGGLERS RUN!!!! I literally started to tear up! And he said "don't cry this is the happiest place on earth". I mean come on! After that point everything turned around. My husband and I got to spend time just the two of us. We went on some rides. We tasted the strange soda at Club Cool. AND we even ran over to Ratatouille just before the fireworks started. Posted wait 60 minutes only waited 25!!!
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