Disney sends cease and desist letters to unauthorized third part vendors

[LoveDaisy]

Interesting after all this time to be taking action now. Most of these sprung up post Covid I believe. Could they be bringing service like room service back?

Article

 

[gottalovepluto]

Doubt it, the vendors are too varied in what they do. Smells more like something went wrong with one of these vendors and Legal and Security have been tasked with making sure it doesn't happen again.

 

[Mle8308]

More information?

 

[gottalovepluto]

More information?

https://mickeyvisit.com/disney-world-crack-down-businesses-january-29-2026/

 

[LoveDaisy]

More information?

The article I read is linked in the first post.

 

[Mle8308]

https://mickeyvisit.com/disney-world-crack-down-businesses-january-29-2026/

Thank you!

 

[Mle8308]

The article I read is linked in the first post.

Got it! Didn't see the link!

 

[bluecruiser]

From the article linked by OP, a partial list of the types of vendors affected:

"The third-party operators include private photographers, personal chefs, stylists, hotel room decorators, and more. Many come from the Ear For Each Other Facebook group which began in late 2020 “with a mission to provide a space where furloughed CMs could showcase their side hustles” and evolved to support dozens of small local businesses."

 

[_19disnA]

Could be there was issue where a guest got ill perhaps eating bad food from an outside caterer and Disney wants to avoid potential legal issues (or we can speculate about any number of other possible situations). The article also talks about that. I would assume that most unauthorized 3rd parties know they are skirting the rules when attempting to conduct their business on Disney property, so this should come as no surprise to them.

 

[cruisehopeful]

It's bizarre to me that people would do their personal business on private property without getting permission and without paying to rent the premises. How in the world was this ever okay?

 

[hardcorestitch]

On the other hand… there are tons of third party businesses in Disney Springs that have done far worse than what these small businesses were doing.

 

[missingdisneymore]

On the other hand… there are tons of third party businesses in Disney Springs that have done far worse than what these small businesses were doing.

But they have a contract with Disney.

 

[Mommb]

On the other hand… there are tons of third party businesses in Disney Springs that have done far worse than what these small businesses were doing.

If those businesses have permission from Disney to operate at Disney Springs, then they are not in violation of the rules described in the linked articles.
If those businesses do not have permission from Disney, then they should be getting similar "cease and desist" letters.

It's bizarre to me that people would do their personal business on private property without getting permission and without paying to rent the premises. How in the world was this ever okay?

These businesses saw themselves as providing a service for Disney guests that Disney was not providing and that benefited Disney by making people more likely to spend time on property. They may have assumed that Disney would have stopped them as soon as their businesses started if Disney didn't want them. So I can see why people ran these businesses, but I can also see why Disney would want to enforce the rules that are in place.

 

[fla4fun]

Could be there was issue where a guest got ill perhaps eating bad food from an outside caterer and Disney wants to avoid potential legal issues (or we can speculate about any number of other possible situations). The article also talks about that. I would assume that most unauthorized 3rd parties know they are skirting the rules when attempting to conduct their business on Disney property, so this should come as no surprise to them.

Considering that one of the businesses in the article was a photographer I doubt it.

I don’t have a problem with Disney enforcing their rules. What I have an issue with is Disney knowing it was going on, looking the other way, and waiting for years to enforce their rules. The rules aren’t new, and they used it on in park tour guides a few years ago. In my opinion, it would have been a lot better for the laid off CMs to have been told no at the start than to let it go on like this. The people interviewed said they were not competing with Disney, but filling a need Disney wasn’t. If I were one of those former CMs I would much rather have been told at the beginning that the business I wanted to start was a no-go so I could have started something else.

People get off property food all the time, either picking it up themselves or having it delivered by the likes of pizza delivery, Uber Eats, Grub Hub, Door Dash, etc. I don’t see a huge difference in that and what some of the CMs were doing. In room preparation? Yeah, I can see Disney shutting that down. Food deliveries? Unless they ban all outside food deliveries they shouldn’t be picking on former CMs. A rule is a rule. Enforce it across the board or don’t bother.

I wish Disney would go back to providing some kind of room service. That used to always be our go-to on check in day because we were too tired to go out.

 

[MikeOhio]

It’s frustrating to not be able to hire a photographer to take pictures at the resorts when Disney literally doesn’t offer the service.