Thank you all for your clarifying comments and questions.
Here is the text of the email I just sent:
Greetings--
I don't know if this is the appropriate place to send this concern, but thought I would begin here. I need to alert you to an encounter with a character at the Crystal Palace which I perceived as inappropriate.
EEYORE AT CRYSTAL PALACE INCIDENT REPORT ON 8/3/05
First, we had a magical time on our WDW vacation. We were in the "World" from 7/23 - 8/6. The first week we stayed offsite at the Vistana. We were guests at the AKL from 7/30 - 8/6. We observed CMs everywhere doing their best to make guests' experiences exemplary.
But, on August 3, we had reservations at 11:30 am at the Crystal Palace. It was very crowded, and we were seated at around noon. We were in a smaller section to the right of the entrance at a table for 4 next to the window. Our party included me, Erin *****, my husband, Kent ****, and our 9 year old daughter and 17 year old son.
Tigger, Pooh, and Piglet all made their way to our table first, and had the usual loving encounters with my daughter. Eeyore arrived last--the time would have been right around 1:00. Eeyore is a family favorite, and we took pictures first with my daughter, then with my son, then my daughter asked to take my picture with Eeyore.
As I stood next to Eeyore, he took several of his fingers and began to move my sports bra strap (a wide one) around on my shoulder, then put his "paw" under it on my bare skin and was rubbing my back --I didn't think much about that, and thought it was awkward positioning. But then he dropped his "paw" to my waist, and tightly wrapped his arm around my waist. He then pulled me towards him --hard enough that I was off balance -- and bumped his hip 2 or 3 times against me. While he was "hip bumping" he gave a low-pitched laugh "heh heh heh heh" laugh--4 of them. It was definitely a male tone, only loud enough for me to hear, and sounded exactly like the dirty old man laugh on Laugh-In, if anyone reading this recalls that. I didn't react visibly, because I didn't want to upset my daughter or the other children around. As I pulled away from him, he made a low "dirty old man" wet kissing noise from "within" the costume -- the sort of noise you would expect if you were walking past a group of rude guys--to me it sounded sexualized and not at all "in character." The "kiss" was not accompanied by any gesture at all, and was definitely not an "Eeyore" pretending to kiss a mom kind of moment--it was the guy in the costume making a kissing sound. (My DD and Tigger had "kissed" about half an hour before, and it was totally different and in character).
At my husband's request, I waited to report this until we returned home, as our time was tightly scheduled and we did not want a shadow on the family vacation. But last evening, as we were discussing the trip, I discovered that this "Eeyore" had also made a constant noise with both my kids. As my daughter put it, it "weirded her out."
With my kids it was apparently a sort of cross between laugh and a whinny--as my daughter has imitated it, it sounds like the beginning of Woody Woodpecker's laugh, but an octave lower (heh-hunh hunh, heh-hunh hunh). She said "he wouldn't stop."
The other thing that was odd was that after us he immediately left the floor--without completing his circuit (we were in a side area of the CP). About 5 minutes later another Eeyore came back on, put his hands over his face, and made it evident that he was "apologizing" to the people next to us for having left. My daughter looked at his signature, and it was different from the Eeyore signature that she had.
Again, I have no idea what the perceptions of this Eeyore were--if he thought he was being flattering, or trying to be funny, or what. My impression is that he was beyond the boundaries of character behavior guidelines. After more discussion, my husband and I decided to pass on this information, even somewhat belatedly, due to our concern that if this is chronic behavior with this Eeyore, he might repeat it or engage in something similar with a child.
If needed, we can fax you a copy of the Eeyore signature, if you decide to follow this up and need to locate the particular Eeyore. He was at our table just as we were getting the bill, so I could also pinpoint the time pretty accurately, if times are indicated on receipts.
Again, this is the only time we have ever had such an experience, and thought you needed to know about it.
Sincerely,
Rev. Erin S. ****
{edited to remove last names, as per wise suggestions}
