Frommer article full of WDW misinformation

[marivaid]

Ms. Frommer seems a tad defensive.

And she is again wrong. The DDP is not $45 a day, it's $38.99 including tax and tip (for 2007), and $37.99 not including tip for 2008.

 

[DisneyGuess]

Hey, if you're going to eat a $7 hot dog, you might as well pay $400 a night for your motel!

 

[wen8jr]

When has the dining plan been $45 per person? We're paying $38.99.

I think her statements are so full of holes she has nothing left to do but sink.

 

[TDC Nala]

I think she should have done more research, especially into the resorts. While the Allstars have a 4 in a room limit (except for infants, and I think it's under age 3, not under age 2, but I might be mistaken and I am too lazy to look it up), there are several deluxe resorts that have a room capacity of more than 4. Of course, the cost may be prohibitive.

But it's rather clear that she hasn't said she's never been to WDW. What she did say is that her DAUGHTERS have never been to WDW.

Epcot's my favorite park...but that may be because it seems more adult friendly.

I do find it interesting that instead of stating that almost every restaurant on WDW property participates in the dining plan (and there are a lot of restaurants on WDW property), she states that not every restaurant on property participates. Being a travel writer she is most likely approaching from a point of view that says "all-inclusive" should mean just that.

We all do a lot of research, but there are some who probably aren't interested in having to figure out which restaurants participate and which ones don't.

 

[LarryJ]

You know I only read the first 20 or so posts and now see this thread is growing and can only say "WHY BOTHER" commenting on someone that has absolutely no clue. I wouldn't waste my time and I guess I just did by posting this

Larry

 

[wen8jr]

But it's rather clear that she hasn't said she's never been to WDW. What she did say is that her DAUGHTERS have never been to WDW.

She doesn't sound like someone who has been to WDW to me. I've never been and I know much much more about it than her. And to write an article about it. Shame shame on her, still didn't get her facts right in her response to the feedback she has received. I think I would learn to read before I decided to write advice columns.

 

[aplejax76]

Here is the response that I received today from MSN:

"Dear MSN Travel Reader:



Thanks for taking the time to respond to our story on Disney World written by Pauline Frommer. As the editor of the site, I certainly appreciate when readers are passionate enough about a topic to tell us what they think – and where we’ve got the story wrong.



This was one of those rare occasions when we did make a few factual errors in the piece, which we acknowledge and regret. As a result, we’re publishing a correction on the site that reads as follows:



As several readers pointed out, children under age 2 do not count toward the four-person limit stipulated at certain Walt Disney World Resorts. For Walt Disney World tickets, adult fees apply to children ages 10 and above, not ages 11 and up. Also, while a children’s meal including a hot dog can cost up to $7, an individual hot dog costs less at Disney. Finally, the photo originally used in this article pictured the Matterhorn, a ride at Disneyland in Anaheim.



Many of you also disagreed with our writer’s conclusions about Disney World. Here’s what Pauline Frommer, our “Vacation Doc,” had to say in response:



I was sorry to see that my article angered you and I do apologize for the

error in terms of the pricing for babies. I misread that bit of fine print,

and thought that the five-people to a room rule also applied to infants. We

will be changing that and posting an apology. Our producers at MSN also put

in the wrong picture and that's been changed (I have nothing to do with the

artwork).



As for the other comments posted by you and other readers: The article was

based partially on the research done for the book Pauline Frommer's Walt

Disney World and Orlando and partially on my own trips to Disney World

(which I've visited a number of times over the years as a travel writer,

though I haven't been able to take my children there yet). No hotel or

theme park paid to be included in the article, nor did I feel I was doing a

"hatchet job" on Disney. As I said at the end of the article, I think that

Disney's ability to engage the imaginations of their visitors is

unparalleled. I've been going to Disney World since I was a child, and love

many things about it.



That being said, I do think many of Disney's offerings are overpriced. At

$45/day, per person, I don't think the meal plan is a good value especially

when you consider the price of food outside the parks. There are also

restrictions on the eating plan that I find onerous: everyone in the room

must buy one, not every eatery on property is included, and it’s good for

one counterservice and one sitdown meal a day meaning that you have to

spend a good amount of time making and keeping reservations (something a

lot of visitors don't enjoy doing). You also can't customize it so that you

pay less if you leave early on your last day at Disney, which means many

guests end up paying more than they have to.



As for the All Star Resorts: I stand behind my assessment. I think there

are better values elsewhere in the area, and I was disappointed by their

"theming" and didn't feel it was up to the usual Disney high standards. And

they are consistently booked by large school groups, which can lead to

noise problems.



To those of you who argued that the reader could stay at Disney World for

that amount of time for $1600 are forgetting that the original questioner

was including airfare in the cost of her budget. That would have added

another $800 at minimum for the four of them. They therefore only had $800

left for the rest of the vacation (theme park tickets, hotel room,

etc.), which is why I was recommending only the most rock-bottom of

options. The advice given would have been very different had the original

questioner had a different budget to work with.



Finally, many of you found it hard to believe that my children didn't enjoy

Disneyland and felt that it skewed my reaction to the parks. I included

that anecdote because I felt it was a pretty common one. I've heard from

many readers in the past that their small children found the parks a bit

overwhelming and enjoyed them more at a later age. (And I don't think that

Epcot has enough to keep the younger guests happy, especially when compared

to the other Disney parks.) I'm glad to hear that your children had a

wonderful time when they visited. Our visit was mixed, but what I wrote in

the rest of the article wasn't based simply on our experience.



I want to thank you for writing in and sharing your thoughts with me. It's

always enormously helpful to get feedback from readers.



Cordially,



Pauline Frommer



Again, my sincere thanks for telling us what you thought of this story. I hope you’ll continue to visit MSN Travel to engage with our content and plan your next trip, whether it’s to a Disney park or someplace else in the world.



Safe travels!



Best,



Jon Douglas

Managing Editor, MSN Travel"



Ms. Frommer seems a tad defensive.

I just received the same email. She is STILL misinformed. You would think if you write a rebuttal letter it would have the correct information. I guess I am asking to much.

 

[marivaid]

I just received the same email. She is STILL misinformed. You would think if you write a rebuttal letter it would have the correct information. I guess I am asking to much.

OTOH it's nice to at least be acknowledged. I have written many emails about misleading articles (the majority of them not related to Disney at all) and in most cases never got a response.

But you're so right though - she keeps on shooting herself in the foot.

 

[GinnyFavers]

I dunno, I think she's giving pretty good advice to a family that is trying to stay in budget and hasn't been to WDW before.

I love the on site WDW thing, but honestly, if you don't know for sure how much your family will enjoy the experience, what's so bad about staying off site at a rental condo? Sounds sane to me.

And people going to Orlando for the first time often don't just want Disney. And if I had to pick two parks to skip with young kids, they would indeed be the Studios and Epcot.

I guess I don't see what everyone is finding so offensive.

 

[Deb & Bill]

WillCAD, I DID read her book at B&N the other night and it was chock full of errors. In fact, just about everything that she wrote in the article was in the book. Many, many pages about renting a house offsite. About renting a car to save money. But little mention about $11 a day to park if you are not a resort guest. She also listed ten free things to do at Disney. Including spending the night at a Disney resort pool - park your car at DTD and catch a bus to the resort you want to swim at. She said you wouldn't be able to drive your car to the resort because you'd have to be staying on the property to get past the guard gate. She also said you are supposed to have a resort ID, but if you don't push it, no one will even know.

The big theme in her book is Spend Less and See More.

She advised if you have only two days to only do Disney, but if you have three days, only do two at Disney and one at Sea World or Universal.

 

[TDC Nala]

She also listed ten free things to do at Disney. Including spending the night at a Disney resort pool - park your car at DTD and catch a bus to the resort you want to swim at. She said you wouldn't be able to drive your car to the resort because you'd have to be staying on the property to get past the guard gate. She also said you are supposed to have a resort ID, but if you don't push it, no one will even know.

Maybe she'll get a lot of messages from her readers who decided to spend the day swimming at the Beach/Yacht Club.

 

[JeanfromBNA]

I totally agree that the article is like something your neighbor or co-worker would say, based one trip. If I go to Vegas and hate it, I am entitled to tell my co-workers that I hated it and why. But if I was a travel writer, I would have the obligation to be more objective, listing the bad and the good.

I agree with this completely. Like it or not, having a last name that is equated with a high degree of reliability in the travel industry, and exploiting same as a travel writer, conveys a greater degree of responsibility to be accurate and fair.

If what others have posted is accurate, and she encourages dishonest behavior in her books, like trespassing at Disney resort pools, it is shameful that publishers would continue to sponsor her. Her publishers should be made aware of that fact.

 

[gk90]

I just received the same email. She is STILL misinformed. You would think if you write a rebuttal letter it would have the correct information. I guess I am asking to much.

I just got the same email! And yes, where did she she get
the fact that DDP is "$45/day, per person"? Is she just pulling numbers out of the air?

 

[Mickey&Donald]

Fourth recipient of the exact same email checking in! God, nothing makes me feel valued like a form email.

This chick is seriously delusional. Oh well, maybe lots of people will follow her WDW advice, have a horrible time, and leave the parks nice and empty for the rest of us!

 

[CanadianGuy]

Ironically, the Frommer family both Pauline and Arthur, have never really had much nice to say about Disney hotels (or parks) historically and I think they will be rather delighted when the Four Seasons Walt Disney World opens. That's what they know best, upscale & high end.

I find their travel writing which is aimed at the budget category to be so completely off the mark as to be laughable; which is what we see here. They completely understand get the high-end travel market and they can write credibly about that and I generally find that they do. I think they should stick to their knitting as my grandmother might have said. Do what they know and leave the rest to others.

That said, the Frommer family is exceedingly wealthy and I'd be absolutely shocked if SHE ever actually stayed at any of the value hotels. I'd be much more likely to believe her if she said her STAFF found the value theming to be 'un-Disney' etc; because that's probably much closer to the truth.

But like I said, Frommer's never have much nice to say about Disney, why on earth expect that to change I guess.

Knox

 

[twinmom319]

I've seen plenty of kids squealing with delight at the Nemo ride, Turtle Talk with Crush, Soarin', Test Track, meeting characters around the WC....
No wonder your DN think Epcot is boring if all you take them to is Germany and Living with the Land

Hey! Our girls threw the biggest fit of the trip when we tried to get them out of the toy store in Germany!!

 

[tecdavidt]

At least now I know I bought the best guide book: The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World. It has the good and the bad plus it is updated every year. At the time I bought the book I was looking at the Frommer's book, glad I didn't choose that one. I am now on my third copy of the Unofficial Guide. I love reading it even after several park stays. It is full of useful info. Kathy

 

[NancyIL]

I have a lot of Frommer's travel books, including one by Pauline Frommer about New York City - which we found very helpful. But I don't buy Frommer's or Fodor's WDW guidebooks - choosing to stick with Birnbaum/Unofficial Guide/Passporter.

 

[mking624]

I've been to Illinois once.
I was robbed at gunpoint, and pistol-whipped.
Guess where I'm NOT going again, despite the "high hotel standards"

Sorry to go off topic here, but you're judging an entire state based on an experience you had in one location of that state? What happened to you was terrible, but I would my life that there is crime right in the town you live in...but you still live there, don't you? I'm not saying to suck it up and go again. But one experience, no matter how horrible, doesn't make the entire place bad. I have enough of a hard time, being a native Chicagoan, trying to convince many people we meet in Kentucky and other places in the south that we aren't all packing guns and joining gangs.

But anyway, to say something about the original person who made some comment about "high hotel standards" go for Illinois...I grew up in Chicago. You had the ritzy places, and you had the seedy places where you knew people weren't just going there because they just needed a place to rest their head at night. Shoot, there's one street that wasn't too far from where I grew up where the motels were known just for that!! The same can be true about any place. It's not like Illinois is known worldwide for such terrific hotel standards...Illinois has the "best" of both worlds.

 

[mking624]

I dunno, I think she's giving pretty good advice to a family that is trying to stay in budget and hasn't been to WDW before.

I love the on site WDW thing, but honestly, if you don't know for sure how much your family will enjoy the experience, what's so bad about staying off site at a rental condo? Sounds sane to me.

And people going to Orlando for the first time often don't just want Disney. And if I had to pick two parks to skip with young kids, they would indeed be the Studios and Epcot.

I guess I don't see what everyone is finding so offensive.

I guess we find it offensive because we're failing to see how it's "good advice" when the "advice" being given has quite a bit of faulty/wrong information. Good advice would be getting the correct information and correctly sharing it. It's not good advice when you're giving wrong information and seemingly getting numbers out of thin air (as others have pointed out from the "form email"...since when is the dining plan $45 per day? Answer: never).