Have to get a few things off my chest

[Pooh2]

We also got super slow service at Cafe Orleans but enjoyed our meal there. This was our first trip and was thinking it might be our only trip to the west coast. But... my husband said this week, "if we get out to the west coast again!"
As a previous poster recommended, I think we would also go 6 days instead of 4 (our first day, we got in late and used a park ticket that night, would save that for a full day next time instead.)

 

[4Mickeys]

but it is always shocking how badly some guests treat CMs

Hopefully, all the smiles, thankyous and conversations I had with the CMs I came across on our recent trip make up a little for the unpleasant interactions they get! And whilst 'those' people feel they are entitled and then feel let down at the end of day, it's that attitude helped ruin it for themselves. I found that the old saying 'it pays to be nice' is true. Our trip was enriched by our interactions with the hardworking CMs and we were rewarded in turn with random acts of pixie dust which were very much appreciated and made a long dreamed of family holiday even more memorable.

 

[Dot2Vegas]

Hopefully, all the smiles, thankyous and conversations I had with the CMs I came across on our recent trip make up a little for the unpleasant interactions they get! And whilst 'those' people feel they are entitled and then feel let down at the end of day, it's that attitude helped ruin it for themselves. I found that the old saying 'it pays to be nice' is true. Our trip was enriched by our interactions with the hardworking CMs and we were rewarded in turn with random acts of pixie dust which were very much appreciated and made a long dreamed of family holiday even more memorable.

I totally agree! My husband works in the hospitality industry and I worked in it before kids. I sympathize with CMs and hate to see them being treated poorly. We have gotten into the habit of leaving a compliment at City Hall (or by email if we don't have time to stop) for at least one CM every visit. They do so much to spread the pixie dust for us, we try to return it some how. Even trips when we don't get anything extra magical we will go in and say something like "so and so working at Peter Pan was very friendly today" ect...

 

[DizMe]

You guys do know that the plural of anecdote is not data, right? Bad service happens. More often, good service is the rule. The place wouldn't have been around for 60 years (or however long it's been there) if everyone had bad experiences.

True. Nevertheless, while there have been many posts lauding CO, I think it's important for those who did not have that magical experience to post as well. Enough anecdotal information can provide usable data, albeit subjective

I have been to CO 4 times. Once, I had good service and food (there were 2 of us having a light meal of fries and something else). The other 3 times, when we had a full dinner for 5, the service was horrible and the food mediocre. On one occasion, our waiter forgot our drinks and one of our meals and he could not be found. DH had to go in search of someone, and the CMs seemed mad at US. Our waiter didn't reappear until we were finished and waiting and waiting for our bill. In general, I find CO for a family dining experience to be very overrated due to the terrible service. It took nearly an hour to get our food on the last visit (different from the worst one noted above). As a PP said, we're very easy going people, but there is a limit to our patience and it's never ok for staff to treat the customers poorly. Just add my anecdotes to the others, positive and negative, for what it's worth.

OP, just an FYI: I'm not a garlic eater either, so I order the fries with just cheese and no garlic.

I enjoyed your report very much! I agree about October/Halloween. I honestly prefer July; I won't go back for Halloween again, though I used to love it. I enjoy mid-late January and just before and after Thanksgiving week. I keep meaning to try the first week of Dec but it doesn't seem to work out with my schedule. I will be there Dec 7-10 so I'll see what that's like this year--it was good last year but the sold-out hotels have me a bit worried. There are good times in Sept for crowds but it isn't a good time for me to take my family; I've gone the last 2 years with friends for Dapper Day and it was really HOT (and I like heat, but not when I'm walking around DL in a crinoline ). I think later in the month would be a better time, so we might try Tiki Day next year.

And I completely agree about 4 days being too much. I find 3 days to be the perfect amount of time for maintaining the magic. I don't want to be at DLR longer than that, even if I can rest.

 

[knitster]

I totally agree! My husband works in the hospitality industry and I worked in it before kids. I sympathize with CMs and hate to see them being treated poorly. We have gotten into the habit of leaving a compliment at City Hall (or by email if we don't have time to stop) for at least one CM every visit. They do so much to spread the pixie dust for us, we try to return it some how. Even trips when we don't get anything extra magical we will go in and say something like "so and so working at Peter Pan was very friendly today" ect...

We do this, as well. At the end of every day in the park, we stop by City Hall and fill out compliment reports for CM's that have been helpful, kind, etc throughout the day. It's one of the things my kids most look forward to!

 

[5forMickey]

We do this, as well. At the end of every day in the park, we stop by City Hall and fill out compliment reports for CM's that have been helpful, kind, etc throughout the day. It's one of the things my kids most look forward to!

I'm a little embarrassed that I never thought to do this, but thanks to you guys, this will be a new tradition for us as well. There is always at least one CM that makes your day!

 

[knitster]

I'm a little embarrassed that I never thought to do this, but thanks to you guys, this will be a new tradition for us as well. There is always at least one CM that makes your day!

You'll love it! My kids go out of their way to notice CM's and to take down their names, simply because they love "reporting" them at the end of the day. And it really helps to keep everyone's focus on positive things.

 

[Dot2Vegas]

I'm a little embarrassed that I never thought to do this, but thanks to you guys, this will be a new tradition for us as well. There is always at least one CM that makes your day!

Don't be embarrassed! I never thought to do this until I read it here. We all have to get our ideas from somewhere!

 

[SusanMatt]

We complimented CMs at City Hall every day of our trip earlier this month and got some Disney magic because of it. One day, at the Chamber of Commerce in DCA, I was filling out a compliment card while my husband got into a conversation with the CMs. It came out that I draw. They asked me to draw a character and were so nice, complimenting while I did it. Then they gave us a free pass to the front of almost any line to repay us for entertaining them.

 

[Gisele]

it's important to get things off your chest, especially if they are bugs!

 

[JandD75]

Cafe Orleans - Have also noticed and been surprised by the bad service. Love the food and the atmosphere but the CM's seem to have a bad attitude. Which is surprising since they are in a tipped position

Last time I was there, the service was great, but the food was lousy and WAY overpriced! Back to counter service for me!

 

[JandD75]

I think this is a perfect description of what happens sometimes.

In the op's defense I have seen exactly what he is talking about "but I'm an AP and I should get".............and I have also seen just the random jerks with the same "but I .... and I should get".....attitudes.

It should be a requirement that you have to be a happy well behaved person to get into the parks.......after all, it should be the "Happiest Place On Earth" and we can't let the wicked apples ruin it for us, not matter what disguise they come in!!!

You're right!!! That's not necessarily the 'AP' attitude--it's the 'I'm rich, I live in a big city and I'm entitled' attitude. Not to say that all city-dwellers are rude, because they aren't. But I've certainly encountered a lot of that in the big cities in which I've lived. Which is why I moved away from the big cities.

 

[bumbershoot]

Haunted Mansion at holidaytime will ALWAYS be horribly long. Always. It's to be expected. That's where all the crowds were; in the HMH line.

Second - Rider swap issue. In the past, I have used rider swap for two things - Autopia and Star Tours. Both allowed me or my wife to immediately get on the ride after the other was done. In Autopia - we stood at the 'exit' and waited.

You have been extremely lucky then. Or we are using kid swaps on different rides. For Indy, you go in the exit but you meet up with the regular line at the "don't pull the rope" area, every time we used swap there. We never used it for the two you used it on. But all others we swapped on, and since DS is 10 and very tall we were using swap years ago...involve just going back through the FP line even if you go in through the exit.

What you are describing is absolutely nothing different than it used to be.

And yes the Single Rider for RSR is faboo. When RSR opened DS was already old enough to use it, and we have yet to experience RSR all together and that's fine, and thankfully we haven't used a FP for it, nor have we seen the long long standby line.

People in this thread (including myself) were genuinely wondering how you could tell the difference between pass holders and non pass holders. Just my two cents.

I agree. Especially since the OP was vague about it.

Child Swap is a joke. It basically is a 'Fast Pass' now. In the past, that has not been the case. RSRs took over an hour (we had FPs to begin with) because of this method of rider swap. This really upset me!

I'm not going to go into too much here because I have read the past war of words regarding APs... but, yeah...

Both of those were super-vague and required questions.

And since I use AP to mean Annual Pass, I think it's weird to use it for Passholders. I've had three total years of having an AP, and I'm the same person always as when I'm using a single day ticket or a cheap rundisney multiday ticket as I am when I have an AP. So I really didn't understand what he meant. And was disappointed to find out that it was just another insult against people using certain passes, and not against people acting rudely (no matter what their method of admission was).

And it sounds like those women were pretty upset themselves; I wonder what was going on to get them to defcon 10? What happened before that?


Cafe Orleans...the first time we went there they had breakfast because something else was being refurbed, and the server made fun of me for the number of coffee refills I asked for. Second time was ON my birthday during the year of birthday celebrations, and we got The Worst service EVER. So much so that DH went and found the manager. I'm not sure we'll ever go back.

And I wrote about both incidents when they happened, so I did my best to inform people of their service! Too bad they haven't gotten better in the last 5 years.

 

[knitster]

Haunted Mansion at holidaytime will ALWAYS be horribly long. Always. It's to be expected. That's where all the crowds were; in the HMH line.

We must've lucked out, then. We were there the first week that HMH was open this September and we never waiting in line for more than 10 minutes. In fact, our first day there, my 4 year old and I rode it, got back in line, rode it, got back in line, over and over for 2 hours!

 

[Vala]

Cafe Orleans...the first time we went there they had breakfast because something else was being refurbed, and the server made fun of me for the number of coffee refills I asked for. Second time was ON my birthday during the year of birthday celebrations, and we got The Worst service EVER. So much so that DH went and found the manager. I'm not sure we'll ever go back.

We always loved Cafe Orleans and never really had complaints.

Then this year went for lunch, got the Three Cheese Monte Cristo as usual... and one of the strawberries that came with it was very obviously modly. Not even in a hidden place, the whole tip was bad.

The berry wasn't near the actual food, so I didn't make a big deal out of it. When the server came to ask how everything was I showed him and jokingly recommended someone in the kitchen should probably get new glasses. He really was , took the strawberry away and promptly came back with a new full bowl of strawberries, apologized and told me my meal was comped.

While I was very happy with that reaction it still left me wondering how something that obvious could be overlooked. My sister works in food services, I know strawberries can get mushy very fast when it's so hot. But from mushy to mold is one more big extra step though.

 

[DizMe]

We always loved Cafe Orleans and never really had complaints.

Then this year went for lunch, got the Three Cheese Monte Cristo as usual... and one of the strawberries that came with it was very obviously modly. Not even in a hidden place, the whole tip was bad.

The berry wasn't near the actual food, so I didn't make a big deal out of it. When the server came to ask how everything was I showed him and jokingly recommended someone in the kitchen should probably get new glasses. He really was , took the strawberry away and promptly came back with a new full bowl of strawberries, apologized and told me my meal was comped.

While I was very happy with that reaction it still left me wondering how something that obvious could be overlooked. My sister works in food services, I know strawberries can get mushy very fast when it's so hot. But from mushy to mold is one more big extra step though.

Ew! That's a little yucky, but hey, I'd probably be ok with a moldy strawberry if they comped my meal Seriously, I think your server was awesome but yeah, you do have to wonder what's up in the kitchen for letting that go out!

 

[Vala]

Ew! That's a little yucky, but hey, I'd probably be ok with a moldy strawberry if they comped my meal Seriously, I think your server was awesome but yeah, you do have to wonder what's up in the kitchen for letting that go out!

Yes, definitely. Awesome server and we made sure his tip reflected that. But whatever hit the kitchen that day I sure hope it doesn't hit them too often.

 

[larryz]

OK, one of the ladies said to CM (that she was yelling at) "I can't believe you are treating me this way, I'm an AP and come here all the time. I have never been treated like this before, its inexcusable, blah, blah, blah..." Another lady, "yes, I said I wanted to use my discount for AP - I already told you that, <expletive>. And then another told me, when I stepped in to calm her down because she was upset with a CM for no real reason, "Well, I'm just upset because as an AP, I would expect better service."

I had a feeling this was coming, which is why I didn't comment earlier. I would have offered my personal observation that some -- not all, but some -- AP holders feel an inordinate sense of entitlement simply because they bought the AP.

They need to realize in the aggregate they paid less per day than a regular ticket holder, and if it were actually to make a difference to Disney in the customer service department, they are "entitled" to less personal consideration because of it.

 

[lovebug33]

I agree about rider swap. I naively thought we'd wait in line and one of us would go and the other would go. Yeah it took us an hour to ride tower of terror with rider swap. We just don't ride the adult rides anymore. One day we will!

 

[lovebug33]

Oh and I also have to chime in that the service at cafe Orleans was only so so. We won't go back. Well stick with big thunder.