Have you ever had a shock?

[SamSam]

Pigpen....Oh my gosh! I can't believe the CM's didn't intervene. Someone in authority should have been called immediately for that kind of abuse. I've seen parents over react many times at WDW, but nothing like that.
When the situation is not quite that severe it sometimes can help to say something like "isn't it tiring waiting in lines all day", or "isn't it frustrating when our kids don't want to do what we want them to". It helps to sound sympathetic, or even to use a little humor in your voice to lighten things.
My fear about saying something like "what do you think you're doing!" is that the child will be punished later.
Why parents feel it's okay to treat their children that way is beyond me.

 

[Morticia]

Ok, I've been reading this thread & thinking how horrible all these things are & how I never see any of them. My DH says that I just forget as soon as we leave the park.

Well...... yesterday @ DL.
I was paranoid about all the germs & kept spraying myself & DH down w/antibacterial spray.
But, as we getting on the trams from the parking lot, there was a boy about 4 screaming & crying followed by a girl about 7 or 8. They were following 2 adults. I assume these are all family, mom, dad, son, daughter. The bioy runs up to dad & kicks him. Parents just look & walk away to board tram. The sister(7or8) grabs the boy, straps him in his stroller while the parents are still getting on the tram!!!! Finally, they are upset 7 go & get the kids.
But people remember, DL is the child kidnapping capital. Watch your children. These parents could have ridden the tram w/out ever noticing that their children were w/them. And since when is it the daughters job to care for the screaming boy?

While in Town Hall, a family came in to report a lost little girl of 11. Please, pay attention to your children.
DH has his own to report (see bloody chicken), that's why we were in Town Hall.

 

[Goofydiane]

I've seen my share of parents yelling at children, and cutting in line with no respect to the people they are pushing past.

My most interesting events have all occurred at The Hyperion Theatre in DCA.

First - During the last performance of BLAST!, I was seated in the front row next to my girlfriend who is wheelchair dependent. A man about 60ish was on the other side of me in his ECV, there was 1 chair between us. He was letting it all hang out at the beginning of the show, and as the show went on, I do believe he started entertaining himself to the beat of the drums. I could not believe what I could see out of the corner of my eye. With about 5 minutes left in the show, a CM came and escorted the man from the theatre.

Second - This has happened twice during Aladdin shows. This theatre is full of children and people who have waited a very long time to see the show. I've behind and next to women who choose this specific time to do their breast feeding. I realize this is a natural thing, however, I can also choose to prefer it not to happen next to me.

Thankfully I've never seen the urinating in the parks - I would give them an earful on how unsanitary this is and wouldn't really care what they said back to me.

My pet peeves during my visits are people who choose to smoke throughout the whole park, not just in the designated smoking areas, and people who drop their trash just anywhere when there are trash cans about every 10 feet!

Diane

 

[Grog]

My pet peeves during my visits are people who choose to smoke throughout the whole park, not just in the designated smoking areas, and

This bothers me too. My SO is a smoker and I am not. When we are in the parks she is very good about waiting until we get to a smoking area and is highly critical of people who don't (while she is smoking I usually hit the nearest shop or pin cart). My last trip to DL, I was heading through NOS towards Indy and had an older couple in front of me. It was late at night (around 11:00) and the man was smoking while he walked. I guess he thought he was being slick because he would take a puff, then hide the cigarette in his cupped hand while he walked. My SO was back at the hotel or probably would have said something to him. I thought it was a ridiculous thing to do because there was a smoking area about 100 feet behind us near HM.

 

[Darian]

Grog - I feel the same way about smokers who don't use the smoking areas. The cupped hand thing is sooo not amusing... like a "ooohhh no one can see what I'm doing" kinda thing. I have severe angina and one breath of smoke will trigger an attack. Sure, some rest and a couple sprays of nitro will fix it, but man, I'm at d-land to have fun and these "stealth smokers" are really a danger to people who have heart disease.

On the other hand, if I am stupid and walk into a smoking area, well hey, I'm not going to get all nasty to people who are smoking there. I'll pop some nitro and get outa dodge... but that is my mistake.

Your SO sounds like a very considerate person. As a cancer survivor I'd encourage her to quit smoking. We've gotta look out for our fellow DIS'ers!!! See you at the World,

Darian

 

[Darian]

Originally posted by Moosysmom
Anyway the CM explained that it was okay for the family to keep the seat open for their child on the lap. He sat behind me grumbling loudly, and I noticed that him and his daughters were wearing W.W.J.D. bracelots. At that point, I pointed to my own, and told him that he should truly try to be more Christian and to keep his mouth quiet for the rest of us to enjoy the show. He did shut up at that point, but I felt the daggers in my back for the whole show.

Moosysmom - very nicely done! Insightful, humble, yet to the point and effective. You are an example to us all!

Darian

 

[cindyfan]

We just returned from WDW last Wed. While we were there, it was Grad Nights and lots of high school trips.
Soooo.......LOTS of teenagers!!! Yikes!!
There were a lot of them just simply getting out of control and rowdy!
Two incidents make me want to stand up and shout that the Cast Members are GREAT!!!!! and really put up with a lot!!!

While in line at Space Mtn, a group of boys were really getting out of control with their language.......the CM walked up to them and very forcefully said....."This is Disney World! There is NO CURSING in Disney World!! Do you have that?" Then they just stared at him....he repeated while shaking his head..."Do you have that!!????.......Shake your head YES!!!! YOU GOT IT!!!!" They all shook their heads and said "yes".
I want to scream....."good job"

Then on Test Track, another group getting on started to get wild....screaming and sticking their legs up on the dash board....the CM working the controls hit the STOP button and walked over to them. She told them they needed to keep their legs and arms in the car and remain under control or she would have to remove them. We were 2 cars behind them....so after we started we could hear they started getting wild after leaving the dock. Well......they shut down the ride and 2 CM came in and escorted them out!!!!!

It was great to see the CM really taking control !!!

 

[Grog]

As a cancer survivor I'd encourage her to quit smoking.

Thanks She really does want to. Right now we are both under a lot of stress due to family problems (it involves other family members. Our relationship is going great), so right now isn't the best time for her to approach this. She has mentioned recently about wanting to quit and I think she is sincere about it. I think once the other stuff is behind us we will sit down and seriously talk about it.

 

[Poohnatic]

Originally posted by Luv2Roam
But we shrugged and told her she never could have made it out of the crowd anyway. And she couldn't have.

After sitting in that theatre for 2 hours one time, NATURE CALLED. I cut across the rows (we were all the way down in Hades) about halfway down to get across quickly. Yes, I made it to the bathroom in time...fortunately, no long lines. That's the tip for today, cut across instead of going to the top to exit when you have to GO!

Suzanne

 

[Luv2Roam]

But we were in DL. It is pretty much a squeeze in and standing room only (shoulder to shoulder.
Wish they had seats there! Not very organized at DL.
We also did the Fantasmic dessert buffet ($$$) and that was worth the money just not to have to STAND for so longer before, during and after Fantasmic at DL.

 

[Scoobmuzic]

Hello, Just found this forum through the Yahoo Disney Dollarless group there and just had to sign up to post my Disney Shock. I am sure what I saw happens all the time because they think Disney has DEEP POCKETS and they can just sue, sue, sue.

My boyfriend and I were on a bus back to our resort after a full and tiring day with about 25-30 other tired people who just wanted to get back and freshen up.
We stopped to let a woman in a wheelchair and her husband off when the bus driver comes back to operate the wheelchair lift. She must have told the husband 3 times to "please step back" when all of a sudden, he starts screaming that she caught his foot in the lift. I swear he must have put the tip of his sneaker there and just curled up his toes because he should have needed a doctor! Well, his wife is now on the ground and off the bus and the husband screams and yells the whole time wanting her name and says he is not getting off the bus until she gets a supervisor there. We are all in the back of the bus groaning. Well, this guy now stands in the stairwell of the bus lights a cigarette and refuses to move until she calls someone. My boyfriend (who is not a small man) and two other passengers try to reason with him but he is not budging. We could all tell he was not hurt. Once he lit the cigarette, that was all my BF needed, he got up and says "that's it! he's goin' in the bushes" The guy sees his face and that's it, he hopps off the bus and off we go! He received a round of applause.

Some People!
MaryAnne

 

[jlieblaw]

The story about the father hitting his child was horrible. Please report something like that to someone in authority. If the CM doesn't do anything after witnessing it, report their inaction to a manager. Florida has laws which require reporting child abuse and it can be done anonymously. Our fear of creating conflict or of getting involved in someone else's problems should not matter when someone is being hurt like that. I work in the legal system and constantly see cases where children are being exposed to all kinds of abuse. If you can help just one child in an abusive situation you are doing a great thing. Sorry to be so serious but that story just really shocked me.

 

[Moosysmom]

Grog,
Good luck to your SO. I think I may have finally kicked the habit. My last one was on January 25th, altho I still call myself a smoker who chooses not to smoke. Anyway Zyban and Commit lozenges worked for me and I was a 3 pack a day'r. Get through the family stuff first tho I needed to do that first too. Good luck to you both.

 

[Darian]

Any "shocking" Disney food stories out there? Maybe thats a topic for another thread?

I'm just shocked at how poor the quality of food has become at Disneyland. I would imagine its the same in Florida. Any Florida AP'ers able to comment on that?

We were at Disneyland yesterday and I bit into my chicken thigh and got a mouth full of blood. I nearly power puked accross the table onto poor DW. My stomach was convulsing and it was all I could to keep from doing the technicolor yawn right there in the Plaza Inn. I wrote a "tripped out" report on another thread. Here is the link to it if you would like to read about what happened. From what I've seen we were not alone.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=3452974

Darian

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

Ohhhh yes! The cupped hand smoking is totally out of hand. Especially at Epcot. It really makes me mad and I don't hide my feelings. If someone comes near my kids with a cigarette I say VERY loudly "Come on boys, lets get out of this SMOKE!" Not very subtle, I know.

 

[Synonymous]

I'm just shocked at how poor the quality of food has become at Disneyland. I would imagine its the same in Florida. Any Florida AP'ers able to comment on that?

I've always found, including on our trip a couple of weeks ago, that the food at WDW is consistently excellent, even in fast-food places and from carts. Of course, the sit-down restaurants are top notch.

Well, Whispering Canyon is an exception.

 

[Darian]

Perhaps then, this is just a local phenomena... Presslerism's bitter fruit here in Anaheim. Glad to hear they haven't started serving dog food at WDW like they have at Disneyland.

Darian

 

[davandflav]

We had two pretty good "shocks" on our last trip in September, 2002...

One: We were lucky enough to have one of the few really sweet Disney World bus drivers left on our ride from Downtown Disney to ASMO late one night. As we we were stopped to let people off and to take on more passengers, the bus driver escorted a handicapped woman through the back doors of the bus. I would say a good 99.9% of the bus passengers know that these doors are never used to board the buses, seeing as there are multiple signs and stickers that state this over and over. Of course, there was a dad trying to herd his family through these doors, apparently because they were too special to have waited in line with everyone else. The bus driver couldn't see them, and started to close the doors. The guy's daughter wasn't going to make it through, and he started screaming at the top of his lungs that "That's a good way to cut someone's f%!?ing foot off!" The bus driver immediately stopped the doors from closing and ran back to see what was happening. He apologized profusely, but to no avail. An undeserved verbal lashing, (including many expletives we had probably only heard once or twice before in our entire lives), directed at the poor bus driver ensued. Needless to say, we were sure to thank the driver that night with extra emphasis! If people would just read the signs posted for their safety...!


Two: I was in a women's restroom in MGM and noticed two women having a conversation, which was periodically interrupted with one of them yelling at a child, whom I could not see. As I was in my stall, I got a good view of the child, as she was crawling on her hands and knees on the floor of the bathroom and was just about to join me in the stall!! I was so shocked...she could not have been more then 2yo. How disgusting!! Those floors in the WDW bathrooms probably harbor germs that haven't even been discovered yet. I guess what the women were discussing was much more important than the illnesses she may have picked up, or the privacy of others!

 

[Mortlives]

Originally posted by Synonymous
I've always found, including on our trip a couple of weeks ago, that the food at WDW is consistently excellent, even in fast-food places and from carts. Of course, the sit-down restaurants are top notch.

Well, Whispering Canyon is an exception.

I agree with you about the food at WDW. When we were there in February, it was the same excellent food as always. <drool>mmmm, Boma</drool>

 

[GoofieRuthie]

While staying at the ASMo resort, I noticed many people using....*GASP* OLD refillable mugs!!!! Many of them weren't even for that resort. For shame!!! Thankfully this truly was really the only shocking thing that we witnessed. I couldn't help but chuckle to myself everytime I saw one of those old mugs. I just knew there would be someone here on the board having a fit.