Here Now. Is it just me or are cast members not as friendly?

[AngiTN]

It's sort of like when you drive down a road and get caught at every traffic light but the car 2 in front of you gets through every light.
You'll curse the drive but the other car will rave at how fast they got through it all.
We have encountered wonderful CM's. I can't think of any that I'd want to complain about, ever. Most we take the time to go to GS and rave about.
I think it's just bad timing to have a trip where many are in bad moods.

 

[Jennasis]

I know you did the smiley face, but there is a lot of truth to your statement. Sorry to the OP. But I see you the response you get back from people, be it cast members or other park goers... heck even at the mall is a reflection of the vibe you give.

Not saying tis is you at all...I dont know you.

But if you have a scowl on your face, or talk loud, talk short, look like you are from new york city, people will tend to treat you the same way in return. Just human nature.

And truth or not. People from the east coast have a general reputation of not being friendly to random strangers.

Look like they're from NYC???

Nonsense LOL.

 

[texasroni75]

3 trips in the last 3 years, and no noticeable lack of CM friendliness.

However.....this was intriguing....

If you ...look like you are from new york city,...
People from the east coast have a general reputation of not being friendly to random strangers.

Really?!?!

 

[wilkeliza]

I always hate when people blame CPs and the CP program.

CPs do not go through any more or less training than a regular CM. I know because I was both and have friends who went from our CP program into full time positions and have become successful in different roles all over the company. Everyone's traditions is only 1 day now not just CPs. That doesn't mean they are only getting 1 day of training. My attraction is not a hard attraction and we had 5 shifts of training outside of traditions. Once was a specialty day of training specific to Epcot (every park has a version of this) then 3 training days and 1 assessment day. I had the best trainer in the world who I still whole heartedly believe is one of the best CMs Disney had. Then my assessor was also one of the top notch CMs.

Now knowing what is going on from the CM side I can tell you a little of what is up. Management isn't looking out for their people. It is incredibly hard to put in 10-13 hour shifts during the busiest time of the year and only hear about what you are doing wrong, not what you are doing right. I got 4 keys cards across my program so it isn't like I got no recognition but I had one manager that no matter how good you were doing he wouldn't say a word about that to you. He would come up and point out the 1 thing that might be wrong or even chastise you for spending too much time with a guest. I remember he use to use a stop watch to see how much time we were spending setting up phones and talking with guests. It was frustrating to have him as the daily manager and would put everyone in a funk. Also not having a need (not a want) listened to was also incredibly frustrating. The worst days in my position was when you got stuck in the same high volume area for your entire 8 hour shift while knowing someone else was getting the low volume area. The system was set up to try and ensure that never happened but when it did, it was the worst and could really get to you by the end of your shift. There were some managers who would realize that "Oh my gosh so and so has been in the same position for 3 of their 4 rotations let me bump them to another spot for rotation 4" while others would be like sucks to be you. So that can also affect morale. The worst was when management lost their ability to alter things so you are now stuck with what the system gives you.

So in short: The big difference is some of the management and some of the newer policies stopped treating CMs like people but instead treat them like a peg in the machine that is WDW and making magic.


CMs are not allowed to be on their phones but they are allowed to check them as a time device now. They still have company phones and headsets for official business. I get family emergencies and whatever but you can always tell your partner that you need to step back stage if it is something you seriously have to deal with.

 

[Planogirl]

I think that most CM's are still nice but we do run into the occasional rude individual. I just remind myself of what they have to deal with and forget about it.

 

[Bluegrrl]

With regards to CP's, I don't blame them. As a former CP as well, I found it hard to put on that smiley face every day due my roommate situation + job. I had wanted desperately to do attractions - applied for attractions, got Pecos Bill's/Pirate and Parrot. My roommates were horrible - one would sit in a living room chair, put on headphones and rock her body back and forth so violently that she would nearly knock the chair over. So strange. The other two got along with each other, but were rather mean to me. I got moved from Pirate/Parrot (Tortuga cafe now) to Pecos 1/2 through and meet a great guy and his friends, and had lots of fun those last two weeks. I also got carpal tunnel from flipping over cups, and wasn't able to get medical care. Disney will say that you get out of your program what you put into it, but there wasn't much there to put in. Plus, my managers weren't helpful or caring at all - they just wanted bodies. It felt like a bait and switch - the Disney recruiters saying that you will have so much fun, learn job experience, have Disney look great on a resume. Sometimes it isn't so, and again, when you get that horrid job, facing it every day with no ablilty to move to any other position is really, really depressing. And, did I mention the location # for Pecos was, at my time, 666?

But oh, what a difference a year can make! The next year I decided to apply again, and got MGM. I was assigned to Indy Jones, but through a mixture of me being late to training and having a great trainer, I got to do GMR! I also was put up in a beautiful new apartment (as opposed to the icky original CP apartments), and had great roommates. I even got my own room because the other person in our group never showed up! My managers were awesome, roommates were fun (one of them even had a car! We did group food shopping.), my GRM friends were fun - it was GOOD to be at work! Hence, I was much more smiley,, and it made it easy to be at work - not a horrid experience. People at Disney, management at Disney makes all the difference for the CMs. Happiness does come from the top down - even the park manager for MGM at that time was supportive of all his CMs - he expected excellence from all of us, and he also applied that to himself. No one was too big or too small - he treated everyone equally.

And again, I got from the program what I put in - fun and a great job experience as opposed to being treated as a body like at Pecos.

Also, keep in mind that I didn't believe food service was too menial for me. I think MGM was a better park and our roommates were kinder. Like, one of my roommates worked Parking, and she had a blast. She did a lot of the ride spieling for the trams and would make up different accents to amuse herself. One time, she did a British accent, and had guests asking here where in England she was from! So, you can have fun, be friendly and work hard. But for CPs, I think a lot of it is determined by where you are, your roommate situation (you can't change roommates, it sucks) and your managers.

And that's why you shouldn't blame CPs that much for being unfriendly. Cause sometimes, we just can't leave it at the park, no matter how hard we try. And trust me, my first tour, I tried!

 

[DSLRuser]

Discriminate much? Shall we discuss the reputation of people from fly-over states? I'll refrain as dealing in stereotypes is pretty narrow-minded.

How the heck would a CM know where a guest is from?

.

again, i was not pointing fingers........but........stereotypes are there for a reason.

yes you can ignore them and get to know a person....but trust me. a cast member who sees thousands of people every day.....has already formed an opinion about somebody in the 1st 3 seconds they process that persons existence.

not defending it. it just is what it is.

 

[Nancyg56]

Haha where do you get your info from? Totally not true btw

I know! CT gal here and I'm nice to everyone!

 

[wilkeliza]

But for CPs, I think a lot of it is determined by where you are, your roommate situation (you can't change roommates, it sucks) and your managers.

And that's why you shouldn't blame CPs that much for being unfriendly. Cause sometimes, we just can't leave it at the park, no matter how hard we try. And trust me, my first tour, I tried!

Thankfully you can request to change roomies now. However, it does come with a cost. There was one girl on my program who was notorious for getting their roomies kicked out of the program (she would claim false threats of violence) in order to have her own apartment. I had a friend who was roomies with her and requested a change of apartments before she had the same thing happen to her.

 

[W.E.D.]

Shall we discuss the reputation of people from fly-over states? I'll refrain as dealing in stereotypes is pretty narrow-minded.

Said immediately after making a stereotyped statement.

What exactly is our reputation?

 

[TXHauntedMansionFan]

We stayed at French Quarter Jan 7-14 and had nothing but great experiences from the CMs there. It was our first trip with our 18 month old DD and she nearly everywhere we went there were CMs that would stop and talk to her (she wanted to say hello and show her shoes to everyone we passed). We actually commented to ourselves after leaving how great the people had been to us.

I would say it sounds like it's more luck of the draw. Overall most CMs are great but everyone has a bad day (or two!) every now and then. Hopefully the experience didn't have a bad effect on the OP's vacation overall.

 

[Cinderella's Slipper 2015]

We arrived on Saturday and have sadly been pretty disappointed. A good number of the cast members have just seemed to be in a bad mood. We've also experienced quite a few issues and when we have asked for help or let a cast member know about something (always in a very nice way) such as a broken blaster on TSMM, we have been either brushed aside or passed off to another person over and over until we give up -- the cast members just don't seem to care much at all. This trip has been truly disheartening so far. Is anyone else experiencing the same? It didn't feel this way the last time that we were here (two years ago).

I can understand where you're coming from. We've had both great and horrible CM interactions. One incident that sticks out in my mind is when we were doing the Undiscovered Future World Tour a few years ago. We were told when we booked it that because the tour started right at park opening and we had to be at Guest Relations inside the park before 9am that we were to go to the breakfast line to gain admittance to the park. Well we headed over the breakfast line and I went up to a CM at the front of the line to confirm it was the breakfast line and we were in the right place and she snarled at me to get out of the breakfast line if I didn't have a breakfast reservation. She refused to listen to me when I tried politely to explain to her that I was told to wait in the breakfast line and just wanted to confirm it was the right line. She went so far as to turn her back on me and start a conversation with a fellow CM. Needless to say I reported her to both park Guest Relations and Guest Communications upon our return. We've also had issues checking into POP Century over night. One time it took over an hour to check in at 1am and this was with having done Online Check-in and it was because the CMs were not doing as they had been instructed as I later learned from the resort manager. We've had other problems with CMs but we've also had good experiences.

But I will say this, we did the Southern California ABD that goes to Disneyland and our official Disney Guide is a Senior VIP Guest Relations CM at DL/DCA. He's been to WDW and even he said he couldn't believe the negative attitudes of some of the CMs in Florida. Now that I've been to Disneyland a few times, there is a definite difference in CMs between California and Florida.

 

[wilkeliza]

But I will say this, we did the Southern California ABD that goes to Disneyland and our official Disney Guide is a Senior VIP Guest Relations CM at DL/DCA. He's been to WDW and even he said he couldn't believe the negative attitudes of some of the CMs in Florida. Now that I've been to Disneyland a few times, there is a definite difference in CMs between California and Florida.

This always surprises me because our last 2 trips to DL my fiance and I both felt like the DL CMs were worse then the WDW CMs. At GCH we had a CM get nasty with us and even tell us a queen bed wouldn't work for our "situation". What the situation of a non-married couple who sleeps in a queen bed every night? He then proceeded to laugh when I asked about D23 expo transportation after showing him where the email from D23 said it would be provided. He laughed and said yeah sure tell me when you hear because we were told that is not something we are offering. Later in the trip we had a non-park day so chilled by the pool. We went to get food at the quick service place and when we got up to the cashier and said hello both were too busy on their phones to ring us up. I coughed to get their attention since hello didn't work and with out even acknowledging us rang up the food and said the total all with out getting off her phone for more than a few seconds to say the total. I was shocked.

Now inside the parks most CMs were fine and nothing comes out as terrible but the Hotel CMs at Disneyland seemed much worse than the hotel CMs and WDW in our experience.

However, I think in both cases we just got bad CMs and they can be on either coast in either park and I just have to hope that after bringing it to guest relations attention that those CMs won't be CMs much longer if it is an on going problem and not just an off day.

 

[KimBean]

Cast members are now 'fine'. Probably better than other workers elsewhere. But, they aren't for the most part special anymore. Usually if you find one really putting on the "show" they are older. My only complaint though is so many of them are talking amongst themselves and not paying any attention to their actual job.

 

[PirateD]

I was slightly worried after reading many of these types of posts, but we had great CM interactions on our December trip. The CMs at AK really stood out to me as outstanding. They were so friendly and full of enthusiasm. I really loved their energy. We also received excellent service at POP Century and our TS meals at 1900 PF, R&C, and CP.

 

[snowybelle]

I was slightly worried after reading many of these types of posts, but we had great CM interactions on our December trip. The CMs at AK really stood out to me as outstanding. They were so friendly and full of enthusiasm. I really loved their energy.

^^ Was at WDW last week and felt the same about AK cast members! Of the parks we visited, the CMs at AK seemed to go above and beyond. One of the many reasons AK is currently my favorite WDW park.

I will say... I have noticed on my last two WDW trips that many CMs seemed disengaged or looked unhappy in their jobs. I haven't experienced any outright rudeness, but it is noticeably different than my experiences with CMs when I've visited in pervious decades. However, last week was my husband's very 1st time at WDW, and he went on and on about "how nice everyone was" and "how skilled they are at dealing with crowds of people" — so perhaps I'm just a bit jaded by the extraordinarily friendly CMs I remember from back in the day...

I try to remember what a previous poster said... "the magic goes both ways" ... I can choose to smile a make eye contact with the CM who helps me with my lap bar, or hands me my nutella waffle at Sleepy Hollow, or look up from my phone long enough to make conversation with the folks around me (CMs and guests alike). Making the "first move" so to speak has really changed my customer service experiences for the better — not just at WDW, but at the airport, at the drive-thru, at the coffee shop, at the post office... etc.

 

[AngiTN]

Funny thing, I've always had a different take on the CP CMs that I encounter. I think they are a joy and full of a lot more enthusiasm. I took it that they are very excited to be working for Disney, are working there by choice and that fresh and enthusiastic outlook comes through in their attitudes. The older ones seem less happy, if any are, as they are tired and more jaded and often wishing they were working somewhere else.

Reading some of these comments about CP you'd think these poor kids were slave labor and being held at Disney against their will.

There has also been a change in how they hire DCPers. First time around for the program, in the phone interview DD was asked all the questions you find online: What does Disney mean to you, how would you help a guest have a magical day, etc.- all the touchy-feely stuff you'd expect from Disney. For her 2nd program, the phone interview was very straight-forward and basically they just reviewed the application. She was pretty taken-aback by this, because it was SO not Disney-like. DD also said that the 2nd time around, there were significantly more DCPers who were interested in playing/partying and/or for whom this was a first job. I can't help but think that this is why many of us find the CMs less responsive, less involved, less whatever than they used to be.

You don't think that could have been because they knew she'd worked there before?

 

[anniemae]

Also, I think people have come to expect more from Disney. "Fine" just does not cut it for some people who are spending a lot of money on their vacation. Plus, those who have been to Disney in the past when customer service was truly above and beyond any other establishment are left shaking their heads wondering what happened, while those who have not been going as long think it's fine. No right or wrong, just what you are accustomed to.

 

[sunshine1]

I have always found cast members to be helpful.

Can you imagine the rude people they have to deal with on a daily basis?

 

[KayKayJS]

Local here. I would say its about 90/10. 90% good, 10% bad. But the bad ones REALLY stand out. I'm too tired to go into all the ones we've dealt with recently, but I'm going to start taking note of their names and submitting complaints.