Just back, 5/30 & 5/31, so-so trip

[TammiMcMan]

I'll post a full trip report, but wanted to put down a few quick comments. We checked into the GF early Sunday morning and headed right over to Epcot. There had to have been about 20 lines with nearly 100 people in each line. We are all being merged into 8 or 9 bag check areas. This was at about 10am. The worst part was that along with nearly half the people in line, we weren't even carrying in any bags. It took us almost 25 minutes just to get into the park. They didn't have any "no-bag lines" set up. Very poor arrangement, especially on a busy holiday weekend. We lasted a few hours in Epcot and decided to return to the resort for a swim and check on our room. Met a few monorail cm's that had zero personality. I tried to engage a fellow Massachusetts cm in conversation and got one word answers followed by hearing about how bad her morning had been with monorail difficulties. My DD never did get a sticker or whatever it is they hand out to passengers that ride up front. Ran into a few cm's at the GF who looked like they didn't want to be there. I've never experienced it this bad. We had better customer service at the Hawthorne Suites when we arrived our first night. Found out our room was ready and instead of the castle view that we were given at check-in, we were looking at a big huge tree that was infested with dragon flys. We couldn't even sit on the balcony. DD was anxious to go swimming, so we let it go and enjoyed a nice few hours at the pool. We met up with the rest of our family and went into the MK for a few hours. The park was scheduled to stay open until 11pm. We skipped the first showing of Spectromagic and were able to get a few rides in. We saw Wishes, but were standing a little too close to the castle and some of the fireworks were blocked. After Wishes, we decided to walk around, get a bite to eat and see if we could do a few more rides before the final showing of Spectro. All the shops started closing though. We couldn't get any food, or drinks or do any shopping. A cm told us that the only things open were on Main Street, even though the park wasn't scheduled to close for another 40 minutes. I really would compare this WDW experience to any trip we've taken to a Six Flags. I'm hoping that it was just a fluke visit for us, but we honestly didn't meet one cm who possessed any Disney magic.

 

[minmate]

Sorry to hear the trip wasn't all you'd hoped... We had rain here one of those days in Mass. so being at WDW was better than that! I don't really going expecting the CM's to possess Disney Magic so to speak... so then, if someone goes above and beyond it's a pleasant bonus, not an expectation. That's probably just me though.

 

[TammiMcMan]

Minmate,

We kept an eye on the weather in Mass and you're right, it was much nicer where we were.

Maybe we noticed the attitudes at WDW more because we had just gotten off the Disney cruise. When I tell you these people had an overload of Disney spirit, I'm not kidding. Everyone on board had so much energy and I never saw anyone who didn't have a smile on their face, or a kind word. And these people are stuck on a ship for months at a time. Disney holds itself to a higher level of customer service and you see that with the comments and guest surveys that are given. One of the questions that they ask is if you had a magical experience or moment during your vacation. I really don't have high expectations either, just a smile or a nice conversation. I didn't see much of that at all, I came away with the distinct impression that these cast members just didn't want to be there.