Monorail problems, July 5 & 6

[jarestel]

Originally posted by Bojangles
I did say "apparently". I have never seen a bus driver at WDW turn down anyone that needed (and asked for) assistance.

If the bus drivers were like some of the posters on this thread, the kid didn't have a chance!

 

[wdwdvcdad]

Originally posted by jarestel
Evidently you're incorrect in this situation.

Umm...no. 1 lost child does not equal many.

 

[justhat]

I think it's safe to say that if her son has asked the driver for help and been refused that she would have mentioned that. I still don't see, however, why it is the driver's responsibility to transport one guest on a ttc bus to the Poly? If it was designated a Poly bus, it definitely would have stopped at the Poly, so my only guess is that it was a ttc only bus and that your son was misdirected, as the CMs probably assumed he would just walk from the ttc. He couldn't have been the only Poly guest however so my guess would be that they had other buses.

Additionally, as a repeat WDW guest, knowing that the monorail hotels share buses to certain parks should be common knowledge, even if you don't regularly stay at those hotels because you still see the signs when you go to your bus stop. That would have helped the problem on July 6th.

 

[jarestel]

Originally posted by justhat
Additionally, as a repeat WDW guest, knowing that the monorail hotels share buses to certain parks should be common knowledge, even if you don't regularly stay at those hotels because you still see the signs when you go to your bus stop. That would have helped the problem on July 6th.

As a repeat WDW guest, I'm sure you would know that the monorail resorts are not serviced by busses to-from the MK except in dire circumstances, even if you don't regularly stay at those hotels.

 

[jarestel]

Ok, I'm retiring from this thread. I seem to be going around and around with the same people and getting nowhere fast. Let it be known this is going in your PERMANENT record! ( disclaimer: attempt at levity, no flames please! )

Regards,
Joe

 

[TDC Nala]

I've stayed at the Polynesian. I also travel around WDW at 2 AM quite often because I usually close out PI. I am a lot older than 18 and am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. And I wouldn't have walked that path to the Polynesian alone at 2 AM if they'd paid me to do it. I would have probably tried staying on that bus until the driver took me right next door to the Polynesian bus stop. I guess I'm not shocked that the drivers would actually expect someone to make that walk in the wee hours - it sounds like something Disney transportation would do - but this also sounds like a total disregard for guests' safety.

 

[disneymom3]

ducklite--just wanted to say sorry that this happened. I myself would not have wanted to be dropped off to walk back to the Poly from the TTC at night and I am 34 years old. And, for the record, me and my whole family did get lost on that route and found our way back thanks to a very helpful gardener. (And that was during the day.) Whatever the details and the who or why, I am sorry this stressful situation came up on your vacation.

Also, I couldn't imagine any teenager arguing with a bus driver who told them where they were supposed to go. (Well, any polite teenager anyway.)

 

[sweet maxine]

Wow!

I just checked back this evening to see if there was any resolution to this thread. Now I can see there was not.

It's so sad that some people don't understand the simple premise behind the OP's complaint. When you are a parent, part of that parenting process is nudging your child along, hoping one day they will fly out of the nest. Some children, (my sis-in-law included) never reach that point at which they can completely lift off and let the wind fill their wings to soar. But it is still a wonderful thing to see even the child who keeps trying, experience a moment of flight.

Too many people have condemned the OP in regards to allowing her son to have the opportunity to experience E-ride night. How many of you would be willing to take on the responsibility she must bear in his daily life?

It is exactly logical that this child should have been able to attend E-ride night, like any other child. The only problem with the situation is that his return trip back to the hotel didn't go as planned. I can imagine his mother's worry and despair as the time ticked by.

I'm not sure my 16 y/o twins would have done as well getting back, especially on a winding trail they were unfamiliar with. For that matter, I'm not sure I would be able to do very well either. The fact of the matter is that it doesn't matter who or how old you are, you cannot always be prepared for every scenario in life. The fact that the child made it back to the hotel is heartening.

I do have this to say about some experiences on the buses. It would be nice if the driver announced out loud where the bus is going from the point of departure. I just still wouldn't want my child left at the TTC at 2 am.

 

[PRaffen]

To me, the bottom line issue is the lack of customer service.

I don't care who was on that bus, the guest should have been taken directly to the Poly whether it was the bus driver's route or not. This was not a problem of the guest's making. WDW had a breakdown within its transportation area inconveniencing their guests. For that reason alone, extra effort should have been made which in this case would have been driving Anne's son directly to the Poly. I would have expected no less for myself or anyone else in that position.

Sorry you had such a frustrating experience trying to get back from the MK, Anne. What a pain!

(once my husband was the only passenger on an airport bus (Laguardia) that was not supposed to stop at his hotel but the driver went out of his way to take my DH directly to his hotel so he did not have to take another shuttle. It's called excellent customer service and I would expect no less from WDW. )

 

[Pongo69]

Originally posted by ducklite
I fell that it's reasonable to think that WDW transportation would have taken him from the MK to the Polynesian, and that I shouldn't have had to plan on this not happening. He did have a cell phone with him, and had he been completely not been able to get back, he would have called. He did manage to find his way, after a couple false starts.

He has some issues, but that doesn't mean I should lock him in an institution and throw away the key. He is 18, and I need to give him some freedoms that 18 year olds have--not all, but some. Allowing him to attend e-night in what should have been a controlled situation where I didn't need to worry about him being "stranded" was something I reasonably was able to assume would be fine.

Until you've walked in the shoes of a parent with a child who has a lower mental capacity but is in many ways still their physical age, you have no right to criticize me.

I expected that WDW would transport him back to the POLYNESIAN after e-night. It's unreasonable to think that he would be dumped at the TTC in the middle of the night and told to walk back, regardless of his age or ability.

Anne

I don't see any criticism here. All I see are people who have difference of opinions on what they would of done in this situation.

I'm happy your son made it back safely which is the most important thing here. Instead of focusing your anger on the bus driver did it ever occur to you that maybe those few minutes could have cost him his job. Maybe he was told not go off his route or else. None of us know this because we aren't in the bus driver shoes nor do we know what consequences he could have faced if he did go off route.
With so many children, and adults going thru the parks and riding their transportation each day, it would be impossible for Disney employees to know a person has special needs. It's like pulling a needle out of a haystack.

You know what they say, you can always plan but you don't know the outcome.

A little Off Topic, but sometimes people can mess up a good thing. When you look at some of the threads posted across the boards about people expecting upgrades, free tickets for misplacing something, they didn't feel the so called magic or had a bad experience in the park, with all that complaining and demanding for Disney to appease your every whim don't some think it's becoming old and tiresome.

I'm pretty sure they get sick and tired of the me entitlement attitudes. I'm sure it will come a time when Disney Resorts and Management will only offer something to a guest ONLY IF DISNEY IS AT FAULT FOR SOMETHING SERIOUS. Other than that, people deserve only what they paid for.

 

[manning]

Anne -- let's focus on the future and see what we can do to help.
May I suggest this.

1. Bring along a current photo of your son

2. Have on hand the phone number of security.

3. Have your son have on his person the hotel and room number you are staying at to show to CM or security. All security personel have two way radios and can contact base immediately.

4. After an agreed return time your son isn't back contact security and inform them of the situation and tell them you have a photo.

Hope this helps.

 

[ducklite]

Pongo-

I am NOT looking for anything except WDW to think twice about what happened and make more suitable arrangements for guests should it happen in teh future. I want nothing from them other than to make sure this doesn't happen again.

Anne

 

[ducklite]

Originally posted by manning
Anne -- let's focus on the future and see what we can do to help.
May I suggest this.

1. Bring along a current photo of your son

2. Have on hand the phone number of security.

3. Have your son have on his person the hotel and room number you are staying at to show to CM or security. All security personel have two way radios and can contact base immediately.

4. After an agreed return time your son isn't back contact security and inform them of the situation and tell them you have a photo.

Hope this helps.

My son is not a two year old. He can tell you the name of the resort and his room number. He carries a cell phone, can can contact us at any time if he needs to. He is not "********". He has some learning and nuerological disorders which keep him from processing as quickly as the average person, and takes longer than most to figure out new things/situations.

In this case he did make it back. He was a little upset that I was up worried about him being later than he was expected (like I said, I called him about the time he made it to the GCH). He was a little "shaken" that he had a few times lost his way--he turned back and retraced his steps and figured things out though.

Like I said, he asked at the MK how to get to the Polynesian. He was directed to a specific bus, and told the driver where he was going. The driver took him somewhere else and told him to get off the bus and walk the rest of the way. That's my beef. If the driver hadn't planned on taking him where he was going, he should have said so and told him to look for a different bus. If that had happened, I wouldn't be posting right now.

Anne

 

[Pongo69]

Originally posted by ducklite
Pongo-

I am NOT looking for anything except WDW to think twice about what happened and make more suitable arrangements for guests should it happen in teh future. I want nothing from them other than to make sure this doesn't happen again.

Anne

I wasn't directing that at you but, people in general who feel they are owed something for nothing.
To say you expect it not to happen again is asking alot. Your relying on transportation which as you can see is not 100 percent reliable.

For people to say this bus driver should have done this or that, it all boils down to him doing the job he was hired to do and to follow directions. If he lost his job for doing otherwise I believe some wouldn't think twice about it because it doesn't affect them.

Next time why not have him call you before he boards transportation to head back. At least you'll know ahead of time if you have to make some other arrangement if a problem like this ever occurs again.

 

[Planogirl]

I think it's wonderful that your son did figure out the way to your room. That path is kind of confusing at night and I'm one who's walked it many times both during the day and at night. So kudos to him for sorting it out.

The worst error seems to be that someone directed him to the wrong bus and then the bus driver didn't correct him when he got there. I wonder if Disney even ran extra buses when the system broke down?

 

[Luv2Roam]

Had he asked the bus driver, the driver would probably have done so, or helped in some way. I can't imagine any WDW bus driver wants to drop off a guest who feels unsafe in their surroundings.
But I would not be surprised if the driver would not. My thinking is if the driver did drop off the guest at an unassigned route stop, and something happened to that guest after leaving the bus, then Disney would once again be in deep do-do.
I think by doing making an extra unplanned drop off they would be accepting additional responsibility.
Maybe someone familiar in law could clue us in.
Bad parent? No. Just one of those things that happens. Looking back at our younger years don't we all wonder how we lived this long?
And I don't think writing a suggestion and your experience to Disney is bad. They always need different perspective from guest's visits and experiences, IMO. Otherwise how could they better themselves?

 

[MaryAnnDVC]

I would imagine if the monorail wasn't running, there was a multitude of people asking CM's questions about how to get from one place to another, and I can see how one person can get lost in the crowd. Who knows...I wasn't there.

But I have 3 kids...2 girls, almost 16 and 14, and a DS, 11. The girls both have cell phones, and it is a HUGE rule that ANY time their plans change when they're out, or ANYTHING happens that is unexpected, they need to call me, no matter what time it is. If DD (16) is out and the plan it to go bowling and walk to a nearby restaurant, and they go to the restaurant next to that one instead, she needs to call me. Always. And if I don't hear from her by a certain time, I call her. Depending on the situation, she needs to call me when she leaves one place, and is going to another (ie, leaving her boyfriend's house, and walking a long distance to her friend's house) and when she arrives at the other.

If my DD had called when leaving E-night and the plan had changed (no monorail), then I could have advised her what to do, or she could have told me what she planned to do. If she had arrived at the TTC and had been told to walk, she could have called and DH or I could have walked/driven to meet up with her, or we would have told her to find a CM and stay with him/her until we arrived, or SOMETHING. (Ah...she just called...change of plans tonight. )

But we're not perfect. We've had miscommunications (when DD was 12, I lost her in DL for 2 1/2 hours from a lack of communication that we didn't realize we had until we rehashed it all after we found each other.) We've found ourselves in situations that have been learning experiences where, at the very least, after it was over, we've said "what went wrong, and how should we have handled it better?" The thing is...**** happens even at WDW, and if a kid is going out on their own, he/she needs to have some basis for dealing with the "what ifs"; I'm not saying that you should have said "what should you do if the monorail breaks down?", but "what if you get lost, what if....". Not that Disney is blameless...perhaps some things should have been handled differently...but anyone who is going to be out on their own should have a pretty good basis for how to deal with things when the situation changes. I would hope that you haven't totally focused on Disney's failures, and have taken the opportunity to discuss with him how HE could have handled it better, because there ARE going to be situations in life that HE will need to deal with, and in places not as nice or as safe as Disney.

 

[ducklite]

We have discussed it, and should a similar situation ever arise again, he will refuse to get off the bus until they have another means of transportation available for him. He now understands that it was not right for them to drop him off at the TTC and tell him to walk back to the Polynesian. I've also let him know that if something like this happens again, he needs to call me.

That said, he was obeying an "authority figure". When I was his age, I probably would have done the same thing.

Anne

 

[manning]

Anne -- I'm sorry you took my post in a negative manner. I was just trying to give some suggestions for the future. I guess I will have to ignore your future posts.

I hope everything works out for you.

 

[Familyof14]

For a bus driver to drop a kid (or ANY guest for that matter) off at the TTC at 2:15 am and tell them to walk from there to the Polynesian is ridiculous.

I agree!

Anne - I am glad your son got back safely. As I see it, your son did a remarkable job getting back on his own. I know that I would probably get lost because I never pay attention to directions or where I am when we travel. I just follow my DH around like a puppy.

BTW - Your house is looking great!

PS - This thread is becoming too long and is becoming repetitive.