Paranoid or Chapek just being "Lex"?

[going/again]

What I’d like to see down the road is a real Simpsons Land, not that crappy one at Universal.

Please no

 

[ford91exploder]

You state a mouthful here. Are saying a company should not try to IMPROVE their product with technology? Or that a company should not try to improved systems and save in labor costs with technology? I will agree with you there is a fine line between keeping superior customer service and introducing cash saving technology, and we have always held Disney to a higher expectation. I guess my biggest issue with your post is that it is just a very broad criticism of ongoing change. Change for the sake of change is not good, but every company should try to control expenses and improve on systems. Unfortunately all attempts to do so do not work out to the benefit us as consumers.

there is a large delta between improving systems which decrease labor cost and improve customer service and those which simply remove labor cost and force the customer to perform tasks once handled by the company. Disney’s changes in the last 10 years have been of the latter variety.

 

[ford91exploder]

For all those who just want to see the negative, there are just as many shining times to be remembered. When my son in law was finally released from the military, My wife and I treated my daughter and son in law to a Disney Vacation. We had a reservation at Cinderella Castle, one of the more pricey places to dine. They had an employee go around and asking what each table was celebrating. We advised we were celebrating the safe return of our veteran. So when it came time to pay the bill, we were thanked for his service and they picked up the whole bill. You see, when it is least expected is when you receive the magic.

Its stuff like that which current management wants to eliminate its like the towel animals which once were a signature feature of Disney’s deluxe resort villa’s we used to keep ours on display during the entire stay. Best one we ever got was a pair of swans.

Then Disney decided too expensive and upped the number of rooms each Mousekeeping staffer had to do, Net result no magic on arrival and rooms nowhere near as clean as they were before.

Tell me how that benefited anyone except the executive collecting their bonus.

 

[ford91exploder]

No investment in the Parks? Over a billion (estimates are as high as 3 billion) on the Magic Band technology. There was the several hundred million investment in WDW Fantasy land. The Billion plus investment on Avatar Land. Than the several billion combination of Toy Story Land and Star Wars Land. This is just in WDW, there were just as many if not more in Disneyland/California Adventure. Now where you have a point is in many of these projects it seemed they cut some corners from the original plans. But to make a blanket statement that there were no investment in the Parks, that is not true. Of all the investments you mentioned, I find it interesting that you picked the Marvel acquistion. Disney has not only made back all their money but more than doubled their money back -- Same as Pixar. Only the Star War purchase has not quite lived up to the original out lay, but lets wait to see how the new programs on Disney+ are received before making a final determination.

yes 3 billion over several years in a time when the parks brought in on the order of 75 billion in revenue. No that not a lot of money when at the same time when Disney was spending 2-3 billion per quarter on stock repurchases. Also not saying that all of repurchase money should have been used for park expansion. Much of it should have been put in the bank for rainy days.

 

[Poohspaleeyore]

I miss the days when a family of four could stay 8 days in a deluxe villa studio with regular dining plan 8 day park hopper and wateR parks during thanksgiving week and more for 3000 and 4000 dollars . The same trip today would cost 8 thousand before dining expense

 

[ford91exploder]

I miss the days when a family of four could stay 8 days in a deluxe villa studio with regular dining plan 8 day park hopper and wateR parks during thanksgiving week and more for 3000 and 4000 dollars . The same trip today would cost 8 thousand before dining expense

And you had far more perks and better customer service than anything seen today at a Disney park.

 

[cranbiz]

Really? Not sure where you live, but in my area I haven't heard of a bank that doesn't charge you at least a dollar surcharge to use the teller instead of the ATM.

Really?

Not here in NC. In fact, if my bank tried that, it would be the last time I used that bank. The ATM is not capable of performing all the tasks of a teller, including withdrawal of large sums of cash.

 

[ford91exploder]

Really?

Not here in NC. In fact, if my bank tried that, it would be the last time I used that bank. The ATM is not capable of performing all the tasks of a teller, including withdrawal of large sums of cash.

The fee for teller is usually found in larger cities like Boston, NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago heck in boston one of the main branches has ONLY ATM's about 30 of them and no tellers.

 

[mamaofsix]

The fee for teller is usually found in larger cities like Boston, NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago heck in boston one of the main branches has ONLY ATM's about 30 of them and no tellers.

Or, in my case, rural Canada. lol. Almost every bank here in Ontario charges a teller fee.

 

[cranbiz]

The fee for teller is usually found in larger cities like Boston, NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago heck in boston one of the main branches has ONLY ATM's about 30 of them and no tellers.

So what do you do when the cash you need is in excess of the ATM's limit? Visit multiple ATM's? My accounts daily limit on an ATM may be $5000 but if the ATM's limit is $800 and you need $2500, will your bank let you actually go to 4 ATM's in that tellerless branch to transact business? Not only is that very time consuming, it's a massive PITA and an inconvenience to the customer. Why don't customers fight back against these tactics.

I can tell you that Bank of America will lock your card if they see that type of activity on your account to "protect you from Fraud" and to unlock it is usually an hour on the phone. Whereas one visit to a teller gets you what you need and your card doesn't get locked. Where I live, branches of my bank are not convenient and I sometimes do have to visit multiple ATM's to get cash for a buy/sell transaction with an individual so I have experiences this massive inconvenience. When possible I always visit a branch on my way to the transaction to get cash from a teller. Changing banks is a massive undertaking, I understand that so in my case, it was my choice not to switch to a bank with a branch local to me. If I was being charged for being able to walk into a branch to transact business with a teller, I would absolutely be changing banks and I would tell them why.

 

[mamaofsix]

So what do you do when the cash you need is in excess of the ATM's limit? Visit multiple ATM's? My accounts daily limit on an ATM may be $5000 but if the ATM's limit is $800 and you need $2500, will your bank let you actually go to 4 ATM's in that tellerless branch to transact business? Not only is that very time consuming, it's a massive PITA and an inconvenience to the customer. Why don't customers fight back against these tactics.

I can tell you that Bank of America will lock your card if they see that type of activity on your account to "protect you from Fraud" and to unlock it is usually an hour on the phone. Whereas one visit to a teller gets you what you need and your card doesn't get locked. Where I live, branches of my bank are not convenient and I sometimes do have to visit multiple ATM's to get cash for a buy/sell transaction with an individual so I have experiences this massive inconvenience. When possible I always visit a branch on my way to the transaction to get cash from a teller. Changing banks is a massive undertaking, I understand that so in my case, it was my choice not to switch to a bank with a branch local to me. If I was being charged for being able to walk into a branch to transact business with a teller, I would absolutely be changing banks and I would tell them why.

I pay the $1 or $2 fee if I need to use a teller for something, which isn't very often...usually only when I have to exchange for foreign currency. It's not really that big of a deal to me. To be honest, I doubt Disney will ever start charging a fee to speak to a human customer service rep. But, I understand the poster's reasoning that the precedent is there in other service industries.

 

[ford91exploder]

I pay the $1 or $2 fee if I need to use a teller for something, which isn't very often...usually only when I have to exchange for foreign currency. It's not really that big of a deal to me. To be honest, I doubt Disney will ever start charging a fee to speak to a human customer service rep. But, I understand the poster's reasoning that the precedent is there in other service industries.

As a side note, Most cell carriers also charge for 'in-person' services like taking a payment. So I believe that Disney will attempt to put guest relations services online and charge for those who refuse to use the kiosk or whatever automated system Disney chooses to deploy,

Also remember that GR used to be pretty free with handing out 'magic fastpasses' automated systems will put an end to that as well. There were a few times we were offered the magic fastpasses after complaining about something, We turned them down on the theory that if we took them GR would forget our complaint in 5 minutes, while turning them down would make the GR rep remember the issue as NO ONE turns down free FP's. I/We never wanted more from Disney other than what we paid for, Snakes coming in under the sliding door, fix the bloody door seal so that the snakes cant make a return visit to us or another guest, Broken major appliance FIX the thing. is all we ever wanted from Disney. Free FP's don't fix the underlying issue.

I do realize there are no fastpasses now, but they will return probably in a get the first one free and the rest are gonna cost ya dearly mode.