The DIS Boards in NY Times article

[GrimGhost]

Some Ask if the Disney Magic Is Slipping
By CHARLES PASSY
The New York Times

.....The issue seems to resonate with Disney guests. On such Web sites as WDWInfo.com and MiceAge.com, they debate matters ranging from the company's attention to ride safety (in the wake of recent scares connected to such attractions as Mission: Space at the Epcot park and the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disney-MGM Studios, including the death of a 4-year-old boy after riding Mission: Space) to the wait times for Disney buses. There appears to be a growing view that the Mouse no longer delivers at the same magical level.....

 

[mitros]

I guess it's about time that 73,000+ board members get some press!

 

[stczt]

thats great!!!

 

[GrimGhost]

I guess it's about time that 73,000+ board members get some press!

Mitros, my thoughts exactly, which was my motivation behind posting!

 

[Moobooks]

I had a terrible experience checking in at the Beach Club in May, where I was lied to by the CM at the front desk and put in a smoking room. The manager I spoke with was full of corporate double talk, and little else. Left me furious. Yeah, I'd say the magic in Walt Disney World is slipping, and I plan on spending more time at Disneyland in California because of it.

Edited to add e-mail notification.

 

[mickey2000]

I had a terrible experience checking in at the Beach Club in May, where I was lied to by the CM at the front desk and put in a smoking room. The manager I spoke with was full of corporate double talk, and little else. Left me furious. Yeah, I'd say the magic in Walt Disney World is slipping, and I plan on spending more time at Disneyland in California because of it.

Edited to add e-mail notification.

Sorry but its all about the

My last visit to the Beach Club my room had burn marks on the rugs in a non smoking room and a sheet of plywood under the mattress!

 

[mitros]

OK, now, that really bites! A sheet of plywood???

 

[bicker]

My last visit to the Beach Club my room had burn marks on the rugs in a non smoking room and a sheet of plywood under the mattress!

My room had burn marks on the carpeting too... but that was Dixie Landings (now Port Orleans Riverside), and it was 1994.

I believe you can request plywood under the mattress. Many folks need that kind of additional support.

 

[patsal]

Must be the same weasel that checked me in at the Beach Club last year! The manager then didn't know double talk, just really blunt and rude with no people skills.

 

[mickey2000]

My room had burn marks on the carpeting too... but that was Dixie Landings (now Port Orleans Riverside), and it was 1994.

I believe you can request plywood under the mattress. Many folks need that kind of additional support.

They told me that the mattress was old and needed to be replaced. They claimed that they all would be replaced in the fall which didn't help us sleep!!

 

[bicker]

Sounds reasonable. Given that some of these hotels have been operating for over 30 years, I'd expect that some of them have gone through numerous cycles where their matresses start out new, then they get older, then they're old and need to be replaced.

 

[mickey2000]

Sounds reasonable. Given that some of these hotels have been operating for over 30 years, I'd expect that some of them have gone through numerous cycles where their matresses start out new, then they get older, then they're old and need to be replaced.

What I'm trying to say. They should be replaced before they need to use a sheet of plywood. I paid over $300 a night for this room. This is not a flame, however it probably is a waste of time for me to post the facts, as in some responses, others claim Disney can do NO wrong, some might even think I was unlucky and was the only one with the board in the whole resort !!:rotfl2
And yes I still go back to Disney and enjoy it there, just this one bad experience! In fact during the past 12 years we have been to the parks a total of 211 days!

 

[mitros]

You won't get an argument from me!

 

[Euphscott]

...and Beach Club has not been open for 30 years...

 

[Mickeyistheman]

I am one of those Disney fans where I feel Disney can't do wrong. If they did and people really were THAT upset with an incident, we wouldn't have all of these boards with how are the crowds. It seems pretty crowded to me so that can't be doing everything wrong. I work in the travel industry and with regards to the report. Not everything is guaranteed especially when it comes to connecting rooms and non smoking. If people travel enough then they should know that. Otherwise shame on their travel agent who booked them!

But if you get upset because you didn't get a towel animal..... come on I think there are much bigger things to complain about than not getting a towel animal.

Disney is not what it used to be as far as service goes but sometimes that CM might be having a bad day it happens to all of us. Let's just hope things will get back on track come Sept.



19 days till CSR!!!!!!!

 

[bicker]

You're missing the point.

No; I'm just not convinced of the point. I've found Disney's beds to be quite comfortable, on every visit I've ever made there.

It seems pretty crowded to me so that can't be doing everything wrong.

This is a really good point. While any individual could have anecdotal experiences, which they personally perceive as negative, different individuals could have their own anecdotal experiences, even identical experiences, which they personally perceive as positive. Given the objective data, hotel load levels and theme park attendance, it seems that the latter far outweigh the former. This is despite more than two decades of folks pointing to their personal anecdotal experiences as the basis for assertions that Disney is declining. After the first ten years, I started become a little skeptical. Disney surely can do wrong, but it seems to me that what they do wrong typically has very little correlation to individual guests' anecdotal experiences.

 

[mitros]

No towel animal? I think you are missing the point. We Disney "regulars" are seeing a drop in the Disney way of caring and maintaining. We know that Disney can, and HAS done better in the past. It's not the point of not having a towel animal or one less bar of soap in the room, it's the rooms not being cleaned properly, it's burned out bulbs, chipped paint, it's ride maintenence that is suffering, it's the fact that there are less CMs operating rides, {safety} it's food stands not being open, and long lines at ones that are open, {there's that less CMs thing}, it's faded paint, it's shorter hours on, and less rides being open, it's trash not being picked up {CMs where are you?} I can literally go on and on.
We know that Disney has the ability to fix these problems, but why aren't they? And the one thing that we have noticed in our several hundred trips to WDW, is that the CMs, as overworked as they are, still grasp Walt's idea of keeping the guest happy. They do their best under the circumstances.
And to take M. Eisner out of the equation when looking for a reason for this loss of "magic' would be quite nearsighted. It all rolls down hill. The boss says cut, and everything down the line gets cut.
I don't know, it seems so simple to a lot of us. IOHO, as meek as we are.

 

[bicker]

Let's take "food stands not being open," as an example. It is reasonable to schedule the hours for a food stand commensurate with patrons' willingness to pay a sufficient enough premium to support the food stand being open. Disney's strength has always been listening to the customer. Listening to the customer means not only listening to them when they say, "I care about this!" -- it also means listening to the customer when they say, "I don't care much about that." That distinction has always been Disney's strength. What you may consider a lynchpin of an assertion of a "decline" I consider to be a hallmark of an assertion of acute sensitivity to what drives overall customer satisfaction. To operate any other way would be disrespectful to the legacy of the company, as it would undercut the company's ability to compete in the years to come, as we saw happen in the 1970s.

 

[Buzz2001]

But another part of the equation, say observers like Deb Wills, founder of AllEarsNet.com, another unofficial Disney site, is that Disney guests have come to anticipate "magic moments" at, well, every moment. "People hear so many wonderful things they think it's going to be picture perfect," she said. Take the famed "towel animals" - towels that have been shaped to resemble wildlife - that Disney maids have been known to leave in a guest's room. What started as a surprise offering has now become a de rigueur part of the Disney experience.

I tend to agree more with this part of the article.

 

[WDWdad2]

I tend to agree more with this part of the article.

I remember when Mousekeeping's arrangement of the stuffed animals in the room or the window was such a treat.

On our recent (7/1 - 7/6) stay at POP, we had no towel animals and minimal creativity the other days, including one day of nothing at all.

Our DD11 fondly remembers all the times on past trips she came back to the room to a funny display, so she wanted to show DD2-1/2 this time. Unfortunately, the best display occurred when I got to the room a few steps ahead of the family and turned on the TV, placing the remote with the stuffed animals that were just sitting on a towel on the bed.

Maybe it was because the DDs brought the hippo and lion from Madagascar along with Mickey and Pluto!

This just illustrates how Disney can be a victim of its own high standards and the expectations it creates. When that expectation isn't met, we post on an internet board and newspaper articles are written about the loss of the "magic."

P.S. Yes, we tip Mousekeeping!