The popcorn cart guy almost ruined our trip!

[TinkerbellMama]

To post this on the board begs the question...what is the point in telling this story? To warn others not to go to evil popcorn sellers?

Well, for those who aren't so busy being snarky , they might be forewarned not to wait until the last minute for popcorn or other concession items, because clearly when the carts close down, they can't be counted on to make exceptions for crying children. I'm really surprised you found NOTHING informative about this thread. It's a lot more relevant than some of the drivel I read on these boards.

 

[Blueyed Girl]

Why does every CM have to be magical? Thats all you hear about....magical CMs. Do you understand they are employees making about minimum wage to wait hand and foot on thousands of people a shift? They are not magical. The idea of Disney is magical, yes. But it isnt a wonderland where all bad things go away- it is an amusement park. Do you think that every person that works there is happy to wait hand and foot on people who are so ungrateful they let POPCORN ruin a $5000 trip????

This truly amuses me. I will answer your first question of "Why does every CM have to be magical?".......BECAUSE THEY ARE WORKING AT DISNEY WORLD...."THE MOST MAGICAL PLACE ON EARTH". You truly do have to be a magical person to work there under some of the conditions you have listed, which is why it is NOT a job for everyone. If you can't be "magical" in the "most magical place on earth", then you need to work somewhere else. Very simple.

 

[sk!mom]

Yeah, what she said!

In response to another poster's suggestion, I don't teach my child to accept disappointment. I teach him to rise above it and find another way to make himself happy.

Go back and reread my post. I did not say "accept" disappointment. I said "handle" disappointment. No matter how we try disappoinments will come for our children. It's up to us to teach them coping skills.

In my DD11's young life she has had stomach flu on her birthday, had another birthday party rained on, and just this year, after months of work and preparation ,she woke up too sick to dance on the day of the last Nutcracker performance- missed the cast party too. In all of these cases we helped her see that sometimes things do not go as planned but it is up to us how they effect us. In the OP's case, I really think the reaction is a bigger problem than the original issue.

In our family an 8 year old crying over popcorn would not be acceptable and I would worry if I hadn't taught my children better coping skills by that age. My children at 2 or 3 might have cried but any older and they would have been annoyed, as DH and I would have, over waiting in line and then not being served but we would have all just moved on. I can't imagine that any of us would still be talking about it once we returned home from a funfilled vacation.

I have really tried to teach my children to "not sweat the small stuff" and to me popcorn is small stuff.

 

[TinkerbellMama]

Go back and reread my post. I did not say "accept" disappointment. I said "handle" disappointment.

FWIW, I wasn't talking about you.

And I agree, coping skills are the most important thing you can teach a child. That's what my post was all about!

 

[jenrein]

Go back and reread my post. I did not say "accept" disappointment. I said "handle" disappointment. No matter how we try disappoinments will come for our children. It's up to us to teach them coping skills.

In my DD11's young life she has had stomach flu on her birthday, had another birthday party rained on, and just this year, after months of work and preparation ,she woke up too sick to dance on the day of the last Nutcracker performance- missed the cast party too. In all of these cases we helped her see that sometimes things do not go as planned but it is up to us how they effect us. In the OP's case, I really think the reaction is a bigger problem than the original issue.

In our family an 8 year old crying over popcorn would not be acceptable and I would worry if I hadn't taught my children better coping skills by that age. My children at 2 or 3 might have cried but any older and they would have been annoyed, as DH and I would have, over waiting in line and then not being served but we would have all just moved on. I can't imagine that any of us would still be talking about it once we returned home from a funfilled vacation.

I have really tried to teach my children to "not sweat the small stuff" and to me popcorn is small stuff.

Amen

 

[jenrein]

This truly amuses me. I will answer your first question of "Why does every CM have to be magical?".......BECAUSE THEY ARE WORKING AT DISNEY WORLD...."THE MOST MAGICAL PLACE ON EARTH". You truly do have to be a magical person to work there under some of the conditions you have listed, which is why it is NOT a job for everyone. If you can't be "magical" in the "most magical place on earth", then you need to work somewhere else. Very simple.

Well if they had to deal with the OP and the popcorn issue, then I am sure they deal with much more. How magical can one person be? How can you expect a CM to be held responsible for ensuring every magical moment of a trip has been met?? She obviously has high expectations of everyone already....give me a break. Yah Disney is supposed to be magical but you cannot expect it will be. Its real life. Sometimes you dont get the popcorn. You get over it and move on!

 

[Kerlynne]

What ticks me off is why is there a sign that says they accept the Dining Plan, for him to turn around and say he doesn't! I still want an answer to that one!

And second, throwing it away in front of kids! They should wheel away their cart and get rid of it elsewhere.
Thinking about why Walt had those tunnels built allows us to feel it as more magical. NOt having to see the ugly trach cans wheeled though main street, etc. it's all in the feeling of being there, somewhere different, unlike home! IT wasn't made to be jsut another theme park.
I remember hearing back in a day, they would change the lightbulbs every day, so we would never have to see a bulb burned out.

I suppose if this happened to my boys, what I would tell them is, the boy couldn't give us just the popcorn, because there was several other children that wanted it too, but wouldn't be enough at that last second. And something like the popcorn can only "sit" in there for so many hours and it was now bad, and he was unable to serve it, that's why he threw it away.

 

[Stimpy]

What ticks me off is why is there a sign that says they accept the Dining Plan, for him to turn around and say he doesn't! I still want an answer to that one!

That unfortunately is a problem at several of the stands that Disney really needs to fix. Sometimes the DDP works, sometimes it doesn't work on their little computer thing.

And second, throwing it away in front of kids! They should wheel away their cart and get rid of it elsewhere.

The popcorn carts & ice cream carts generally are not moved around. They are pretty much left right where they are and just covered up at night.

This truly amuses me. I will answer your first question of "Why does every CM have to be magical?".......BECAUSE THEY ARE WORKING AT DISNEY WORLD...."THE MOST MAGICAL PLACE ON EARTH". You truly do have to be a magical person to work there under some of the conditions you have listed, which is why it is NOT a job for everyone. If you can't be "magical" in the "most magical place on earth", then you need to work somewhere else. Very simple.

I do feel for the boy this happened to. Most parents don't want to see their children disappointed. I do think saying this ruined your whole trip is bit extreme. My own children have been disappointed about small things happening on our vacations but it has never "ruined" them.

You do realize that Disney employs thousands of CM's? They have a hard time finding people to work there sometimes. They are constantly trying to hire people & recruit all over to fill empty positions. Yes, most of the CM are great and "magical". Unfortunately, you are going to run into a few that aren't so willing or aren't able to be like that 24/7.

There are so many reasons why it's possible the CM couldn't just give away the popcorn. Like someone else said, if he gave it to you, someone else would be right behind you asking for some. His job is important to him etc.

I'm interested to know from the people that said they received free popcorn....was there other guests around? I know the 1 time we were given free ice cream from a stand (same thing, said they took DDP but the CM's computer wouldn't work), the CM just gave it to us with a smile. There was no other guests around either. If you were leaving the park, I imagine there were others all over.

 

[jenrein]

What ticks me off is why is there a sign that says they accept the Dining Plan, for him to turn around and say he doesn't! I still want an answer to that one!

I had this happen on our trip - their card machine was down and they just couldnt take the cards right then...I am assuming that was what the issue was

 

[TruBlu]

She obviously has high expectations of everyone already....give me a break.

This is very funny to me. I had the HIGH EXPECTATIONS of being able to BUY popcorn (I never said anything about wanting it free).

 

[TruBlu]

I had this happen on our trip - their card machine was down and they just couldnt take the cards right then...I am assuming that was what the issue was

I assumed that too. That is why I didn't complain when we were turned away after standing in line the first night. That is also why we took cash the second night.

 

[meandtheguys2]

Poor kid. Ragging on a tired 8 year old disappointed about his last disney trip encounter seems a bit extreme.

Let him/her whose kid hasn't had an unexpected meltdown cast the first stone, imo. Mine sure have, and it has usually appeared to be about nothing.

And it wouldn't have killed the CM to be nice. That is part of the job requirements, I would assume.

 

[DisneyRockStarMommy]

I really feel for you..I understand that RUDE posters do get a kick out of aggravating people..Jenrein..it is inapropriate how you are acting..I hope that you do not act this way towards you're children..if you do i personally feel sorry for them..Trublue you have absolute right to feel upset..children remember the very last memories of their trip..I hope that the people who have upset you do not act this way towards their children...

 

[TruBlu]

This is why it is never worth it to pour your feelings out on these threads. Better to just stick with asking questions, providing answers and sticking with the facts. Otherwise you have people like this responding to your concerns.

No worries. I just ignored that post.

 

[The Disney Bunch]

Haven' read through the posts -but I would hope that one incident wouldn't ruin your whole trip. I am sure the CM was a jerk but there should have been plenty of wonderful things that happened on the trip to overshadow one bad incident. You need to look at it as the glass is half full. It is a good lesson to teach your children as well. There are jerks out there but you cannot let them ruin/run your life. Good luck!

 

[Laura]

So are you saying that I should treasure the memory of my boys crying because someone threw food away instead of letting them buy it?

Well, I'm not saying that things shouldn't have been handled differently. But I think that they weren't throwing the popcorn away. When I worked at a movie theater, we put the popcorn in a plastic bag so it wouldn't be so stale for the next day. It wasn't tossed out. I bet that's what they were doing. They could've been nice and just handed you a small container as they were bagging the popcorn, though, rather than leave any little kids crying.

 

[RickinNYC]

I've experienced the (VERY) occasional cast member who's either rude, surly or just plain blah on just about every trip. I would still never go so far as to think that this one particular person was representative of the entire population of Cast Members, nor would I even think he/she might possibly have ruined my trip. I look beyond the single incident and go on with my day. I'm not flaming the OP or anyone who supports her. I just think that the reaction to one single incident is a bit too extreme for my tastes.

 

[meandtheguys2]

Rick that was nicely stated.

It is hard, sometimes to remember that other's aren't resonsible for our happiness. I guess that is why I don't blame kids for occasionally loosing that perspective. Of course, it is much easier to forgive other people's kids than the ones with whom I live!

 

[disneyfan19712006]

If I were you, I'd let your situation be known to Disney somehow. Obviously they can't undo the damage that was done, but it may help them change their actions down the road and prevent future childrens' visits from being tarnished. I totally understand how something even as small as popcorn can be a big deal when a child is tired, so don't feel like you should have to apologize. Disney should understand that too. What a shame!

I agree that they need to be aware of the situation. I would think the CM would have the ability to grant a little magic for a tired crying child.

 

[Missy1961]

I've experienced the (VERY) occasional cast member who's either rude, surly or just plain blah on just about every trip. I would still never go so far as to think that this one particular person was representative of the entire population of Cast Members, nor would I even think he/she might possibly have ruined my trip. I look beyond the single incident and go on with my day. I'm not flaming the OP or anyone who supports her. I just think that the reaction to one single incident is a bit too extreme for my tastes.

Exactly what I was thinking.