want to go to dlp...dont go before you read this

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daisygeorge

Earning My Ears
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Aug 13, 2007
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If You Are About To Go To Dlp - Don't Go!!!!

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I have just returned from there for the 4 time in 6 years and this is what happened to me and my family...have written to disney who sent my daughter a watch...that we had already brought her on hols and a photogragh that was blurred and scrawled on it "sleeping beauty" evan my 5 year knows that she did not sign it and as deeply upset !!!!! the parks were great, but just look at customer service

I welcome your comments...am I being unreasonable !!!

Visit to Disneyland Paris Resort – July 14, 2007 – July 19, 2007

I am writing to you to complain about the recent visit that I had to Disneyland Paris and the service that I received whilst there, something which I did complain about on several occasions whilst at the resort only to be told that nothing could be done about my complaint until I returned home and had to e-mail, fax or write a letter of complaint to you.

My first complaint is that I booked my holiday with Disney direct, firstly through the internet and then via the telephone as you are unable to book Eurostar through your site and spoke to a gentleman who took me through my booking and confirmed the price to me, and he said that we had seats on Eurostar and everything was fine (however as you will see from later on in my letter that I was never informed that I did not have to have a seat for my son, who is 3 and that our seats were not together on Eurostar…something that if I had of known this information I would not have continued with the booking as I have two small young children, both with problems and had I have known that they were not seated with me, WOULD NOT HAVE BOOKED, I will move onto that situation later on. Once I had made my booking I never received any paperwork to confirm that I had a booking and that you had received my deposit, although I was told over the telephone that my deposit payment had gone through successfully at the time.

Prior to me paying the actual balance of the holiday 8 weeks before we had still not received any paperwork telling us when the balance was due and that our deposit had been paid. We telephoned the reservations department only to be told that our actual paperwork had been sent to an incorrect e-mail address, although at the time of booking I had spelt the email address to them. We then received an e-mail copy of our booking which we duly printed out and paid the balance of our holiday.

10 day before the departure we had still not received any paperwork to say that we had paid for our holiday, either though the post or through an email and we had not received our Eurostar tickets and I became concerned. We telephoned your reservations department only to be told that they had been sent on June 27 and we should not worry.

We then made several telephone calls to your reservations department over the next few days, still being told that not to worry that the tickets would turn up. I asked what would happen if they did not and was told that everything would be sorted out with Eurostar for us to travel. One week before we travelled, we again telephoned reservations and were told to telephone the Monday before we travelled and tell them again that we did not have our tickets. I was most annoyed now and asked if these tickets could be reprinted and reposted to me and was told most rudely by a manager (in reservations in USA named Elsie) she said 1), what were we phoning for and we should phone on Monday as we had been told in a previous telephone conversations and 2) that I should not be so impatient and our tickets would be at Eurostar, she categorically said that she personally would not reprint them as they had been sent and we could pick them up on the day of travel from Eurostar office and if there were any problems that we could ring Disney and they would speak to Eurostar. Our only problem being that Disney reservations did not open until 9.15am on Saturday and we travelled at 10.27am and we would have to go through customs etc after we had sorted out the tickets so if there was a problem then there might not be time to sort it out, this was explained to Elsie who said that we had better turn up early and hope for the best, still no mention in any telephone call that our children aged 3 and 5 would be sitting next to strangers on the Eurostar on the return journey (something Disney supposedly child friendly had organised in their wisdom).

We telephoned the reservations team again on Monday and were told that as the tickets had still not turned up we should wait until Thursday and then phone Disney again who would organise a reference number for us to quote to Eurostar who would be able to give us duplicate tickets for the journey.

In the meantime I had telephoned Eurostar to confirm that they would accept a reference from Disney and that we would be able to collect our tickets the day before we travelled and they confirmed that as long as we had the correct Disney reference (although the booking reference would not be acceptable to them) then they would more that happily sort out the tickets for us.

I telephoned Disney again on Thursday and again was told that I should give the tickets another day to arrive and then they would sort out the reference number for me to give to Eurostar. I explained that I lived over 250 miles from the Ashford Station and would have to travel the day before as we were staying over with two small children. I asked for the reference number and was told that I could not be given that number until the day of travel in case the tickets arrived. I explained that I would not be at my home address even if they did arrive and I may not have enough time to ring Disney on the day of travel and was told that I had better arrive at Eurostar extra early then. I then spoke to a supervisor who after much delay did give me a reference for me to quote to Eurostar, (unfortunately this was the booking reference) I explained that I had spoken to Eurostar and they had told me that this was no good and that I needed another number from Disney for them to process the tickets. I was told that this was the only number they had and I could only see eurostar on the day and collect the tickets from them. When I complained again and said that I would go to the press if Disney did not sort this out I was put through to a supervisor in Transport and given the correct reference number to quote to Eurostar.

We arrived at Eurostar at Ashford on Friday afternoon and collected our tickets from the Eurostar office with the reference number given to us by Disney (after many telephone calls to the reservations team). The lady who served us saw that we had small children and informed us that as our tickets had been lost we would have to be given new seats that were not together as the train was full and these were the only seats left we would be coming back on our return journey with only two seats together. We asked as we had small children (one who is disabled, as am I and the other who has behavioural problems) if there was any way that we would have our seats repositioned and were told that Disney could sort it out if they saw fit, and if not the only thing was to upgrade to first class at £60 per person, this included children, total cost being £240.00 for the return journey.

We telephoned the reservations team and asked if this could be done and were told bluntly NO and that Disney could not guarantee seats would be together. We explained that we had two small children with problems and told still NO and were then put through to Elsie the team reservations manager in Florida (someone what we had exchanged words with earlier about the tickets not arriving at our home address)in all of the telephone calls that we made to Disney reservations that day (and were on each time put through to her) she was extremely rude, confrontational, abrupt and sarcastic to say the least and on several occasions I did have to stop her and tell her that she was being rude and sarcastic(to which she did not apologise and changed the subject and said that if I did not like what she was saying then she would terminate the call and I would get nowhere) Elsie said that Disney could not guarantee that seats were together and we should have read the terms and conditions in the brochure and then we would have known this. We said that we thought that the whole idea of booking over the telephone was that you did not have to read terms and conditions in a brochure and she said that they did not control the seats on Eurostar and if they did it would be called Disneystar and not Eurostar and did I not understand this. I explained that as the service was called Disney express and we paid our money to Disney we would expect Disney to sort out problems like this and not Eurostar. I explained to Elsie that as I had two small young frightened children with me that should be the only reason I need to get seats together, (bearing in mind the recent abduction of Madeline McCann in Europe). Elsie informed me that I should not be like her parents and go out of the train carriage and leave my children alone and I should have my eyes on them at all times and then everything would be fine. So I said that I should have my children on my lap for two hours and then I know that they would be safe and Elsie confirmed that yes, that would be the best option, my children would not be sat next to a stranger or left unattended. She also said that my husband would be seated in the seat in front of my children and therefore she could not see what the problem was as the children were both in arms reach of my husband and myself … The only problem being was that he was seated in front of the seat on its own (with one being a aisle seat and the other a window seat so he could not see the children on the other side of the carriage so my husband would have to have extremely long arms . Elsie also said that we could get the person sitting in one of the seats next to us if they could move and this would be a sign of goodwill. I asked if we used only two seats could we have a refund of the other two and was informed by Elsie that this was not disney’s fault as I had not said that I and my son were disabled at the time of booking and Disney do not guarantee seats together on eurostar so we would have to pay for four seats and only use two, but this was our choice.

Elsie did inform us that they had the ability to hear what was said in our original booking telephone conversation when I said that I was not told that I had a choice not to buy a ticket for my son (although this may have been deleted now). She telephoned my husband back to inform him that they did have this conversation on record and I had not asked for seats to be together, however when my husband asked if we could have a copy of this recording or listen to it, she refused blankly and said under US law we did not have right to hear it.

She said that we had to take her word for what was said and she could not take our word for anything. She also at the end of the telephone conversation said we are not going to do anything for you as we have done nothing wrong, but I will speak to my manager (someone she had said did not exist, when we asked to speak to someone higher than her) to see what Disney can do to make your trip more magical. We then received a telephone call back from her ten minutes later to be told, I spoke to my manager she said that we are right and you are wrong and the only thing I can do for you is to say the holiday will be great when your children see Mickey Mouse, (something which my children are both scared of, they do not go to see the characters…)

My husband then spoke to her and asked for a Manager to be at our hotel and to see what he could do about the Eurostar return tickets (which Elsie confirmed that he would be able to do more than she could) when we arrived at 3pm on Saturday 14th June so we could make our complaint face to face and Elsie confirmed that she would contact the hotel and this would be done for us.

We arrived at the hotel Sequoia Lodge at 3pm specifically to check in and see a manager to make a complaint we were told that we could check in, no problem but a manager was not informed that we were to see him and that we could not see one as they did not see customers, however the receptionist spoke to Disney express who informed him that they could not do anything and we would have to speak to SNCF and see if they could move the seats for us.

We went and saw SCNF and were told the same, that it was only Disney that could move the seats and if they were not prepared to, then the last resort was to see the train manager on the platform just before we boarded the train.

We then returned to the hotel to inform them that SCNF could not do anything and were told that a Disney Manager would see what they could do and would leave a message on our hotel phone to inform us what had been done and notes would be put on the system to confirm what had been done and anyone would be able to help us.

Two days later we had not heard anything, so my husband went back to the hotel reception to ask what was going on, only to be told that no one had done anything and no one knew anything about it and there were no notes on the system to say that we had any problems My husband then complained again and the team manager spoke to the reservations team in France whilst my husband was there to be told that nothing could be done as it was now too late to change anything as we were leaving the day after next and they could do nothing now except to inform us to try the train manager on the day.

We turned up for our train at 5.00 to enable us to go through customs and speak to the train manager on the platform, having to cut our holiday short again to sort this out, only for no one on the platform or the train to know where the train manager was and we only met him when we were actually travelling on the train, about 30 minutes into the journey and we had then resigned ourselves to two children on our lap for two hours and therefore only using two seats and paying for four. The person next to us would not move as their family was further up the train, a suggestion that Elsie came up with and asked us to get them to give us a goodwill gesture by moving, as Disney did not have any goodwill for us.

Other problems that we had whilst on holiday at Disneyland Paris.

1)On the night before we were due to leave we wanted to see the fireworks as we did the night before and went and sat near the rope on the left hand side of the castle, we asked the cast member if this was okay and were told that as long as we did no cross the rope then it was fine. There were about 30 other people with us and just as the wishes music started about 5 members of staff moved the rope and shouted at all of us to move onto the street, the only problem was that the street was full and the pavement was in pitch black. I had my 5 year in old in a pushchair with a sleeping beauty dress on which had been purchased from the park and a young man in a red and white striped top pushed me with the rope and shouted move onto the street in perfect English. However, as he pushed me and the pushchair, my daughters dress became entangled with the wheels and I was unable to move the pushchair anymore. My children were now crying as it was pitch black and they now could not see the fireworks, something they had waited 20 minutes or so for in the same place. The young man pushed me again and said get on the street, get on the street and I said that I couldn’t as my daughters dress was stuck. My husband then picked up the pushchair and carried it with my daughter in. I told the man what had happened and he said, “I can’t understand you, no speak English” in perfect english….He then called a Chinese cast member over with a red top on and pointed at me. I asked why did we have to move, my children are really upset and we sat over there last night, so what is the problem and his answer was “tough, that was last night”. and he walked away. I was so upset that I went down to city hall and made a formal complaint. When we returned to the hotel we were able to see the full extent as to what had happened to my daughters dress, luckily it was not ripped, although is badly marked with muck from the wheels of the pushchair and will have to be drycleaned due to this incident.

2) On the last day, having asked many cast members all holiday where Sleeping Beauty, Princess Aurora would be and no one knew, I went into the restaurant in the Disneyland Park if it would be possible for my daughter on her last day to just get a glance of Sleeping Beauty, Princess Aurora as this would make her holiday as it was her favourite princess, she had not been in any parade and we were unable to find her. We had been into city hall and the information booth only to be told that she would be around the castle sometime, but could not say when. My daughter had brought all Sleeping Beauty stuff from the shop and was deeply upset that she had not seen her all holiday. I offered to pay for one of us to have the food and the others would have a drink and we would go as soon as we saw Sleeping Beauty (although none of us liked the menu myself, and was told in the restaurant that they had never heard of Sleeping Beauty or Princess Aurora, when I explained that she was the princess that wore a pink dress and had blonde hair I was rudely told that I would have to purchase a menu for myself and daughter and then they could not guarantee that she would actually see Princess Aurora/Sleeping Beauty. My daughter was distraught that she could not see her favourite princess unless I paid for the privilege and the way that they staff only knew who the princess was when I said I would pay for it was unbelievable. When I went to city hall to complain again I was told that this was Disney policy and it was unfortunate. When we returned to the hotel as the park was now in darkness, we checked my daughters dress and the bottom of it was luckily not ripped, but badly marked by the wheels of the pushchair and will have to be drycleaned.

3) We brought some small cars from the world of Disney at the Disney village on the last day of our holiday for our son who was asleep and when picking these cars we checked to make sure that they were all perfect as we had seen in other shops, that bits were missing. When we went to pay for them, some did not have a bar code and one of the assistants went and picked up other cars the same as what we had but with bar codes on and it was not until we were on the Eurostar train, that my son who was now awake looked at his cars to play with them (as he had been asleep and we had to reason to check them as the cars we had picked up had been fine) and one the “mulan mushu” car was actually badly damaged… the front was all scratched, one horn was missing and two wheels were missing from the back of the car… this was not the car that we picked up to purchase…and my son was deeply upset…

All the magic has gone out of the heart of Disney and my child has been extremely upset and does not believe that any of the princesses like her anymore as they did not come and see her. My daughter has emotional problems and this holiday was supposed to help her and reward her for all the hard work she has overcome in the last year and as far as my husband and myself feel this holiday has been ruined.
:mad:
 
Hi daisygeorge and welcome to DLP DIS board :wave2:
We are a friendly bunch here so please join in on any other thread or if you have a number of questions then just start a new thread for each :goodvibes

If you have not had a look yet, DLP posting rules are here, DIS posting guidelines can be found here and details regarding help on signatures here

We have been a number of times and have enjoyed every minute of it but it is not great if the holiday started off so negatively for you.

No character is guaranteed so that part of your holiday cannot ever be expected and it is always best to let children know this. As a parent I appreciate that this can be difficult but it is not the fault of an CM and part of the reason why they promote the Princess meal at Cinderella's restaurant :)
 
We have been a number of times and have enjoyed every minute of it but it is not great if the holiday started off so negatively for you.

No character is guaranteed so that part of your holiday cannot ever be expected and it is always best to let children know this. As a parent I appreciate that this can be difficult but it is not the fault of an CM and part of the reason why they promote the Princess meal at Cinderella's restaurant :)

We have always warned DD that her favourite Princess Belle may not be there as sometimes she visits the other park in America.

Why not look at the send a postcard thread and see if someone going soon will send a card from Sleeping Beauty to your DD saying Sorry she wasnt there to see her

Sorry you had such a negative experience from Disney. We have had complaints in the past as well but have always found Disney have responded well when we have discussed it with them and rewarded us well.
 
Hi daisygeorge, welcome to the DIS. :welcome:

I'm sorry you have had some negative experiences with this holiday, hopefully you have some good memories of it too.
 

sorry you had some negative experiences at DLP. To be honest, a lot of it sounded as though it was call centre complaints that were present before being at DLP, so I would have been the exact same and taken that negative experience into the holiday itself.

As Cyrano has said, you can never guarantee you will or will not see a specific disney character - sometimes it really is the luck of the draw.

However, if i were you I would put a formal complaint into both Eurostar and Disney to see what can be done, as it is your right to do so.

I really hope this doesn't put you off DLP, though I can wholly understand your perspective.

I hope your little girl is OK and still had a good time.
 
hi daisygeorge
sorry to hear you had such a bad experience
unfortunately with any holiday, out of all the hundreds of great trips ppl take, theres always going to be the odd one that doesnt quite go according to plan. from what i can gather the problems before the holiday probably put the stay in a bit of a bad light. if it had not been for these im confident that the issues in the park wouldn't have felt so bad.
as people have already said, no character can be guaranteed to come out anywhere in the park, unfortunately thats just the way it works. i remember the trips when i was younger and sometimes there would be only a handful of characters, other times we couldn't move for all the characters!! really thats just something you've got to expect in disneyland, because if they guaranteed anything like that then they're more likely to be letting people down.
i understand it may have been frustrating for you when the CM did not know who Sleeping Beauty was but this may well be because in france she is Belle au Bois (beauty of the woods). i know this doesnt excuse the behaviour, but thought it might shed some light on it
emily x
 
Sorry to hear about your trip but as others have said no character is guarenteed.


In regards to the transport, even though you book through Disney, Eurostar quite often allocated families in different areas as it is Eurostar who do the allocations, Disney just buy the seats. I witnessed this myself when I went on my own. I happily changed seats with someone as I was on my own. I also know that children under a certain age are not guarenteed a seat even though you pay for them just like with airlines.

I feel that you should also complain to Eurostar about this, I have found them to be pretty good in dealing with complaints.
 
I booked with disney Direct...and was happy until I realised they charged me for my childs flight...under 12s go and stay free in Jan-March....I phoned and asked about it but they basically said 'tough you were happy to book at that price at the time' I said I asked 3 times during the booking about her being free and I was told no. (this is true) So she said 'well the manager will have to listen to the phone call and phone you back tomorrow'...that was a month ago!! I'm not going to bother myself by phoning them...my holiday wasn't that expensive anyway but I know they would be full of lies when I phone again....I'M NEVER BOOKING WITH THEM AGAIN!!!
When I asked for a breakdown of the flights she was going on about my 3 adaults were such and such (only 2 adults going)
And when I pointed that out she said well your flights were such and such..when I pointed out that we booked AS SOON AS the prices were out and the flights were half that price she said thats something I have to take up with Air France!!!! I reckon its about £150-£200 we lost but we learn by our mistakes!
I just keep thinking if I booked the same holiday now...according to their website I'd be £600 more so no point in complaining...they NEVER give you a straight answer!
 
I am sorry you had a bad experience. It is a shame we cant get 110 % from all the companies we deal with. When we went to DLP in July British airways lost all our baggage and with all the different call centres and departments I have spoken to yoou will get staff who are willing to help and staff who are not :headache:

I would take this problem up with Eurostar. I would not be happy in this world to have my kids scattered about and it would cause me stress too. I hope you get a satisfactory outcome.

With us not having luggage for our holidays it did take the sparkle off a bit but you need to focus on the good bits and he fun you did have :hug:
 
Man, sounds like you had a rough time of it.

FWIW I often wonder how our prior bookings ever make it to our home address as what I spell out over the telephone bears no resemblance to what's been typed on the envelopes!

We only had one grouchy CM on our last visit and that was because we were running late for our GMFL breakfast, we laughed it off and I think he realised he over-reacted and laughed too :rotfl:
 
We booked our week long stay in July a good 9 months before departure...as soon as was possible. Only, when we arrived, they had no record of us or our booking and then decided they would "agree to honour" the booking letter I had in my hand. Very good of them (ahem!) considering I had spent over 1200 on the deal!!!!! Had to hang around reception for 1 and a half hours with distressing talk about the hotel being full and trying to squeeze us in till finally they sorted us out. NOT what you want to hear when you have travelled hundreds of miles across the country with two tired and anxious kids....still waiting to hear back from them regarding my complaint about the matter. Won't hold my breath though:lmao:
 
Sorry that you had such a bad experience.:hug:

It must have been very frustrating. It can also be very upsetting when you don't get to see your favourite characters, but as other have said it can be a bit of pot luck.

I booked 3 times direct with Disney and have never had any problems (touch wood). CMs have always been very polite and helped if I have had any queries. (I queried that I had not been sent confirmation that the balance had been paid, they told me that this was not their standard practice, but that if I wanted confrimation they would send it to me. Which they did !)

It was also pointed out to me at the time booking that we would not be guaranteed seats togetheron the Eurostar, although DD would be with one of the adults.

I was also told that if I did not receive my confirmation with in 2 to 3 days I should get back in touch with them and quote my Reservation Reference Number.

It almost sounded like the person taking the booking was going down a checklist, ticking things off as she told me.

Even though you had a bad time this time please give DLRP another chance.:flower3:
 
Funny thing is I DID use a travel agent!!! But it was still Disney that made the mess up. Travel agent is in he process of sorting it all out with them.
 
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