We're back-Our likes and dislikes

[janica]

We recently returned from Disney World and here are our comments.
(2 adults around 50 and 2 adults in mid-20's)

What we liked best - Our top 5 picks for what not to miss
1. Fantasmic
2. Soarin'
3. Turtle Talk with Crush
4. Expedition Everest
5. Festival of the Lion King

What we didn't like - Our top 5 complaints
1. Rude Cast Members - Never noticed this to be a problem on previous trips, but had several rude to us and witnessed more rude to others.
2. Too difficult to move around near Expedition Everest and in Africa section of the Animal Kingdom. Wall to wall people. Those areas don't seem to be very well laid out to handle large crowds which was a surprise.
3. Counter service lines were too long. - The cm's were moving as fast as they could, but people PLEASE, you've had plenty of time to stand there and
read the menu. Make up your mind what you want BEFORE you get to the
cashier or else step aside until you do!
4. Enchanted Tiki Room - Under New Management - YUK! Bring back the old management!
5. Aggressive drivers of double wide strollers.

Our favorite park overall, especially on busy days - Epcot

The park we would most like to spend more time in on a light day - Animal Kingdom

 

[monami7]

I agree with the stroller thing. It is actually why I got a double stroller that was long, no matter what it weighed. I am at DLR or WDW too often for a double wide!

 

[kohlby]

After several trips before we had kids, my husband and I swore we would never go to Disney with kids who needed strollers. Well, we changed our mind! However, my large double jogger stays home. We take one single stroller and one sling. It makes it much easier to get around - or even park the stroller if the 3 year old has too much energy!

 

[taxmom04]

Thanks for your great comments!!
I've read from others about the bad planning around EE concerning
room and space issues!

Did ya'll not ride Rock 'n Roller Coaster?
That and Soarin was our 2 favorite rides when
we went Thanksgiving '05. Of course,
EE wasn't open then.

Thanks for posting!!

 

[janica]

Rockin' Rollercoaster would be #6 on our list, but we preferred EE because we thought it was a bit smoother and a little longer of a ride.

 

[Luv2CtheMouse]

Thanks for sharing.

I agree about the strollers and layout in AK.

I am really sorry to hear about the CMs. How sad and discouraging. These people are not paid what they are worth, I agree, but 'if you are not happy with your job, please find something else'. When I visit Disney, there are only two places where I feel CMs are rude...one is the Contemporary and the other is all counter service restaurants. I think all other CMs have been great.

 

[j3mom]

my dh and i will be there at the end of the week. no kids this time!!! first time at this time of year. anything we should not miss out on. i did not do soarin in aug. queasy after rr. not a big deal or what on soarin? family really wants me to do it.

 

[Feralpeg]

About a week ago, I was on The West Side. I went up to the little kiosk where you can get drinks. There was one CM working at the kiosk. He was on a radio trying to get someone to help him. It was his first day and he was put at the kiosk without help. Someone was trying to use the DP and he didn't have a clue as to what to do. Finally, a security guy saw him on the radio and asked what was going on. The security guy went to the Candy Cauldron and got someone to come over to help the guy.

The point being that they have hired a ton of new people recently. They are very busy and many of these CMs haven't had the opportunity to do much training. Should they be rude? Absolutely not, but I would imagine it is very frustrating to have people wanting something from you and you don't know what to do. The first few wouldn't be so bad, but after awhile, it could get hard to take. While we'd all like to think that Disney is perfect, all CMs are the same great personality and all CMs have been perfectly trained, that is just not the case.

When I occasionally run into a less than stellar CM, I chalk it off to the fact that they are probably having a bad day. If I see that same CM being rude more than once, that is another story. The majority of the CMs are great!

 

[baileybelle]

Concerning rude CMs: I work in retail and working with the public can be a delight or extremely stressful. Some customers think the entire world revolves around them. They can be overbearing, critical, nasty, impatient and downright rude!!!

I have been to WDW many times and have seen CMs being yelled at, cursed at, and even physically assaulted by WDW "guests." This type of abuse happens to me on a daily basis at Wally World and it can be mentally and physically exhausting.

I usually will try and give a word of encouragement, a smile, and a pat on the back to the cm when I witness this abuse. A kind word to a person having a bad day can change their whole attitude. People need to be appreciated for the job they do no matter how much they make. Without the CMs, there would be no WDW.

Before you judge them, try and walk a mile in their shoes!!!

 

[Fitswimmer]

I just back last Wednesday from a short trip (11/26-11/29) and my experience with the CM's was the exact opposite! Every CM I encountered was pleasant and helpful, so much so that I wrote Disney when I got back to praise them. Next time I'm bringing a notepad to write down everyone's name so I can make the praise more personal. I had noticed the last couple of years that I was encountering more rudeness, but this time-NONE.

I loved EE too-so did my 78 year old Dad! It's now his new favorite ride. I agree about the surrounding area-a little tight, but maybe as the ride loses its newness that will help. I loved the queue though-really neatly done.
Next trip we're going on RR-haven't tried that yet.

 

[modernscarlett]

I completely agree on the stroller issues. Just because you have a stroller doesn't mean it's ok to push everyone else out of the way. I don't see any "yield to all strollers" signs posted

And while we LOVED AK, there are definite crowd control issues. We were there day after Thanksgiving - huge crowds, of course. It was a zoo just trying to exit. The crowds were lined up trying to get into "It's a Bug's Life" and it was literally wall to wall people. Nearly impossible just to get through trying to get out!

We also loved Fantasmic and Soarin. Didn't get to try EE, much to my dismay. And luckily we had very good experience with CM's there. My DH had never been and was just amazed at the utter politeness of all the staff! Sorry you had a bad experience.

 

[cobbler]

Fits-
I had the same expirence with CM's as you and we just returned. In fact almost everyone we encountered was wonderful. A far cry from the CM's that I expirenced on my trip during F/W just a couple months ago.

 

[janica]

It's true. Most cm's were great. In fact, we were sitting at the Sleepy Hollow snack shop eating funnel cake and waiting for Spectromagic to begin. Our table was next to a walkway that led to Fantasyland. A cm
came along and roped off the walkway saying that she had to do that because of the fireworks. Group after group came through trying to go up the walkway. She would politely explain that she couldn't let them through
and tell them which way to go instead. Most people were polite in return, a few got a little ugly, yet she continued to remain calm and polite. We told her how impressed we were with how she handled the situation. This is the
kind of behavior we have seen with most cm's.

But, to give you some examples of the rudeness I'm talking about:
During the Flights of Wonder show, the theater was about 2/3 full and there was no announcement before the show indicating that people should remain
seated. My husband, sitting on an end seat at the far end of the theater needed to get up and leave during the show. As he was walking toward the exit, a cm (older lady) standing in the back yelled across the seats "SIT DOWN!" My husband hesitated a moment, not sure if she was talking to him, when she yelled "I said for you to SIT DOWN THIS INSTANT!!" Instead of walking over to him and quietly asking him to sit down, she screamed it across the theater. ( By the way, this was not at a time in the show that the birds were flying across the audience.) It attracted enough attention that most of the people in the theater turned to see what was going on. My husband is 51 years old. It was hardly necessary to speak to him as if he were a disruptive child in school.

In that same theater, as we were exiting the show, we saw a boy about
11 or 12 years old, walk up to a cm (older man) and say very politely,
"Excuse me, sir, but would it be alright for me to sit here on these benches
until the next show begins? The cm answered in a very gruff manner "No!!!
No one's allowed in here. Now get out of here!" His rudeness to the boy
was completely uncalled for. The boy looked as though he had just been slapped. I could go on with more, but my point is that
while most cm's were very nice, there were some rude ones
whose rude behavior was unjustified. It was something I hadn't noticed on previous trips.

 

[janica]

Soarin', as you probably know, it designed to make you feel as if you are
hang gliding over California. I was concerned about queasiness, too, on my first ride. I may have even felt a slight touch or perhaps it was my
imagination from my fear. I'm not sure. At any rate, if you stop looking at the screen and look down at your seat or something that is not moving, the
queasiness will usually pass. Your seats will move forward and up at the beginning of the ride to get you into position. And then of course back down at the end. During the ride itself though, the seats will tilt back and forth at times, but you are not actually moving. After I got over my nervousness about getting queasy, I loved it! I found it to be a very relaxing and calming ride, it was almost like a visual massage. I especially loved the part where you are "flying" so close to the water that you expect to get your feet wet! I would suggest that you relax and give it a try, unless you are extremly sensitive to motion sickness or bothered by sitting on high seats with you feet hanging loose like on a ferris wheel. If you feel queasy, focus on something stationary, not the screen and I think you will be okay. Also, when I was in doubt about what to ride, I let my
family go first without me and then give me their opinions about what they thought. They know me very well and what my tolerance is and I can trust
them to be honest with me. So ask your family what they think. The only
things my family steered me away from after they rode was RR and Mission Space green line.

 

[dizprincess717]

Concerning rude CMs: I work in retail and working with the public can be a delight or extremely stressful. Some customers think the entire world revolves around them. They can be overbearing, critical, nasty, impatient and downright rude!!!

I have been to WDW many times and have seen CMs being yelled at, cursed at, and even physically assaulted by WDW "guests." This type of abuse happens to me on a daily basis at Wally World and it can be mentally and physically exhausting.

I usually will try and give a word of encouragement, a smile, and a pat on the back to the cm when I witness this abuse. A kind word to a person having a bad day can change their whole attitude. People need to be appreciated for the job they do no matter how much they make. Without the CMs, there would be no WDW.

Before you judge them, try and walk a mile in their shoes!!!

ITA!!!

Being a CM isn't the easiest and certainly not "the greatest job in the world." We are severely underpaid. And as far as "if you're not happy with your job, find something else" - The whole point is 99% of CMs LOVE Disney World, and don't want to find something else. We all have our bad days, and unfortunately Guests can add to the aggrevation.

BTW - I also work in retail... At the Disney Store! So I know all about being that perfect CM. Sometimes it just doesn't come out. We all have our bad days. So before you let one CM "ruin your whole vacation" just try and think about your worst day at work ever and then being faced with another 500 problems on top of that. Because that's what it's really like to be a CM on the bad days.

Other than those Guests who think the entire world revolves around them (like the one who thought we should open Splash Mountain because she traveled all the way from England...um, yeah, ok...) I loved being a CM. And it was because of the nice Guests who would take the extra time to thank me that made my job worth it, not free entry to the parks!

 

[learnhome]

Aggressive drivers of double wide strollers.

LOL They are almost as bad as the mini-van soccor mom drivers!! (no offense, I happen to be one myself )

thanks for sharing!!

Chris

 

[almburr]

So true about the stroollers and even the wheel chairs. W e were at MGM during super soap weekend we were there on the Saturday it was wall to wall people we had a double stroller but we were keeping it out of peoples way we waited for people to pass there is no need to use it as a bettering ram! We had more problems with peolpe in wheel chairs they were rude (not all, but some) DH was loading up kids in stroller outside of some store. A lady was pushing her mother ? and was all rude snapping at DH to move! Not asking. we are from small rural area and you wave at everyone on the highway for at least 100miles, and they wave back. Its like when you leave a building the person who is trying to come in needs to wait for the person coming out(person coming out makes space for people coming in) It seemed to us that they were in the right because they had a wheelchair.

 

[j3mom]

Janica - we got a kick out of your response. my family told me that rr would not bother me so to let them ride and tell me whether or not i should, would not be helpful in this case. they don't want me to miss anything. thanks for the help tho.

 

[Flyerfan]

Concerning rude CMs: I work in retail and working with the public can be a delight or extremely stressful. Some customers think the entire world revolves around them. They can be overbearing, critical, nasty, impatient and downright rude!!!

I have worked with the public in the past and let me tell you, it's amazing I don't have scars on my tongue. I now work in customer service and boy am I glad it's only phone work because sometimes when I put that receiver down, I vent big time. So, I can understand having a bad day. Sometimes, though, I can tell the difference between a rude CM and one that is just having a rotten day.

 

[byoung]

Thanks for reporting.