WDW is canceling Jan. 31st reservations at CRT to hold event for more $

[Laketravis]

Disney made a mistake....

The reality is, a mistake was made somewhere...

Mistakes can happen....

You appear to have a myopic fixation on this singular point. But the fact is the higher you climb the pricing ladder the less tolerant of "mistakes" your clients become. Mistakes can happen when you're ordering off the Dollar Menu. They aren't expected to happen when you are paying several hundred dollars for an hour or two of "experience". What everyone else here understands is that WDW has pushed the pricing envelope into the strata of almost zero tolerance. What was promised better be delivered, and there is no longer any room for "mistakes".

 

[HauntedPirate]

For a bunch of people laser-focused on their bottom line, the end (Di$ney/TDO potentially pocketing $20k or more from this "special event") justify the means (displacing at least 30 parties from their CRT reservations, knowing full well that they already have their money).

Someone in the TDO management chain had to give this the green light. This wasn't a "mistake". This was Di$ney/TDO willfully displacing (at least) 30 parties to make way for their uber-elite, $500/person "special event". Occam's Razor and all that.

 

[drizgirl]

For a bunch of people laser-focused on their bottom line, the end (Di$ney/TDO potentially pocketing $20k or more from this "special event") justify the means (displacing at least 30 parties from their CRT reservations, knowing full well that they already have their money).

Someone in the TDO management chain had to give this the green light. This wasn't a "mistake". This was Di$ney/TDO willfully displacing (at least) 30 parties to make way for their uber-elite, $500/person "special event". Occam's Razor and all that.

Exactly that.

But it continues to be fascinating to see the contortions of people who refuse to accept that.

 

[flynnibus]

Except, in this case, it was converting a normal experience into an add on, wasn't it?

No, I don't consider a limited engagement, small, special course meal with a chef to be conversion of CRT into an upgrade/add-on. It's a dining event... just like I wouldn't consider the scuba offering at The Seas to be an add-on to visiting the pavilion. They are special entertainment offerings unique from the normal park experience.

Also, we have no indication that they were acting in good faith. Do we?

I didn't assume they were or were not.. The point is 'we dont know' -- not which answer is the right one. So I reserve damning the choice.. because you don't know what the possible choices were to pick from.

Did you kill your dog, or did you end it's terminal, painful, suffering? Judging the outcome is pretty presumptuous when you don't know what the valid choices were when the choice was made.

So we don't know if this was 'evil from the start' or trying to recover from mistakes. What we do know is.. the guest recovery was poor, how Disney approached it was meh, and Disney ultimately prioritized a special engagement over normal ops when there was a conflict.

 

[Bandini]

Disney only relented until the issue was escalated. If the issue wasn't pushed no proactive accommodation would have been made on Disneys part.


I thought you left this thread 2 times already. Third time the charm?

Groundhog Day 3?

 

[yoda_5729]

Firstly, I understand how popular the character meal inside Cinderella Castle is, but to me it always seemed excessive that a family would have to have it planned out 180 days in advance. That's partly why I'm a bit conflicted about more and more planning ahead situations appearing in Disney World. This might be a unique situation that truly does need to have reservations that far in advance.

However, some families have people with specific needs, or just a young one who can become restless and/or sick or elder parents. Planning any of that out to such a degree is rather meaningless, when suddenly they could be required to go back to the hotel and rest, or have difficulties. I do understand the planning ahead for reservations and fastpasses can be a huge benefit to some, but I fear it's a problem for others, as they don't have the luxury to even know what park they may be visiting when they are down there. Weather can have influence in what park you attend, as Epcot during a major rain storm can be quite difficult, but two months out you made your reservation for Frozen, so you almost have to go, even when it would be more enjoyable to just go the next day.The way the Fastpass system used to work, you had to actually be in the park to get the fastpass. Had you decided you weren't going to Epcot, due to rain, you'd never have had a fastpass to begin with. Now though, unless you actually cancel, you sitting on a couch reading a magazine are taking up a fastpass for someone who is actually actively in the park. For families that this is there one and only trip to Walt Disney World, they'll brave the rain but some families when they find out it's going to rain bad decide they should go to Disney Springs or enjoy their resorts for those days. The fastpasses were supposed to encourage flexibility, and allowing for people to prep, but in doing so, I think they've made many feel so locked in, that they can't be flexible and enjoy themselves. I've seen people leave Indy Stunt Spectacular half way through because of a fastpass (technically that happened with the old system though too). I imagine restaurants can be just as difficult as with the rides technically you can wait in the stand by line, though it will likely be a wait, but with restaurants there aren't too many available seats at the higher end restaurants, which can put a ton of pressure on the quick service. With restaurants, people can feel sick or full from a previous meal, and want to take it easy on the next meal, but instead they realize they are going to a fine dinning restaurant when at most all they wanted was a hot dog.

In relation to this story, it shows the difficulties. Disney didn't even know what they were doing with the Castle on the 31st. It was assumed, like usual that they would be having guests who had made reservations, but instead, changed course, and had an unexpected event. I agree the families who had reservations should be taken care of, and given quite a bit to make up for it. I don't really have a problem with the event itself, but the fact people who planned 180 days out for this, are just getting wind of it 15 days before they were supposed to be there. The idea though that Disney is expecting people to schedule things further in advance then Disney themselves do, is a bit startling. I think a lot of people realize things come up, and scheduling every detail of a trip can cause there to be a lot of stress when things don't go as perfectly planned. This stress they feel when they are actively standing in the parks. Don't get me wrong, planning in terms of reading up on the parks, and the various passes and all that is always good, as education is, but concretely defining when you are going to eat each and every moment, and what rides you are going to be riding two or one month in advance, and what hours, has always seemed to me too excessive. I know many disagree though.

 

[Katie G]

I skimmed through the 14 pages of commentary and it seems there is only one Guest account of this issue. Seems everyone is getting very bent out of shape about 1 persons account, who did get their reservation & BBB resolved to her satisfaction.

First, Disney offered all Guests impacted to move their reservation to a different date, time or restaurant. IN ADDITION, they were provided with an option to account for their inconvenience. While I don't know all the options, I do know that typical options include a discount, or FP. If the initial offering is not accepted by the Guest, the call gets pushed to a special Guest Services team which sounds like what happened with the 1 guest account everyone continues to reference.

I agree that it would stink to be in the shoes of the Guests who get moved if nothing could be done about your plans. But that isn't the case and it wasn't the case for the Guests that got moved. Many were rebooked at CRT and still got to have that special meal they planned. Moving a reservation due to an event isn't new for Disney or any other restaurant anywhere. Venues get booked, sometimes close in. Sometimes the small details get missed and a couple people don't get their EXACT plan, but I have a hard time believing that anyone, let alone the Disney CM that called to let you know, is unsympathetic to your problem.

 

[Wrangler-Rick]

I just find it interesting that Disney forces us to start planning our vacation 180 days out, but they seem to be unable to plan things that far out....

 

[njDizFan]

I wasn't supposed to come back to this thread..lol. But I just wanted to point this out-

The reality is, a mistake was made somewhere. One of 2 groups would be effected.
Group 1- the "31" families who already had reservations during park hours.
Group 2- the "60" (or less) event attendees.

Group 1 -can have their meals rescheduled, in the same restaurant, at a different time or different day. A cast member can call and work to assist in the rescheduling and adjustments that need to be made (i.e fast pass, bbb, other restaurant reservations etc).

Group 2- has no alternative to a different day or time because it is a set event. Rescheduling and adjusting is not possible.

If you were the decision maker, which would you choose?

I think there is some information that you are not adding to the equation.

CRT is a different type of reservation. It is not continuous seating like a regular restaurant where you have parties leave and then that table is filled. The entire restaurant is seated at one time(although with slight increments to prevent a huge surge). Similar to a dinner show. These 30 tables of families need to be out, the restaurant cleaned, reset and get the mise en place(prep work) going in the back of the house for this special event. So this was probably an entire seating for the restaurant.

Next, Disney has forced us to be spreadsheet planners if we want to do something special like this. Like other posters have said, I was up at the crack of dawn to get this for my daughters 6 birthday 180 days out and still had to get a time that was not the one I requested. Unfortunately my finances at the time were not entirely liquid so I used my credit card, which incurred interest fees( we don't need to go into people paying for a vacation if they can't afford it) which I was willing to absorb. Since I had to prepay do I get those fees into consideration?

Also, what happens to these ADRs, do they get to pick CRT for another day? Since that reservation is booked almost entirely in advance all year around there is no way to get those 30 parties back into the restaurant. Besides completely disrupting plans on which park they were going to on each day and redscheduling FP+(which can be changed but may be inconvenient).

I could totally understand how people could be totally *****ed off about this as I would be furious.

 

[Brad Bishop]

Disney only relented until the issue was escalated. If the issue wasn't pushed no proactive accommodation would have been made on Disneys part.

I thought you left this thread 2 times already. Third time the charm?

I think that the underlying problem is that Disney has used up all of it's trust which people, at one time, had with them in the pursuit of a buck.

This, at it's core, has to do with the cutting of services along with the endless up-charge events of the last year or so. Take that away and this could easily be understood to be some kind of mistake. Still, the Disney of the past would have had the attitude of, "Oh, crap, we really screwed up! How can we make this right/fix it??" The current Disney has the attitude of, "Yeah, you paid in advance but we found a group that'd pay more so SUX2BU!," and only after pressuring do they even try to accommodate you.

It tells me that, at any time, Disney can, and will, pull the rug out from under you because they think that they've found a group of people who'd pay more for some time or event. So, maybe they close the park earlier than they otherwise would have or maybe they just cancel your already paid for reservations. The important thing, to Disney, is that they can cut some other guest's experience short and resell it at a higher price to another guest.

The guest experience no longer matters. They're interested in the $500/head folks, not the $130/head folks (or whatever it is these days to eat at CRT). It really sends the message of, "We don't care if you've been coming here all of your lives and watched every movie 10 times, you're no longer good enough. These people over here are better."

You can argue, "But it's a business!" Yeah, it is. Everyone gets that. People get that they may be priced out of something like WDW because they don't earn enough and it's become too expensive. The difference is that it used to be that if you were on site, got in the gate, made reservations, you were treated like a guest. Everyone was a guest. They would do what it took to make sure you felt like a guest. Now they have "better guests" which trump the guests already through the gate or already with reservations.

That's how Disney is today. If you want to be treated better than cough up $500/head or $whatever/head for some special event (dessert party).

The pixie-dusters will still pay to enter and say things like, "Well, that's OK.. I don't HAVE to eat at CRT," and still give Disney their money and Disney will still take it. You're mostly "guest filler" now, though.

 

[Grimley1968]

I skimmed through the 14 pages of commentary and it seems there is only one Guest account of this issue. Seems everyone is getting very bent out of shape about 1 persons account, who did get their reservation & BBB resolved to her satisfaction.

First, Disney offered all Guests impacted to move their reservation to a different date, time or restaurant. IN ADDITION, they were provided with an option to account for their inconvenience. While I don't know all the options, I do know that typical options include a discount, or FP. If the initial offering is not accepted by the Guest, the call gets pushed to a special Guest Services team which sounds like what happened with the 1 guest account everyone continues to reference.

I agree that it would stink to be in the shoes of the Guests who get moved if nothing could be done about your plans. But that isn't the case and it wasn't the case for the Guests that got moved. Many were rebooked at CRT and still got to have that special meal they planned. Moving a reservation due to an event isn't new for Disney or any other restaurant anywhere. Venues get booked, sometimes close in. Sometimes the small details get missed and a couple people don't get their EXACT plan, but I have a hard time believing that anyone, let alone the Disney CM that called to let you know, is unsympathetic to your problem.

If it's fair to criticize people in this thread who have formulated opinions based on one guest's account (which is not the whole story), then it's also fair to ask for some kind of evidence that "many were rebooked at CRT and still got to have that special meal they planned."

Also, "Moving a reservation due to an event isn't new for Disney or any other restaurant anywhere" doesn't exactly describe getting a CRT reservation, does it? It's pre-paid, extremely hard to get, and can be the (intended) highlight of trips for many people. It's just not the same as being bumped from Tony's.

 

[yoda_5729]

I was thinking about it more, and how the fastpass and reservation system really can cause difficulties in flexibility in the parks. One reason I say this is because when you make your plans, as I mentioned above weather, whether it's rain, wind, or heat can cause problems that were unforseen. If you think about it, the admission ticket to Disney World, allows you to pick what days and what parks you go to. It's allowing you the choice, and as far as I know, there is a window they give you to use the tickets. There used to be the no expiration clause too, but that's gone now. Those allowed you to wake up in the morning and make a decision on what to do. Now, in many ways you have to just put up with whatever the circumstances are, because of a reservation for a ride or meal, that you may discover wasn't worth the trouble. I don't know how many people actually cancel fastpasses once they get it, but there may be people who have fastpasses for rides and aren't even in the state of Florida, because of a trip cancellation. I've known people who were really wanting to go on one ride in particular, but didn't know what day of their vacation they were going to that park. They made fastpass requests for each day of their stay, for that one ride, with the idea, hopefully they'd be able to cancel the others when they are more aware of when they might go to that park, or if they were going to Disney Springs, they wouldn't have to cancel, since they aren't looking for fastpasses elsewhere. It seems rather extreme though to devote all your fastpasses for one ride, but without any knowledge of which park someone's attending on a given day, it makes it very hard to plan. There may even be days they decide they got to tired from Epcot, and so they are taking a day off, only to find out that was the one day they have a fastpass for Frozen or Mine Train. I think the older system worked better, and I would prefer if most of the restaurants weren't so heavy on reservations, though I understand that Cinderella Castle is in need of it, due to it's popularity.

 

[Katie G]

If it's fair to criticize people in this thread who have formulated opinions based on one guest's account (which is not the whole story), then it's also fair to ask for some kind of evidence that "many were rebooked at CRT and still got to have that special meal they planned."

Also, "Moving a reservation due to an event isn't new for Disney or any other restaurant anywhere" doesn't exactly describe getting a CRT reservation, does it? It's pre-paid, extremely hard to get, and can be the (intended) highlight of trips for many people. It's just not the same as being bumped from Tony's.

I'm aware no one like to hear "I have my sources" but this is the case where sharing the proof isn't an option.

The point I was trying to make, was that we heard 1 persons account who had a lot to lose from a cancelled reservation because of BBB reservation. But even that was taken care of. The people who go public with their problems usually are the worst of the problems (or sometime just the biggest complainers). The fact that these 30 other reservations aren't being talked about on social media means that it wasn't as bad as that 1 person.

 

[Laketravis]

The fact that these 30 other reservations aren't being talked about on social media means that it wasn't as bad as that 1 person.

What an interesting statement.

 

[flynnibus]

I'm aware no one like to hear "I have my sources" but this is the case where sharing the proof isn't an option.

The point I was trying to make, was that we heard 1 persons account who had a lot to lose from a cancelled reservation because of BBB reservation. But even that was taken care of. The people who go public with their problems usually are the worst of the problems (or sometime just the biggest complainers). The fact that these 30 other reservations aren't being talked about on social media means that it wasn't as bad as that 1 person.

Pretty sure you are a CM are you not? Behind guest relations or bookings if I recall?

 

[monothingie]

I'm aware no one like to hear "I have my sources" but this is the case where sharing the proof isn't an option.

The point I was trying to make, was that we heard 1 persons account who had a lot to lose from a cancelled reservation because of BBB reservation. But even that was taken care of. The people who go public with their problems usually are the worst of the problems (or sometime just the biggest complainers). The fact that these 30 other reservations aren't being talked about on social media means that it wasn't as bad as that 1 person.

When all else fails, blame the customer. It was their fault after all...

 

[Katie G]

Pretty sure you are a CM are you not? Behind guest relations or bookings if I recall?

HAHAHAH I would be the worst person ever to deal with people. In high school I worked retail and got more than 1 reprimand for not being sensitive enough to customer issues. Disney would never let me near a guest services position.

 

[Katie G]

When all else fails, blame the customer. It was their fault after all...

Confused how you think I was blaming the customer.

Just pointing out that 1 person took to social media and that 1 person got their issue resolved. No other people have posted an account of the issue as far as we know. So likely means no one else had such a big issue with the recovery Disney offered. At no point have I placed blame on anyone - though OBVIOUSLY Disney screwed up and is fixing it.

 

[contrariwise]

I wasn't supposed to come back to this thread..lol. But I just wanted to point this out-

The reality is, a mistake was made somewhere. One of 2 groups would be effected.
Group 1- the "31" families who already had reservations during park hours.
Group 2- the "60" (or less) event attendees.

Group 1 -can have their meals rescheduled, in the same restaurant, at a different time or different day. A cast member can call and work to assist in the rescheduling and adjustments that need to be made (i.e fast pass, bbb, other restaurant reservations etc).

Group 2- has no alternative to a different day or time because it is a set event. Rescheduling and adjusting is not possible.

If you were the decision maker, which would you choose?

The assumption here and in other posts is that a mistake was made. Why?

What about this scenario? Someone at Disney came up with the idea for this private event. Someone involved knew full well that CRT was booked up, and that reservations would have to be cancelled to make room for this event, whether due to time overlap or setup or whatever. The decision was made to market this event anyway, even knowing that these other reservations would have to be cancelled or rescheduled (assuming availability). The event was announced and Disney waited to gauge interest before acting to remedy this overlap. Once there was enough interest in the private event, some unlucky soul was tasked with calling the unwashed commoners who had the misfortune to schedule their CRT experience at the same time as another ridiculous upcharge event.

Do we know a mistake was made or is it possible this whole thing was deliberate every step of the way? And you know, 10 years ago, I would have been right there with you spewing pixie dust and sure that Disney would NEVER do that. But this kind of crap has become so commonplace that I don't know what to think anymore.

 

[monothingie]

Confused how you think I was blaming the customer.

Just pointing out that 1 person took to social media and that 1 person got their issue resolved. No other people have posted an account of the issue as far as we know. So likely means no one else had such a big issue with the recovery Disney offered. At no point have I placed blame on anyone - though OBVIOUSLY Disney screwed up and is fixing it.

The people who go public with their problems usually are the worst of the problems (or sometime just the biggest complainers).