Have I Become Jaded?

Jeremy P

Active Member
Original Poster
So first, let me start by saying this post could easily fall under this category or Trip Reports category but I settled on here since I'm not going to recall all of my trip. Second, I swear I'm not just looking for a place to complain. I am a Disney parks fanatic through and through and I feel like I'm usually about a step away from selling Disney vacations door to door. I just wanted to start a discussion and see if I'm alone in feeling a certain way after our last trip.
Two weeks ago, we spent 8 days at WDW staying at Port Orleans - Riverside. This was our first trip staying at that resort but not our first WDW trip. In fact, we've been visiting WDW every year for the past several years. I'll start by saying I've seen a lot of chatter lately (on this forum and others) about how the parks, specifically MK, have become TOO crowded to be enjoyable. I really thought this was just people being a little over dramatic but after a couple of days of the same experience, I was starting to second guess that. I will say that not every day was this crowded but there were several days where you just could not move through the sea of people. Several times we just sat and people watched as it was just too crowded to actually do anything.
Then, there was the bus transportation. Now, I've had some crazy bus lines but every single night on this trip; no matter the time, no matter the park, the bus lines were crazy. I wouldn't have been too upset by this but we were always next to the Coronado stop and every night, they would have about 4 buses picking up 15-20 people in the time it took us to get two buses and man, were the bus drivers some of the most hateful cast members.
Then the final straw for me was the resort. The food court was a nightmare every night. Usually Disney seems to be pretty organized when it comes to food service but not here. On at least two different nights, we waited for 20+ minutes for food only to find out the kitchen had somehow lost our order. We had housekeeping leave a dirty tray of food in the room (that was sitting in plain sight on the table) and found roaches on two different occasions.
I say all this to come around to my discussion topic I guess. I went to the front desk and wrote an email to guest services. I've always heard about Disney's excellent commitment to customer service but as we've never complained or gone to guest services, I've never had a personal experience. The hotel manager acted like I was an idiot for complaining about roaches. He proceeded to tell me we were in Florida and there are roaches in Florida. He apologized and moved us to another room. My email to guest services got us a whopping $150 back. Now look, I certainly wasn't trying to get a full refund of our trip but after spending over $2000 just in room fees and park tickets, $150 almost seemed laughable and I'm not sure I've ever stayed in ANY hotel that would take having roaches as lightly as the manager at Port Orleans did.
Usually, by this time, I'm already rearing to go back but we actually just cancelled our trip for next year and are trying to decide if we really want to go back before 2021. Has anyone else run into this feeling? I don't want to become jaded but I just feel a complete sense of disappointment after this trip.
 

mitchk

Well-Known Member
Sorry to hear you had a bad experience, trust me I have had mine too. I mean when you look at it, you got $150 back, that's actually not too bad. I know it doesn't make up for your unmagical time, but it's something. Last year a mouse keeper went into my wife's stuff, and found a credit card she had hidden in the dresser. They charged $50 to an online purchase to a catalog of some sort. We were given nothing but our $50 refunded on the card. After the trip I spoke with a woman I know in customer services, and she got us the free dinning plan before it was released, although if I hadn't dealt with this wonderful woman before, I doubt we would have got anything. As far as the parks being crowded, there is really nothing they can do about that. Sucks your trip wasn't magical, but don't let that deter you from going back. :)
 

copcarguyp71

Well-Known Member
Last year a mouse keeper went into my wife's stuff, and found a credit card she had hidden in the dresser. They charged $50 to an online purchase to a catalog of some sort. We were given nothing but our $50 refunded on the card. After the trip I spoke with a woman I know in customer services, and she got us the free dinning plan before it was released, although if I hadn't dealt with this wonderful woman before,

Wow...this is TOTALLY unacceptable and even less acceptable is their response. I would have gotten the police involved and had them respond to the resort lobby to take the report...that might actually raise management's eyebrows!
 

ford91exploder

Resident Curmudgeon
So first, let me start by saying this post could easily fall under this category or Trip Reports category but I settled on here since I'm not going to recall all of my trip. Second, I swear I'm not just looking for a place to complain. I am a Disney parks fanatic through and through and I feel like I'm usually about a step away from selling Disney vacations door to door. I just wanted to start a discussion and see if I'm alone in feeling a certain way after our last trip.
Two weeks ago, we spent 8 days at WDW staying at Port Orleans - Riverside. This was our first trip staying at that resort but not our first WDW trip. In fact, we've been visiting WDW every year for the past several years. I'll start by saying I've seen a lot of chatter lately (on this forum and others) about how the parks, specifically MK, have become TOO crowded to be enjoyable. I really thought this was just people being a little over dramatic but after a couple of days of the same experience, I was starting to second guess that. I will say that not every day was this crowded but there were several days where you just could not move through the sea of people. Several times we just sat and people watched as it was just too crowded to actually do anything.
Then, there was the bus transportation. Now, I've had some crazy bus lines but every single night on this trip; no matter the time, no matter the park, the bus lines were crazy. I wouldn't have been too upset by this but we were always next to the Coronado stop and every night, they would have about 4 buses picking up 15-20 people in the time it took us to get two buses and man, were the bus drivers some of the most hateful cast members.
Then the final straw for me was the resort. The food court was a nightmare every night. Usually Disney seems to be pretty organized when it comes to food service but not here. On at least two different nights, we waited for 20+ minutes for food only to find out the kitchen had somehow lost our order. We had housekeeping leave a dirty tray of food in the room (that was sitting in plain sight on the table) and found roaches on two different occasions.
I say all this to come around to my discussion topic I guess. I went to the front desk and wrote an email to guest services. I've always heard about Disney's excellent commitment to customer service but as we've never complained or gone to guest services, I've never had a personal experience. The hotel manager acted like I was an idiot for complaining about roaches. He proceeded to tell me we were in Florida and there are roaches in Florida. He apologized and moved us to another room. My email to guest services got us a whopping $150 back. Now look, I certainly wasn't trying to get a full refund of our trip but after spending over $2000 just in room fees and park tickets, $150 almost seemed laughable and I'm not sure I've ever stayed in ANY hotel that would take having roaches as lightly as the manager at Port Orleans did.
Usually, by this time, I'm already rearing to go back but we actually just cancelled our trip for next year and are trying to decide if we really want to go back before 2021. Has anyone else run into this feeling? I don't want to become jaded but I just feel a complete sense of disappointment after this trip.

Welcome to the reality of 'Today's Disney' where the only thing that counts is separating you from your money. Customer service is a thing of the past at WDW.

I might still visit florida next year but for the price of a day's admission for a family of 4 to WDW you can charter an airboat for a day and have one of the most amazing experiences of your life. Lots of stuff to do in the Orlando area without ever going near Disney OR Universal.
 

ChanceH

Active Member
my family loves disney with every cell of our bodies but after our last trip we’re not going back till at least 2021, going to be weird not going 2 times a year
 

mitchk

Well-Known Member
Wow...this is TOTALLY unacceptable and even less acceptable is their response. I would have gotten the police involved and had them respond to the resort lobby to take the report...that might actually raise management's eyebrows!


We would have, but we didn't realize it until we got home, and she got her statement. It really bothered me because we had to contact the resort it self, Caribbean Beach, and they said we will refund your money sorry..... I thought man, if that was me who stole from them, I would be in a ton of trouble. It still worked out for me a little, as far as free dinning .... but still. Oh well :)
 

copcarguyp71

Well-Known Member
my family loves disney with every cell of our bodies but after our last trip we’re not going back till at least 2021, going to be weird not going 2 times a year

We said the same thing in 2013 about 2017...and still have not seen enough changes to want to head back. Perhaps it is a brave new world and some of us Disney old heads just cannot ride the wave of the future...I'm willing to accept that the problem is mine and not Disney's. They may be looking for a whole new type of guest and we just don't fit the new demographic. Maybe we are just so in love of our memories of what was that we cannot fathom leaving it behind...either way our dollars have gone elsewhere even though I could write off a vacation in 2018 to a convention attendance in Orlando.
 

eliza61nyc

Well-Known Member
Of course, so let me give you my little philosophical meanderings on these things.

1) Absence should make the heart grow fonder. Like you we use to be annual, some times 2X a year visitors. It's really hard NOT to become jaded when you visit often. When you are an annual visitor you notice the "little" things that you may not notice before..

2) the parks have gotten way more crowdier (lol is that a word?) packed...tight... Disney has concentrated on increasing the number of hotel space over the years and marketing their "brand". with the new star wars land coming I don't see that trend easing.

3) The stockholder "god" is a jealous God and must be constantly fed. So one of the problems with any major corporation that sell itself is that those stockholders are greedy little buggers. no one wants modest gains anymore, they want double digit gains every year, year in and year out. That is hard to do so what happens, cuts get made, things get stretched. One of the things that has gone by the way side is thorough training. I know a mousekeeper (now retired) who worked in the Contemporary. they use to get trained on how and what to clean etc etc. I remember us talking about this and she said when she started you were trained and then spent 6 weeks working with another CM. She's heard now it's been 1 week and then you are on your own.
Now you could think that cleaning a room might not take a lot of training but a poorly trained housekeeping staff shows. this is the only area that I know with some certainty but it doesn't take a lot to imagine the same thing is happening company wide.

4) Lastly, some times the vacation gremlins really are out to get you. lol. I was married for 30 wonderful years (I'm a widow) my late husband and I always laughed about our honeymoon. It was the vacation from HELL. first, our luggage got lost, then the caribbean island we flew to got hit by a major hurricane, the second half of the trip was supposed to be a cruise through South America... Ship had major engine problems and we got stuck in Caracas Venezuela just in time to get caught in the middle of a major political uprising .
We use to say the reason why we stayed married that long was because after that, heck marriage was a piece of cake.

I say all that to say, yep sometimes you get a vacation where, all the employees are the worst of the bunch, every bus you get on breaks and you feel like there is a thunder cloud following you around.

sorry you had a rough one.
I would do just as you are doing, take a break from the mouse world. I would also keep writing and calling about the issues. keep going up the chain of command. I don't want you to do it because of a refund, I think everyone should document their issues. How is the mouse world going to change if we don't. also don't discount social media. post your review on tripadvisors and other travel sites.
 

Bairstow

Well-Known Member
Then, there was the bus transportation. Now, I've had some crazy bus lines but every single night on this trip; no matter the time, no matter the park, the bus lines were crazy. I wouldn't have been too upset by this but we were always next to the Coronado stop and every night, they would have about 4 buses picking up 15-20 people in the time it took us to get two buses...

Is Disney cutting back on bust service to promote the use of the Minnie Vans?
 

jimbo mack

Well-Known Member
I have also just returned - I did not encounter any of your unfortunate experiences but completely agree with you about the over crowdedness - I think in my mind I have just accepted that’s the way it is now and I mentally block out the crowds and focus on my own enjoyment / objectives - not always easy of course.

We go back to WDW at present every 18 months - I used to have a desire to go annually but 18 months is now the period of time it takes for the absence to make my heart grow fonder, plus with all the ongoing price hikes it’s an additional 6 months needed to save. Until then we have trips planned for Dubai, Barcelona & Bangkok to keep us occupied!
 

Chef Mickey

Well-Known Member
I don’t doubt you felt this way on your trip but I read this and ask myself, “Why haven’t I felt this way?”

You were pretty vague about crowds. What specifically happened that prohibited you from enjoying the Magic Kingdom? There are other people there, but I certainly don’t believe it was too crowded the 1st week of November to enjoy the parks.

I was at Port Orleans Riverside for 10 days in October and experienced none of the issues you mentioned, particularly with bus service. It’s one of larger resorts, but buses come consistently and waiting 20 minutes isn’t a big deal to me. You just sound irritable and watching other bus lines can make you that way. How long did you really wait each night? Try to be objective.

I also don’t think waiting 15-20 minutes for food is a massive problem. Forgetting about you order is something else, but they’ll make it right. Did they forget your order every night?

Hotel service shouldn’t have been flippant about bugs, but hey, it happens. I’ve seen roaches at the Ritz.

Sorry, but your complaints are just too generic for me to really add anything that would help you. I don’t think you’re jaded, but I think you’re being unrealistic and probably a little dramatic. Literally nothing you posted besides the specific experience with management on the roaches sounds very bad. In fact, it sounds like the typical Disney complainers and generalizations they make.
 

King Racoon 77

Thank you sir. You were an inspiration.
Premium Member
Welcome to the reality of 'Today's Disney' where the only thing that counts is separating you from your money. Customer service is a thing of the past at WDW.

I might still visit florida next year but for the price of a day's admission for a family of 4 to WDW you can charter an airboat for a day and have one of the most amazing experiences of your life. Lots of stuff to do in the Orlando area without ever going near Disney OR Universal.
So we turned up two days late for our vacation (due to unforseen flight issues) at 11pm of the night of our Halloween party resevation. The young girl at the checkin offered us the choice of any other MNssHP for the entire 2 week stay ( even though the later parties were more expensive) that is Disney not having any customer service and were just seperating us from our money ?
Keep on banging your drum of falsehoods.
As for the rest. There has always been more to Florida than Disney and it has always been cheaper. :rolleyes:
 

Networth

Well-Known Member
To be honest, and trust me I am no pixie duster but you were provided with $150.00 credit for your room being dirty, essentially. Which I feel is adequate given the average rack rate for POR. I recently had a problem with my room at a 5 star resort in Boston, know what I was provided? a $50.00 hotel spa credit

Disney is not going to refund any money because the parks were busy, the buses were slow, or they lost your food order at the food court in your eyes. Should some of these issues be correctted, darn right they should and I am glad you actually emailed them unlike many guests who don’t complain to the people that matter i.e. TWDC.

That said I agree with you Disney is busy and I have been going since the 80’s the parks are as popular as ever and aside from a MASSIVE price increase or a terrible world event I don’t see that changing.
 
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Jeremy P

Active Member
Original Poster
Sorry, but your complaints are just too generic for me to really add anything that would help you. I don’t think you’re jaded, but I think you’re being unrealistic and probably a little dramatic. Literally nothing you posted besides the specific experience with management on the roaches sounds very bad. In fact, it sounds like the typical Disney complainers and generalizations they make.

I guess I could have gotten into every single detail but I chose to try from rambling on and on. I'm a seasoned Disney visitor. I have very realistic expectations and know not to expect the Disney vacation you see in commercials. And to be quite honest, I wouldn't have made a peep about the other things if the roach thing hadn't been an issue. Again, I need to reiterate that I'm not a complainer by nature but I also feel like when you're paying ~$250/night for a hotel room plus the price of park tickets, a manager should at least ACT like they care that there were roaches and a tray of food left over 12 hours sitting in a hotel room. And maybe you don't think it's a big deal but again, at that price per night, I don't think it's "dramatic" to feel like waiting 40-45 minutes for a bus is a little long.

You're welcome to take my post as you will and I welcome the input. It wasn't my intention to bash WDW. I just have to question if it's that my expectations are too high or our expectations with Disney have gone down
 

eliza61nyc

Well-Known Member
I don’t doubt you felt this way on your trip but I read this and ask myself, “Why haven’t I felt this way?”

You were pretty vague about crowds. What specifically happened that prohibited you from enjoying the Magic Kingdom? There are other people there, but I certainly don’t believe it was too crowded the 1st week of November to enjoy the parks.

I was at Port Orleans Riverside for 10 days in October and experienced none of the issues you mentioned, particularly with bus service. It’s one of larger resorts, but buses come consistently and waiting 20 minutes isn’t a big deal to me. You just sound irritable and watching other bus lines can make you that way. How long did you really wait each night? Try to be objective.

I also don’t think waiting 15-20 minutes for food is a massive problem. Forgetting about you order is something else, but they’ll make it right. Did they forget your order every night?

Hotel service shouldn’t have been flippant about bugs, but hey, it happens. I’ve seen roaches at the Ritz.

Sorry, but your complaints are just too generic for me to really add anything that would help you. I don’t think you’re jaded, but I think you’re being unrealistic and probably a little dramatic. Literally nothing you posted besides the specific experience with management on the roaches sounds very bad. In fact, it sounds like the typical Disney complainers and generalizations they make.


The thing is what is easy for you is massive to others. Sorry no way, no how should one wait 20 minutes in a food court. just my opinion. The object of a food court is supposedly speed, ease and variety. If I'm going to wait 20 minutes to get an order of fries and a burger I may as well sit down.
That is the reason why we do deluxe so we don't have to do the food courts.

again, i guess each person is different. 20 minutes waiting for a bus is a long time ESPECIALLY at night because correct me if I'm wrong but Disney knows that at the end of the night there is a mass exodus, one would think they would allow for that and I don't know, do something really weird and add extra buses. lol
but once again, that's why I drive because I find disney transportation the worst. If I hate waiting in line for a ride, why would doing it to catch a bus be ok? Our last visit was to the Grand floridian, supposedly the flagship hotel, monorail sucked to high heaven, broke down twice and was packed at the end of the night. I can 1000% tell the difference between 5 years ago and now, like I said if we don't have a car, we don't go.
 

eliza61nyc

Well-Known Member
one thing also Op, some times I suffer from "remember when-itis" if you went to Disney world during the late 90's and early 2000's (outside of 9/11) you remember Disney at literally it's golden age. It really was the standard for family vacations. The service was just really, really superb and it's hard some times to remember that and not feel like it's gone down.
 

Networth

Well-Known Member
one thing also Op, some times I suffer from "remember when-itis" if you went to Disney world during the late 90's and early 2000's (outside of 9/11) you remember Disney at literally it's golden age. It really was the standard for family vacations. The service was just really, really superb and it's hard some times to remember that and not feel like it's gone down.

You should of seen Disney World from about 1989-97'ish now that was the Platinum age :)
 

Pixieish

Well-Known Member
You are so correct I would add early 80's. I too suffer from remember itis, WDW has changed or maybe the guests have
The guests definitely have. As has WDW marketing. I don't remember seeing anything outside of the Wonderful World of Disney advertising the parks as a kid, but now, no matter what channel the TV is on, there are multiple commercials a day airing about Disney vacations.
 

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