Thanks for all the replies, especially from PirateJosh and Pirategirl. :wave:
I relayed my story in such detail because I am a computer programmer/analyst by trade, and I am used to noticing run times, operations, and details.
Personally, whenever we see a "problem" within a Disney park, 99 out of 100 times we are on the side of the CM's! It's amazing how rude and obnoxious some Guests can be.
In fact, just this trip, my wife and I placed our tickets into the Pooh FastPass machines at about 2:00 pm, peak time. There was a 45 minute wait for the ride. We received a "Not A Valid FastPass" ticket. Odd, we hadn't used our tickets all day for FastPass! There was a CM right there talking to two woman, so I waited patiently for his attention. Unfortunately, these two woman were chewing out (actually, I'd call it chomping out) the CM to the point of calling him an idiot. After hearing about a minutes worth of yelling and complaining (the hundreds of people in line for Pooh also heard the women), it was obvious the CM was completely right, and these two woman were completely out of line. They had FastPasses for Splash Mountain, and insisted that since that ride was temporarily down, they should be able to use their unused FastPass on any ride, any time, anywhere in the park, and as many times as they wanted to. The CM told them to go to City Hall.
When the CM addressed us, I joked, "Bad day, huh?", to which he replied, "No sir, I'm fine!" We showed him our invalid passes, and he wrote his name on each ticket and told us we could go on the ride now. I guess he was just happy to meet friendly people after the incident with those two women. That's Disney quality, and that's the type of service we all expect.
On an E-ride night a few years ago, we were loading onto Splash Mountain, and saw a Disney Security Guard with a a family of 4 (the two kids were in their early teens) on the exit side of the logs. While we were waiting to be launched, we heard the mom and dad pleading their case with the Security Guard. They apparently had NO idea this was a "special" night, didn't know anything about wrist bands (that identified E-ride guests), and were upset they were being asked to leave the park. The Disney Guard said sarcastically, "It's 9:30 at night, the park closed at 8:00, and we had reports that you and your family were entering rides using through the exits, and were wearing long sleeve shirts (to cover the fact they did not have a wrist band), and you had NO idea that you weren't supposed to be here? Yeah, right."
I'll bet their kids were proud of what mom and dad were trying to pull, huh? We gave the Security Guard a thumbs up as we went by, and he winked at us.
I have not written to Guest Relations about our Pirates incident, I merely answered their on-line survey. We're simply putting this behind us. I just wondered if anyone on this site happened to be in one of those boats. As for stopping at City Hall after the ordeal, it was difficult. The fireworks had just finished, thousands of people were exiting, and there was a line at City Hall.
Personally, I blame Stitch. He made a mess of the Castle, and I'm guessing he tinkered with a few Pirate mechanicals that night. :animwink:
We were also surprised the soundtrack wasn't turned off sooner. Anything over 30 minutes is enough to make ya crazy when your stuck in a boat. I guess we're glad this didn't happen on "It's A Small World", we'd be in therapy now.
![Eek! :eek: :eek:](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)