Chaos during Columbus Day weekend

[nerd3.1415]

Was at the parks last weekend and was rather surprised by some cast member behavior.
We started Monday morning at AK, hoping to get on FOP. Obviously, thousands of other people had the same idea. The line was nearly to the entrance. When we got on the line, a cast member told us it would be an hour and a half. We weaved into Pandora land, and then the line took us into Africa and it looped back to the entrance of FOP. By the time we got there, it had already been an hour and a half. The cast members were still saying it was an hour and a half wait.
We then went to see if there was any table service restaurants in AK that we could get breakfast at. The lack of table service breakfast places made us go to MK instead.
Magic Kingdom seemed to be in complete chaos, even more than AK. There was haunted mansion cast members in the Splash Mountain area of Frontierland and Tomorrowland cast members going into Fantasyland. The Not So Scary Halloween cast members were already strolling around at twelve. In addition, the cast members were being rude to customers all day. I heard so many rude comments uttered under cast members breaths. Families having difficulty entering the park with the magic bands were getting eye rolls and back-handed comments from cast members in MK and AK. I am a big fan of the parks, but I am sad that this behavior was tolerated. I heard from some nice cast members that it was a chaotic day. I wonder what caused this chaos. Were they not prepared for Columbus day?
*Of course this was not all cast members, we encountered many kind ones during our stay. I was just a bit surprised about all of the chaos.

 

[WondersOfLife]

Unless there was any picture evidence, I have to disagree. I was there the entirety of this past weekend and did not witness any of this. Staff was so amazing and awesome and never saw any of the wrong cast members in the wrong location. Had a FP+ for flight of passage got on in less than about 5 or 10 minutes. But that is FP+, I didn't see it go to Africa, though.

I will say the crowds were pretty heavy, but manageable. Definitely no dining reservations available anywhere. Never saw a single rude cast member. Which was shocking. I don't know how they manage to handle the HUNDREDS (we counted) of fat lazy tourists who don't want to get out of their electric scooters for ANYthing.

I thought they were very well prepared. My biggest complaint would only have to be many of the older attractions would end up breaking down periodically (Space Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, PeopleMover, Fantasmic was delayed 20 minutes..) Other than that, I'd say it was about as what could be expected from a holiday weekend.

We did just about everything in 3 days with weather permitting. I'm sorry you had a bad experience, but I never once saw a rude cast member. You must have just been in the wrong places at the wrong times if it's true.

 

[Texas84]

Pandora is like that every single day. Monday was probably even worse because it was an early morning for resort guests. I was in line a second time before regular guests were admitted and it was back to Africa.

 

[nerd3.1415]

@WondersOfLife We got to AK at 7:45 in the morning. We left around 9AM. This was during the morning EMH.
I saw Magic Kingdom cast members out of place in the early afternoon. Especially, Haunted Mansion. I could say I saw about eight-ten cast members strolling around Frontierland. This could have been from one-four PM. Cast members on Small World were the ones telling us it had been chaotic all day. The Not So Scary cast members starting showing up around 11:30. I do have to agree, the electric scooters made the park crowds worse . I felt extremely terrible for the people who actually needed them, they were overshadowed by lazy people. I also got a fast pass for FOP that evening. I saw about 6 rude cast members on the two day trip, a lot during the parades and with magic band problems. I love the parks, I was just surprised this was happening.

 

[nerd3.1415]

@Texas84 The ride is extremely hard to manage, especially for people in wheelchairs and scooters or larger people. They must be planning to put another theater in there. Yes, the line went through Africa- almost to Lion King. It was my fourth time on the ride, and I have never seen the line go outside the entrance.

 

[wdwmagic]

@Texas84 The ride is extremely hard to manage, especially for people in wheelchairs and scooters or larger people. They must be planning to put another theater in there. Yes, the line went through Africa- almost to Lion King. It was my fourth time on the ride, and I have never seen the line go outside the entrance.

I don't think you will see another theater added.

 

[marni1971]

We were in the MK Saturday. By the time it was mid afternoon when we left it was unusually busy.

Cast were on Avenue of Planets from mid morning waving their wands, enforcing a walk on the right rule, splitting the Avenue in two halves. They knew it would be busy later.

DAK was also enforcing the exit only from Pandora into Harambe rule. This wasn't the case the previous week.

 

[WondersOfLife]

We were in the MK Saturday. By the time it was mid afternoon when we left it was unusually busy.

Cast were on Avenue of Planets from mid morning waving their wands, enforcing a walk on the right rule, splitting the Avenue in two halves. They knew it would be busy later.

DAK was also enforcing the exit only from Pandora into Harambe rule. This wasn't the case the previous week.

I will say, particularly on Saturday...... I've never seen so many people at EPCOT in my entire LIFE. The boat ride in Mexico, the line went all the way to the front lobby of the pavilion. 40 minute wait for Nemo. It was INSANE. Perhaps it was just Saturday, though. Because I thought Sunday and Monday were particularly fine. But I can honestly say, even during crowded days at EPCOT, I've never seen that park so packed. The only walk-on attraction outside of the circle vision shows and American Adventure was M:S Green. Even American Adventure was PACKED. (Made me happy though. It got a huge applause.)

Sunday and Monday were fine, to me at least, though.

 

[BuddyThomas]

The wait times listed for attractions this past weekend were insane. At one point, Flight of Passage was 4 hours. Who would wait in that?????????

 

[castlecake2.0]

Sometimes you will see cast out of their areas if they are needed somewhere else quickly (such as crowd control, parade control set up etc) and there isn't time to send them for a costume change. Safety and Courtesy come before Show. It wasn't until somewhat recently that PAC got their own costume and you would see other lands doing crowd control throughout the park wearing costumes that didn't belong.

I was there all that weekend and yes it was busy but I never saw any cast being rude to anyone.

 

[wedance6]

I have been going to Disney all my life. I've been there at least 25 times now and I've never ever experienced or seen any cast member being rude to me or others. And who really cares if some other costumes are in other lands on a busy day for crowd control. If people start complaining about that then they will do away with all costume theming and look like six flags. I'd rather see haunted mansion in pirates versus the same uniform throughout.