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[Californian Elitist]

People often describe Disney as escapism, like that’s a bad thing, but we all escape somehow, it’s just a matter of how. A lot of people have a bad day at work and hit the bottle when they get home, I’d argue going to a theme park is a healthier form of escapism.

It depends.

 

[Californian Elitist]

Totally agree with you on all points. What were the people with mental issues like? I guess like any fandom you can get crazies from time to time.

I only worked at Six Flags and besides one VERY strange crazy coaster enthusiast lady (who actually worked in the park) I never had to deal with those types thankfully.

The people with Disney obesessions who always visited the park, were they always well off financially you think? Or are there people who get in debt to go there?

I think it's good for people to know the online fandom who debates things on messageboards is not their usual customers.

Many are either rare visitors or APs who like you said just want to meet the characters and go on their favorite rides.

Me I like rides, shows, and restaurants. Sadly enough the decline in restaurant food quality is a major change Disney has made that deters my wife and I.

It seems Disney is catering to the instragrammable crowd with lots of sugar and food coloring.

We don't care about the desserts and specialty churros but loved having nice meals at Cafe Orleans, Carnation Cafe, Blue Bayou and Cathay Circle but those have all continually declined.

Recent yelp reviews show the fried chicken at Carnation Cafe is a third of the size of what it was 4 years ago. Blue Bayou's "Surf and Turf" with their mashed potatoes and vegetables is now just the "Turf" with only greens.

Unlike Genie+, you can't pay an upcharge premium to fix it either.

People were just off. Something was very wrong. The way they behaved was strange. Coming to the parks every single day sometimes, bringing their stuffed Disney plushies with them every single time and presenting them to CMs, sometimes wearing the exact same clothes two or three times in a row, making abnormal demands… Just overall weird and bizarre.

I only knew about the financial status of one of them. She was actually homeless. And I mean homeless homeless. She was very dirty, smelled foul, and was legitimately experiencing severe mental health problems. She had an annual pass.

 

[Dear Prudence]

I honestly don't mind there being a reservations system in place, because so many APs were absolutely insufferable, especially the vloggers.

 

[chadwpalm]

People often describe Disney as escapism, like that’s a bad thing, but we all escape somehow, it’s just a matter of how. A lot of people have a bad day at work and hit the bottle when they get home, I’d argue going to a theme park is a healthier form of escapism.

I used to think of Disneyland as escapism (in a healthy way) where I just wanted to enter the berm and escape from the stupidity of the world, but I find now that a lot of that stupidity has crept into the parks. Rudeness, entitlement, attitudes, social media.....it's all there now and doesn't give much of an escape anymore.

 

[mickEblu]

I used to think of Disneyland as escapism (in a healthy way) where I just wanted to enter the berm and escape from the stupidity of the world, but I find now that a lot of that stupidity has crept into the parks. Rudeness, entitlement, attitudes, social media.....it's all there now and doesn't give much of an escape anymore.

It’s still an escape for us in the sense that the only thing we’re really concerned about when we’re there is what we’re riding or eating next. Disneyland forces us into the present moment. I don’t think you can really escape any of those things you listed above.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

It’s still an escape for us in the sense that the only thing we’re really concerned about when we’re there is what we’re riding or eating next. Disneyland forces us into the present moment. I don’t think you can really escape any of those things you listed above.

I agree with both of you, the real world has crept in more than it used to but it’s still escapism for us.

I think the difference for us is 5 years ago we were open to close park people, now we need an afternoon hotel/swim break to escape our escapism because the parks are so crazy they give us anxiety if we don’t escape them for a couple hours.

That’s a lot of escaping.

 

[BuzzedPotatoHead89]

I agree with both of you, the real world has crept in more than it used to but it’s still escapism for us.

I think the difference for us is 5 years ago we were open to close park people, now we need an afternoon hotel/swim break to escape our escapism because the parks are so crazy they give us anxiety if we don’t escape them for a couple hours.

That’s a lot of escaping.

I hear you. Even though we don’t live that far we also prefer to stay onsite for this reason to get away from the crowds for a couple hours.

I don’t know if it’s the pandemic that’s changed everyone else or if it’s changed our attitude toward everyone but I’m also finding myself asking my fiancé if we’re just more annoyed by crowds/general public more or if people’s public behavior and etiquette has gotten worse. Probably both.

 

[denyuntilcaught]

People were just off. Something was very wrong. The way they behaved was strange. Coming to the parks every single day sometimes, bringing their stuffed Disney plushies with them every single time and presenting them to CMs, sometimes wearing the exact same clothes two or three times in a row, making abnormal demands… Just overall weird and bizarre.

I only knew about the financial status of one of them. She was actually homeless. And I mean homeless homeless. She was very dirty, smelled foul, and was legitimately experiencing severe mental health problems. She had an annual pass.

As a past CM I can also vouch for this. Very weird behavior.

 

[CaptinEO]

People were just off. Something was very wrong. The way they behaved was strange. Coming to the parks every single day sometimes, bringing their stuffed Disney plushies with them every single time and presenting them to CMs, sometimes wearing the exact same clothes two or three times in a row, making abnormal demands… Just overall weird and bizarre.

I only knew about the financial status of one of them. She was actually homeless. And I mean homeless homeless. She was very dirty, smelled foul, and was legitimately experiencing severe mental health problems. She had an annual pass.

Wow! The plushy thing is kind of scary. I get Disney has always been an environment to make people feel at home but sounds like some take it too far LOL. Wearing the same clothes is very odd.

Someone being homeless and having an AP now that is shocking. Your job must have been so tough.

For all the flack people have against six flags I never experienced anything this odd.

 

[Parteecia]

People were just off. Something was very wrong. The way they behaved was strange. Coming to the parks every single day sometimes, bringing their stuffed Disney plushies with them every single time and presenting them to CMs, sometimes wearing the exact same clothes two or three times in a row, making abnormal demands… Just overall weird and bizarre.

I only knew about the financial status of one of them. She was actually homeless. And I mean homeless homeless. She was very dirty, smelled foul, and was legitimately experiencing severe mental health problems. She had an annual pass.

Did you ever encounter the people who had to be the final riders of the night every night on certain attractions? I wonder how/if the new program affected them.

Luckily Casa de Fritos had no groupies when I was there.

 

[Californian Elitist]

Did you ever encounter the people who had to be the final riders of the night every night on certain attractions? I wonder how/if the new program affected them.

Luckily Casa de Fritos had no groupies when I was there.

I did. The Andersons. I couldn’t stand them, especially Mrs. Anderson, with her dated, bouffant hair. Their final ride of choice was Pan. Apparently, Mr. Anderson proposed to the Mrs on Pan decades ago, and they made it a tradition to be the last riders on the ride for every visit, and they visited multiple times per week. They would verbally fight with guests over this.

They’re both nuts.

 

[Wendy Pleakley]

I did. The Andersons. I couldn’t stand them, especially Mrs. Anderson, with her dated, bouffant hair. Their final ride of choice was Pan. Apparently, Mr. Anderson proposed to the Mrs on Pan decades ago, and they made it a tradition to be the last riders on the ride for every visit, and they visited multiple times per week. They would verbally fight with guests over this.

They’re both nuts.

I heard her referred to as the Penguin lady I believe.

Mind boggling that anyone visiting a theme park with tens of thousands of daily visitors would think they could take some sort of ownership of such a ritual.

 

[CaptinEO]

I did. The Andersons. I couldn’t stand them, especially Mrs. Anderson, with her dated, bouffant hair. Their final ride of choice was Pan. Apparently, Mr. Anderson proposed to the Mrs on Pan decades ago, and they made it a tradition to be the last riders on the ride for every visit, and they visited multiple times per week. They would verbally fight with guests over this.

They’re both nuts.

Wow that is outrageous. The entitlement they have to do that and multiple times a week too.

 

[Parteecia]

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[MarvelCharacterNerd]

Has the food quality really declined?

Yes.

Setting aside the much smaller portions for higher prices, this has been the first year ever where I have repeatedly taken a bite of food and promptly returned to the cash register with it for a refund before throwing the food in the trash.

I keep losing favorite things to eat and it's less often that anything else actually good replaces it. I'm starting to have to bring food with me because things I used to eat regularly are gone or lowered in quality to the point where I won't eat them.

An example: my fave sundae in the park was the chocolate chunk cookie sundae at the Golden Horseshoe. Would have it regularly. Went in a few weeks ago and sat down to dig my spoon into what I expected would be the warm fresh soft gooey deep dish cookie base and it bent my plastic spoon almost to the breaking point. I looked closer and the cookie was now half the size/thickness and hard as a rock (I literally tapped the spoon on it and it sounded like a woodpecker against a tree - forget cutting into it to eat it). When I went back to ask what was going on, the CMs apologetically explained they recently changed the cookie to... this thing. So I asked them as they processed my refund to let their managers know the cookie was like a hockey puck and completely inedible. I was polite but super disappointed and from the sad looks on their faces they knew they were serving garbage and couldn't do anything about it.

Part of it is supply chain issues, I understand. They're switching up food choices left and right because of it as I've been told directly by the apologetic CMs across the resort. But this was straight up cost savings as this half-sized cookie was presented as a replacement, not a temporary fix, and ruined my favorite dessert.

And don't get me started on changing the waffle fries at Smokejumpers to horribly over-salted crinkle cut fries and then raising the price. Or how the beignets have literally been a completely hollow pastry skin (and smaller) my last couple of orders before I gave up on those, too.

The food situation is getting worse with every visit. And that's just quick service because they still haven't returned the selections I liked to the table service locations!

 

[Jiggsawpuzzle35]

Has the food quality really declined? I don’t want to say I’m a foodie but I’m kind of a foodie and I haven’t noticed a decline in quality. I’ve been an AP off and on (mostly on) since 2013. If anything I’ve noticed an increase in variety of food as well as vegan/ healthy options. I think food quality has stayed more or less the same.

Portions have definitely gotten smaller though. I also wasn’t eating at table service restaurants as much from the mid to late 2010s so perhaps my memory is hazy.

I went to the Carnation Cafe a couple of weeks ago with the family and the meal was complete trash. Both my burger and sons slider were over cooked and disgusting. My other kids chicken fried chicken was dried out. The worst part were the fries that tasted worse than in n out fries sitting out for 20 minutes. Food quality has definitely gone down hill but I will say the desserts are still on point.

 

[mickEblu]

I went to the Carnation Cafe a couple of weeks ago with the family and the meal was complete trash. Both my burger and sons slider were over cooked and disgusting. My other kids chicken fried chicken was dried out. The worst part were the fries that tasted worse than in n out fries sitting out for 20 minutes. Food quality has definitely gone down hill but I will say the desserts are still on point.

That’s weird I had an excellent patty melt there a few weeks ago. Patty was juicy and perfectly cooked and toast was super crispy. It was meaty, juicy, cheesy, crispy goodness. So much so that I ordered a second one at the same sitting to share with my sister and guess what? It wasn’t as good. The bread was more chewy than crispy. Went again two weeks later and again the bread wasn’t the same as that first one. It was still good and tasty but not like the first one. Guess I just got lucky that time.

 

[Jiggsawpuzzle35]

That’s weird I had an excellent patty melt there a few weeks ago. Patty was juicy and perfectly cooked and toast was super crispy. It was meaty, juicy, cheesy, crispy goodness. So much so that I ordered a second one at the same sitting to share with my sister and guess what? It wasn’t as good. The bread was more chewy than crispy. Went again two weeks later and again the bread wasn’t the same as that first one. It was still good and tasty but not like the first one. Guess I just got lucky that time.

My burger patty tasted like an over cooked burger patty at a family BBQ being reheated 6 hours later after the BBQ had ended. My kids slider had the consistency of a hockey puck. The only consistently good meal I’ve had at the park this last year has been the fried chicken at the plaza inn. Unfortunately we are always eating there so now it’s kind of disgusting lol. The burgers at Disneyland have always been trash even when I worked there over 20 years ago. You got extremely lucky finding a good juicy burger because that’s not how I would ever describe a burger at Disneyland.

 

[mickEblu]

My burger patty tasted like an over cooked burger patty at a family BBQ being reheated 6 hours later after the BBQ had ended. My kids slider had the consistency of a hockey puck. The only consistently good meal I’ve had at the park this last year has been the fried chicken at the plaza inn. Unfortunately we are always eating there so now it’s kind of disgusting lol. The burgers at Disneyland have always been trash even when I worked there over 20 years ago. You got extremely lucky finding a good juicy burger because that’s not how I would ever describe a burger at Disneyland.

Yeah me neither. I was so shocked I was eating that burger at Disneyland. The kids burger was trash! Got one for my son. The next time we went I spent the extra $8 bucks and got him the adult patty melt even though he’s only 6. Why do some restaurants give kids crap food? We go to some restaurants though that have very tasty, cheap and generous options on the kids menu. Lure Fish-house being one

 

[Jiggsawpuzzle35]

Yeah me neither. I was so shocked I was eating that burger at Disneyland. The kids burger was trash! Got one for my son. The next time we went I spent the extra $8 bucks and got him the adult patty melt even though he’s only 6. Why do some restaurants give kids crap food? We go to some restaurants though that have very tasty, cheap and generous options on the kids menu. Lure Fish-house being one

Only decent kids meal at Disneyland is at Docking Bay 7.