Magical Moments, Pixie Dust, and Plastic Junk

[castlecake2.0]

The year is 2007, and the newly coined “Disney Parks” are celebrating the Year of a Million Dreams. Part of this campaign involved numerous “magical moments” that would be surprised upon guests throughout the day; anything from fast passes and ice creams to merchandise and castle suite stays.

Magical Moments, at least officially internally, was the name given to planned events or happenings that would take place to add a bit of extra pizzazz to the guest experience. Think like the opening ceremony at World of Disney each morning, or the family of the day at 50s Prime Time. In contrast “Take 5’s” were unplanned, spontaneous moments between Cast and Guests, like taking a moment to point out some hidden mickeys or hand out stickers. (The idea being the Cast Member took 5 minutes to make someone feel special).

Fast forward to the 2020s. At some point "magical moments" started being called "pixie dusting". This was guest driven, there was no official internal name change. Now add social media. People posting online began to talk about being pixie dusted, referencing anything from a room upgrade, front of line access, free amenity etc.

On top of that, guests wanted to get in on it themselves. Now people are bringing their own gifts and trinkets to pass out/hide around so they themselves can pixie dusted each other. See below:

Enter: plastic junk. People are now stocking up before trips on all the landfill core Disney items possibly imaginable. Taping them to doors, leaving around resorts, even hiding them in theme parks.

While window decorating at resorts has been a tradition for many years, areas are now becoming littered with items being left out and about as “pixie dust”. Not only can people find it distracting from the carefully maintained areas, it now has guests wandering and poking around areas that they sometimes shouldn’t be, looking for items being left around by fellow visitors.

It’s also created an issue in which people think if an item isn’t bolted down then it’s free game. Many posts have been seen on social media where a stroller or other item left outside a hotel room door has disappeared, likely because someone else thought it was there for the taking.

What started out as cast member driven activity has now taken off on its own, thanks mostly to social media, into a large scale fan lead, world of its own. So what’s your thoughts? Is this a fun new tradition? Or a fan made activity that is getting out of hand? Or somewhere in between?

 

[JIMINYCR]

I was a WDW during the YoaMD promotion and was happy to see Dis doing something extra for guests. I received a few "prizes" during that time. I wish they continued doing things like that to show guest appreciation. Unfortunately too many people now expect CM's are going to pass out freebies to all and they feel they are deserving of receiving free everything.
I'm all for guests treating others with kindness. Theres too much anger and frustration going on around property that spills over to others. I've given away pins to kids, given away FP tickets when they were in place, paid for peoples meals in restaurants anonymously when I am touched by something I see about them. I pass on my good fortune to others at home and at WDW.
If someone wants to give away a stuffed character or other things placed on their resort door I'm fine with it. People have left packs of water, soda and packaged food stuff when they check out for others to take. But people should have enough sense to realize strollers in a hallway may not be a gift.

 

[mysto]

I feel the lanyard-style fastpasses given out for the yomd was a trial to gather data for an electronic fastpass model, and eventually paid fastpass. I imagine they wanted to get away from the paper system even then. I see this event as the beginning of the end of the good old days. When I was there during that time I didn't get a lanyard, and it was soul crushing watching everyone with one file past the queue.

If there's no sign on your gift explaining that it's a gift you are littering.

 

[JIMINYCR]

When I was there during that time I didn't get a lanyard, and it was soul crushing watching everyone with one file past the queue.

That was the only downside. Some guests won, some lost out. It was a gamble that you might get to be a winner. Who would be chosen was completely random. Times were set when and where the Dream Squad could award prizes. Not everyone was in the right place at the right time to get chosen.
It got to the point where some guests spotted a Dream Squad CM and kept following them around to try and be with them when it was time to award something.
There was also a write in contest you could send in your name and address and you could win a lanyard with pins and Mickey Ears hat. I got several.

 

[WorldExplorer]

Fast forward to the 2020s. At some point "magical moments" started being called "pixie dusting". This was guest driven, there was no official internal name change. Now add social media. People posting online began to talk about being pixie dusted, referencing anything from a room upgrade, front of line access, free amenity etc.

Disney really should take out the Magic Kingdom bus spiel that's all about how you should expect this stuff.

On top of that, guests wanted to get in on it themselves. Now people are bringing their own gifts and trinkets to pass out/hide around so they themselves can pixie dusted each other.

I have yet to see an issue with just the little ziplock bags with stickers in them that have a clear "I AM PUTTING THIS HERE SO YOU CAN FIND IT" indicator on them. So far I'm okay with those.

Stuff like leaving popcorn buckets just causes the entitled people to show up going "Hi All Star Movies Facebook people, so I told my children people would be giving us free resort cups and my son is really determined to have someone give him a free popcorn bucket! Who's going to step up!?" (an actual thing I saw once). Which is great if everyone just completely ignores them and they have no way of getting the free stuff they've convinced themselves they're entitled to.

However...

It’s also created an issue in which people think if an item isn’t bolted down then it’s free game. Many posts have been seen on social media where a stroller or other item left outside a hotel room door has disappeared, likely because someone else thought it was there for the taking.

I don't believe the thefts are mistakes; people know what they're doing, they just fall back on this excuse when caught. At the very least, the idea that they can just lean on this as a supposed explanation emboldens them. "Oh look, a stroller outside a hotel room door: must be for me!" is not a normal line of thought, especially when (as you point out) this kind of thing is new. Old enough to have a kid but your worldview and understanding of property is shaped by the last five years where a small number of people give away things at Disney World? No. No, I don't buy it. At absolute best that is an insane amount of entitlement and obliviousness.

Thieves look at this stuff and see opportunities because people are going to run defense for them. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if they actively make the "it was obviously not really a problem, don't be mad" posts. That post you screenshot and the fact that the person saying it's a crazy thing to do got way less positive engagement than the Stealing Defense Squad ticks me off; they're defending theft to the victim. "So many people leave their strollers out for people!" Really? So many, huh? It happens so often that the default assumption should be "FREE STROLLER!" instead of just leaving stuff that isn't yours' alone? That's news to me, but maybe I just miss all the free stuff because when I walk around resorts I'm not actively looking for stuff to take.

I would love for them to explain to me the exact amount of certainty you should have before you take something that isn't yours'; should I just think the odds are decent, or be like mostly sure, or...? Cause before this my assumption would be if I am not 100% completely certain something is for me to take I should keep my hands off other people's stuff (so far this has resulted in 0 thefts in my life), but clearly that's not what they're going with. How do they convey this system to their children? It sounds a lot more complicated than "It's not yours', leave it".

It makes a twisted kind of sense that the people who want you to assume theft is actually just a mistake (less likely) also feel it's okay to see an item and just assume it's actually up for the taking (also less likely). Who benefits from this mindset? Only the people who take stuff. If something really is abandoned then a CM will get it quickly enough. There's no downside to not taking stuff you don't actually have confirmation is being given away outside of the people who feel they're entitled to free stuff not getting their free stuff.

(No, I don't care that it gets thrown away. I would rather stuff get thrown away and stealing not be encouraged, that is a totally worthwhile trade off to me.)

Maybe I sound like I'm getting too emotional about this, but "I just saw this stroller and decided it was mine now!" would've been taken as an obviously stupid and wrong thing to do very recently, but give it less than a decade and over two thousand people are willing to stand beside that as a completely rational thing to do. I don't like the direction this goes in.

View attachment 945276

We're cleaning out our basement. This is exactly what the floor looked like when we took all our old toys from the toy chest.

 

[JIMINYCR]

We're cleaning out our basement. This is exactly what the floor looked like when we took all our old toys from the toy chest.

I see nothing wrong with bringing stuffed characters from home that maybe your kids no longer care about and someones child would enjoy having. Instead of throwing them out, putting them for sale at a yard sale or donating then to some childrens orginization, they do no one any good sitting in your basement. Its a novel idea of being able to pass them on to a child and save a parent from spending money in the park shop.

 

[MMDVC]

I’m not sure this is a good idea for sanitary reasons .
I doubt Disney would approve of this on property.

 

[MickeyLuv'r]

The term Pixie Dusting is pretty old. It predates 2007.

From there you pivot to the idea of guests giving stuff away, and calling it plastic junk, as if plastic junk doesn't exist outside of WDW giveaways?

From there you pivot to the giveaways leading to an excuse for theft.

There is a bit to unpack in your leaps, but I will start with saying that playing-it forward between guests predates 2007. The DDP started before YoaMD. The early DDP credits were a lot of food, but credits expired upon check out. As soon as the DDP started, people had leftover credits, so they opted to give them away to others. I know I did, but I thought of it without social media.

Long before that, CM's did special things for guests, so that was the original inspiration. I recall, a long time ago, a member of my extended family bought a Mickey balloon, but we couldn't easily bring it home, so we gave it away at the end of our visit. When WDW gave out Mickey stickers (early 2000's), the children in my extended family quickly had the idea to share the stickers with other children they met on the bus. CM usually gave kids a strip of 5+ stickers, so it was somewhat natural to offer some up.

I also recall strangers long ago sharing tips and suggestions while talking on the bus or waiting in line for an attraction. Before smartphones, WDW visitors used to spend much more time striking up conversations with nearby strangers to pass the time. Innoventions used have booths where parkgoers could get freebies. There were plastic robots, Kidcot, and make-your-own-paper. The early festivals had 'free' honey sticks and beer/wine samples. The Australia booth gave out 'free' wine samples, and Sam Adams gave out flights of beer! (Park admission wasn't free, but there was no additional charge to parkgoers.) So it was natural for word to spread amongst parkgoers.

Stroller theft and/or stealing stuff from stroller is also pretty old.

 

[Chester&Hester Enthusiast]

The first part of your post gave me so much nostalgia. I started in Ops in 2007, and I loved it so much when the rotation would bump me to a Take 5. I always Took Several More Than 5 and would grab guests from way back in the queue for Space and let them skip the line and ride with me.

Sad to see what this has become.

 

[wendysue]

I remember the buy 4 nights and get 3 free at our resort in 2009. That was awesome. Not so much now.