So ... two anecdotes from last night that I think illustrate exactly what's wrong with WDW these days.
First, due to Three Kings Day/Marathon Week/northerners not being able to fly (see previous post), yesterday was a very busy day at MK--easily equivalent to Summer. However, Casey's went down for refurb as scheduled. Did TDO offset this by reopening Tommorowland Terrace or Tortuga Tavern? Of course not. Lines were out the door at Pecos Bill and Cosmic Rays. Even worse, people were walking out of Rays and sitting on the walkway with trays of food, because there just wasn't seating. It's bad enough that TDO underestimated the crowds when other experts, like, say Touring Plans, anticipated them, but it's even worse they don't have a Plan B to provide guests food when things like this happen.
Second, as most know, 130 DVC rooms just opened up next to the Grand Floridian--with absolutely no food or beverage service of their own, not even a convenience shop. However, upper management is still trying to run the Grand based on the past 5 years (when there was no DVC, natch). Gasparilla has been slammed every week, selling out of food like chips (Lays, Doritos, etc.) every night for over a week. Upper management can't figure out that perhaps this isn't an anomaly and that they should order more food. The table service restaurants and bars have been slammed, too--so of course, upper management wanted them to cut staffing this week to meet historical levels. They would rather lose sales and alienate guests than risk paying an extra server for a night.
This isn't a case of "But Disney exists to make money...". They are LOSING money while providing poor customer service. It just shows that the MBAs running the show in TDO and Burbank don't "get" theme parks. They don't understand how they run, when they get busy (Friday the 13th?), why they get busy, what guests expect when they visit. Noses buried in a spreadsheet rather than walking through the parks.
