I must admit. The last trip to Disney was not the most pleasant vacation ever. Don’t get me wrong, it was by no means any fault by Disney. Tropical storm Fay blew through the entire week we were there and dumped nearly constant rain everyday. Of course this is not Disney’s fault nor do I blame them for any inconvenience the rain caused. It’s just when everyone in your party is tired and wet, tempers start to flare and pretty soon the people you love the most are the last people on Earth you want to be around.
The bad part of all of this was I found myself questioning Disney. "What is it I see in this?" "What is it about Disney that touches my heart so much?"
Without coming up with a definitive answer at the time, I came home with a less that pleasant feeling about Disney and whether I would want to go back or not. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even want to see, hear, or think about anything Disney for about two weeks.
Again let me stress that this is completely my own creation and nothing that Disney is responsible for. In fact everyone at Disney was wonderful even when standing in the rain!
My wife and I wanted to go somewhere for our anniversary this year. Since I’m still not sure about Disney or not we decided to go to Las Vegas. I got a great deal from Expedia on a vacation package, round trip airfare, hotel (Paris) and a rental car. So I booked it. Before too long we were off on our way.
Expedia did have a small disclaimer about the rental car stating that not all fees were paid through the package. OK, I expected maybe $30 or so in fees. WRONG!! The fees were nearly $250 and I only brought about $500 to spend for the whole week, so I lost half my money the first thing when we got there. That set the mood for the rest of the trip for us. We’re not gamblers so the money was to eat on and do whatever we wanted to do, so now we’re eating chips and doughnuts that we bought a convenience store.
The whole feel of our trip was that everywhere we turned there was someone with their hand out. Some people in Vegas can be quite rude when you don’t tip them. Plus there seemed to be no communication between Expedia and the hotel as far as informing them when we would be arriving. Therefore when we arrived at 8:00am the hotel informed us that they would not be checking in anyone until 11:00 so we sat around waiting for our room for 3 hours. We did go get some breakfast and tried to make the best of our wait but it still sucked.
Of course my thoughts started to make a u-turn and I started comparing everything to Disney. At Disney if you mention that it’s your anniversary some cast members will go out of their way to make it special for you. When we told people in Vegas, they were like "so what".
Everytime I have flown to Orlando to go to Disney, our room was ready and waiting for us, no matter what time we arrived. The only few times our room was not ready was when we drove down and Disney did not know what time we would arrive. Even if our room was not ready we could check in and get our park tickets and go do what we want and come back to our room later.
I have NEVER had any surprise fees or costs from Disney that I was not aware of or prepared for. It’s not even fair to compare the quality of service between Las Vegas and Disney, the quality of service at Disney, in my opinion, is second to none, and this was something that was definately brought to my attention on several occasions. My best guess is that in Vegas, the service is dependent on the amount of money you hand out!
After returning from another "not so pleasant" trip I am back to my original questions about Disney "What is it that I see in this?" "What is it about Disney that touches my heart so much"
Well I haven’t completely answered these questions but I have come to a realization, the fact that it DOES touch my heart is probably the most important part and needing to define it is not so important.
Even though we had a less than perfect vacation at Disney, it still has a place in my heart that I can look back on and feel good about. I can’t say the same for Vegas. It wasn’t horrible but I don’t have the same fond feeling about it.
The bad part of all of this was I found myself questioning Disney. "What is it I see in this?" "What is it about Disney that touches my heart so much?"
Without coming up with a definitive answer at the time, I came home with a less that pleasant feeling about Disney and whether I would want to go back or not. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even want to see, hear, or think about anything Disney for about two weeks.
Again let me stress that this is completely my own creation and nothing that Disney is responsible for. In fact everyone at Disney was wonderful even when standing in the rain!
My wife and I wanted to go somewhere for our anniversary this year. Since I’m still not sure about Disney or not we decided to go to Las Vegas. I got a great deal from Expedia on a vacation package, round trip airfare, hotel (Paris) and a rental car. So I booked it. Before too long we were off on our way.
Expedia did have a small disclaimer about the rental car stating that not all fees were paid through the package. OK, I expected maybe $30 or so in fees. WRONG!! The fees were nearly $250 and I only brought about $500 to spend for the whole week, so I lost half my money the first thing when we got there. That set the mood for the rest of the trip for us. We’re not gamblers so the money was to eat on and do whatever we wanted to do, so now we’re eating chips and doughnuts that we bought a convenience store.
The whole feel of our trip was that everywhere we turned there was someone with their hand out. Some people in Vegas can be quite rude when you don’t tip them. Plus there seemed to be no communication between Expedia and the hotel as far as informing them when we would be arriving. Therefore when we arrived at 8:00am the hotel informed us that they would not be checking in anyone until 11:00 so we sat around waiting for our room for 3 hours. We did go get some breakfast and tried to make the best of our wait but it still sucked.
Of course my thoughts started to make a u-turn and I started comparing everything to Disney. At Disney if you mention that it’s your anniversary some cast members will go out of their way to make it special for you. When we told people in Vegas, they were like "so what".
Everytime I have flown to Orlando to go to Disney, our room was ready and waiting for us, no matter what time we arrived. The only few times our room was not ready was when we drove down and Disney did not know what time we would arrive. Even if our room was not ready we could check in and get our park tickets and go do what we want and come back to our room later.
I have NEVER had any surprise fees or costs from Disney that I was not aware of or prepared for. It’s not even fair to compare the quality of service between Las Vegas and Disney, the quality of service at Disney, in my opinion, is second to none, and this was something that was definately brought to my attention on several occasions. My best guess is that in Vegas, the service is dependent on the amount of money you hand out!
After returning from another "not so pleasant" trip I am back to my original questions about Disney "What is it that I see in this?" "What is it about Disney that touches my heart so much"
Well I haven’t completely answered these questions but I have come to a realization, the fact that it DOES touch my heart is probably the most important part and needing to define it is not so important.
Even though we had a less than perfect vacation at Disney, it still has a place in my heart that I can look back on and feel good about. I can’t say the same for Vegas. It wasn’t horrible but I don’t have the same fond feeling about it.
:sohappy:
