Clotho
03-03-2007, 04:41 PM
So I made my dining reservations today, and I am still trying to shake the pretty unmagical customer service I felt I received. The good news is that I have had little to no unmagical moments in my life of going to DLR, and my last (first) trip to WDW. But I had to vent a little...
I hadn't heard from my vacation planner in the last 48 hours since I sent him my ADR requests (a separate mild frustration), and we were eager to get things squared away. We were in our 180+10 window, and since a couple of our reservations are popular ones and it was over Labor Day weekend, we thought we better take some action. I called Disney Dining to see if they had any reservations in our name, and they didn't, so I went ahead and made them. I am glad I did, as Alfredo's only had two seatings left on the night we could go (the last night they will be open before closing their doors forever), according the the man I spoke to...
Unfortunately, the interaction with the customer service rep on the phone was less than stellar. The man I spoke to clearly wasn't fully listening to me at all. He made several mistakes where we had to back up and redo portions of the reservations. I had to tell him the dates we were booking three times, because he kept getting it wrong. And worst of all, he sounded entirely bored and was like a machine just reading these scripted schpeels about each place--even if we had already established that I knew that I had to have park tickets for the restaurant or that it was all non-smoking, he told me with every one anyway--sometimes accidentally reading it twice for the same reservation, which made the entire call more lengthy than it needed to be. He even asked where I was staying, to which I told him the Polynesian. Yet when we got to the Polynesian resort restaurant reservations (my second and third reservations, so not far into the call, or far from his asking me where I was staying) he was schpeeling away about how I could get directions to the Polynesian from where I was staying. *eye roll* He also tried to put the sell on me for La Nouba, completely apropos of nothing. Like:
Me: "Okay, so for the next date, we want to get a reservation for 'Ohana."
Him: "I can make reservations for Cirque du Soleil, too."
"I'm sorry...Excuse me?"
"I can make reservations for La Nouba, the Cirque du Soleil Show, for you."
"Oookaaay...thanks. Good to know. If we decide we want to do that, we'll remember that and call to make those reservations with you guys. For now, we want reservations for 'Ohana, please."
He also asked me if I was on the dining plan. I said I believe I was booked that way, but didn't have any confirmation numbers from my travel planner yet (we definitely have the DDP booked with our package, which our agent arranged for us). To which he said, "Well then you're not on the dining plan." I asked him why that would be and he said, "If you are booking through someone else, you can't get the dining plan. You can only get it if you book yourself directly with Disney." I know that to be completely incorrect, and it only served to make the overall experience all the more displeasing. But the good news is that we got all the reservation days and times we wanted.
Oh and to top it off, after all this complete boredom and mechanical delivery, he closed with this line, delivered with an obvious attempt at sounding more casual, but failing miserably: "I do thank you very much for booking your dining reservations with us. You have a magical day, and we really look forward to seeing you."
*shaking off the icky feeling*
It was really not a good experience. It's not like it was so bad that I should have taken his name and reported him. It just wasn't...Disney! I wish I had heard back from my vacation planner so he could have handled it all for me like last time. *sigh* But I have it all in place now!
I hadn't heard from my vacation planner in the last 48 hours since I sent him my ADR requests (a separate mild frustration), and we were eager to get things squared away. We were in our 180+10 window, and since a couple of our reservations are popular ones and it was over Labor Day weekend, we thought we better take some action. I called Disney Dining to see if they had any reservations in our name, and they didn't, so I went ahead and made them. I am glad I did, as Alfredo's only had two seatings left on the night we could go (the last night they will be open before closing their doors forever), according the the man I spoke to...
Unfortunately, the interaction with the customer service rep on the phone was less than stellar. The man I spoke to clearly wasn't fully listening to me at all. He made several mistakes where we had to back up and redo portions of the reservations. I had to tell him the dates we were booking three times, because he kept getting it wrong. And worst of all, he sounded entirely bored and was like a machine just reading these scripted schpeels about each place--even if we had already established that I knew that I had to have park tickets for the restaurant or that it was all non-smoking, he told me with every one anyway--sometimes accidentally reading it twice for the same reservation, which made the entire call more lengthy than it needed to be. He even asked where I was staying, to which I told him the Polynesian. Yet when we got to the Polynesian resort restaurant reservations (my second and third reservations, so not far into the call, or far from his asking me where I was staying) he was schpeeling away about how I could get directions to the Polynesian from where I was staying. *eye roll* He also tried to put the sell on me for La Nouba, completely apropos of nothing. Like:
Me: "Okay, so for the next date, we want to get a reservation for 'Ohana."
Him: "I can make reservations for Cirque du Soleil, too."
"I'm sorry...Excuse me?"
"I can make reservations for La Nouba, the Cirque du Soleil Show, for you."
"Oookaaay...thanks. Good to know. If we decide we want to do that, we'll remember that and call to make those reservations with you guys. For now, we want reservations for 'Ohana, please."
He also asked me if I was on the dining plan. I said I believe I was booked that way, but didn't have any confirmation numbers from my travel planner yet (we definitely have the DDP booked with our package, which our agent arranged for us). To which he said, "Well then you're not on the dining plan." I asked him why that would be and he said, "If you are booking through someone else, you can't get the dining plan. You can only get it if you book yourself directly with Disney." I know that to be completely incorrect, and it only served to make the overall experience all the more displeasing. But the good news is that we got all the reservation days and times we wanted.
Oh and to top it off, after all this complete boredom and mechanical delivery, he closed with this line, delivered with an obvious attempt at sounding more casual, but failing miserably: "I do thank you very much for booking your dining reservations with us. You have a magical day, and we really look forward to seeing you."
*shaking off the icky feeling*
It was really not a good experience. It's not like it was so bad that I should have taken his name and reported him. It just wasn't...Disney! I wish I had heard back from my vacation planner so he could have handled it all for me like last time. *sigh* But I have it all in place now!