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View Full Version : Bad Experience With Disney!



drew1house
10-18-2004, 03:22 PM
Last week I was at a convention in Orlando and was so tempted by Disney being right there that I came home Saturday night and talked my wife into getting season passes to Disney Land and going down on the 27th of October again. We had passes last year until January when we did not renew as we were going to have a new baby and thought we should wait... We called yesterday (October 17th 2004) and had given the ticketing agent the credit card number but were at my folks home and my wife stopped me and said lets use the other card so we were gonna call when we got home in the evening or in the morning... The kids were grumpy and after a long drive we just didnt get to it so I called this morning... I was on-line and while I was on line I watched (with a screen refresh) the price move from $179 to $209 (this was monday morning) so I called in... I told them that I had called and was buying through a ticketing agent on Sunday and the price was lower... they had my CC number... so my feeling is the least they could have done was let me know that the price was going up... after complaining to them and getting escalated to customer communications they kept apologising and said the ticketing people did not know that the price was changing... They also said it was in the local papers so they did not send a press release to their own people but did to the local papers? I was really dissappointed today as I was and have always been so impressed with Disney and their customer service but they really dropped the ball here and we will no longer be spending our money with them... Yellowstone here we come. It seems that if they have to apologise for their policy they should (those apologizing)should be empowered to be able to solve the problem. If it is worth apologizing for (profusely) it means they screwed up but their policy wont allow for them to fix their screw-up... seems like AT&T not Disney... My wife is so steamed that they could not have just said... hey make sure to call back prices are changing or you guys should just run the purchase on this card because if you don't it will cost you more... but they did'nt even let their own people know and are more concerned about their policy and the $90 than doing the right thing... Sad Sad Sad for us and for them (we totalled out past 3 years disney related expenses and were talking about $8,000) I am disgusted... Last week I had lunch at that convention with Mike Vance (Walts Right Hand Man during the creating Disney WOrld Years and the guy who coined the phrase think out of the box) and he told stories about how the unions used to complain because the Dumptruck Drivers had to take Disney University courses to learn the Disney Way... To learn their philosophy concerning everything including customer service... Roy Disney taught those courses. No wonder he walked!

splashmtngurl
10-18-2004, 04:29 PM
i'm sorry you had such a bad expierience with disney. On the whole my family has always had great times with disney but let me tell you, i understand where your coming from. Disney is a huge company and sometimes when they messup its seems like a bigger deal then it really is. (not that case in your situation). Anyway i am sorry to hear you wont be sharing anymore expieriences with the company (unless i am mistaken ;))

My parents had to free airline tickets and were going to take the family to disneyland in november. But as it turns out even with the 2 tickets, it was still going to cost the fmaily 1800 dollars to go for just 3 days. We decided to cancel the trip but my parents didnt want the tickets to go to waste so they are going the week after halloween for a few days. They are going to get annual passes for themselves seeing as it is only 55 dollars extra per person and that way we can go down in may, july and possible october of 2005. Of course now if the price is going up so much, maybe the deal is off. I should let them know i guess.

Anyway, sorry to hear about the big bad expierience. I wouldnt let it get you down though, did they try giving you any benefits or did they try to fix their mistake? if they didnt i would have taken it to a manager.

Well talk 2 ya soon,

Hayley

CoasterChickie
10-18-2004, 04:33 PM
What a bummer!! I am truly surprised that they did not give the public more warning on this one, since they made it pretty well known last spring when they raised the price of one-day and two-day park hoppers.

I'm really surprised that they wouldn't sell you the passes at the cheaper price when they already had your credit card number the night before the price increased.

BJW
10-18-2004, 04:41 PM
Drew1house, I've had my share of bad experiences with them as well. Though they strive to keep high standards they still have their share of bad apples, such as some rude employees and bad policies. However, with a company that big I think it is unavoidable. One thing I have noticed though, is the CMs that seem to enjoy their job and are always friendly are always at the park when you go alot. The rude ones are usually gone within a few weeks/months. The way I try to think of it that has kept me going there is you can't let a few bad apples ruin the whole bunch, IMHO.

Then again, another reason they may not have warned the public about the price increase is to hope people like yourself would show up, just find out about the increase, and go ahead and pay the high price after going through all the trouble to drive there. Just a thought.

SCUBAbe
10-18-2004, 04:43 PM
apologizing is just what companies do. Whether they are at fault are not. They will apologize, see your side of things, and try to calm the situation down. This works on about 90% of the people. My company will not back down on pricing. We also do not match pricing with out competitors. The company has been around for 85 years so it must work...:)

GrumpyUTboi
10-18-2004, 05:08 PM
But just like the airline industry prices are not guaranteed until the ticket is purchased. When I worked for the airline industry we did not know when the prices were going to increase. That is why we had to advise the customer that if they called back in an hour and the price had gone up they had to pay the new price. At first I believed that this was a scare tactic to get people to buy right then, until I saw first hand when the prices went up and I had to deal with irrate customers. The only thing that I could do is advise them to purchase the ticket next time at the time of the call.

I Heart Disneyland!
10-18-2004, 06:49 PM
WOW...that really IS disappointing to me too. I think that in the "keeping customers happy" department, they should have given you the lower price, with a nice reminder that NEXT year the price would be increased. Period. The company where I work (MAJOR bank) uses Disney as a model for its business and even use the "out of the box" wording when trying to teach us the best way to handle our customers. I would refund $30 to a good client's account, (which Disney could have done to help you) to keep them a happy customer! I hate to think of Disney as just being a big corporation, which has no heart. In most ways, I do think they do, but, this is disappointing. :| I wonder if another CM would have handled it differently? Or if it is a blanket way they are dealing with a price increase. ??

SCUBAbe
10-18-2004, 07:05 PM
I wonder if another CM would have handled it differently? Or if it is a blanket way they are dealing with a price increase. ??

I think it's a blanket way to deal with it. When I called during the weekend I could tell by the CM's reaction that she had heard my question at least a 1000 times or she thought she had. I could just tell her guard went up and I wasn't even trying to get one for the less expensive price. Also, if one of the reasons is to have less ap holders then they won't price break them just to make the people they want less of happy....just my cynical thought for the night...LOL