Overheard- made me cringe

[wilkeliza]

As an aside, I'll say our experience as WDW microplanners helped us when planning our trip to Europe this summer. We got our tickets to museums and other high-volume attractions months in advance, which was awesome when we got to skip the long lines and go right in. Felt like we had a FP for Europe.

I think my micromanagement (I'm not even that bad I just like to buy what I can as soon as I can when on vacation) ended up making me super annoyed my entire first Europe trip. I was traveling with 17 other family members and they were all oh no you can just book it the night before through the ship type of people or we are spending all this money to be on a luxury ship they'll be able to get us in okay type. My sister in law and I are planners in the fact okay this day we are in this city what are some fun things to do, what needs tickets, what doesn't. I don't know how she has been in her family all these years with out going off on someone! For things I really wanted to do I booked it and then said I need a decision by you by this date or you aren't included because it will be gone no same day decisions if you want to go here here or here.

 

[mjr0483]

But if they didn't do any research shame on them. We went to London and Paris and Disneyland Paris back in April and I did a bunch of research on tours and what sites we wanted to see. So anything you do does require a bit of research.

 

[Disney & ME]

Oh dear... On the occasions that we have run into people like this, my husband just points them to me and I try to give them a crash course without freaking them out. I have given lessons on the bus more than once.

I do the same thing both at WDW and in advance. When I hear about people going to Disney I offer up advice, spreadsheets, websites, books, anything I can. When I am on the bus or waiting anywhere at Disney I try to offer advice without being pushy or nosy. It is quite Pollyanna but I just want everyone to enjoy my favorite place as much as I do.

One of my co-workers learned the hard way when she didn't plan anything and they went straight to Carousel of Progress at rope drop and some other rides but then had long waits for the headliners. Fortunately they went another time and made their FP in advance.

 

[Praying Colonel]

I think my micromanagement (I'm not even that bad I just like to buy what I can as soon as I can when on vacation) ended up making me super annoyed my entire first Europe trip. I was traveling with 17 other family members and they were all oh no you can just book it the night before through the ship type of people or we are spending all this money to be on a luxury ship they'll be able to get us in okay type. My sister in law and I are planners in the fact okay this day we are in this city what are some fun things to do, what needs tickets, what doesn't. I don't know how she has been in her family all these years with out going off on someone! For things I really wanted to do I booked it and then said I need a decision by you by this date or you aren't included because it will be gone no same day decisions if you want to go here here or here.

Sounds like my idea of hell, or at least 1 version of it.

 

[bryanb]

I'm talking about groups of people with tickets in hand walking towards the FP machines at Disneyland, seeing the standby wait was 15 minutes longer than the start of the FP return window, and deciding to get into standby anyway instead of getting the FP they were walking up to get. So instead of getting a FP, doing something else for 30 minutes, returning for their FP, and still getting off the ride before they would if they were in standby, they decided to wait in standby instead because it was "only 15 minutes longer".

This whole summer at Disneyland, I've seen people getting into queues when the standby time is longer than FP return time. I think a lot of them just don't care or they don't believe what they're seeing. Earlier this summer, I was walking toward the Indiana Jones line entrance and a CM asked, "are you sure that's what you want to do?" It's then that I noticed the FP return time on Indiana Jones was 5 minutes and the standby was 45 minutes. Still, there was a non-stop stream of people going into the standby line.

 

[Elsaalltheway]

I'm going with two newbies and I made it a point that they did their own research of things they wanted to do and they I took all that info and made a plan and fast passes and everything. I made sure to get all the E tickets and figure the rest is just gravy.

 

[bryanb]

Even more cringe-worthy, on the TTC-MK monorail, I met a group of five visitors who were in town for one day and enjoyed a spur-of-the-moment trip to Epcot.
Wishes was about to start, and they decided they wanted to see the MK too. But instead of upgrading to park hoppers, they had bought another set of one-day tickets to the MK.

"I know it's kind of a splurge, but we had so much fun that I thought we needed to see the Magic Kingdom too."

They looked so happy, I didn't have it in my heart to tell them. I felt kind of guilty afterwards, but if they had to go stand in line at guest services to try to fix this, they would've missed out on valuable park time.

 

[wilkeliza]

Even more cringe-worthy, on the TTC-MK monorail, I met a group of five visitors who were in town for one day and enjoyed a spur-of-the-moment trip to Epcot.
Wishes was about to start, and they decided they wanted to see the MK too. But instead of upgrading to park hoppers, they had bought another set of one-day tickets to the MK.

"I know it's kind of a splurge, but we had so much fun that I thought we needed to see the Magic Kingdom too."

They looked so happy, I didn't have it in my heart to tell them. I felt kind of guilty afterwards, but if they had to go stand in line at guest services to try to fix this, they would've missed out on valuable park time.

This one I think is Disney marketing sometimes. I have some friends who are very very smart and they bought 5 individual day tickets for our 5 day trip and then said well when I went to look at tickets it said I needed a different ticket for each park so I bought 1 MK ticket and epcot ticket and animal kingdom ticket and 2 universal tickets. I was screaming inside. Then more recently I went in to look and the new set up does come off as being very over whelming if you don't know what park hopper means or multi-day tickets means etc. They assumed since we were doing universal between disney days they couldn't buy a multiday ticket. These are engineeers who made this mistake it was so baffling to me and I just felt bad that they wasted all that money.

 

[KimBean]

^^^^^ THIS
I work in marketing and I recognise this marketing strategy they use. They focus on new visitors rather than returning visitors. They have done the math and realise that one and done visitors have a higher spend per person than returning visitors. So then they prioritise and promote to the one and done market. They will have what is called in marketing a customer profile. Some companies I have done just a very basic customer profile for. Disney will have a very indepth, very specific customer profile which could be something like this

Europe
UK
Dad - Phillip
Age - 45
Degree level education
Earns approx £35,000 PA


Mother - Jane
Age -45
Degree level education
Earns approx £35,000

2 children aged 11 and 15

Annual summer holiday 2 weeks in Canary Islands, Spain or Portaventura Spain or Malloraca

Family interests
Pools and waterparks
Sun and hot weather
Thrill rides
Princesses
Eating out, restaurants
Nostalgia for parents of growing up seeing Disney on tv

This isn't any different then any other company I know of. Companies always spend a ton more money to gain a new customer then to keep an old one. Right?

 

[KimBean]

But if they didn't do any research shame on them. We went to London and Paris and Disneyland Paris back in April and I did a bunch of research on tours and what sites we wanted to see. So anything you do does require a bit of research.

Disney is a lot to plan, but I have never gone to Europe mainly because the planning I would have to do overwhelms me. Disney is a breeze compared to that. I'll go on a cruise one day. That will give me some of the structure I need. Lol!!

 

[fla4fun]

yeah, I can relate.....always feel bad when I hear people coming from their WDW trips that they didn't know about stnadout missed attractions and not using the FP!!!! But, they still seem to have a great time.

I'm confused . . .why feel bad for someone who had a great time? Everyone has different priorities when it comes to what makes a great vacation. For example, I loathe thrill rides, so a lot of the "standout" attractions would never be on my radar to begin with. I only book FP for about half the days of my trip because for me to have a great vacation I need the flexibility to be spontaneous sometimes, whether it ends up being a resort day, a Disney Springs day, or playing bus roulette and just going with the flow. For others it's all about packing as many rides in as possible, and the more thrilling the better. Neither way to do Disney is wrong. If I ask someone how their vacation went and they say "Great!" then I feel happy for them. If they say something like "It was ok, but I wish I had known about x, y and z." then I would feel bad.

 

[prink022]

Total newb's.. Can't imagine going without using FP!

It truly amazes me the amount of people who book vacations to Disney under the impressions that fastpass is extra. It doesn't take a lot to figure out it's included...

 

[MickeyWaffles]

I think advertising is also somewhat to blame. Disney does make you feel like "show up, we'll take care of everything, don't lift a finger!" The commercial with the family at the front desk with the CM flapping fairy wings comes to mind.

I think many people are shocked that in order to experience certain things, they did need to lift a finger 180 or 60 days in advance.

 

[bryanb]

I think advertising is also somewhat to blame. Disney does make you feel like "show up, we'll take care of everything, don't lift a finger!" The commercial with the family at the front desk with the CM flapping fairy wings comes to mind.

I think many people are shocked that in order to experience certain things, they did need to lift a finger 180 or 60 days in advance.

If you book onsite, you get a booklet and emails with checklists of things that you'll want to consider doing. For all guests, they offer to send out "planning" DVDs and/or online videos to people considering a WDW vacation.

Not everyone is interested in planning, but even those who don't plan can have a good time. If truly many people show up and feel dissatisfied at not having planned more, then the place would have a much more appalling reputation than it has on Disboards.

 

[AdamEfimoff]

Sitting at a McD's on our way home from an awesome two week trip. There is a family with young kids sitting across from us and the mom just said "if we ever decide to go back to Disney we will try to get fast passes next time!"

They apparently didn't have a great trip from the snippets I am hearing.

So right now the planner in me is cringing at the thought of not even using fastpass on a trip....

is this Disneyland or world

 

[ChiefM]

Found out yesterday that a co-worker is planning on going to Disney World in November. Says he is planning on staying on-site. So I said did you make you a MDE account, download the app, make FP selection and start making ADR's? He looked at me like I was speaking French. He has been before so I don't know what the problem is. He said he was leaving for the day and we can talk about it on Monday.

I think the guy is bi-polar, one day he is nice the next day he looks like he wants to kill us all. One part of me wants to help because he might not know, the other part wants to just let him wing it and he gets what he gets.

 

[AdamEfimoff]

Found out yesterday that a co-worker is planning on going to Disney World in November. Says he is planning on staying on-site. So I said did you make you a MDE account, download the app, make FP selection and start making ADR's? He looked at me like I was speaking French. He has been before so I don't know what the problem is. He said he was leaving for the day and we can talk about it on Monday.

I think the guy is bi-polar, one day he is nice the next day he looks like he wants to kill us all. One part of me wants to help because he might not know, the other part wants to just let him wing it and he gets what he gets.

wow bipolar is actually a very serious illness . You should not just randomly use the term

 

[ChiefM]

My daughter is bi-polar so I am pretty sure of the signs and sudden change in attitudes. Thank you for your concern but I do not just throw out terms.

 

[LSUmiss]

My daughter is bi-polar so I am pretty sure of the signs and sudden change in attitudes. Thank you for your concern but I do not just throw out terms.

Unless you are also a liscensed mental health professional, it's still reckless to say even if you have had personal experience with it.

 

[wonderstruck88]

Someone I know is it Disney right now and didn't book any FPs. They've been twice in the last few years but for some reason decided that they just didn't feel like dealing with that this time around. I don't understand... even if you don't end up using all of them or don't want to book all three a day in advance, why would you not book ANY?!