My review of my experience at DLR during Halloween time...

[lildreamer101]

I was there while the op was there and I did see some bad cast members on this trip. One day at Jolly Holiday I saw a cast member standing at the front of the line and was barking at people to move closer to each other in the line. And it wasn't even crowded at that time. It was one of the most undisney things I have ever seen and reminded me of the DMV.

We also had a very negative experience with our new annual passes/max passes and dealt with some bad cast members at Disneyland's town hall. It took hours to deal with the problem and ruined our first day at the park.

We were there from the 25th of October until the 2nd of November and, from my perspective, the crowds during the weekdays were great. Surprisingly low on some of the weekdays. The weekends were crowded as expected. The weekend party nights were very crowded at DCA. The lines for food at DCA on the Halloween party nights really were bad. Fantasmic crowd control is still a god awful hot mess. Disneyland desperately needs to come up with a solution to Fantasmic crowd control.

But overall the lines and crowds were not bad for Halloween. But having said that, we either eat our meals early or late and know which areas to avoid at certain times. But I felt crowds were much better than years past and we are already planning our next trip !!

I wonder if these reactions from the CM's are due to the wage issue?

 

[lildreamer101]

The response to people in the single rider line begging to be seated together should be “I’m sorry but if you want to sit together you’ll need to exit and join the standby line”. It may be easier for CMs to give in to these people, but they are only encouraging the bad behavior.

I agree. People in standby wait, and I wait in SRL if solo. Fair is fair. It may be easy for CM's to let it go but it causes problems.

 

[mommabo]

Hey!

The single rider line abuse: Guests know that by getting in this line you are likely to get split up. Fellow posters on here have told me that on here when I was trying figure out the SRL rules, the paper given and the signs also all indicate this when in the park. However, guests will plead with the CM's, share their sob stories, or lie and say they didn't know when I just heard them talking about how to cheat the lines earlier when I was waiting behind them.. This is all before getting on the ride. They would tell CM's that they can't be separated from their parties and CM's would let them sit together anyway. These guests don't care about how long stand by has been waiting. This is not right.

Last December, 4 of us waited in long RSR FP line as it had gone down earlier in the day. As we enter our car, DD1 and her Boyfriend up front, DD2 and me in back, the CM fills in empty seats with SR. It was a mom and son who is at least 11. The mother proceeds to tell me, not the CM, that she had to sit with her son and I should switch so they can sit together. I was so taken aback, but said no as we waited quite a while to ride DD2’s favorite ride. She then gets huffy with me and tells her son the mean lady won’t move. I happily tell her she can wait in the regular line and ride with her son. She relents and sits down with a grunt. She grumbles the whole ride and looks miserable in the ride photo. We never buy these, so we don’t care. We had a great time. Her son had a great time by the look on his face (DD1’s boyfriend talked to kid and had him cracking up the whole time, neither of them knew the mom’s kerfuffle going on in the back seat. The only one who was miserable was the grumpy mom.

Now I know this is a thing. Hey maybe next time it will be a different story, (different the ride, younger children, ask nicely), but there was no way I was giving into demands made by someone who knowingly expected rules bent in her favor.

 

[mommabo]

Hey!

The single rider line abuse: Guests know that by getting in this line you are likely to get split up. Fellow posters on here have told me that on here when I was trying figure out the SRL rules, the paper given and the signs also all indicate this when in the park. However, guests will plead with the CM's, share their sob stories, or lie and say they didn't know when I just heard them talking about how to cheat the lines earlier when I was waiting behind them.. This is all before getting on the ride. They would tell CM's that they can't be separated from their parties and CM's would let them sit together anyway. These guests don't care about how long stand by has been waiting. This is not right.

Last December, 4 of us waited in long RSR FP line as it had gone down earlier in the day. As we enter our car, DD1 and her Boyfriend up front, DD2 and me in back, the CM fills in empty seats with SR. It was a mom and son who is at least 11. The mother proceeds to tell me, not the CM, that she had to sit with her son and I should switch so they can sit together. I was so taken aback, but said no as we waited quite a while to ride DD2’s favorite ride. She then gets huffy with me and tells her son the mean lady won’t move. I happily tell her she can wait in the regular line and ride with her son. She relents and sits down with a grunt. She grumbles the whole ride and looks miserable in the ride photo. We never buy these, so we don’t care. We had a great time. Her son had a great time by the look on his face (DD1’s boyfriend talked to kid and had him cracking up the whole time, neither of them knew the mom’s kerfuffle going on in the back seat. The only one who was miserable was the grumpy mom.

Now I know this is a thing. Hey maybe next time it will be a different story, (different the ride, younger children, ask nicely), but there was no way I was giving into demands made by someone who knowingly expected rules bent in her favor.

 

[lildreamer101]

Last December, 4 of us waited in long RSR FP line as it had gone down earlier in the day. As we enter our car, DD1 and her Boyfriend up front, DD2 and me in back, the CM fills in empty seats with SR. It was a mom and son who is at least 11. The mother proceeds to tell me, not the CM, that she had to sit with her son and I should switch so they can sit together. I was so taken aback, but said no as we waited quite a while to ride DD2’s favorite ride. She then gets huffy with me and tells her son the mean lady won’t move. I happily tell her she can wait in the regular line and ride with her son. She relents and sits down with a grunt. She grumbles the whole ride and looks miserable in the ride photo. We never buy these, so we don’t care. We had a great time. Her son had a great time by the look on his face (DD1’s boyfriend talked to kid and had him cracking up the whole time, neither of them knew the mom’s kerfuffle going on in the back seat. The only one who was miserable was the grumpy mom.

Now I know this is a thing. Hey maybe next time it will be a different story, (different the ride, younger children, ask nicely), but there was no way I was giving into demands made by someone who knowingly expected rules bent in her favor.

Wowsers! Good to hear that you guys had fun!

I had a similar experience on that ride from the SRL but the CM solved it. A couple wanted to sit next each other, but the CM said not allowed. Not sure if they were toooo grumpy about it though. lol.

 

[tarheelalum]

I wonder if these reactions from the CM's are due to the wage issue?

Disneyland has always been a low paying job so I don't think that is really the issue. I'm amazed that the cast members do as good of a job they do. One of the cast members who was great and fixed our AP/Max pass issues did remark about the town hall cast members in the past year have been limited by Disney policy as to what they can do for guests when problems arise now so Disney management is part of the problem.

 

[ButterflyKisses77]

You can report negative CM experiences to DLR. You can go to City Hall or Chamber of Commerce to complain or use the "contact us" link at the bottom of the Disneyland webpage. Be as specific as you can with details, e.g. date, time, location, CM name and/or description, what happened and how things could have been better, etc. Disney management takes these complaints seriously. Things won't improve or get fixed if management never hears about any of the bad stuff.

I just emailed them and complained about the fact that cast members are letting guests get on rides in groups using the SRL. This shouldn’t happen at all and it’s happening all the time

 

[lildreamer101]

Disneyland has always been a low paying job so I don't think that is really the issue. I'm amazed that the cast members do as good of a job they do. One of the cast members who was great and fixed our AP/Max pass issues did remark about the town hall cast members in the past year have been limited by Disney policy as to what they can do for guests when problems arise now so Disney management is part of the problem.

I guess I encountered a few grumps then?