Nancyg56
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2005
without getting into why it was such an emotional thing for her... she showed up a half hour early and was told to sit and wait. Kept checking in every 10 minutes, told nope still wait. At the time it was supposed to be checked in - sorry, running late. After 2 more checkins and a half hour past the time it was supposed to have started, the person said "oh! It started a half hour ago!" She asked for a partial refund since she had missed the first half hour of it and the person said "can't do that, I can seat you now or you'll be charged as a no-show anyway." Asked to speak to the manager and the manager said the same... can't do anything for you, we can seat you now but you will be charged either way so you might as well just go in and do the rest of it. At this point she started to cry (please don't judge, she has a typically very hard life and had really been looking forward to this) and the manager told her that she couldn't join the group like that so she'd just be charged as a no-show. She left the restaurant crying and composed herself enough to go to guest services at the front where they basically shrugged and said "it was your choice not to join the group, you're a no-show, nothing I can do." She went back to her resort had to ask the front desk person something unrelated - the person asked her if she was ok and had been crying and she started crying again. The front desk CM gave her a voucher for a meal and a few fastpasses because it was all she could do. It was a nice gesture and it did make her feel better that the CM made that gesture to her but she didn't even want to use the meal voucher.
She contacted through email and a CM called her, showed some kindness, apologized for what had happened, gave her a refund and her direct contact and helped her to score a last minute reservation for the next time she traveled. Apparently it is very very hard to get a reservation last minute but she worked some magic for her. Because of her situation at home she doesn't know what her plans will be 6 months out and a couple of nights at WDW 1-2 times a year is her only break from it.
But I could not honestly believe how she was treated in the moment. She was there early, someone messed up and didn't seat her, and she was treated like a criminal when she asked for a partial refund based on missing part of it through no fault of her own, and then the manager was basically cold to her and waved her off when she got upset. I still can't believe it happened at Disney but it did. She is a huge fan of Disney and realizes she just had a bad run with a couple of bad eggs but honestly, dealing with those CMs did way more to ruin her vacation than what happened initially and that is one of the reasons I won't deal with stuff in person on my vacation... because if it goes poorly it will just waste precious vacation time. If I'm bothered enough by it I will email when I get back because I have also had an amazing and above and beyond experience with the CMs at the other end of that email myself.
WOW!!! I am shocked!
I agree that there are times when later is better. I had a run of issues one resort stay and while I am normally easy going buy the end of that trip I was fed up. As much as I appreciate recompense for an issue, I expect it to be resolved, and do not liek to have it repeated like an ongoing Groundhog Day, so once I returned home and had calmed down, I addressed it over the phone. A lovely guest services person intervened to make a correction, and to this day we are still in communication. I think that the best outcome of that mess was that I made a new friend, and who knew how small the World was? She was from my hometown.