Disney the Good and the Bad

Disney Service

I'm still on the fence when it comes to the Disney Mantra of the "Customers Always Come First".  I've heard and read about it so much I've come to think of it as almost cult-like.

THE BAD:  Eighteen years ago, Cathy and I purchased 4 Five Day World Hopper Tickets from Disney World.  We only used three of the days.  Before booking our current trip, Cathy called and was told that the tickets were still good, so we booked a hotel.  We received a number of emails from Disney about our upcoming visit.  One email encouraged us to link our Magic Kingdom tickets with our hotel reservations.  Because our tickets were so old we followed the on-line instructions which included calling a special phone number for tickets purchased before 2007.  The operator told us that if the tickets didn't say "Don't Expire" they expired.  There is an appeal procedure to which we availed ourselves.  We had to email copies of our tickets along with photo IDs and call a certain phone number the next day.  When we called they said they'd call us within 24-48 hours with a decision but they didn't.  We called them and they had decided that the tickets were still good.  To be clear, they did not give us two days worth of tickets - they only agreed that we were right all along.  When I showed up at the Magic Kingdom ticket booth there was still a slight hassle even though I provided them with our file number.

THE GOOD:  Many of you have heard the story about how when we stayed at Disney 18 years ago we bought a free re-fillable mug and refilled it many, many times during our stay.   We brought it back on this trip to see if it was still good.  We filled it with coffee and asked the checkout person (think cafeteria) if the free refill offer was still good.  She laughed along with us when we explained the situation.  She called over her supervisor who also laughed with us and said that the re-fill offer was no longer good.  Then she said to the check out (under her breath), ''don't charge him for the coffee" and then she walked away.  The clerk waited for her supervisor to leave, looked up at me and said "I already rang you up - I didn't charge you for either coffee".