The Lost Magic...

One of the hardest things I have had to consider as a travel advisor is the one I had to make right now, and that is the decision to give a full review of my recent Walt Disney World experience. What made this decision so difficult was the fact I would be giving a review that is not glowing or supportive of what was once an experience beyond belief. Before I get into the details, I must give the Disney Cast-member's (the on the front lines employees) high praise because they go way outside the traditional limits of what we receive for customer service and they do it with pride and enjoyment for you. They are true professionals in what they do and the company should be very proud of them. However, as a result of recent company decisions, these proud professionals find themselves dealing with a multitude of upset, and in some cases very angry, guests that are not feeling the magic of what the Disney brand was founded on and has grown from.

For my recent trip I was not traveling alone. My wife and I were traveling with some friends of ours who have been to Walt Disney World four previous times and they were celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary right in the middle of our vacation. In order to commemorate their achievement, they had made reservations for one of their favorite experiences - a character dinner experience at the Beauty and the Beast Castle. In order to make this reservation, they were on hold for over two and half hours before they could confirm their reservation and apply the payment. Little did they know, there were some changes to the program that they would not learn until arriving at our Resort. A couple of days into our stay they received confirmation of their reservation for their special dinner and this is when they learned that there would be no character experience at all, and that the dinner menu would be substantially scaled back. This information is something that should have been shared with them at the time of making the reservation but there was no hint at it all. Furthermore, one would think that if you are going to charge a guest the full price for an experience, as it is advertised, then you would provide the experience paid for; this was not the case here at all and they were charged full price for half of the experience. Fortunately, they were able to get the reservation cancelled, but it cost them $40 to do it because it was within 24 hours of when their reservation was for. The guest services assistant who helped them was very helpful and very apologetic, but this situation should not have existed in the first place if the company truly had the guest experience as top of mind. But this was not the only issue that our friends had experienced, they also had to cancel their character experience at Hollywood & Vine with the Fab Five because it too had been downgraded in quality of dining and the character experience would not be the Fab Five but "maybe" another character may walk through during the meal. 

My experience started at the Resort with my room having still not been assigned by the time arrived to the property. I was able to get a great front desk associate to work out what was going on and she ultimately was able to get me assigned to the category of room that I had purchased. However, again an issue that should not have existed required an associate to work ten times harder than they should have just to meet a routine obligation by the company. My room was not assigned because there were some major issues with the room that were associated with the previous occupants. The breakdown started with the property maintenance team not notifying the reservations desk of the issue so when I arrived to check on my room assignment, the front desk associate didn't know why my room had not yet been cleared for assignment. It required her to contact multiple departments before she finally had an answer and she went to the upper management over the issue to get a new room assignment. I could not be more appreciative of the service that I was provided by the staff of the resort but the supporting roles and processes leave much to be desired if they are going to create issues such as mine.

The experiences within the parks varied and were primarily acceptable but one of the most important elements of what Disney has been built off was missing everywhere you went - there were NO characters anywhere to be seen, not even from a distance (which Disney has been promoting the return of character interactions from a distance and in controlled environments). The only time we saw any characters was during the stage shows (which are not as frequent as normal) and during the parades at night (which are also very different in their design than normal), and we did have one time that we saw Mickey Mouse and it was from about 12 feet, and that experience was scheduled for a 30 minute presence for that day so we happened to get lucky.

Recently Disney has made some changes to how their park passes and how the attractions (their term for the rides) work and these changes have led to many guests being extremely frustrated with the process. The days of the FastPass and FastPass+ are gone and they have been replaced with the new Genie+ program. The couple that had traveled with us had purchased this new Genie+ service (and yes, you have to pay for it) because it is promoted as being an improvement upon the FastPass and FastPass+ programs. Well, that is not how it really turned out. Now to access rides in a priority style fashion you get into what is called the Lightning Lane (LL) que, and, for the most part, your Genie+ service subscription gives you this access with no additional charge, as long as you are not trying to get into one of the popular rides. In order to get your place in the que for one of the popular rides you need to purchase your access window for an additional charge over the daily service charge for the Genie+ service. And, in order to start getting your place in the que, you need to login to your My Disney Experience app at 7:00am to start your selections. Problem is that by the time you get into it and get through the process you are already finding yourself reserving an access window that is late afternoon to early evening, or even later for the really popular rides. For out first experience with setting up our access time for Flight of the Avatar, my wife and I were able to reserve our window for 6:30pm to 7:15pm for a total extra cost of $15 each. Our travel companions were able to schedule their time for 6:00pm to 6:45pm, but their extra charge was for $14 each. So, my friends paid for the Genie+ service to give them that added advantage of being able to select que access times for the more popular attractions for the price of $15 per person per day, plus they had to pay an additional $14 per person to get their que window, total cost of $29 per person just for that one attraction when I only paid $15 per person without the Genie+ services. Needless to say they cancelled their Genie+ service and got a full refund on it.

Throughout the entire visit to the parks this was a common thread of conversations among the guests visiting and I witnessed many couples and families talking about cutting their reservations short as result of the issues they had been experiencing. Our travel companions even admitted that they have never had a bad experience at Walt Disney World before but that this one was bad enough to lead to them considering no longer making the journey as they have so much previously enjoyed. This type of comment is one that gets your attention and really gives you insight into how much the company changes have negatively impacted the final product and the overall experience of the Disney guest. It is sad to say that the Magic of Disney is missing right now and may just disappear if they don't get back to what they were founded upon. It is fair to admit that some of the things, such as character experiences, could be impacted by the ongoing COVID issue but it should also result in keeping the guest informed of what experiences may not include right now and charging an adjusted rate for the modified experience. But you can not blame the failure of your new programs on COVID as these are not temporary in nature and replacing previous business models and that is a total failure of proper management and implementation which falls squarely on the heads of those who run the show. 

Walt Disney World is currently experiencing higher than normal visitation across the spectrum of seasons so they are not losing any money at all. In fact, they are making record revenue but they are not providing the full experience to their paying guests and that just smacks of greed right now.

As an Authorized Disney Travel Planner, I can not recommend visiting any of their properties at this time because of what I witnessed during my trip, what I experienced during my trip, and the results of conversations with other guests throughout my visit; things are not what they are promoted to be right now and I can not honestly recommend to a client, especially with kids, that a Disney vacation experience would be good for them at this time. We can all hope that the magic will return to the Disney experience but it needs to come from the top for it to even be noticed.