I guess I've read a few of these type of posts over the years.

Early last year a colleague announced he and his then fiancee were going to get married in UK and go to Orlando for honeymoon. We started talking about Disney, universal and all the usual things.

Of course I extolled the virtues of all the parks, especially EPCOT but in the end, after looking around and talking to people, they decided that they'd stay at a universal resort and only had one day to spare for Disney!

In itself that was interesting. They showed me the different marketing materials and Disney was all about the kids, universal was much more young couple friendly whilst also managing to appeal to families. Universal had citywalk for the evenings, Disney had nothing.

So in the end, it came down to one day at Disney. I said EPCOT but then they wanted to see the castle and the magic kingdom parade. Since park hopping has become expensive, they decided to do a whole day at the magic kingdom.

I told them to buy and wear the just married mouse ears and get the badges from city hall which they did.

Well by all accounts they had a very mediocre experience. Cost them just about $200 to get in for the day. It was totally packed out. The whole time, although other guests wished them well because of the ears/badges, not one of the cast members they met did and no one went out of their way to say hello to them.

They had a reservation at crystal palace but in the event didnt feel like it so tried to cancel it. They were told they couldnt without paying $20 so they tried to offer it to the many people waiting who didn't have a reservation and were told off for doing that! In the end after an argument about that, they left because they wanted to see the shows.

The light show was almost impossible to see because the crowds of people with kids on shoulders and it was hard to move around to get a better spot. Every time they moved someone would bump them or stand in their way or complain that they were moving (I think we've all been there!!!)

They went to a cast member to ask if there was somewhere quieter for a second show, she said you just have to move around and live with it, its busy.

They found everything really expensive and found the cast members bordering on rude or if not rude, very disinterested. There was certainly no fuss made of them there. They felt the rides and shows had seen better days when compared to the newer stuff at Universal.


So all in all, a pretty poor experience.

Now 15yrs ago, I never heard stories like this. If I recommended Disney people came back and thanked me for it! heck back when we were married there, we couldn't walk past a CM Without them saying congratulations and asking us all about it.

Do you feel it's changed that much? What is it, the CMs not as interested any more? the Company itself? a more cynical society and a harder to please audience? False expectations because of people like me saying how great it is?

Have you recommended Disney only to have people come back disappointed with it?