Photo © by Karl Buiter /
Pirate Logo © Disney |
We'd wondered here
on the site if the Pirates event at Disneyland Saturday May 20th
was going to be problematic, but no one expected just how badly it
would all turn out. |
UPDATE 5/25:
Disneyland will be refunding admission
for the event. Look for details in the FABULOUS
DISNEY BABE'S "Ask Fabby" 5/25 column
UPDATE 5/23:
Sue Kruse finishes PART
TWO of her report!
Part I: Refund instructions / What
happened??? / Quick Event Review
What you'll read in this special section comes from folks who were
there that night - their comments will help give you a blow by blow [yes,
I chose those words carefully] of what went wrong with this event. Most
everyone will also detail what can be done to avoid these things in the
future. We also have a view from some insiders of this whole mess -
which will give you some insights as to what actually happened behind the
scenes.
First of all special thanks go to the poor cast members who had to
endure the customers who were so very angry about how this was all put
together. A few of the special events folks, in particular Tony
Garrison, Martha Blanding, Jeanette [sorry no last name] and even Bruce
Snyder [who many were pointing fingers at], were loading bags and handing
out what merchandise they could, "just like six buck an hour
types." Second of all, the park should be complimented on how well
the entertainment portion of the evening went - the show in particular was
very well done.
Now that we've acknowledged that very important part - we can now
honestly say that Disneyland really dropped the ball on this one when it
came to the focus of the event, the merchandise. Hell, let's be
blunt here - they took the ball and put it in a wood chipper. You
simply can not charge Tiffany prices and give a level of retail service a
lower end retailer would be ashamed of.
Cynthia Harris on the big screen - color corrrected.
;)
Personally I think the park should do the following things for the
customers who had to endure what you are going to read here in this
special section about:
1. A letter of apology from Cynthia Harris should be sent
to all attendees. It should arrive by the end of the week. [I
understand she was in Dallas at a tourism convention.]
2. A promise from her that any future events that are
mishandled in this way will result in an immediate refund of event
attendance fees. No if's - and's - or but's.
3. A coupon for a discount or complimentary admission to
be used at a future merchandise event of the person's choice IF a refund
is not demanded [instructions on how to obtain one is provided
below].
To spend thousands of dollars on merchandise, only to blow off handing
it off to the customers is simply wrong. And Cynthia is the one who
should accept blame here - this happened on her watch - she's the captain
of this ship.
Frankly Disneyland has done plenty of these events and KNOWS just how
they should be run. There is no excuse for the Merchandise manager
in charge to walk away from this event without some kind of disciplinary
action taken by upper level management.
Some facts here in a nutshell - they had thirty cast members and
twelve registers open and running - to move one thousand four hundred
people through the line. The event was supposed to generate $450,000
with just twelve registers. In comparison, on a GOOD day, the
Emporium rakes in $100,000+, and they have over thirty registers to do
this with.
To say it was understaffed was an understatement.
To see maintenance continually deferred on attractions "due to
budget problems" and then watch how Disneyland throw away their
profits on this event was simply obscene.
This kind of incompetence is why the attractions don't get maintained
folks.
First things first: REFUND INSTRUCTIONS
Disneyland will go ahead and honor refunds for this event, they've
already given them to some customers. Here's how to go about it:
Write a letter and be specific about what you didn't like, very
specific about what action you'd like to see taken on this, include your
ticket (if you still have it) for the event, and directly in your letter
request a response. This is the address you need to send it to:
Guest Communications
P O Box 3232
Anaheim, CA 92803
Keep in mind a professionally-worded business letter will get you a
quicker and more satisfactory resolution than a harsh, mean-spirited
one. Be accurate. List the problems. Ask the park what
it will do to make up for the problems they caused at this
event.
It's pretty clear that the Merchandise department now knows they have a
problem on their hands...and while they may be reluctant to admit fault,
when the park knows they owe the people attending something here, they
will get it.
Disneyland, to the park's credit, has a solid track record of trying to
make good in these kinds of situations.
WHAT HAPPENED
The Pirates event not only involved the Merchandise department [who
completely botched their end of things], but attractions staffing, special
events and guest relations personnel. Everyone was working their
hardest to fix the mounting problems and compliments should be paid to the
cast members [CM's] on the front lines who took the brunt of this - some
were working for over twenty hour shifts.
Here, thanks to an observer, is a detailing of just what went wrong,
all of it has been confirmed:
The Pirates event was the talk of the Park. It was quite a
disaster it seems. The phones began ringing first thing Sunday
morning at Guest Relations, and by the afternoon there was a stack of
Guest Comment forms several inches high. All of them were most
definitely in the complaint column.
Guest Relations actually refunded the full eighty-five dollar price of
the event to many event attendees who complained at City Hall.
Disneyland will now be paying for the shipping costs on all the
late merchandise that still hasn't been distributed. Sunday afternoon
there were still bags and bags of merchandise to be sorted through and
prepped for shipping.
You may have heard bits and pieces about the Pirates event last
night and how poorly staffed and organized it was. Here's
my take on this...
The event was simply understaffed by Merchandise. This was a Merchandise
event, and they failed to provide the adequate staffing on their end.
Merchandise made a very tidy profit from this evening, but they failed
to staff the event with enough front line workers to ensure the evening
ran smoothly.
Merchandise also failed to effectively communicate the details
of the event logistics to the other departments who were helping them
with the evening. Once Merchandise had the customer's money and credit
card orders, they seemed to detach themselves from the event and let the
other departments handle their poor planning for the rest of the
evening.
The CM's from Special Events worked wonders with the hand they
had been dealt by Merchandise. In fact, Special Events managers and CM's
actually saved the evening from more Merchandise induced blunders by
going above and beyond the call of duty. Special Events had to scramble
several times all day long to get a quick fix in place because
Merchandise hadn't done their homework or provided enough staff.
The low point came at the end of the evening at the Lincoln
Theater, when there were still 200 people waiting in line to pick up
their merchandise. The Special Events CM's were the only ones at that
location to deal with the crowds of very angry customers who had spent
hundreds or thousands of dollars that day, yet hadn't received a thing
to show for it.
Customers were understandably very upset, and were getting
angry with the Special Events CM's because they were the only CM's
there. The Special Events CM's could not effectively answer the
questions about specific merchandise, billing or shipping information
because they simply didn't know and were only there to provide crowd
flow / logistical support.
Several calls went out over the Park radio from Special Events
for
someone from Merchandise to please come to the Lincoln Theater to speak
with these customers, but no one from Merchandise would show their face.
The radio calls got more and more desperate, and the Special
Events CM's had to stay there and take the brunt of the legitimate anger
from the waiting group. Merchandise managers or event planners were no
where to be found at the end of the night.
The Park duty manager finally had to leave a Space Mountain
downtime and evacuation to try and get the issues at the Lincoln Theater
resolved. Guest Relations managers and CM's also came from City Hall to
try and soothe the upset customers, although they didn't know much about
the Merchandise details either.
The Attractions managers and CM's also did a fantastic job of
helping with this event. Like Special Events, Attractions also bent over
backwards and went way beyond what was expected of them to help get the
special ride set up and running smoothly.
Merchandise also understaffed the CM's needed to handle the
special ride and the button and gift handout at the attraction. There
were Adventureland managers and Leads handing out buttons and gifts at
the attraction instead of supervising the ride because there weren't
enough CM's provided by Merchandise to handle that simple task!
It's important to note in this age of cut to the bone budgets
that Adventureland Attractions got no money for this profit generating
Merchandise event, yet they all pitched in to help and paid for extra
labor when it was obvious Merchandise had not sent the proper support
staff.
Shortly after the special ride had started to set up, the Entertainment
folks installing the special props and actors stopped asking Merchandise
event planners for any help, and instead directed their needs and
questions to the Attractions managers and Leads on the scene.
It was obvious to Entertainment that Merchandise was
overwhelmed and clueless as to how the special ride would be pulled off.
Attractions CM's, from all levels, helped Entertainment ready the
attraction for the special ride. The Pirates of the Caribbean attraction
is the sole reason this event even took place, but Merchandise failed to
plan adequate support for that important part of the evening.
The Attractions CM's who were working the Fantasmic! crowd
control that evening also were drafted to help with the problematic
group flow before the special ride.
Whoever decided that this event, expanded by 40% when the
tickets sold out very early, should be on a busy Saturday should have
their head examined. The logistics of getting over a thousand customers
into Pirates immediately after a Fantasmic! ended was daunting.
Yet, Fantasmic! Guest Control scrambled extra CM's at the last
minute to help out since Merchandise had sent no one to help, and saved
Merchandise from another big blunder.
Of note: At the "special ride" portion of the event,
there was a very long line of visitors in wheelchairs or using Special
Assistance Passes, and not all of them got to see much of the
"special ride". By the time the last several boatloads of
passengers were floating thru the attraction, the "special"
additions to the ride had already left. The spotlights had been left on
at several points however, so it was obvious to the unlucky boatloads
towards the end that something or someone had been there at some point
earlier.
The VIP handlers from Merchandise went and got the Imagineers
out from the scene they were sitting in and exited them from the ride
right at midnight. When the last half dozen boats full of riders floated
by where the Imagineers had been, all they saw was a brightly lit Jail
Scene and Burning Timbers Scene with a half dozen empty chairs and a
wide open Emergency Exit door and backstage stairway. People were
understandably upset when they returned to the loading area, and the
Attractions CM's working the ride had to take the brunt of the
complaints.
The mistakes of the event were simply caused by poor planning,
lack of communication, and an unwillingness to pay for the needed extra
CM's on Merchandise's part. If the other departments involved, who get
none of the profit and little of the limelight, hadn't done what they
could to try and save the night it would have been an even bigger
disaster.
As a humorous endnote, none of the Special Event or Attractions CM's or
managers who worked very hard to rescue the evening got a Pirates denim
shirt, a thank you gift, or even one of the buttons that were passed
out. There were barely enough buttons to go around, and Merchandise told
the other departments that the cheap buttons were "hands off."
Merchandise did leave a box of the leftover chocolate coins on the
unloading dock for the hard working Attractions and Special Events CM's,
Leads and managers however. How sweet of them.
It really was a nightmare from the CM's standpoint. I hope the
customers didn't feel it was too bad. Although from the calls over the
radio from 10:30 pm onwards to the wee hours of the morning, there were
hordes of pissed off customers down at the Lincoln Theater.
Again, there were a lot of people and departments trying very hard last
night to repair the mistakes Merchandise had made. But, there were
simply not enough people staffed for this event and Merchandise did a
very poor job of communicating their plans to their fellow
departments.
This was a Merchandise event, and they dropped the ball several
times. Special Events, Attractions, Guest Relations, and to a lesser
extent Entertainment, all scrambled to try and fix the evening as it was
coming apart at the seams, but none of those departments received much
backup from Merchandise. Those departments all tried to pick up duties
and tasks at the last minute that should have been handled by
Merchandise. The event was generally a failure, but not because of a
lack of effort from Disneyland departments and CM's other than
Merchandise.
I want to personally thank the person who put the above together -
their time and effort, not to mention research into the matter helps
everyone reading to understand just what happened much better.
Now CONTINUE on for the
Fabulous Disney Babe's thoughts on the matter...
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