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[Lovedisney2011]

Ive just returned from dlp and had a truely awful time I have email guest services twice and had no reply im not sure where to go next

Can anyone help Thank you

[Vegitabeta]

If you got no sense from them through e-mail, try writing a letter and/or giving them a call I would say.  Sorry to hear you had a bad experience

[Lovedisney2011]

Yes I think I may try phoning Im gutted my 7th trip and have lost that magic feeling

[bensmum]

what went wrong?

[Lovedisney2011]

And this is just a scratch on the surface



I am writing this email today as I returned home from a holiday to Disneyland Paris on saturday the 15th of October and we had a truely awful time this was my 7th visit to disneyland paris in the last 3 years and we were planning on buying a annual pass but the visit was horrid and we dont want to return after such an horrible experience.

 It started on our 2nd day we decided to visit walt disney studios we went to the meal counter for lunch all sat down to eat then halfway through the meal I noticed my daughters burger was raw my daughter is 3.
We complained at the counter they replaced it and that was it I then went to guest services to complain they got the manager of the resteraunt to come and speak with us who informed us that french beef  cooks different to british beef. Now im not silly beef is beef whereever its from refunded the meal and we said that a 3 year old tummy cant cope with raw meat and they told us where the drs were now that is terrible customer service we then said that we had wasted 1 hour of our time complaining and missed the parade and we were informed the parade was on everyday. That is the worst customer service I have ever come across complete lack of understanding and might I add that night my daughter had servere diarrhea.

The following morning we went to disneyland park and went on peter pans flight the lady at the end of the flight shouted at my 3 month old to sit down now this is laughable a 3 month old cant stand which upset the whole family as there was no apology when she realised she had done wrong and my son was sat on my lap in the way I was informed to do so.

 On the 13th October it was my sons 6th birthday and he had many badges showing its his birthday and 1 member of staff wished him a happy birthday all day we went to see stitch live and informed the lady it was his birthday but the other child got a happy birthday but my son was ignored now this really upset me as now my son thinks stich didnt want to say happy birthday. It comes to something when you visit a place that where  "dreams come true" and my son comes away with his dreams dashed which leads me to the characters racism if the charater is French he/she ignore english children this happened on 3 occasions and again I find this truely disturbing that these characters cant be racist as children dont understand why the character is not willing to shake there hands as they are british.

The merchandise was terrible I love the disney store but always look forward to looking at the shops is disneyland as they are different but this time I can buy 98% of the merchandise in the uk for 1/2 the price. I bought my daughter a minature mickey house to find the poor design means the bodies of the characters break so again a waste of money and nothing can be done now as we are home.

Plutos ear fell off during the dance express so why are these costumes not checked?

The last day was the last resort when goofy came out and the escort was telling goofy (in french) which child to go to after waiting 15 minutes and 12 children later we had to tell our children that goofy was going as we werent willing to be degraded anymore and again this lead to my son being upset. I went to city hall to complain and was met by shrugged shoulders and an email address that I can apparently get compensation from again this is absolutly dreedful as there isnt compensation that will give my son back the confidence he has lost in the characters and I wont tell him they are just rude people dressed up.

I cant express how upset I am over the staffs arrogance and rudeness.

Walt disney once said I quote To all who come to this happy place: Welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future.

This sadly is not the case of Disneyland Paris I want this complaint to go internationally as the faith I had in disney has gone completely I really am saddened by the time I had in Paris last week not one member of staff reflected do these people not realise that these characters mean so much to children but yet to them its just a job.

[i love main st x]

what an awful thing to happen , but sadly i know where your coming from...
we went last year for halloween , and dont get me wrong we had a nice time but noticed things like you said about the characters but thought no...then we went to mnsshp, and at the end when all the characters are about my 6 year old son wanted a picture with woody , so we waited patiantly and waited as everyone was pushing , then the cast members started bringing people over and chatting with him and sill nothing by which time my little boy was getting upset, then low and behold noone was with him and he just looked at us and raised his hands as if to say , what , and turned and walked away...we told ethan that he must not have saw us with all the people around but my hubby was fuming , with out the children seeing , and said out of principel he was having the photo so we followed him till in the end he had to have his photo with my son....
it really left a bad taste in our mouth...dont get me wrong i still love the place , the atmosphere and everything, but everytime i think of that holiday , thats the first thing i think about , ansd just writing it then , it makes my blood boil , to think that somone in that position could do such a thing to a child... :evil:

[Sugaroo_]

Oh gosh...that's one too many bad experiences for 1 trip!

[thebritishfrog]

Hi there,

It really does sound like you had a bad experience.
The department who look after post holidays I'm afraid do not have a telephone line so it would be best to stick to email or snail mail. The do deal with a lot of emails a day and it is possible it can take a while for them to respond... but they will reply!

I'm not defending disney at all but I would like to mention a few things to see if it helps...

The burger.
This tends to be a tricky subject in france. The french on a whole really do prefer their burgers raw-to-medium and would equally complain if they were served a well done burger as to ones we are use to in the UK for example. They did seem to replace it for a well done burger if i understand correctly? but they should have been politer in their ways of doing so.
One of their traditional dishes is 'steak tartare' this is literally raw beef. It tends to be eaten by the whole family and i've seen really little ones eating it too (2year olds). Some native dishes I can't even stomach when I go aboard sometimes.

Peter pan,
I would be very surprised at a castmember screaming at a child to sit down without good reason. Maybe your child scared them so they panicked and shouted. The last thing anybody wants is someone getting hurt and standing on an attraction is even more dangerous for a child than for an adult. If they got hurt and a castmember saw them and didn't tell them to sit down, they could legal beheld responsible. Even rides you don't think are dangerous because they move slowly can be worse than rollercoasters. Regardless of how they did it, it would have been in your child's best interest.

Pluto's Ear Falling off - is a horrible experience to watch and not nice for pluto either. The energy that goes into performing that show is unbelievable and things like that can happen in any live show. The costumes are thoroughly checked before each performance. (maybe a guest had viciously just pulled his ear a couple of mins before you saw him and hurt him?)
I imagine as soon as anybody could do anything about it, they did? And he would have been back for the next performance as normal?

[Lovedisney2011]

Hi there,

It really does sound like you had a bad experience.
The department who look after post holidays I'm afraid do not have a telephone line so it would be best to stick to email or snail mail. The do deal with a lot of emails a day and it is possible it can take a while for them to respond... but they will reply!

I'm not defending disney at all but I would like to mention a few things to see if it helps...

The burger.
This tends to be a tricky subject in france. The french on a whole really do prefer their burgers raw-to-medium and would equally complain if they were served a well done burger as to ones we are use to in the UK for example. They did seem to replace it for a well done burger if i understand correctly? but they should have been politer in their ways of doing so.
One of their traditional dishes is 'steak tartare' this is literally raw beef. It tends to be eaten by the whole family and i've seen really little ones eating it too (2year olds). Some native dishes I can't even stomach when I go aboard sometimes.

Peter pan,
I would be very surprised at a castmember screaming at a child to sit down without good reason. Maybe your child scared them so they panicked and shouted. The last thing anybody wants is someone getting hurt and standing on an attraction is even more dangerous for a child than for an adult. If they got hurt and a castmember saw them and didn't tell them to sit down, they could legal beheld responsible. Even rides you don't think are dangerous because they move slowly can be worse than rollercoasters. Regardless of how they did it, it would have been in your child's best interest.

Pluto's Ear Falling off - is a horrible experience to watch and not nice for pluto either. The energy that goes into performing that show is unbelievable and things like that can happen in any live show. The costumes are thoroughly checked before each performance. (maybe a guest had viciously just pulled his ear a couple of mins before you saw him and hurt him?)
I imagine as soon as anybody could do anything about it, they did? And he would have been back for the next performance as normal?

I understand your trying to soften the blow and I appreciate your comments as I am now wondering if I have worded my email wrong  :?

As the our burgers as in 2 adult burgers and another childs burger where cooked medium well done the burger was raw as in still cold in the middle and if a stomach isnt used to raw food then naturally it would cause an upset stomach. Hence why they tell pregnant women to stay well clear of raw meat to avoid upset tummies.

2nd the child the cast member shouted at was a 9 week old baby who indeed can not stand up he was sat on my lap.

Ear falling off was part of the dance express so literally comes from the back gate to the castle stage with no stopping as the train is with them so I think it was the person who should check the costumes fault and yes he did deal with it in the best way possible but it should have been avoided

[caspdex]

Apart from the burger, is this rant really worth it. As for pluto's ears, words fail me!!!!

[Lovedisney2011]

Apart from the burger, is this rant really worth it. As for pluto's ears, words fail me!!!!

Do you have children as I doubt you do and if you do then obviously you have never experienced anything like this  so why comment apart from trying to start an arguement!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[caspdex]

Yes, I do have children, fortunately they live in the real world and dont expect everything at DLP to happen to them. As for complaining that Goofy was being spoken to in French, you are in France!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I don't understand why waiting 15mins for Goofy was degrading, did he leave,or did you leave?Taking a 9wk old baby onto any ride is fairly risky IMO, and Peter Pan is not the smoothest ride, maybe the CM was rightfully worried and panicked.

[DopeyDad]

I was so sorry to hear you had such a negative experience Lovedisney2011 (I hope you're not about to change your name by the way), of course there are many justifications that may or may not be valid but I can completely see that if you have 1 or 2 very bad experiences ( and I think cold food and poor customer service if perfectly appropriate to describe as very bad by the way), then after that even perhaps justifiable blemishes ten to just add fuel to fire so to speak. this is why DLP needs to make sure its customer service is first rate, things will always go wrong at time but certain standards should be a must do and whenever a customer is unhappy, regardless of the reason, they should feel their complaint has been given due attention.
In a way I think your most serious complaint, is in how they deal with complaints, and I hope you get some kind of satisfaction from them in the end.

By the way, regarding the food I sympathise. we had our worst ever meal at DLP this Oct in Annettes. Truly poor service, very slow to take our order, then slow to serve it, by which time all our meals were very cold. They were fairly quick to replace and the waiter offered to waive the fee for our drinks which was fairly good, except when the bill come he'd done it wrong and actually added drinks. Luckily I noticed and pointed this out so it was corrected. We have previously quite enjoyed Annettes but honestly would not go back until things had substantially changed. (on a positive note we ate in Cafe Agrabah for the first time and absolutely loved the food and service).

[davewasbaloo]

Sorry to hear about your trip, sounds like the last one my mom went on and she refuses to ever return. However I did note a few other things. Seems like emotions were riding high and experience darkened the mood. The burger issue I do not condone. There have been a number of food poisoning cases over the years at DLP and is worthy of complaint. The other points I cannot agree.

The cast member on Peter Pan is instructed to put safety above all else, I would have shrugged it off.

As for Stitch, I would have tried not to set epxectations up so high for my kids. There are a lot of folks at DLP, many enjoying special occassions too. They cannot guarantee special treatment and I think it is incumbant on parents to have realistic expectations, and set them. What stitch says and does is based on what he, and he alone sees. If he did not see your son's badge, then he would have not wished Happy Birthday.

Your character experience I would say is not uncommon. This is why we trained our kids years ago not to bother unless it is quiet. and when they were bothered about the characters (thankfully they no longer are unless it is one they have never seen before), we would book a character meal to avoid disappointment. Your choices are to either go to one with a designated queue with crazy waits, have an expereience like your and toughen up, do a character meal, or ignore the characters. I would take this as a learning expereince.

I hope you do try DLP again, but with a different set of expectations.

[smithl16]

Sorry to hear you had a bad time, I agree with davewasbaloo, I would only do character meets through meals or if they have a proper queue type system. Last year I found that people were too pushy to try to get to the characters and while my daughter was only 2 and didnt really notice (and did eventually get the photo's) it was a bit of a nightmare. I love the idea of the characters just 'being around' and the surprise of seeing them but it's too hectic and in a way I can understand it's awkward for them too having so many people there to get to.
This year (20 more sleeps to go!) we'll only be doing the calmer meet and greets I think.

Laura