Disney Characters at Disneyland Paris

Started by Kristof, March 19, 2007, 04:23:42 PM

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Jens

#285
Short and simple: The current budget for the balance of cast members/characters in DLP does not allow that system to be implemented in our parks (for now). And I'm not even going to start about the culture difference between americans and europeans making the situations non-comparible ;)

disney-john

#286
Quote from: "Jens"Short and simple: The current budget for the balance of cast members/characters in DLP does not allow that system to be implemented in our parks (for now). And I'm not even going to start about the culture difference between americans and europeans making the situations non-comparible ;)


Sorry I don't think it's budget, last trip we had the mis-fortune to go to the meet and greet with jack sparrow, the cm accompanying him was too busy texting instead of crowd control.... So it's to cm training, and a bit of rope.

And sorry lets not start on the "culture difference" again,  as I don't feel that they are non-comparible.... As people from all over the world visit WDW.....
"I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing - that it was all started by a mouse." - Walt Disney

jonathan

#287
When cultural differences are mentioned, is it suggested that Europeans dont know how to queue   ;)  :-"

Jens

#288
It's all good example... People are herd animals and follow the pack. If half of them speak a language that the castmember doesn't speak (you can't expect the cm to know how to speak all languages) and they don't follow the instructions, the perfect little system they have in the american parks will NOT work. That's what I mean with cultural differences. Altough yes, certain nationalities are more excited than others and will approach characters directly instead of even looking for the queueline. All those little things add up to making it difficult to implement in DLP.

And yes, maybe not every cm will have the same motivation to give guests the best experience, but a lot of them do try. Don't think it's always better in american parks, you have to see everything in perspective. Castmembers do try, never forget that ;)

But let's focus on Disney Characters again now :p

petals

#289
In WDW all characters have controlled lines.. You know who controls them the CM's and every single character I saw in DLP had a CM standing nearby so why are they incapable of making guests form a controlled line. Simple really if they can't wait patiently in line then they shouldn't get to see the Character. I emailed DLP to complain about a number of issues from our trip Character mobs being one of them.

jonathan

#290
My comment was sort of tongue in cheek.  Its alleged that us Brits invented queueing back in the days of rationing during the war lol and in general many visitors to DLP, mainly those from Europe, dont seem accustomed to queuing and waiting patiently even for the rides as is evident by the amount of queue jumping that occurs.

I think if I were a Disney character performer though id insist on having a security gaurd with me rather than a regular CM lol!!

nathalie

#291
A nice example also is, when I'm in London, everyone ques up to go onto a bus.
Here in Belgium, people turn into a pack of wolves and push each other over just to get on the bus first.

I've kind of seen that happening with many characters when I was there on Halloween.
People tend to turn into a pack of wolves and they will destroy anything (anyone) on their path just to get up front  o_O

jonathan

#292
Quote from: "nathalie"A nice example also is, when I'm in London, everyone ques up to go onto a bus.
Here in Belgium, people turn into a pack of wolves and push each other over just to get on the bus first.

I've kind of seen that happening with many characters when I was there on Halloween.
People tend to turn into a pack of wolves and they will destroy anything (anyone) on their path just to get up front  o_O


Ive seen it myself and it can be shocking sometimes.  Im not suggesting that Brits dont queue jump but we seem accustomed to queueing and if see a queue we seem compelled to join the back of it lol.

petals

#293
Quote from: "Jens"Short and simple: The current budget for the balance of cast members/characters in DLP does not allow that system to be implemented in our parks (for now). And I'm not even going to start about the culture difference between americans and europeans making the situations non-comparible ;)

I really don't think it has anything to do with budget.  Again every character I saw had a CM with them what's to stop the CM using their mouth/brain and getting the people to form an orderly queue.. they don't even need the rope to form a queue just control the crowd. What else are they standing beside the character for???

Jens

#294
I think I already explained why it's not possible for castmembers to make a queue out of the blue and properly close it by themself? Imagine if you're in that queue patiently waiting for a photo and the castmember just runs of with the character without closing? How would you feel? You can only create a proper queueline if you are sure that it will be properly closed like they do on the photolocations.

Like I also already said, most castmembers do try to make a system so it runs better, but don't expect miracles like in WDW. Language, Culture, it all matters, believe me! And errr... the castmembers are not there to make a queueline at all actually. They are mostly there for the security of the character (looking out for people that are being rough with them) but also to reply in the character's name if a child asks a question, looking to see if there are any disabled people around that can't reach the character and basicly just trying to make the best out of the situation while doing all that!

I know it's easy to judge castmembers, and I know they're not all perfect, but sometimes there's just a bit more to it than you think ;)

nathalie

#295
Some CM's aren't suitable though.
At halloween night, both stepsisters were out, and with them was this tiny little fragile girl who could not control the crowd at all, as she didn't had a strong voice, and it was kind of chaos at that time.
She tried yelling to everyone to step back, but no one could hear her. We were standing next to her, and couldn't even really :/

orsie

#296
Hey guys, what we're talking about here isn't actually impossible. I know this because during our summer visit everyone formed a queue in the Studios to see Chip n' Dale who randomly appeared on the Stars n' Cars stage. It was shocking! I have never seen a queue been formed for a random character EVER before at DLP! It was quite amazing! As for closing it off, I got lucky as I went up and got lots of interaction from C&D and then after that the CM invited all the other childen up together for one big picture!
Previous Disney Trips

DLRP 2007 Sequoia Lodge (15th Anniversary)
DLRP 2008 Sequoia Lodge (15th Anniversary Extended)
DLRP 2009 Sequoia Lodge (Mickey\'s Magical Party)
DLRP 2011 Sequoia Lodge (Magical Moments Festival)
DLRP 2012 Sequoia Lodge (20th Anniversary)
DLRP 2013 Sequoia Lodge (20th Anniversary Extended)

DisneyDonna

#297
We ran into Goofy yesterday, everyone waited patiently and Goofy pointed towards to one who could come up to take a picture with him! It went really smoothly, and it was very pleasant. He made sure no one was excluded and nobody ran up to him at all. Hopefully we can see more of this in the future!

petals

#298
Quote from: "Jens"I think I already explained why it's not possible for castmembers to make a queue out of the blue and properly close it by themself? Imagine if you're in that queue patiently waiting for a photo and the castmember just runs of with the character without closing? How would you feel? You can only create a proper queueline if you are sure that it will be properly closed like they do on the photolocations.

Like I also already said, most castmembers do try to make a system so it runs better, but don't expect miracles like in WDW. Language, Culture, it all matters, believe me! And errr... the castmembers are not there to make a queueline at all actually. They are mostly there for the security of the character (looking out for people that are being rough with them) but also to reply in the character's name if a child asks a question, looking to see if there are any disabled people around that can't reach the character and basicly just trying to make the best out of the situation while doing all that!

I know it's easy to judge castmembers, and I know they're not all perfect, but sometimes there's just a bit more to it than you think ;)

 :lol:  I don't think it's anything to do with miracles. I think it's to do with common sense. They don't need rope or anything just a mouth saying line up here. If they can't speak English so what people aren't that stupid that if they see a line they won't cop on what the cast member is doing. If they continue to ignore it then that just makes them ignorant.

And again the character would be safer if people formed a proper queue instead of the ridiculous mob system most of the characters had when I visited

DisneyEuros

#299
What i Believe about Disneyland Paris, is that they should follow the WDW's  system.
Which for example they have "more than one" Snow White, Alice, peter pan etc...
Yes. of course!
Maybe some of you didn't know about that.

At WDW they have 2-3 people presenting the one same Disney Character in a couple of different locations of course. Not only one person presenting the one specific character, but several people presenting that one character!  :-)

So, by applying this system, their "Disney character" is always there for the people to take pictures and they achieve better results on meets and greets.  And everybody stays satisfied.