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[Festival Disney]

Anyone read this?

Three Disneyland employees came to the bar in Chessy to chat to The Independent about life "Chez Mickey". Hervé Impinna, 43, used to maintain the floats used in the daily parades. He is now on lighter duties after falling from the top of Cinderella's coach and damaging his neck and back. "The whole attitude of management has changed," he said. "When I look at the illuminated night parades, I see scores of gaps where bulbs have failed and not been replaced. Visitors may not notice the difference but I know what the spectacle is supposed to look like and it's depressing."

Tama Gandega, 43, is an assistant manager in one of the large Disney hotels. He said: "All the pleasure of service is gone. Some days we have to do 3,500 breakfasts with half the staff we had a few years ago. No wonder everyone is ready to drop."

Sandrine, 39, is part of the team which makes up the Disney princesses in the parades. "Sometimes they are so exhausted with working six-day weeks they can hardly move, never mind smile," she said. "But they are obliged to smile, because that is the magic of Disney."

Much more in the Article from the Independant:
//http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-dark-side-of-disneyland-paris-1964505.html

Thoughts :?:

[SkySurfer]

Thats no surprise for me!
If you see how alarming they save at maintenance and service "inside" the park then what do you think does it look like behind the scenes.
Disneyhotels are the most expensive at the whole area and have the most worse service and state. How long do they think can they do this?

[DopeyDad]

The thing is though, the same can be said of many customer/service businesses at the moment. Business models have had to change incredibly over the past 2 years and that means employees are feeling those changes as increased demands, with less resource, for less money. I work in the NHS which has been told to save 20%, whilst demands increase and staff say very similar things to the above. Its not 'disney' whatever that is, but it is business, and Disney is above all else a business. I just hope they DLRP can save enough money to see them through the next few years until markets recover. I don't think we can really call it their dark side, unless we expect them to be unconcerned with profit. Many businesses are simply going under at the moment, and markets like Spain and Ireland are beginning to get into trouble. I'm just pleased each day when I see it's still open!

[SkySurfer]

The fact, that other companies do it the same way is no excuse!
They had record attendances last year and aren´t able to make profit. Its a management problem.
And all these "people-don´t-spend-enough-in-the-park" excuses bore me. If they would give their guest high qualitiy merchandise, then they would buy more.
And why are the selected hotels able to keep standart and maintenance but Disney not??!!

[Owain]

The fact, that other companies do it the same way is no excuse!
They had record attendances last year and aren´t able to make profit.

I always thought they could not make a profit because they have so much high debt payments to pay off ?

[disneymom]

That whole thing is not only at Disney. I work in the hotelindustry in Germany. If somebody retires or leaves, we don't employ somebody new. So we have only half of the stuff we had a couple of years before but still the same amout of work to do.

Disneymom

[toritinker]

That really made me quite sad reading that (thanks for sharing though!). It must be hard for the loyal employees to see the standards slip in front of their eyes on things they really care about (refering to the first part of the article). Hope things pick up for them, bring the magic back for everyone.
tori x

[smurfy74]

i would like to add that in France your working week is limited to 35 hours and you get 25 days holiday and public holidays, the general attitude to what we here in Britain would think of a days work is not the same in France. i think its sad that the employees are feeling like they do but i always think there maybe another side to the story

[Festival Disney]

One of the comments on the article...

I worked there for a summer job in order to improve my French. It was, and still is the worst job I've ever had. The way I was spoken to, the way staff were spoken to was horrendous. It was quite apparent from listening to/watching my permanent full-time colleagues that they were either intensely delusional or heavily depressed. The former would be convinced by management that the possibility of becoming a 'team leader' was within their grasp even if they had failed the appropriate exams more than a dozen times due to crippling delinquency. The latter, I saw in smoking areas where It wouldn't have been uncommon to see a member of your team crying.

I left after 5 weeks (once I had been paid) without any regrets. After one brief conversation with HR for the department she explained that she was totally understaffed and would be leaving a few days later as she could not provide the support to the workers she was employed to work with. She had tears in her eyes.

It wasn't that management were unaware of these problems, or even chose to be oblivious. We were constantly informed about how the park continually fails to make money. However the reason for this is apparent, it sold off most of it's property around 1997 and pays high rent to contractors and property owners in order to run the park. We were told this as if to assume that our pain will be greatly appreciated once the park begins to make money, something it never will). The contractors, proprietors and landlords know that Disney are willing to spend to protect the brand so as soon as revenue increases so do the overheads.

Sounds awful  :?

[SM:M3]

Sorry to spoil the magic a bit but this isn't "The dark side of Disneyland Paris", its the dark side of any business that strives to make money. Nearly every company is losing money in one way at the moment and it has to be combated.This is all that is happening at Disneyland.

[Martyn]

^ But Disney is about the 'magic', loose that and they'll lose the custom. So they need to pull their fingers out, regardless of money. Major loss of guests would hurt a lot more than spending mone on putting more effort into the parks cosmetics!

"When I look at the illuminated night parades, I see scores of gaps where bulbs have failed and not been replaced. Visitors may not notice the difference but I know what the spectacle is supposed to look like and it's depressing."

Its good see the cast members feeling like that to be honest, at least it shows they care about their work place.

[ed-uk]

Yes, Disney is about the magic. But sadly at Disneyland Paris that magic has rarely turned a profit. And the company is heavily discounting to get people to go, 40% off if you booked by the end of April. That's quite a saving. We took advantage of the offer and are going in November for Disneys bonfire night.  Last year EuroDisney lost over 60, 0000 Euros, and I think this year could be much worse. I hope I'm wrong. Never mind gaps where bulbs should be on floats. They still have to pay off all their huge debts, and run this big resort.

[SkySurfer]

Yes, Disney is about the magic. But sadly at Disneyland Paris that magic has rarely turned a profit.

Disney without magic is like McDonalds without burgers.
What would you say, if McDondals stops selling burgers because french fries are cheaper to produce.
I can´t understand why people still defend everything what Disney does. No matter how bad it is!

[DopeyDad]

You're right of course about what makes Disney special SkySurfer, but it only exists within a business. Like it or not, Disney the man and the company are exactly that. If they don't make enough money from something they won't carry on to keep the fans happy, they'll stop doing it. Disney as a business actually has a very corporate perhaps ruthless reputation. But you can look at it this way, what they make is magic, and it'smeant to be enjoyed as that, and being an effective business enables them to take that magic in to parks all over the world, and produce hugely expensive media and hopefully to continue to do this. Its not about defending everything they do, its just that without operating as a business, they won't be able to do it.

[ed-uk]

Yes, and at EuroDisney their finances are on a knife edge thanks to this terrible recession we're going through. EuroDisney has faced bankrupcy twice in the past, and has had to be baled out by the WDC and shareholders. But it's not because the company has been badly run, it's because they have high levels of debt to pay off. I guess it's too big for them to walk away from, thank goodness. And DLP is at the high end of the resort market, McDonalds is not. McDonalds is a fast food chain, they produce cheap burgers and chips. They probably do OK in a recession because they're cheap anyway. DLP is not.