DEBATE: Did disney offer enough?????

[Bob O]

Last week Epcot was closed due to a fire that wasnt the fault of wdw. Due to the fire from the reports i have read wdw kept the other parks open for 1 hr extra. Do you think that was enough???
I know wdw wasnt obligated to do anything but i think all the parks shoul;d have been opended till at least midnight to compensate the guests due to Epcot being closed. The employee's could have been shuffled around to make up for this and it would have shwon that wdw truely values their guests IMHO.

 

[YoHo]

What's so Magical about midnight as compared to one extra hour for each park? Would that midnight closing include Animal Kingdom?

Seems to me that we are talking about something extremely arbitrary.

 

[TheLionKing]

More than enough.

 

[ralphd]

Think they also comped a free day at Epcot for everyone. Was at Epcot the next day and people were going to Guest Relations and getting a one day ticket. Some may have been getting a one day Park Hopper.
Think they did a good customer relations job from the remarks we heard on site.

ralphd

 

[Walt's Frozen Head]

"Enough" is a moving target.

One shot of Jagermeister is "enough" to make Suzy a bit queasy, seven shots is "enough" to make me darned loopy, and four bottles is "enough" to make the whole party throw up off the back deck.

So how much Jagey is _really_ "enough" depends completely on the assumed "enough for _what_?"

Was Disney legally obligated to do more? No, and the fact they did anything at all was more than "enough."

Did Disney take an opportunity to turn "Fire closes EPCOT" headlines into "Mickey to the rescue" headlines? No, and in times like these, that's nowhere near "enough."

Everybody line up somewhere between those two extremes...

-WFH

 

[raidermatt]

I guess the proof is in how crowded the 3 remaining parks were that day. I don't know the answer to that, but if they weren't overly crowded, than 1 hr was probably enough.

Admittedly, as a guest, I would have like to have heard that the other three parks were adding more than an hour to closing, and even a 1/2 hour or hour to opening. (I realize extending the openings would have been logistically more difficult, but I doubt it would be impossible.)

 

[TheLionKing]

One Jagermeister is enough to make me puke.

 

[Bob O]

Was disney obligated to offer anything, legally no but from a pr perspective, yes.
And was i hr enough, IMHO no!!!!! Midnight was picked as it would have given the guests several hours extra and i also would have thrown in for good measure extra fireworks/parades at MK and MGM , this easily could have been communicated to onsite guests and too people who came to Epcot and were dissapointed the park was closed. It would have been a goodwill gesture and show that disney truely cares about their guests which has been greatly lacking as of late.
Being open till midnight used to be common so when one fourth of your parks are closed it isnt that much to offer to your guests!!!

 

[JeffH]

Get a grip, people...
Next you'll be saying that New York should have given all tourists free theatre tickets, when the twin towers collapsed.

I thought it was interesting that the one complaint that they published was the family who had 4 day hopper passes and had already been to the Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom already and were so upset that Epcot was closed...what about MGM???
What a tragedy, Epcot's been open for a couple of decades, now, so it's not like it's new or anything.

This was not Disney's fault, they did not do it on purpose and I'm sure they didn't want to close the park (which also closed on 911 and during the hurricane threat a couple of years ago).

Saturday we park hopped from Epcot (after our Ice Cream Social), to MGM to specifically catch the parade and Fantasmic and BOTH were cancelled. Fantasmic made sense...it was raining, but the slight rain and thunder stopped by parade time and it stayed dry (while everyone waited patiently), until they cancelled it 25 minutes later. Whoever made THAT decision was an idiot.

 

[Eeyore1954]

Disney could have kept the other parks open until midnight and I believe people would have STILL complained that it was not enough! In this case, Disney was in a no-win situation. Regardless of what they did, some people would not be happy.

When we start thinking that because we are going to Disney for vacation that we are somehow entitled to have our desires and wishes fulfilled, we set ourselves up for disappointment.

My philosophy is to enjoy the magic that is there. I don't go expecting Disney to cater to my every whim or demand. And amazingly, I've never been disappointed. JMO

 

[wdhatter]

BTW, they did add an extra SpectroMagic that night at the Magic Kingdom due to Epcot's closing. There was a 9pm and an 11pm that night.

 

[Galahad]

Think they also comped a free day at Epcot for everyone

Wow! Way more than enough!

 

[ThumperThistle]

Originally posted by Bob O
i also would have thrown in for good measure extra fireworks/parades at MK and MGM

MK stayed open until 11pm. Spectro magic was on at 9pm and an extra show at 11pm.

MGM open until 10pm. Fantasmic on at normal time of 9pm with an extra show at 10.30pm.

Our plans had been to go to Epcot that day but we went to MGM instead, no big deal just swapped days around.
Yes, MGM was busy but line times weren't too long.
Throughout the day I didn't hear anyone complain about Disney only adding 1hour to park times.

 

[YoHo]

Sorry BoB O, I can't agree with you. 1 hour appears to have been more then enough and they had extra parades and everything. (I might also suggest that jumping in and accusing Disney of not doing enough before we know what all they did isn't very useful.)
Midnight is completely and totally arbitrary. Sounds like Disney went to a great expense to make up for Epcot.

 

[Bob O]

Sounds to me like disney saved money by sending most of their employees home who worked at epcot.
Midnight used to be the normal closing in summer, should still be and while they were under no obligation to do anything extra the 1 hr seems to be very little but i will give them credit for adding parades, but as is the norm now for eisner they do as little to get by and to make the guests experience even more enjoyable.

 

[YoHo]

BoB O, there are plenty of great arguments about Disney going down the tubes, but this just isn't one of them. Why not leave the parks open till 1? or 2? they used to do that too ya know.

 

[Galahad]

Sounds to me like they gave up two days of revenue from passes for EPCOT. (Plus the extra Spectro parade, longer hours, etc)That's a lot more than a day's wages at EPCOT.

 

[Sarangel]

Gentlebeings -

This is starting to become "yes, they did", "no, they didn't" kind of arguement. If you want to post a reasonable arguement about what they could have done more or less (based on $$, Guest experience, or some other criteria), go ahead.

But, if this becomes just a "yes" and "no" series of posts, BobO should change it to a poll or we should all just let it die a quiet death.

Sarangel

 

[wdhatter]

Disney also had Epcot Cast Members working elsewhere around the resort to add to the atmosphere. For example, the Voices of Liberty performed in Liberty Square. The acrobat children normally in China were in Tomorrowland. The German band were in Fantasyland playing. And so on....

It was all a VERY last minute thing that happened. What else do you want from them? They did pretty good I think considering they had only a couple of hours to make these decisions.

 

[Eeyore2U]

Originally posted by Bob O
Was disney obligated to offer anything, legally no but from a pr perspective, yes.
And was i hr enough, IMHO no!!!!! Midnight was picked as it would have given the guests several hours extra and i also would have thrown in for good measure extra fireworks/parades at MK and MGM , this easily could have been communicated to onsite guests and too people who came to Epcot and were dissapointed the park was closed. It would have been a goodwill gesture and show that disney truely cares about their guests which has been greatly lacking as of late.
Being open till midnight used to be common so when one fourth of your parks are closed it isnt that much to offer to your guests!!!

Bob,

Anything they did was more then enough. I remember being there and the same thing happened at MK and we got nothing.

I'm not sure logistically what more could have been done. I don't think people sit at home waiting for a call to come to work.

I think you need to enter the new millenium and realize that 1:00am closes have gone the way of Mr Toad. I wonder why you want to live in the past.