Our one day DLP report

[Rhonna]

Hi everyone,

I asked a few questions awhile back about DLP - especially trying to choose between Auberge de Cendrillon and Blue Lagoon restaurants.

I debated posting our experience at DLP - unfortunately we did not have the best experience there. We did have a good ending to the day so if anyone doesn't want to hear the negative, you can skip down to my description of dinner.

This was our first trip to Paris. We stayed in Paris for 2 weeks (October) and had an absolutely wonderful time. We went with a good attitude and good manners and really loved our stay. We did not experience anti-American attitudes.

Our day at DLP however, left a lot to be desired. We needed to use a locker when we arrived but found them all without keys - no signs informing us what to do nor any info. that I could find on the park map. I remembered at some point previously in Disneyland, CA, due to security they no longer were using the lockers, so I thought the same might be true at DLP.

So, we asked several workers if there was any provision for our items. They did not seem to know. Finally someone pointed us toward Guest Services outside the park. So, we had to get handstamped to re-enter. Anyhow, we get in line at Guest Services and have to wait a bit even though there were two windows operating. Finally, we are next in line for assistance. Then, right when the person in front of us is leaving and we are ready to step up to the window, a cast member walks up with a family she is helping and cuts right in front of us, going up to the window right in front of us. She didn't excuse herself, give any explaination for cutting us off and in fact, didn't even acknowledge us at all. I was quite shocked. I've been to WDW and Disneyland many times over the last 30+ years and never had a cast member treat a guest that way. And there was no way she didn't realize there was a line of people she cut in front of. We felt like her guests were considered more important than us.

When we finally were able to get to the window, the girl there told us we had been directed to the wrong place, the little room where we could leave our items was next door. I know this all was not a language problem, it was a lack of training that several workers did not know where to send us in the first place, then one sent us to the wrong place. The rudeness of a cast member cutting us off though, was really disturbing.

When we got back into the park, we went to City Hall to see if we could make dinner reservations for the day. We mentioned what we had experienced and there were just blank, embarrassed looks from the two cast members standing there. No apology for our experience. In fact, no comment at all. I had to just change the subject and move on to our request for dinner reservations. That, they were able to help us with. Again, this would have been handled totally differently in the stateside parks.

I wish to emphasize that we did not feel this was a "french attitude" situation as several of the cast members all along this chain of events seemed to be from mixed countries. We felt it must be the way the whole park is run at DLP and the real lack of training in customer service. We were actually warned by some other Americans that the service at DLP is quite lacking by the disney standards we are use to in the states. Being disney lovers, we didn't believe them until we had this experience ourselves. I'm sure there are others who managed to have great times at DLP, unfortunately, I will not go there again. I would much prefer to spend my money at WDW and be treated well.

We stopped at the corner restaurant on Main St. (Casey's corner in US parks) for a hot dog and coke. Only two staff working and the lines were out the door. By now, this was 11:30 am - I'd hate to see what the place looked like at noon rush hour unless they were hiding some workers they were going to put out there at the last minute. After waiting for quite awhile and seeing several families in front of us leave after getting tired of waiting so long, I talking to a cleaning lady there and she talked to the manager and they eventually sent out another worker. Why couldn't they have figured this out by being observant instead of waiting for a guest to comment on the situation?

Each ride we went by had long waits. I began to feel like just leaving the park. We found it extremely helpful to get all our FastPasses right away as later we noticed they were all gone for some attractions. (Thanks to reading this site for that information.) We were quite surprised how busy the park was on a Thursday in mid October. Maybe the Halloween activities had something to do with that? After gathering all our fast passes for the big rides, we finally got on a fast-loading ride - Small World. Then we did the teacups.

We felt the thrill rides were more intense at DLP than their counterparts in the states. Space Mountain certainly was. Also, it was quite dark (which I like). I remember Space Mt. in California was that dark when the ride first opened, then for some reason (safety?) they lightened it up inside. Alot of people wished they hadn't since you can now see the coaster while waiting in line for it. It was much better in the pitch black.

We also thought Big Thunder was a bit more intense. I wonder if others who've been to the states parks noticed this too or if was just our impression?

I was quite disappointed to find that the dragon under the castle was closed for refurbishment. So was Alice's Maze and Storybook Canal rides. At least the 'big' attractions were open. Phantom Manor was quite well done and it was interesting to note the differences from the Haunted Mansions in the states. We also did Peter Pan and Pirates.

On to dinner. I had really debated Auberge vs. Blue Lagoon. I tended toward Auberge. However, the park schedule decided it for us. Auberge closed early that day whereas BL was open through dinner.

We were very pleasantly surprised with our dinner at BL. I knew the setting would be great, but I doubted the food. Especially how they would handle the seafood, since I don't care for all kinds of seafood.

I love the Blue Bayou restaurant in California Disneyland but to be honest, I've had some meals there that were not very good. Our disney experience is that usually the restaurants at the resorts are better than the restaurants in the parks. (I should have remembered this was France - food fanatics.

We had asked for non-smoking and water side if possible. There were several open tables for waterside but they would not seat us there???? After seating us near a tree, we started noticing ALOT of cigarette smoke. Turns out that our side of the 'tree' was non-smoking and the other side started the smokers. We mentioned it to our waitress and although she didn't seem to be very concerned, at least she told the manager. We were happy to find the manager quite nice, she moved us to a (surprise) water table well into the non-smoking section. (We wondered why we couldn't have been seated there in the first place?)

Our waiter at our new table was a very accomodating, sweet french boy who told us he is applying to transfer to WDW in Florida if they will accept him. He certainly has the good customer service that we've experienced in WDW. I hope he gets his wish.

The meal was excellent. My sister and I each chose a different set menu meal. We were both happy with our food. Mine started with an appetizer of scallops along with shrimp wontons with a ginger sauce - this came in a bamboo steamer. It was really delicious. My main dish was swordfish with coriander rice and some kind of sauce. Also really excellent. The dessert was a mango tart with vanilla bourbon ice cream. Again, excellent. We had a relaxing, lovely dinner.

The only down side would have been if we were in a hurry, which we were not. The meal took about two hours! We could only see two servers (Dejavu from the lunch counter earlier in the day.)and even though the restaurant was not being completely used, it was obvious they had too many tables for each waiter. However, we were done for the day and tired so we were happy to sit and relax. Our poor waiter was charming in apologizing for how long it was taking but we assured him it was alright with us. We got in about 6 pm and got done about the time the park was closing at 8pm.

As we were leaving, there was a large corporate group waiting to go into the park for an after hour gathering. We thought we were not going to be able to get out to the storage area, the cast members would not let us through. Then a manager came over and personally guided us through the crowd, although he seemed pretty stressed out. Again, it seemed bad planning. We couldn't have been the only people leaving the park who had left items at the storage room - and here was this huge, tight crowd to try and get through to get to our items.

Well, all in all, even though the castle is just beautiful inside and out, the rides well done and our meal turned out excellent, I will not be recommending DLP to friends nor returning there. Maybe we are too use to the great treatment, the "disney spirit" we find in most disney workers in the states - it's too bad it doesn't seem to translate in the DLP park.

I realize from the many trip reports from others that many have had great visits to DLP. I just wish I could say the same. I also would like to believe it was just an 'off' day. But although one or two workers having an off day is understandable, we unfortunately have come away with a very strong feeling that this is more common at DLP and we do not have a desire to return there. (And I would never have thought I would ever say that about any disney park.)

Well, I don't know if it was a good thing to post our experience at DLP. I'm sure many have a great time there.

I would like to thank those at this site (esp. the regulars) who answered my questions about the restaurants and gave helpful advice. And yes, I can wholeheartedly recommend the Blue Lagoon restaurant - all you BL fans were absolutely correct about how great it is!

Thanks for the assistance,

Rhonna

 

[richard3330]

I'm glad you had a nice trip to Paris Rhonna, however it's a shame about the Disneyland Paris experience you had.

We felt it must be the way the whole park is run at DLP and the real lack of training in customer service.

I have only ever come across three or four Disney Cast Members that have been lacking in training or customer service skills. These were at Disneyland CA, WDW and DLP. I really don't think that there is much of a difference between the Cast Members of each resort, but obviously you have found some differences. I bet if you had stayed another day or two the next day(s) would have been fine and you would have enountered little problems. Maybe it was just the luck of the draw on the day of your visit.
Perhaps you should make DLP aware of the problems you encountered?

Great to hear you had a nice end to the day anyway


Richard

 

[missypie]

I know it's very dangerous to generalize about an entire continent, but it seems that in Europe the service workers do not have that "can do" "customer is always right" attitude. You rarely get "service with a smile." It's as if you should be grateful to get any service at all. I remember going to a snack bar in Berlin 15 minutes before closing time and the worker wouldn't sell us a bottled drink because it was 15 minutes before closing time (the whole transaction would have taken 30 seconds).

It would be a pretty un-PC topic, but it would be very intersting for team of sociologists, psychologists, historians and economists to study this phenomenon.

We are looking forward to a week in Paris in March. I've been concerned about how to see all we want to see in Paris while devoting enough time to DLP. From your report it sounds as if one day may just be enough!

 

[Rhonna]

Hi again,

Hi Richard,

Unfortunately my 3 or 4 (or more) all came in succession in one park in a short period of time. Yes, I know you can encounter problems anywhere - it just was very frustrating to have this chain of events and with several cast members acting as if it was not their problem.

I was really surprised our mentioning it at City Hall did not produce any kind of voiced concern. We certainly were not looking for any compensation, nor to get any workers in trouble (we didn't look for names anyhow) but a simple "I'm so sorry to hear that" would have made a lot of difference to us. Maybe with cultural differences, an embarrassed look (Europe) is suppose to be equal to an apology (US).

At least you can add me to the Blue Lagoon fan list.



Hi missypie,

I honestly don't want to put you off of going to DLP. You may have a wonderful time there. (We decided to completely skip the new studios park as it seems to not have alot right now.)

We only allocated one day to DLP since I just wanted to see the few things that were different from the states parks - I also thought it would be funny to hear some of the attractions in french. (If I remember correctly there was a mix of both French and English.)

Being our first time in Paris, there was SO much I wanted to see that DLP was not high on our list.

Just a general observation about the park itself, it seemed pretty large to me but without yet having as many of the attractions that the MK parks in CA and WDW have.

So far DLP does not have Splash Mt., Jungle Cruise, Tiki room, Country Bears, Buzz Lightyear, Alien Encounter, Winnie the Pooh, no 3-D show like Legend of the Lion King or the new Mickey's Philharmonic (I think DLP might have Honey I Shrunk the Audience - at the new studios park). Nor do they have a Toontown yet - if you have children.

They have the "big" rides (except Splash) and Fantasyland. I guess it kind of felt a bit like when the MK parks were starting out in the states - not quite fully developed yet, but unfortunately at DLP they already have the crowds.

I'm not sure why it was so busy at DLP but when we've gone to WDW in mid October we can get alot done and the crowds aren't there, kids are back in school, etc. even though there are Halloween events at WDW also.

Of course, at DLP, when you have so many attractions not built yet, and when we were there, several attractions closed, the crowds are all packing into the few big attractions that are available.

If you go, I would definitely recommend you get your fast passes right away for all the rides you want to do. You can hold more than one fast pass at the same time. Just be sure the return times allow you to get back to each ride. We were fortunate that when we collected our FP's, the return times for each allowed us to get from one to another without running to different areas of the park.

The castle is gorgeous, hopefully the Dragon underneath will be open for you.

I guess I'd say go without high expectations of disney treatment you are accustomed to and perhaps you will not be so disappointed. Maybe it will even be a good day for your family.

Rhonna

 

[danandjackie]

have to add that my worst experiances have all been at wdw florida with some of the most pig ignorant cast members ever, on complaining to a supervisor about this i was brushed off with a oh there just **** off because of the heat.
i did write and complain about the supervisor and recieved free passes and a pre written standard apology that didnt actually address my complaint.

only goes to show there are poor levels of service any where and everywhere

covering your point about it being studied, service industries in europe dont have to rely on tips to subsidise there wage, and most countries are protected by minimum wage rights. Not wanting to harp on but it is possible i suppose that someone on a better and guaranteed salary may put just a little less effort into service than somebody relying on tips.

have to say i have never had any problems with the dlp.

 

[rob@rar.org.uk]

You can find poor levels of service everywhere. However, in my experience customer service in the US is generally better developed than customer service in Europe (and that comes from somebody who *loves* DLP and owns a holiday home in France). That's not to say that you won't find good service in Europe, you more than likely will, but you might find a higher proportion of staff in the US who are prepared to go the extra mile to help you. Whether this is cultural or down to good management I have no idea. Having said that, I've never once been on the receiving end of poor service while at DLP in the eight years that I've been visiting.

Regards

Rob

 

[jodyb]

I've posted similar comments to the ones I'm going to make below on the other boards in response to guests complaints about behavior of "foreigners" who visit WDW...

I live in the Middle East, having grown up in the States. I know it doesn't seem so when you are in the middle of a "rude" encounter or when people don't seem "trained in customer service", but what is actually happening in many of these instances is simply cultural differences in behavior coming to the fore.
Yes, you'll get a lot more smiles and "have a nice day"s from American service people (not just at WDW) than you will anywhere else, but just for perspective, after living here so long, sometimes when I'm in the States all that smiley stuff seems a bit sacharrin. I am NOT excusing rudeness, I'm just pointing out that what we may characterize as rude might be nothing of the sort in another country. The best way to enjoy ourselves in DLP or anywhere else outside our own culture is to relax and let live - don't have expectations that people will be "trained" to behave like Americans. If you take a positive attitude you may even find things to comment on that could be imported from the foreign culture to the American. There are always two sides to every coin. The whole 'standing in line' (or queue as the British call it) is a completely foreign concept in many countries. There is no "rudeness", it's just "different". right/wrong, fair/unfair - don't assume your take on things is universal!
I've never been to France, so maybe I'll eat my words in January when I go to DLP! But having lived in Israel for 30 years and traveled to many countries, I am pretty sure that I can vouch for the fact that few people anywhere, even DISNEY CM's can be "trained" to behave exactly the way you are used to having them behave.
One last comment... whether one has a good time anywhere is pretty much a matter of mind-set. If we take responsibility for our own "fun" and attidute, usually things turn out just fine. And please don't write telling me that for what you pay for entrance to DL you deserve xyz... it's still all in the attitude. You might get what you pay for but you ALWAYS get what you truly look for in life. End of lecture.

 

[rob@rar.org.uk]

I know what you mean Jody. Being a reserved sort of chap (typically British perhaps?) I sometimes find the typically American "have a nice day" approach to be a little bit over the top. Perhaps this is why I've never had any problems with customer service issues when visiting DLP where that cheery interaction with guests is much more low key. I do, however, notice a difference in attitudes when any problems or out of the ordinary requests are made. It's in these situations in the US when I've been most impressed by customer service standards when compared to what I would expect to happen if visiting Europe.

Regards

Rob

 

[danandjackie]

excellent points.... I too find the attitutude of the us parks to be grating and shallow however well meant.

the simple fact is you have to adjust to the park you are in. I think a good example of this is quoted on a DLP site where they mention its possible that when a ride finishes you may get a short translation saying OFF instead of Please step off to the right.

anyway christmas in dlp then it s california in febuary.... does anybody remember the show they did on the lake i think it was done in 94ish where micky fights the dragon. i still havent seen a show to top this. anyone remember its name i have moved house since then and all my diaries are somewher packed in the loft.

 

[rob@rar.org.uk]

Fantasmic.

Regards

Rob

 

[missypie]

Okay, I can buy what you're saying about cultural differences, but what are you supposed to do at a theme park if no one stands in line? What will happen at "Dubai Land" if it is really built? Will everyone just all mob every ride? Will there be daily trampling casualties? Will only the largest and strongest get to ride the rides, leaving out the children, because only the strongest can force their way onto them?

 

[rob@rar.org.uk]

There's plenty of standing in line at DLP. I've spent many a frustrating hour waiting for my three minute thrill ride fix, along with other guests all patiently shuffling along. I think what some people have been critical of at DLP is the character interaction in the various lands at DLP where there is no mechanism to help form or manage a queue. Characters walk around, and kids with their parents just gather around them. This can turn into a bit of a scrum, although I think this is pretty much the same as character interaction in Disney parks in the USA. The situation that Rhonna decribed (where a CM cut to the front of a line without any explanation) is unacceptable, but also extremely rare. In the 25-30 DLP visits I've made I've never seen anything like that happen.

Regards

Rob

 

[missypie]

I guess this is where cultural differences really do come in. When we were at DLR in CA, the character interaction was almost always orderly...each character was always accompanied by a "minder" (for want of a better word); a line formed in front of every character and people waited their turn. Only once was there a bit of chaos...there were about 6 Alice in Wonderland characters in a small space where there was not not a lot of room for queues...but of course, when people started crowding in front of us, I (just a mom-not a CM) made there be a line and people complied. I've heard so much from the DLP side that there's no way to queue nicely for the characters, while at DLR, a nice queue happens almost every time for almost every character. I wonder ... is it the CMs or the guests or both that make it impossible in one location and possible in another?

 

[danandjackie]

thanks rob i have just dug the video out of the loft and watched the entire show, has there ever been anything to top this i note its been running ever since looking at the dates on the video it was jun 92 when we saw it and there was mega hype as it was pretty new...my best memory has to being moved by a cm in the early eve an hour or so before the show because i was stood on a light rig...how can i be stood on a light rif?...then the ground opened up and a shiny light rig suddenly grew like the beanstalk..my video is in great condition bet i havent seeen it for 10 years had to cut back california trips as i could never get more than a week off due to having our own business...but cant wait for christmas at dlp and california in feb though i notice fantasmic only shows at weekends now which may make it impossible to see.

 

[Mark&Jackie]

Hi Everyone

I've enjoyed this topic very much and I have to agree with Jody out there. Once you've lived in a culture which is different from the one you've been brought up in it gives you a completely different perspective on life.

For those people who only experience this for the small amount of time they are on holiday in a foreign country it can be extremely intimidating.

I've also lived in Israel for a long time but grew up in the UK. I remember visiting France as a teenager and the French are very different from either the Brits or the Americans. I have a French brother-in-law to prove it!

We're planning our first trip to DLP in July 2004 but we will be staying with the French part of the family for the first week before going off to DLP - perhaps we'll be acclimatized by then!

Thanks for the wonderful input from everyone and keep writing.

Jackie