I’ve noticed the gradual toning-down of Whispering Canyon over the years.
1. When it first open, in addition to asking for ketchup, if you were caught “stealing” the ketchup, you would be sent to “jail” and made to eat your meal “behind bars.”
2. They also took away the “cowboy handkerchief” napkins and replaced them with generic dinner napkins after everyone took home the cowboy ones as souvenirs.
3. The last couple of years, I’ve noticed the servers handing out little discs to say whether or not you wanted to participate in the antics. I can understand if someone has noise sensitivity, but if you don’t, then YOU BETTER PARTICIPATE OR EAT SOMEWHERE ELSE!
4. Eventually, they’re getting rid of the “fun” servers and replacing them with the servers that only take your order. You’d be lucky if they’d throw napkins or straws at your dining party. (Although with the latter, I fear that will soon be coming to an end with the looming straw ban.)
5. The most noticeable thing that I’ve noticed would be with the pony races around the restaurant.
When they first started doing the pony races, they would reward first, second and third places with something (e.g. a free dessert of the kid’s menu, a free toy, etc.), but then it started to get competitive and kids, (and sometimes the parents “helping” the younger kids.) would shove the other children out of the way so that their kid would be first. In order to combat that, the wait staff now has a strict rule of “No Running” and the free dessert/toy reward was removed.
Since there was no incentive for kids to do the pony races, the higher ups introduced a “Certificate of Participation” that would be awarded to each kid that was in the race, followed by the “State Your Name” Speech that was said by an ACTUAL WAITER instead of it being a prerecorded message.
Last couple of years, I didn’t hear the “State Your Name” speech or anything else (except for the “Participation Discs”.) Are they killing the fun of these types of restaurants?