Disney Cares (07/20/06)

Six months ago I would not have said that Disney Cares. This is because of the Disney Insider Yearbook which I plunked down the money for so that I could get the collectible lithograph and DVD as well as the hardcover book. Well, this is the biggest piece of garbage I have ever seen Disney put out. I let Disney know how I felt, and all they had to say was "I'm sorry you feel that way". That was it.

Now I know that not all of Disney is 'Disney'. The people I told I was dissatisfied about the Insider Yearbook were not Cast Members per say. They don't work for Disneyland. Sure, they work for Disney in some way, but they don't spend their time dealing with the public. For that, I can forgive their poor response to my unhappiness.

This is all because of a problem we happened to have on our June 2006 trip to the Disneyland Resort. When I wrote to Disney telling them how I felt about this problem I never expected to hear from them. I forgot though that now I was dealing with Cast Members at Disneyland. They are a different breed.

Here is what occurred on our trip. We had gone shopping at World of Disney with the intension of shipping several items home. After spending an hour or more selecting our purchases we then began the arduous task of separating the items into what we wanted shipped verses what we were taking home ourselves.

By the time it was all said and done, we had spent well over a thousand dollars, and of this total $256.00 worth of merchandise was to be shipped home. We selected UPS ground and ten minutes later were totally shocked that it was going to cost us $76.00 to ship our merchandise. Well, the items we were shipping weighed a lot, so we figured that was the reason for the large shipping charge.

When the box arrived, saying it was box 1 of 1 and then it gave a weight of 22 pounds I immediately went to UPS.com and found that it cost less than $18.00 to ship this box. My next step was to send an email to Disney, letting them know of my utter shock at their overcharge for shipping. Something strange happened when this email was sent. Normally when emailing Disney you get an email almost immediately saying that they have received your email and will respond shortly. Well, I didn't get that response from that email so figured I would resend it in a few days if I didn't hear.

The next day I opened the box that had arrived, only to find half of our merchandise was not there! I immediately called Disneyland to let them know. They assured me that someone would call the next day.

The next day Jerri called and said that she was very sorry for the mistake and that she would get the missing items shipped immediately. This was left on our answering machine and I didn't respond. There was no need to at this time.

It was a few days later when I got another call from Jerri. This one also went to voice mail but I chose to return the call. And this is one reason I say Disney Cares. Jerri was calling to let me know that she was refunding our credit card $40.00 for the shipping. She let me know it should have been done when we paid, but the Cast Member was new and didn't know that. It turns out that even though I didn't get an email from Disney, they did get mine. And they took care of the problem immediately in a very satisfactory manner for me.

I learned from Jerri that Disney really does care about the guests. In two weeks time, two different Cast Members showed me how much Disney cares. I hope these two people are planning on staying with Disney for many more years because they are both assets to this huge company. The second cast member I am referring to is Ken. I have mentioned him in a few other articles and my trip report. He single handedly made sure we got all of the pressed pennies we needed.

And finally, another way Disney cares. On July 17th 2006 Disneyland gave one million dollars to the Children's Hospital of Orange County. Yes, Disney cares.

Leanne


You can chat with Leanne at our disney forums where she is known as Tink.

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