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Old 18 Apr 17, 04:57 PM  
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#31
Boots1234
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Originally Posted by dav220588 View Post
They should close the queue if there won't be enough time for everyone to meet the characters. If not the characters should either return to meet everyone in the queue or those who missed out should get a time to meet them later if possible. It's a failing of DLP if they're allowing people to join the queue and wait for an hour only to not meet the characters.
yes i agree - the line should have been closed.

someone made a boo boo.
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Old 18 Apr 17, 08:13 PM  
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bobothebear
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This kind of reminds me of my Wife and youngest Son's experience in trying to meet the Mad Hatter. It was reasonably quiet and they joined a Queue of about 5/6 families(He'd been there quite a while). Slowly but surely they worked their way to the front and the CM then said that's enough and just my Son was left hold his autograph book. No one else had joined the Queue behind them!
The Mad Hatter actually said we can do one more but the CM refused and made him leave!

When they told me I just laughed in disbelief.

We seem to have a habit of getting to the front just as it's break time. Which at first breaks my little boys heart as they walk off but now he's learnt they come back and normally do silly things and spend much longer with him and he gets big running hugs.
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Old 18 Apr 17, 09:17 PM  
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martyn321
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Originally Posted by Tink75 View Post
DLP can't win - form an orderly queue and people whine at the wait. Don't form a queue and its dog eat dog with people getting physically hurt at times. They had people complaining for years that they wanted orderly queues - they've brought them in and now it takes ages (in peak season)...
.
Seriously, it used to be a free for all? Id love to hear some stories about that (this was our 1st time at DLP, so never got to witness that!).
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Old 18 Apr 17, 09:24 PM  
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Gill H
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Oh gosh, yes. Most European countries, to put it kindly, don't place the same importance on queueing as us Brits. Pushing and shoving was the norm. It's only in recent years that the organised queue has become standard at DLP.
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Old 18 Apr 17, 09:27 PM  
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Tink75
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Originally Posted by martyn321 View Post
Seriously, it used to be a free for all? Id love to hear some stories about that (this was our 1st time at DLP, so never got to witness that!).
To be fair, there were some organised lines but many weren't and it was best described as a scrum at times. Often the adults were worse than the children! The poor characters had a terrible time trying to organise people with random kids ending up in your photos as they were thrust forward to stand next to Mickey and your child 😳. As the OP says, some people even got injured. So yes, DLP listened and brought in lines...
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Old 19 Apr 17, 09:19 AM  
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daftmum
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It used to be awful people would push children out of the way so their children could have a photo with the character. We have waited in front of a character for ages being jostled and the handlers did nothing to help. In the end you have to be as pushy as everyone else.

As the parent of a child with autism I have to say the queue system now is much better. My daughter is entitled to a disability pass which we used at Christmas when it was needed. For example the queue for the chipmunks was short so we joined it, got to the front and they went for a quick break but 5 mins later they were back and we had fantastic interaction. The Aladdin meet had a really long queue. Dd is obsessed with the film but wanted to meet the genie not jafar and they were swapping on a regular basis. The disability pass does not allow you to meet the character there and then, they give you a return time, they have a list they work from and you get offered the next slot. For my dd this meant a wait of over 2 hours. It could have been slightly shorter but would have been jafar not genie so she chose to wait a bit later for them to switch. We got there at our allocated time. We were the only disability people waiting and they let 3-4 family's from the regular queue in ahead of my dd. This is our only experience of using the card for character meets so don't know if they all operate the same way but thought it might offer an insight into it.
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Old 19 Apr 17, 11:51 AM  
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Tink75
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Originally Posted by daftmum View Post
It used to be awful people would push children out of the way so their children could have a photo with the character. We have waited in front of a character for ages being jostled and the handlers did nothing to help. In the end you have to be as pushy as everyone else.

As the parent of a child with autism I have to say the queue system now is much better. My daughter is entitled to a disability pass which we used at Christmas when it was needed. For example the queue for the chipmunks was short so we joined it, got to the front and they went for a quick break but 5 mins later they were back and we had fantastic interaction. The Aladdin meet had a really long queue. Dd is obsessed with the film but wanted to meet the genie not jafar and they were swapping on a regular basis. The disability pass does not allow you to meet the character there and then, they give you a return time, they have a list they work from and you get offered the next slot. For my dd this meant a wait of over 2 hours. It could have been slightly shorter but would have been jafar not genie so she chose to wait a bit later for them to switch. We got there at our allocated time. We were the only disability people waiting and they let 3-4 family's from the regular queue in ahead of my dd. This is our only experience of using the card for character meets so don't know if they all operate the same way but thought it might offer an insight into it.
That is how we've seen it working or alternating one from disabled line, one from other line. Have to say, the more I've thought about the OP's experience, the more I would have stood my ground and written out the complaint. To me, it's a glaring training issue that you would hope would be remedied for future guests. As Sammy said, if it's documented, you would hope someone would read and act on it. I would have made sure I got the CM's name from their badge too - this would help with training identification.
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Old 19 Apr 17, 02:37 PM  
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Boots1234
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Originally Posted by martyn321 View Post
Seriously, it used to be a free for all? Id love to hear some stories about that (this was our 1st time at DLP, so never got to witness that!).
wow - you missed the good old days!

fight to the death to see Mick and co!
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Old 20 Apr 17, 06:51 PM  
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Elodie
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I'm glad it's like it is now then, that sounds scary!

My dd was disappointed last summer - we spotted Peter Pan, and dd was dressed as Tinker Bell, so she asked if she could meet him. The queue was long - about 10 families in it, but we were killing time waiting for dh and older dd who were in a 60 min queue for a ride, so we joined the end. 20 mins later we'd moved two spaces forward and after 25 mins, a CM came through the queue to say Peter Pan was leaving and it would be Smee instead.

We had actually missed out on meeting Smee at a character meal when he didn't get round to our table (we waited after finishing our food but then all the characters left and didn't come back) but dd didn't want to queue for Smee, so we left.

I hadn't really thought about that until reading this thread, so I think you're right that people generally take away the good memories and that's why they come back for more. But I do wonder now whether the queue was so slow moving because of either disability passes or multiple photos, and I did think at the time that it would improve the experience if CMs were able to tell you when you join the queue whether you were likely to meet the character or not. Did Alice come back to your queue in the end, or had she left for good?
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Old 20 Apr 17, 07:07 PM  
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Alice and the Mad Hatter came back after 15 mins as promised - which was great in one sense, but I do feel this takes away from the actual issue, which was the management of that first appearance queue.

If someone had said at 1:05pm that you won't see them until they re-appear for the 2nd slot at 2:15pm, we'd have said no way.

I suppose the more seasoned Disney visitor would have a better idea on these sort of things, although they may have seen it done differently (better) in Florida and perhaps even be at a disadvantage by assuming it would definitely only be a 20 mins queue.

I think it has to be viewed from the perspective of the first time visitor who would have every right to count the 7 families in the queue, apply a max of 3 mins per family, and think 20 mins tops, lets do this.

I had no idea there would be a load of people given passes in at the side. Maybe the odd one, not making that much of a difference, but there were more medical pass families seeing the characters in that first slot than families in the queue. That's not the right balance at all.

I've fired off an email today to the address provided on this thread and the CEO address as well.

Will keep you posted if any response is received.

Feels very quiet now, being back home!
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