Stupid Guest Tricks

Been a bit since I last posted some encounters I've had or witnessed going on over at the front desk so I thought with summer coming to a "close" that I'd do just that. Post again that is.

-A guest went to concierge and started complaining about his Dining Plan. Apparently, he was on the DDP but wanted to switch to the Deluxe version. Despite being too late already to do something like that, he had already stayed one night and USED the current plan. When he found out he got rather angry and started throwing things on the floor ending the conversation with "WE'RE DONE! I'M PISSED ABOUT THIS AND WE'RE LEAVING! NOW!" Don't know if he actually did or not though.

-A guest came in with his family and they had four separate rooms. He then began asking all sorts of questions about whether or not we had suites or even a presidential suite. He wasn't too happy when he found out that we didn't. He then "demanded" that all four rooms, which weren't near each other due to when they had booked them (yes I am being vague here), be Pirate rooms. Further more he wanted Pirate WATER view rooms. Needless to say, he was demanding to go from a STANDARD to the highest priced room at the resort. For the sake of having the four rooms next to each other, our back office had no problem moving them to Pirate rooms (we were low on occupancy as it was) but in now way, shape or form was he to get a Pirate Water, we just didn't have those rooms available to him. We start getting his rooms sorted out and I give him his first two packets when he asks if they have water views. This is how it went down:

Me: "well sir, the two rooms I've given you I told you they didn't. The other rooms you'd have to check with my partner since she has those room numbers."
SG: "So at this point you're saying no, we don't have water views." *Said rather irratly*
Me: "At this point, No. You don't have water views. We can't put you into a room that doesn't exist."

-The one thing that has always blown my mind are the tourists from another country that don't speak English. I still don't understand how a guest can come to a country and not be able to understand ANYTHING that is said to them. Case in point as I had a woman rush up to me and ask me if i spoke the following languages:
-French
-Italian
-Spanish
-Portuguese
I followed each one with a no and was very tempted to turn to her and ask, "English?". (Also, I know those languages are all very similar to each other due to being Latin based in origin).

-Now for a story from one of the parks. Sure it's not FD related but I know a family member (or two) who work at the parks. At DHS, one guest attacked another guest. The attacker hung around and watched the other victim and his family as security and OCSD were arriving. He even went to the great lengths of buying new shirts and hats for him and his wife and changed their shirts in rather plain view of everyone else! A couple of CM's even overheard him talking on the phone to someone saying how he doesn't think he'd be getting away with it. Best/Worse yet, they had kids with them. What a great example to put forward and then explain why, to your kids, that you can't go to Disney World again.

ectomstr wrote: -The one thing that has always blown my mind are the tourists from another country that don't speak English. I still don't understand how a guest can come to a country and not be able to understand ANYTHING that is said to them. Case in point as I had a woman rush up to me and ask me if i spoke the following languages:
-French
-Italian
-Spanish
-Portuguese
I followed each one with a no and was very tempted to turn to her and ask, "English?". (Also, I know those languages are all very similar to each other due to being Latin based in origin).

Well, two things come to my mind:

First, how many times have we heard stories of tourists from the U.S. going abroad and assuming everyone will understand English? It is not overly surprising to me that there are folks in other countries that do the same sort of thing, thought it doesn't make it right.

Second, this might be a case of folks having an unrealistic idea of how far Disney's reputation for customer service goes. Since WDW (and, I would go so far to say, most major Disney resorts and parks) is a world-wide tourist destination, they might have figured that Disney has made provisions for dealing with travelers who don't speak the local language. Of course, they really should have checked to make sure first, and even if Disney did make such accommodations, it would still probably be a good idea to learn a bit of English, in case they had to deal with folks outside of Disney's properties.

ectomstr wrote:
-The one thing that has always blown my mind are the tourists from another country that don't speak English. I still don't understand how a guest can come to a country and not be able to understand ANYTHING that is said to them. Case in point as I had a woman rush up to me and ask me if i spoke the following languages:
-French
-Italian
-Spanish
-Portuguese
I followed each one with a no and was very tempted to turn to her and ask, "English?". (Also, I know those languages are all very similar to each other due to being Latin based in origin).

Yeah, I just don't see this as a Stupid Guest Trick. Isn't that what the language pins are for?

Amphigorey wrote:Yeah, I just don't see this as a Stupid Guest Trick. Isn't that what the language pins are for?

It is, but I don't have a pin that says anything. And it's more of a....personal annoyance than a STG really. I had another guest get upset because his travel agent in Brazil or Argentina or where ever he was from basically lied to him multiple times. He spoke English perfectly fine but it got to a point that he demanded to speak to A- a manager and B- someone to speak Spanish to. I could have gotten the language bank but he was getting really, really testy and lo and behold, on the Front Desk we only had ONE person who spoke Spanish and she was helping another guest who needed someone to speak Spanish to. I even talked to one of my managers who said they'll find someone and he approached this guest who didn't even let him (the manager) get a full sentence in before saying "I want to talk to someone who speaks Spanish not English." Needless to say we did find someone (one of the bell service guys) and helped him on his way, etc.

Another guest hurried up at some other time and briskly asked "Portuguese?" I said no and she just walked off to the next one not even letting me ask if I could be of some help.

So sometimes, having those language pins or even not having them doesn't really help. As with the first guest in this post, he couldn't understand why I couldn't speak to him in Spanish or why there was only one person who could do so on the Front Desk. He had a perception that the moment he walked up he could talk to ANYONE and be able to talk to them in his native tongue. Those with that perception it isn't "stupid" but a poor planning and a bad perception in and of itself. Another CM had guests from Japan that couldn't speak any English at all. She had to mime to them what everything was and, ironically, was the one who spoke Spanish on the Front Desk for the guest I had XD

ectomstr wrote:
So sometimes, having those language pins or even not having them doesn't really help.

To be fair, a guest has to know the language pins exist before the pins really help. If you go to the counter to check in on day one, you don't know the pins exist, and you get a CM who doesn't have one, then there's no evidence to suggest it's useless to ask if the CM speaks a language other than English.

I like to travel abroad, and I try to make an effort to learn some basic tourist French/Italian/what have you before I go. But I have yet to find a language resource that actually teaches me to understand the response when I ask, "Where is the bathroom?" Sure, I might have memorized the words for "left" and "right," but I'm not going to be able to understand "Go up the stairs behind you. The bathroom is the last door at the end of the hall on the left." I do my best with please, thank you, excuse me, and sorry, and pick up the rest as I go along.

On day one, a jet-lagged non-English speaker has made it to the front desk of a Disney hotel by dealing with airline staff, airport signs, taxi/bus drivers or rental car companies, and ATMs/banks, which all operate in pretty pictures and English (often heavily accented). Add that to the basic stress and rigamarole of international travel, and you've got one burned out (linguistically and otherwise) guest standing in front of you.

Mr. I-speak-perfect-English-but-I-won't-talk-to-you and Mr. Give-me-waterview-Pirate-rooms-or-give-me-death? They're jerks.

Steve Martin: "In France, chapeau means 'hat.' Oeuf means 'egg.' It's like those French have a different word for everything!"

There may not be a presidential suite, but there sure is a presidential HALL. :D: Perhaps the guest would like a room there?

http://www.collegehumor.com/video/11563 ... and-movies

I hope the Space Mountain movie will be in 3D.

I remember when they made phrase books for every language under the sun, even Esperanto. Haven't seen one in ages. They also make little handheld translators, mainly in Spanish, that supposedly (haven't used one) help you translate signs or to ask questions, and if you can't pronounce what's on the screen you show it to the person you're talking to. I would think those would have their limits, though.

felinefan wrote:I remember when they made phrase books for every language under the sun, even Esperanto. Haven't seen one in ages. They also make little handheld translators, mainly in Spanish, that supposedly (haven't used one) help you translate signs or to ask questions, and if you can't pronounce what's on the screen you show it to the person you're talking to. I would think those would have their limits, though.

There's a Google Translate app for the iPhone, iPod Touch and, I assume, the iPad that's pretty neat. It may also be available for Androids, as Google has a lot of apps for that platform. You can type in a phrase and it will translate into any of a large selection of languages. It can even translate spoken speech for a few languages. Seems to me the Universal Translator from Star Trek isn't to far off.