Disney Characters at Disneyland Paris

[disney-john]

<snip> (first time I've ever complained at disney) </snip>

They need to have controlled lines for all characters. It would really help as not only would more people get to see the character and take their picture but also the character would probably be more comfortable istead of being crushed up against a fence. !

Agree with that.
I complained at town hall, filled in a form and heard nothing back....

[disney-john]

Wondering does anyone know where I could meet and get a photo with grumpy. Never seem to have got the chance at either dlrp and wdw, and you'd think with all the merchandise he has, a meet and greet would be cool..... I'm also turning into a bit of a grumpy apparently! Lol

[Jens]

To make myself completely clear, I don't want adults to barge in front of children. Same goes for children however… They can not barge in front of other people who have been waiting longer (even IF they are adults). It's basic education.

What I mean, is that if everyone waits patiently, EVERYONE should have a shot at a photo with a character. As said by someone before, adults also pay to get in to the park (mostly even more than children) and so they have the right to do so. Disney Characters are there for everyone, and adults are only children grown up anyway…

In reply to the lines for characters: It is not always possible, believe me. If you create a line for a character, bare in mind that they are mostly there for a half an hour and everyone that is going to stand in that line will EXPECT to see that character. When the waiting line gets over half an hour and the character leaves, everyone that is still left in that line will surely complain. Close it in advance, you say? Easier said than done… When the cm closes the line they do not have control on what happens with the character anymore, so when the cm is by itself, that is a big nono. Also bare in mind that mostly, a bunch of characters only have 1 cm with them so in that case it is out of the question to start making lines and keeping everything in order (no line jumping, etc). Sorry, there's a lot more to it people, believe me…

However… CM's frequently use a system that doesn't need a line. A semi circle is made around the character and the character basicly peels away the layers of people by selecting them by hand, going from the left to the right. That way the first row that was there first gets served first and everytime someone gets chosen someone from the second row (who arrived later) steps up meaning they will be on the next round when the character starts from the left again when he/she finished on the right. This system works well, but is needed to be explained to guests frequently to make sure everyone sticks to it… When the character leaves, the CM mostly allows a photo with all the children together or refers to a later hour the character will be there (and mostly with no hastle, as there were no expectations you do have with a waiting line).

Hope this clears some stuff up…

[disney-john]

In wdw they have queues, and everyone gets a quality meet and greet and some wonderful photos, they have a cast member at the end of he queue to prevent guest joining the queue who are not going be able to see the character, but say when they would be back.


For example we were going to join the queue to meet Alice in the uk pavlion in Epcot, to be told Alice had to go for a cup of tea with the mad hatter, but she would be back at such and such a time....

There is nothing to prevent dlrp doing this.

[orsie]

In wdw they have queues, and everyone gets a quality meet and greet and some wonderful photos, they have a cast member at the end of he queue to prevent guest joining the queue who are not going be able to see the character, but say when they would be back.


For example we were going to join the queue to meet Alice in the uk pavlion in Epcot, to be told Alice had to go for a cup of tea with the mad hatter, but she would be back at such and such a time....

There is nothing to prevent dlrp doing this.

I wish they would do this at DLP. But then, I guess WDW has a lot more staff and funding.

[Jens]

Short and simple: The current budget for the balance of cast members/characters in DLP does not allow that system to be implemented in our parks (for now). And I'm not even going to start about the culture difference between americans and europeans making the situations non-comparible

[disney-john]

Short and simple: The current budget for the balance of cast members/characters in DLP does not allow that system to be implemented in our parks (for now). And I'm not even going to start about the culture difference between americans and europeans making the situations non-comparible

Sorry I don't think it's budget, last trip we had the mis-fortune to go to the meet and greet with jack sparrow, the cm accompanying him was too busy texting instead of crowd control.... So it's to cm training, and a bit of rope.

And sorry lets not start on the "culture difference" again, as I don't feel that they are non-comparible.... As people from all over the world visit WDW.....

[jonathan]

When cultural differences are mentioned, is it suggested that Europeans dont know how to queue

[Jens]

It's all good example… People are herd animals and follow the pack. If half of them speak a language that the castmember doesn't speak (you can't expect the cm to know how to speak all languages) and they don't follow the instructions, the perfect little system they have in the american parks will NOT work. That's what I mean with cultural differences. Altough yes, certain nationalities are more excited than others and will approach characters directly instead of even looking for the queueline. All those little things add up to making it difficult to implement in DLP.

And yes, maybe not every cm will have the same motivation to give guests the best experience, but a lot of them do try. Don't think it's always better in american parks, you have to see everything in perspective. Castmembers do try, never forget that

But let's focus on Disney Characters again now :p

[petals]

In WDW all characters have controlled lines.. You know who controls them the CM's and every single character I saw in DLP had a CM standing nearby so why are they incapable of making guests form a controlled line. Simple really if they can't wait patiently in line then they shouldn't get to see the Character. I emailed DLP to complain about a number of issues from our trip Character mobs being one of them.

[jonathan]

My comment was sort of tongue in cheek. Its alleged that us Brits invented queueing back in the days of rationing during the war lol and in general many visitors to DLP, mainly those from Europe, dont seem accustomed to queuing and waiting patiently even for the rides as is evident by the amount of queue jumping that occurs.

I think if I were a Disney character performer though id insist on having a security gaurd with me rather than a regular CM lol!!

[nathalie]

A nice example also is, when I'm in London, everyone ques up to go onto a bus.
Here in Belgium, people turn into a pack of wolves and push each other over just to get on the bus first.

I've kind of seen that happening with many characters when I was there on Halloween.
People tend to turn into a pack of wolves and they will destroy anything (anyone) on their path just to get up front o_O

[jonathan]

A nice example also is, when I'm in London, everyone ques up to go onto a bus.
Here in Belgium, people turn into a pack of wolves and push each other over just to get on the bus first.

I've kind of seen that happening with many characters when I was there on Halloween.
People tend to turn into a pack of wolves and they will destroy anything (anyone) on their path just to get up front o_O

Ive seen it myself and it can be shocking sometimes. Im not suggesting that Brits dont queue jump but we seem accustomed to queueing and if see a queue we seem compelled to join the back of it lol.

[petals]

Short and simple: The current budget for the balance of cast members/characters in DLP does not allow that system to be implemented in our parks (for now). And I'm not even going to start about the culture difference between americans and europeans making the situations non-comparible

I really don't think it has anything to do with budget. Again every character I saw had a CM with them what's to stop the CM using their mouth/brain and getting the people to form an orderly queue.. they don't even need the rope to form a queue just control the crowd. What else are they standing beside the character for???

[Jens]

I think I already explained why it's not possible for castmembers to make a queue out of the blue and properly close it by themself? Imagine if you're in that queue patiently waiting for a photo and the castmember just runs of with the character without closing? How would you feel? You can only create a proper queueline if you are sure that it will be properly closed like they do on the photolocations.

Like I also already said, most castmembers do try to make a system so it runs better, but don't expect miracles like in WDW. Language, Culture, it all matters, believe me! And errr… the castmembers are not there to make a queueline at all actually. They are mostly there for the security of the character (looking out for people that are being rough with them) but also to reply in the character's name if a child asks a question, looking to see if there are any disabled people around that can't reach the character and basicly just trying to make the best out of the situation while doing all that!

I know it's easy to judge castmembers, and I know they're not all perfect, but sometimes there's just a bit more to it than you think

[nathalie]

Some CM's aren't suitable though.
At halloween night, both stepsisters were out, and with them was this tiny little fragile girl who could not control the crowd at all, as she didn't had a strong voice, and it was kind of chaos at that time.
She tried yelling to everyone to step back, but no one could hear her. We were standing next to her, and couldn't even really :/

[orsie]

Hey guys, what we're talking about here isn't actually impossible. I know this because during our summer visit everyone formed a queue in the Studios to see Chip n' Dale who randomly appeared on the Stars n' Cars stage. It was shocking! I have never seen a queue been formed for a random character EVER before at DLP! It was quite amazing! As for closing it off, I got lucky as I went up and got lots of interaction from C&D and then after that the CM invited all the other childen up together for one big picture!

[Donuttiejj]

We ran into Goofy yesterday, everyone waited patiently and Goofy pointed towards to one who could come up to take a picture with him! It went really smoothly, and it was very pleasant. He made sure no one was excluded and nobody ran up to him at all. Hopefully we can see more of this in the future!

[petals]

I think I already explained why it's not possible for castmembers to make a queue out of the blue and properly close it by themself? Imagine if you're in that queue patiently waiting for a photo and the castmember just runs of with the character without closing? How would you feel? You can only create a proper queueline if you are sure that it will be properly closed like they do on the photolocations.

Like I also already said, most castmembers do try to make a system so it runs better, but don't expect miracles like in WDW. Language, Culture, it all matters, believe me! And errr… the castmembers are not there to make a queueline at all actually. They are mostly there for the security of the character (looking out for people that are being rough with them) but also to reply in the character's name if a child asks a question, looking to see if there are any disabled people around that can't reach the character and basicly just trying to make the best out of the situation while doing all that!

I know it's easy to judge castmembers, and I know they're not all perfect, but sometimes there's just a bit more to it than you think

I don't think it's anything to do with miracles. I think it's to do with common sense. They don't need rope or anything just a mouth saying line up here. If they can't speak English so what people aren't that stupid that if they see a line they won't cop on what the cast member is doing. If they continue to ignore it then that just makes them ignorant.

And again the character would be safer if people formed a proper queue instead of the ridiculous mob system most of the characters had when I visited

[DisneyEuros]

What i Believe about Disneyland Paris, is that they should follow the WDW's system.
Which for example they have "more than one" Snow White, Alice, peter pan etc...
Yes. of course!
Maybe some of you didn't know about that.

At WDW they have 2-3 people presenting the one same Disney Character in a couple of different locations of course. Not only one person presenting the one specific character, but several people presenting that one character!

So, by applying this system, their "Disney character" is always there for the people to take pictures and they achieve better results on meets and greets. And everybody stays satisfied.