5/20: Shows & Sharks

[Al Lutz]

Kevin reviews the Toy Story musical and has safety questions about the Disney Cruise Line, discuss it here.

DIRECT ARTICLE LINK: http://miceage.micechat.com/kevinyee/ky052008a.htm

[Disneynut]

Once again, the information regarding Disney Cruise Line is simply wrong. From the opening paragraph:

"and it comes hard on the heels of the well-received "The Golden Mickeys" and last year's addition, the award-winning "Disney Dreams" show"

Sorry, both shows have been around for years. Disney did introduce some minor enhancements to the Disney Dreams show in 2007, but calling the show a "new addition" is not even close.

This greatly reminds me of the article recounting Kevin's first trip on the Disney Cruise Line wherein he complained that he felt out of place in the dining rooms by only having casual clothes despite the fact that the dress code is given to guests in writing and available on their website.

The absurdity continues further on:

"I find myself wishing they would just build a jetty and completely enclose the snorkeling lagoon. Make it a giant outdoor saltwater aquarium, rather than connected to the real ocean. At least then it would be safe"

Yes, there is zero chance of an accident happening around water once that jetty is built! Of course, we can truly expect people to be safe when they drink alcohol and then go swimming so long as we manage to keep the sharks away. Again, much like the previous rant about not knowing the dress code, guests are still expected to take their brain with them on vacation.

Sorry, but an ocean is an ocean. The signs clearly tell guests to be careful and they also spell out the risks. It is really ludicrous for anyone to assume that even Disney could control everything that can happen in the ocean. Instead of looking ahead to what may happen in the future, I would welcome any facts or actual reports of shark and barracuda attacks from the past at Castaway Cay?

Do anyone actually read the press-releases and other information given out or do they simply make the "facts" up as they go along? Should we really trust the review of someone who gets it wrong from the opening paragraph? Sorry, but the credibility of this reporter continues to slip. Clearly, his style of reporting is similar to another well known Disney Blogger, where the facts are not relevant to the story as long as there is an opportunity for you to bash certain aspects of the Walt Disney company.

[flotsam_mike]

There is no such thing as safety, ever. Perhaps we should all become shut-ins.

Maybe the lifegaurd was so calm as to not inspire panic in the guests?

[flynnibus]

Wow - you never go swimming at all on the Atlantic Beachs in Florida? Never gone snorkling in open water?

Lots of misinformation feeding hysteria here.. sheez.

[socalkdg]

Disappointed in the article as well. Read the review of Toy Story Musical and I'm thinking, ok, Disney messed up. Then continue and read a mass histeria piece that had me laughing through each word. It almost made me start doubting your review from the first part of the article. Almost, I still trust your ride and show reviews.

Just remember that you have a greater chance of being hurt in line waiting for the teacups then you do in the ocean at Castaway Cay.

By the way, did you enjoy your most recent cruise?

[kcnole]

Its the friggin ocean, if you don't want to experience marine life you should stay in the pool. I never understand this attitude that we own the ocean and should never expect to see its inhabitants show up in their own home. If you enter into the ocean you're entering their domain. I don't care if you're in ankle deep water or worse, you're in the domain of wildlife.

And isn't part of the appeal to snorkeling so that you can see the wildlife? There was a reason the lifeguard wanted the people to remain quiet. The shark was no danger (and yes people can easily identify them from above the water if they're trained) so there was no need to cause hysteria. I'm reminded of an experience I had on my local beach (when I lived in Fort Walton) a few years ago. We were on the beach relaxing when a man began screaming at the top of his lungs that there was a shark in the water and getting into a huge panic. (This was a few months after a real shark attack a few miles down so it was understandable). I looked out and immediately saw what he (some guy from up north who didn't know the ocean) saw and realized what he saw swimming through was not a shark, but a dolphin which was completely harmless.

There was harm caused however. This man inspired a major panic, people began pouring into the shore any way they could whether they were going over other people or not. Several people were injured in this malaise of mass panic over something that wasn't a big deal. Now I don't hold any ill will for that man thinking he saw a shark, it was understandable and if it really had been a dangerous shark I'd have wanted people to be warned, but it wasn't and it caused harm. So why should the lifeguards get in a huge panic over something that wasn't dangerous. People are afraid of sharks whether they're dangerous or not and if they started going around panicking before long everyone's worked up in a panic. They acted like professionals.

[R2P2CM]

your scared of the ocean....


have you never swam in "open water"?

[KevinYee]

Hm, complete agreement from the online comments so far that the shark/barracuda/ray sightings were nothing to worry about.

Of course I swim in the open ocean. I expect that to contain dangers. The difference is, people don't expect *Disney* to contain dangers. Maybe I should have started with the stuff on page three, rather than put it at the end.

[DisneyIPresume]

Umm, Kevin, they don't do parasailing in Huntington Beach. It must be illegal here, because if it wasn't they would probably be doing it.

[KevinYee]

Originally Posted by Disneynut

This greatly reminds me of your first trip on the Disney Cruise Line where you complained that you felt out of place in the dining rooms by only having casual clothes despite the fact that the dress code was given to you in writing and available on their website.

Here's what I wrote, verbatim, from that long-ago article. I think that the above quote misrepresents what I had written:

[start quote of old article]

• The materials sent by mail before the cruise were woefully inadequate.

Here’s a quote from one part of the booklet they sent before the cruise:

Nice Dining Attire: Most restaurants require cruise casual wear. No shorts, swimwear or tank tops, please. A dress shirt or jacket is recommended for men, and a dress or pantsuit for women, at Lumiere’s and Palo.

Maybe it’s just me, but I read this to mean that I’d be fine in jeans and a t-shirt, and in fact all I would have to do is just steer clear of Lumiere’s and Palo, whatever those places are, and I could even wear shorts. I didn’t want to look up what those restaurants were. I wanted to be surprised. I was sure my plan for dress code was fine. After all, this is DISNEY we’re talking about here. As a local, I’ve seen what people wear to the fine dining establishments at Walt Disney World. Tourists in general don’t dress up, and thus I wouldn’t need to, either.

WRONG! People did dress up. Every night. A t-shirt was woefully out of place. Jeans were by and large out of place too, and I became painfully aware of sticking out in a crowd. This is likely due to my half-Asian heritage and the life experiences that go along with it while growing up. W.E.B. Dubois coined the term “double-consciousness” to refer to an awareness of being both “American” and a person of color. He meant it for African-Americans, but it could be applied to a host of situations, including my own. People with double-consciousness see themselves through their own eyes AND through the eyes of other people. I began to feel that my T-shirts were horribly misplaced at the dinners. Basically no one else wore them; the men were all wearing something with a collar, like polo shirts or print shirts. Though no one said anything to me, I felt increasingly uncomfortable and finally opted out of three of the dinners, electing to just eat the fast food offered on the deck of the ship instead.

Frankly, that made me mad. I have no paucity of polo shirts. I could have packed properly if only Disney had warned me with more vigor. It’s true I fell prey to my familiarity with Disney parks and the lax dress codes there, but surely I wasn’t the only one. My anger was fueled in large part by the enormous cost of this cruise (see below), and here I was, feeling put out by the dress code and substituting burgers for beef tenderloin. I merely burned with rage and vowed to write this up in the comment card at the end of the trip. Alas, the comment card was also woefully short on space to actually write anything. I left my email address, but no one wrote to even ask questions, let alone address my concerns. Is it possible the rage from this embarrassing experience informed some of the negative parts of the review today, some of them still to come? Sure. Let that be a lesson in why you have to work hard in the service industry to never get any detail wrong. You can get 99% of things right, but if that one thing is wrong, it ruins everything else.

It turns out that while Palo is a pay-extra restaurant, Lumiere’s was one of the three main dining rooms, meaning we’d visit it at least twice just by following the normal rotation through the dining rooms. Here’s what would have worked to clue me in during that packet mailed before the trip:

Nice Dining Attire. Most restaurants require “cruise casual” clothing: no shorts, swimwear or tank tops (even T-shirts are not common). Polo shirts and muted Hawaiian print shirts are very commonly worn with Dockers-style pants. A dress shirt or jacket is recommended for men, and a dress or pantsuit for women, at one of the three restaurants you’ll visit during the normal rotation.

I could run through the same review of the formal wear, which is mentioned as “Optional Formal Attire” in the pre-cruise booklet. When they say “optional,” do they mean I could elect to go to the restaurant that had the dress-up party or I could choose to visit a different establishment and still get my fine dining cruise meal? Because that’s what the verbiage sounds like. But it’s not what happens. Everyone, and I mean everyone, dresses up in tuxedoes or something very close to it. What happened to “optional”? I guess this is another night of fast food. A hint for you writers of the pre-cruise booklets: some transparency would help. A lot.

[pjhorton21]

I was at the edge of my seat reading this article...

"The barracuda dogged us for some time, shadowing us, moving away when we went toward it."

I've spent a lot of time in the ocean, but I have never been "dogged" by a barracuda. I think you're giving fish way too much credit!

Kevin, better stick to the aquarium at EPCOT! At least those lethal fish are behind the plastic where we are all safe! Whew!

[Disneynut]

Originally Posted by KevinYee

Here's what I wrote, verbatim, from that long-ago article. I think that the above quote misrepresents what I had written:

[start quote of old article]

• The materials sent by mail before the cruise were woefully inadequate.

Here’s a quote from one part of the booklet they sent before the cruise:

Nice Dining Attire: Most restaurants require cruise casual wear. No shorts, swimwear or tank tops, please. A dress shirt or jacket is recommended for men, and a dress or pantsuit for women, at Lumiere’s and Palo.

Maybe it’s just me, but I read this to mean that I’d be fine in jeans and a t-shirt, and in fact all I would have to do is just steer clear of Lumiere’s and Palo, whatever those places are, and I could even wear shorts. I didn’t want to look up what those restaurants were. I wanted to be surprised. I was sure my plan for dress code was fine.

I do not believe my above referenced quote misrepresents the discussion that followed after the first review of the Disney Cruise Line. The sentence starts off "NICE DINING ATTIRE". The article further went on to state "I didn’t want to look up what those restaurants were. I wanted to be surprised. I was sure my plan for dress code was fine."

I am unsure of how this would lead any guest to believe that jeans and a t-shirt is acceptable dinner attire.

[ersatzrainfactory]

I agree with most of the comments so far. Are you kidding me? It's the ocean. I can almost see what he was trying to get at. People feel safer because it has the Disney name. But where I see the real issue as, people feel safer to a fault and they should still act like they are in the real world. The article seemed to say that not only should you feel safer but you should be safer and real world matters, like sea creatures, should be controlled. Which is false. They can make it as safe as possible, but there are always risks and people should be aware of that.

[KevinYee]

Originally Posted by ersatzrainfactory

They can make it as safe as possible, but there are always risks and people should be aware of that.

I understand your message completely. My question then becomes, and it's what Page Three of the article implicitly asks, is whether Disney wants to risk that.

Let's say they do the Night Kingdom boutique park, and someone falls to his death on a zip line. Won't Disney reap negative press?

Or let's stay on Castaway Cay. If there does happen to be a death by ray or shark, or even just a mauling, wouldn't that be some pretty negative press for Disney? I mean, negative beyond even the extent of the incident itself. I would worry that the *brand itself* might take a hit.

If Disney no longer equals safe family fun, they've got a major, major problem.

I'm aware that nothing has happened *yet* at Castaway Cay, but I'm not sure I'd be so blase about that. The Columbia rotted for years at Disneyland, and managers being blase about it got someone killed.

See the Dan Rather quote in my signature file for why I think it's important to at least point out Disney's move toward authenticity (and thus danger).

[Baloo]

Boy Kevin is sure overreacting here. He sounds paranoid as if most oceans do not have living creatures in close proximity of humans.

Obviously the lifeguard did right in not creating a panic, i could just imagine the consequences of some over excited person yelling shrak while dozens of children and women got trampeled or tramautized.

Obviously these people or preofesionals and know what they are doing.