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Foul Fellows
(continued)
Consider the Disney pin trading activity. There are "pin sharks" who
recognize hard to find pins on newbies and trade them for pins of lesser-value
without revealing the deception. Is that cheating? Morally dishonest at all? Or
consider the surprising amount of "tiny pins" I saw on CM lanyards at Downtown
Disney's pin trading center. When I asked why that was, one CM told me it's
because they sell the tiny pins nearby in sets, and people new to pin trading
immediately trade them away with the ones on CM lanyards, leaving all the tiny
ones on their lanyards.
But why start with the tiny ones? Because they cost less
when purchased new; the per-pin cost is $6 rather than $8 or $12. Cheating?
Probably not. Victimless? Maybe. I could see an argument that pins might inch up
to $9 and $13 someday because too many folks figured out how to buy $6 pins
instead, so Disney has to "make up" the money elsewhere. And the people who will
be victims by the make-up policy would be those with no idea to purchase the
tiny pins instead.
How about the policy against outside food in the parks? This used to be
enforced, long ago (it's why Disneyland has picnic tables next to the main
entrance), but these days, enforcement seems pretty uncommon. I'm not talking
about the odd apple or sandwich "snuck" into the park, or folks who bring along
medically-necessary snacks. I'm talking about the man who had a full-sized
cooler in DAK last summer (I still don't know how he managed that) or the
families that spread out on the new picnic tables near Dinoland and unpack gobs
of basic materials for lunch: a one-pound bag of Cheetos, pre-packaged cuts of
lunch meats, and entire loaves of bread. They make a real picnic out of it,
right there in the park.
Needless to say, I don't like the way it looks in terms of what happens
to the theme and the atmosphere in the park; it reduces the escapism of
the park to something more akin to a city park you might visit on the weekend,
and makes it feel less special. This kind of picnicking probably doesn't count
as "cheating" exactly either, though the argument about victims is roughly the
same. Squeezed by slightly-smaller profits at the restaurants, I could imagine
Disney deciding to raise prices by an equal amount to offset the loss. Everyone
else pays. Eventually, someday, this must turn into a vicious cycle, no?
NOTE: I found out after this article was originally published
that as of December 2008, WDW officially allows outside food -- anything
that doesn’t have to be heated up. Glass and coolers are still banned, as is
alcohol, but anything else goes. I may just have to pack a lunch from now
on!
I could point also to the concept of drink refills as a further example.
Speaking from a position of experience from my time in Disneyland restaurants, I
could relate stories from the mid-90s of abuse of the coffee refill policy. The
policy was very explicitly that you could get free refills on the same visit.
That was turned around (either by CMs who mangled the exact wording or by people
with a proclivity to cheating) into a routine whereby frequent visitors would
just keep their coffee cups and on their next visit fill them up again. Or, more
gallingly, they'd request a new cup as they drew the mangled one from last
week's visit out of their purse, as if the $2 they'd paid months ago was somehow
meant to be a lifetime supply of coffee. At some level, this counts as stealing,
right? I wonder if the soda refill stations now popping up at WDW (Electric
Umbrella, and newly also at Backlot Express) will lead to similar abuse. And if
said abuse, should it materialize, would lead to higher prices in retaliation?
Added almost a year ago, the drink refill station at Electric
Umbrella is popular.
"Retaliation" is probably a good word to insert into the conversation, come
to think of it. Reading with the grain for a moment here, I could imagine one
reason that folks pack lunches and reuse drink cups is because they feel Disney
prices are already out of touch with reality and the bounds of reasonableness.
I've tinkered in this direction myself (never full-scale picnics, but yes on the
snacks). Would there be fewer "cheaters" on the lunches and drinks if Disney
prices were cut in half? I'm betting there would be.
Part of me wonders whether the mentality of frequent visits is also at play
here. If you're taking a once-in-a-lifetime visit to Bora Bora, would you
research ways to save $3 on drinks? Probably not; you'd look for ways to make
things as convenience, escapist, and fun as possible, and not look to save every
penny. But if you've been to WDW every year for the past ten years (or ditto for
Disneyland, where probably a third of the population in the park on any given
day actually comes multiple times a year), then you may well get tired of the
high prices.
Complaining gives way, quite naturally, to looking for workarounds.
In other words, the cheating may be a by-product of the simple fact of having
frequent visitors. It's enough to make you question the wisdom of pushing sales
of annual passes, or of trying to sell yet more DVC timeshares so folks will
come back year after year. Hm, I wonder what would happen to attendance if
Disney sold only one-day passes and never had timeshares? Would there be fewer
people in the parks? Probably. Would that mean smaller lines? Undoubtedly. With
smaller lines, there would be less need for cheating in the lines, or indeed
possibly no need for FastPasses at all.
Of course, playing into all this may just be our national culture of
cheating. Several years ago, a study by Duke University about nationwide
cheating patterns among college students found that fully 75% of undergraduates
admitted to cheating at least once in college. Three-fourths! Cheating appears
to be seen as an acceptable way to "get what we want," especially when
conditions imply an otherwise unfair scenario (either the too-strict calculus
teacher or the too-expensive and/or too-crowded Disney park). Why do we cheat?
At the end of the day, the answer may well be "because we can."
This article was originally written back in December, 2008, and my plan was
to let the ideas simply ferment for a while. Then last week, word came of a
lawsuit involving Tower of Terror and a person with a GAC riding it over and
over, who has apparently now been banned from the parks (ostensibly, as a result
of verbal harassment of the CMs). Is it the culture of cheating? The sense of
entitlement? The result of annual passes?
This Tower lawsuit will have to play out in courts for us to get the
full story.
I recognize that this article will likely push many buttons out there. My attempt here is not to point fingers, and in fact I hereby offer a
blanket apology right now for any perceived offense. My intent is merely to
sketch the parameters of the problem as I see it. That means first explaining
the practice (what are the ways of cheating) and then extrapolating possible
reasons (what are the whys of cheating). My own views creep into the argument
from time to time, as you can no doubt discern. Please know that I offer my
views as a starting point for debate, and do not mean to insinuate that my ideas
are necessarily the "right" ones.
This is sensitive stuff, and several of the
ideas in here are ones that I've changed my mind about over the years, and
probably will again. I invite your comment, as well, either by email or
in the discussion thread linked below.
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