kyburg | So, I went to Disneyland -

November 30, 2003

Disneyland Resort
P.O. Box 3232
1313 S. Harbor Blvd.
Anaheim, CA 92803-3232

To Whom It May Concern:

I visited the park yesterday. I can't tell you how many times I've visited the Magic Kingdom – I've been doing it since I was five years old, and it's been nearly forty years since that first visit with my parents.

You know I wouldn't be writing if yesterday had been a good visit.

While the park was decorated for the holidays; while all the new attractions, innovations, additions and upgrades are in place and have their value – something was very wrong.

The reports on how the maintenance was not done on Big Thunder Railroad came out this week in the news. I was willing to accept that as an isolated incident – until yesterday.

Disneyland is the oldest of the theme parks – but my complaints are not with a smaller, aging facility. It is the complete lack of people and what they can do in that park that I saw missing. I took the Disneyland Limited around the park on three occasions yesterday – and at each station, the amount of “deferred maintenance” visible was appalling. Light fixtures ready to topple, filled with spiderwebs created by Real Spiders (accept no imitations) and dirt, peeling paint; with no conductor or any other Cast Members at the stations between trains. We were on hand when a visitor became sick at the station in Toontown last night – we're first-aid trained – but there wasn't a single Cast Member to find for help.

When the train arrived, the only help the conductors could provide was janitorial services to clean up the mess. I'd hate to think of what we would have had on our hands if it had been anything more serious than too much junk food and a late night. There are no phones near there as well. Who would we call, anyway? 911? I remember the first aid station on Main Street – I've been taken there myself, years gone by. I was a kid at Disneyland, once.

Sad.

While I think bringing the ambient light levels down to enhance the viewing of the holiday lights around It's a Small World might have been considerate, it made getting through the crowds difficult and at times, dangerous. The park was at times, VERY dark, once the sun went down.

Let's talk about the food for a moment, shall we?

I wonder what the health code ratings are for the individual serving areas in the park. I never saw a placard. Uniformly, food service in the park was two things – expensive and awful. I sat and listened to my guests from out of town compare their dinner to something they got in an airport in Chicago – and the Disney chow got significantly lower marks. This was after we found someplace that served and sat guests indoors that did not require reservations. We had tried to visit Goofy's Kitchen that morning and discovered a policy change had been made between when I had purchased our passes and when we arrived. I.E., no walk-ups were allowed anymore.

We had arrived, were ready to visit the park and had to spend time finding something edible elsewhere. Thanks a bunch.

Plenty of Cast Members were manning cash registers. I don't recall seeing a single Disney Character walking the park yesterday at all. And very few Cast Members outside of food service at all, come to think of it. Two of them screaming at the top of their lungs directing traffic between the Matterhorn and Alice in Wonderland. Two.

The saddest part of this whole exercise is that I'm certain nobody is reading this letter. As long as the passes are sold and the turnstiles are moving, everything is fine. A whole new generation is discovering the Magic Kingdom, and they'll never know the difference. As long as you are spending money, you have everyone's undivided attention – just don't look behind that curtain and see how little is actually being done to make your visit a safe, pleasant one. Nobody cares, nobody can – there are too few people on the ground to make much of a difference. You're on your own, here.

It's not paint, plaster or dazzle missing – it's people and what they can do with their own two hands, hearts and minds.

I won't be back for a while. You understand.

Sincerely,

Donna Hutt Stapfer Bell

DHSB/idm