Monday, February 22, 2010

Oh my Indeed - Musings on a weekend away.

In no particular order I "experienced" the following last weekend and thought I'd share:

  1. Disney was noticeably less crowded than years past. I’ve found Florida to be more of an early indicator of the current economic climate (somewhat like a canary in a coal mine). New York seems to lag Florida by at least 12 months. Seems like the canary is still having issues.
  2. Disney also seemed to suffer more than the usual (normally none) glitches. We had two rides without video for the pre-show. Soarin’ broke and we were seemingly trapped near the ride entrance. People were fearing a bit of a stampede. They did give us some passes to skip to the front of the line for another ride (hello Test Track) but it was uncommonly amateurish at times. They still know how to deal with customers though.
  3. Others, however, do not know how to deal well with customers. When we arrived at MCO, we went to the food court to grab a bite to eat. Since it was Ash Wednesday my eldest wanted to not eat any meat. We saw a Quizno’s, I gave her some money and we let her go by herself but she came back empty handed. I asked what happened. She said Quizno's told her that they couldn’t make her a cheese sandwich. I went back with her and they explained to me that they were a limited menu Quizno's. They couldn’t make a kids meal and they couldn’t make a cheese sandwich since it wasn’t on the "limited" menu. They could sell a turkey with cheese sandwich, a ham and cheese sandwich or even tuna with cheese but no plain cheese. I asked if the sandwiches were premade. They said no, they make them fresh. I asked if they could make a turkey with cheese without turkey and not charge us for the turkey we wouldn’t get or give us cheese to make up for the turkey. They looked at me oddly and said they could only make a turkey and cheese. Rather than try to explain this difficult concept for a third time my daughter decided to get pasta from Sbarro’s. She enjoyed the pasta and felt it tasted better than the Quizno's would have. Think she is going back to Quizno's next time?
  4. Before we even left for the airport, my wife went online and found out flight into Orlando was already delayed and our 2:35 takeoff was now anticipated to be 3:05. When we got to the airport the delay had been extended so our new anticipated take off would be 3:30. We plopped all of our stuff next to a row of chairs next to a little old lady and waited for a short while. Fortunately for us, they started announcing the boarding a little after 3:00. The old lady, approximate age 127, commented that she wondered when the plane to West Palm Beach was taking off because she had been waiting for a few hours. I told her this plane was for Orlando. She said the plane to West Palm was supposed to take off at 2:15 at gate 6. I told her this was gate 5 (now it was 3:10). We looked over to gate 6, no one was there, and the board said the next flight from gate 6 was to Tampa at 5:30. I told her that due to the delays they moved all the gates around. She commented, “Oh my” and she ran off. I looked at the departing flight board and her flight to West Palm left already and the next one was listed as on time with a 6:35 departure. I hope they had a seat for her as most of the flights were sold out.

    I wonder if Delta hooked her up or if she is still waiting.

    Oh my indeed.

6 comments:

Jess said...

Wow I can't believe that horrible service at Quiznos. Seriously how hard is it to slap some cheese on some bread and run it through the toaster?

Julie said...

I am glad that you were able to get a little needed R&R at Disney:) I would of been annoyed at Quiznos for not making your daughter the cheese sub that she wanted!! Come on! That is a bummer...glad that she liked her pasta:)

Big Clyde said...

I fear I would have lost it at Quizno's. Glad that you and your level-headed daughter kept your cool and made a better choice.

Vickie said...

Thinking of going to Disney in May. So do you think it won't be too crowded?

Vickie said...

I had a similar food story at a McDonald's on the road once. I asked for a double hamburger and they said they only had double cheeseburgers so I asked for that without the cheese. You have to be creative with these kind of people.

Al's CL Reviews said...

I had this issue at Chick-Fil-A. I wanted a large cup of ice. I ordered a Sweet Tea, hold the sweet tea. They couldn't grasp it.