Niles: Why saying ‘no’ is important for Disneyland

Here is a word that needs to be heard more often at Disneyland and other theme parks across the country and around the world.

No.

As a leader in the hospitality business, Disneyland is not in the business of saying “no” to its customers. When I went through my “Disney University” training before starting in the parks at the Walt Disney World Resort, I was taught to avoid the word. If something was not possible to deliver for a guest, hospitality training instructs to offer some alternative rather than just refusing.

That is a great idea for serving an individual customer, but good customer service is a collective act as well as an individual one. What you choose to do — or more to the point, ignore — for one guest can affect the experience for others.

Last week, I spent the day at Disney California Adventure. As I often do, I visited alone, so I took advantage of the many single rider queues in the park to lessen my wait times. Single rider queues are one of those features that looks like an individual perk, but really serves to improve the experience for everyone.

Consider Radiator Springs Racers, which has the fastest moving single rider queue in the park. With a three-by-three seating arrangement, operators need to pull in single riders to fill all six seats on each car when the common parties of two, four, or five want to ride.

An easily accessible single rider queue helps to ensure that the wildly popular Radiator Springs Racers runs at its maximum capacity, keeping the line moving and minimizing wait times for everyone. The demand for single riders on Radiator Springs Racers is so great that going through its single rider queue can save a visitor up to an hour over waiting in the regular stand-by queue. That encourages many park guests to go through the single rider queues even when they are not visiting alone.

That’s fine, so long as those guests understand that they will have to sit alone and not with their party when they get to load. Yet every time I visit, I see some parent try to cheat the system and sit with their young child after taking them through the single rider queue. So I would like to thank the Radiator Springs Racers cast members who held firm and told that parent “no” when I visited last week. Enforcing the rules for one helps maintain a fair experience for all.

In that spirit, I also would like to thank all the park employees who look for and stop would-be line jumpers. Thank you, as well, to the servers who cut off drinkers when they get tipsy. Thank you to the ride attendants who tell families “no” when their children are too short to ride safely. And thank you to all the park guests who tell their kids or their friends “no” when they disrupt the experience for others.

Saying “no” often elicits pushback. So I want to balance that with a heartfelt thank you to everyone who does the hard work of maintaining safety and fairness for the rest of us.