Hong Kong Disneyland Resort Visiting

        Our group visit Disneyland on the 31^st October, 2015 with nice weather. Hong Kong Disneyland consists of two hotels, which are Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel and Disney’s Hollywood Hotel, and theme park, the Hong Kong Disneyland. We first walk around the Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel, and then we take shuttle bus to take a look at the entrance part of the Hong Kong Disneyland and some special facilities in the theme park.

Why do we have Disneyland?

       First of all, how did Walt Disney come out with this wonderful idea of building Disneyland? When Walt Disney brought his two daughters to theme park, his daughter doubted about why there was no theme park that was suitable for family to enjoy their day. Thus, he came up with an idea of building a theme park for families to play which provides comfortable, tidy and happy place for guest, which gradually developed into Disneyland.

Disneyland Guest

        As Hong Kong Disneyland Resort is different from normal business hotel, majority of the resort’s customer is family instead of general tourists. The Disneyland resort cares a lot on child guest experience in Disneyland. In Hong Kong, about 40% to 50% of the customers are mainlanders. There are also guest from Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, Thailand, India and western countries like America, Canada, etc. The manager even mentioned that some customer will visit Disneyland resort regularly every year and build a very good relationship with different cast members in Disneyland.

Core Value and Staff of Disneyland

        The core value of Disneyland is providing entertainment and magical moment for their guests. Disneyland has a special name for their staff, they call themselves and their colleagues as cast members. Each cast member has their own role and they will dress and act according to their role. For example, the housekeeping cast members will dress up like a servant. The dressing of senior front desk cast member is also different from that of junior front desk cast members. As guests are from all around the world, they are not familiar with Hong Kong Disneyland. Our artist has to be proactive to help our guest to enjoy their time in Disneyland.

Disneyland also has some service guideline for their cast members:

-          Make eye contact and smile at every guest

-          Greet and Welcome each guest

-          Be approachable with friendly tone of voice and body language

-          Make fun and interaction with guest

-          Anticipate guest’s need and proactively offer service

-          Going above and beyond to make every interaction a magical moment

-          Sincerely thank for guest’s visit and welcome their next visit

Departments in Disneyland Resort

       There are many department cooperate in the resort to provide magical moments for their guests. Here are some crucial departments introduced in the tour.

Housekeeping: Cast members of this department are responsible for all sanitation of hotel public area and hotel rooms to provide a comfortable, healthy, clean environment for guests. They usually dress as a servant. They should be detail-minded and organized.

Concierge: It acts as guest people who help customer to deliver their luggage and arrange transportation. They have to be strong, helpful and able to work at outdoor environment.

Front Desk: Host II welcoming guests at front desk and handle the check in and out procedure. Host II will be promoted to Host I, or even further promoted to be lead if he or she has accumulated enough experience and pass the examination of internal staff.  Host I is responsible for serving more important guests at the counter on the executive floor at Kingdom Club. Lead is the supervisor who teach other Host II and help them to solve problems encountered at front desk. The cast member of this department has to be equipped with good language skill for helping guests around the world to do the check-in and check-out procedures.

Entertainment Department: Cast members are responsible for serving guest at different festival events and recreation such as swimming pool, gyms, Storybook playroom, Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, etc. They usually dressed in red trousers and Mickey Mouse pattern shirt. They have the characteristic of being patient, proactive, nice, creative and love to play with children.

Disney Quality Standard and Examples

       In that day tour, we have Clara, our learning guide, who showed us how Disneyland and its staff achieve the four standards they held for serving their customers, which are safety, show, courtesy and efficiency.

-          Safety is to make sure no matter front desk of back office, both guest and cast members play and work in a safe environment.

-          Courtesy means the cast member should recognize the diverse nature of guest, respecting appreciating and valuing everyone and acknowledging the importance of every guest as an individual and be polite.

-          Show means deliver flawless and professional presentations everyday while maintain a clean, neat and organized work location.

-          Efficiency means cast members should work together as a team and provide good services for guest for them to manage time efficiently for their trip.

The four standards can also be seen in the design of different rooms and facilities of the hotel, as well as staff of Hong Kong Disneyland Resort. Walt Disney believed there is efficiency as long as the first 3 standards are achieved.  

Storybook Playroom(童話天地)
This is a recreation that child have their dreams comes true through listening to storytelling of the entertainment cast members. The entrance is designed as a storybook so it just like children have entered a fairytale when they walk into this recreation. For each section, only 45 minutes are opened for guests (especially children) and 15 minutes will be leave for cleaning up. Entertainment cast member will watch animation, do handicraft and tell stories with children.

Safety

-          Carpet is placed on the floor: To make sure children will not be injured even they fall on the ground

-          Alcohol gel for disinfection

-          Stroller parking area: guests are able to put their car orderly so other guests will not be kicked and injured

-          15 minutes break between each opening period for housekeeping to clean up and tidy up the room and keep the hygiene at safety level

Crystal Lotus(中菜廳: 晶荷軒)

The Crystal Lotus is a restaurant for guests to enjoy Chinese cuisine. There are 2238 glass lotuses at the wall outside and inside the restaurant. The reason for using such number of lotuses for decoration is to incorporate the Chinese meaning of easy to get rich (易易生發).

Safety	Courtesy	Show	Efficient
No hand-pushed trolley (avoid bumping kids)	No cleaning is done during dining time in order not to affect atmosphere for guests to enjoy their meal.	Disney cartoon shape dim sum(Jack, Alien)	Cutlery are placed in front of each seat on table before restaurant start operation. Thus, the customer can start enjoy the meal once they arrive.

Lobby

Electronic monitor at entrance: There is an electric monitor for displaying all basic information of Hong Kong Disneyland, such as themes for restaurants and ball room, activities and related information held on that day. This shows the serving quality of efficiency as the guest can check the information they want by looking at the monitor and better organize their journey in Disneyland. In sometimes, the guest name and memorable date will be put on electronic monitor on special day after getting approval from the guests. This also shows the courtesy of Disneyland.

Design of Front Desk Counter: Part of the counter on the left hand side is lower for serving children and impaired people. This shows Disneyland considers very much about children experience in their journey.

Waiting area: There is a small room with small chair and table for children to play with the entertainment cast members when their parents are handling the check in and out issue.

Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique( 魔法化妝廳)

      In this recreation, fairy godmothers (the entertainment cast member) help children to dress up and make up as princess. The children could take photos and record the magical moment of being a princess. There is one special thing about this recreation is the vanity. The mirror is hide when the children is being dressed up. Once the process finished and the fairy godmother say the incantation of Bibbidi Bobbidi, the fairy godmothers will turn around the mirror which show the appearance of the child. The big change in appearance which just like magic gives surprise and great happiness to children. This is an example of show.

Kingdom Club(國賓廳)

        Guest who pay for a hotel with higher price would be able to enjoy service provided by the Kingdom Club. There are free food for guests as breakfast and sweets for children. Mickey and Minnie dress in pajama only in this area. The entertainment cast members will tell bed time story with children. Guest may do little handicraft which is the animal towel.

Show: The guest may watch the firework at balcony.  Light will dim at 8 pm and music will start at the same time at hotel.

Hotel room

Safety	Courtesy
bedrail provided for avoid children roll down from the bed when sleeping fire safety facilities Door shaker: impaired guest may not be able to hear the knock of door. Sensor connect to the door shaker could be stick on door and door shaker vibrates when someone knock door.	Cast members would pay special care to room with special need guest All the pen, memo pad, paper, postcard, toiletry can be taken away as souvenir the towel made as the shape of different animal such as Toucan
Show	Efficiency
Disney cartoon on washing room: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Hidden Mickey	Housekeeping cast members finish tidying up and cleaning each room within 45 minutes Required items will be delivered to guest within 10 to 15 minutes.

Park Promenade(迎樂路)

The welcoming monumental archway show ‘Welcome to Hong Kong Disneyland’ at the front and ‘Thank you for visiting’ at the back. Disney music is played and Disneyland cartoon picture is displayed to create atmosphere for going into a magical journey.

Red Pineapple Pattern at Entrance

   Pineapple means welcome, good cheer, human warmth, family affection. Using red colour means the path just like a red carpet and Disneyland welcome and treat everyone come to Disneyland as their precious customers.

Gate

Safety	Courtesy	Show	Efficiency
check the bag of guests before they enter the Disneyland glass bottle, lunch box, dangerous items such as knife cannot be brought into Disneyland	Security guard will not use their hand but a stick to check guests’ bags. If necessary, they will only ask the guest to take out the item by themselves	Safety guard can be seen from their costume: white shirt  and black trousers	Open more gates at peak hours and special days

Other Examples of Safety

Barrier-free Facilities

As Disneyland aims to be a place suitable for all people, especially family, to enjoy a magical journey, hotels and theme park include many special facilities to keep up with the serving standard of safety of special need guests and create a barrier-free environment.

Examples:

Safety-Walk Tactile Guide: There are smalls golden circle points placed on the ground before the staircase start

Copper sign at the start and end of the armrest: to indicate the start and end of it

Lift and Slope: For impaired people to move around facilities easily with their wheelchair

Skidproof line at each step of staircase: to avoid staircase slip

Braille on physical map in theme park

Safety Measure for Guest Control

Taking lift: card is needed for verification to take to lift to certain floor

Other examples of Courtesy

-          Two statue of Mickey and Minnie at the entrance show the gesture of welcoming guest

-          Cast Member with mickey pattern shirt will answer guests’ enquiries about the transportation and tourist spot nearby

Other examples for Show

Hidden Disney Cartoon and Disney Stories Related Display

There are hidden Mickey and other Disney cartoons everywhere in hotel and theme park. It is the Dream Engineer’s thought of delivering surprise and happiness to guest when they search and discover hidden Mickey and his friends in the Disneyland.

Example 1: Hidden Mickey in the picture(in the cloud near to the castle) 

Example 2: Pattern inside the mosaic green glass dome has hidden Mickey

Example 3: Cinderella’s glass slippers are placed on chandelier

Example 4: The pattern on the ground includes Cinderella’s glass slippers

Example 5: King crown and queen crown are used to decorate the two chandeliers at the lobby

Example 6: Cast members will dress up as Disney cartoon in various costumes for different festivals to interact and take photos with guests at Enchanted Garden Restaurant

Special Design for Wedding
Many guests love to hold wedding in Disneyland hotel. There are two sleeping beauty ball rooms for the bride and bridegroom to hold their wedding. Bride and bridegroom will walk along the corridor from the rest room, and then walk down the staircase and receive blessing from relatives and friends. It just like prince and princess in the fairy tale who are going to start new page of happy life.

Other examples of Efficiency

Front Desk: They keep waiting time of their guests within 20 minutes and time for check-in and out procedure within 10 minutes

Disneyland Resort Public Transport Interchange: provide different kind of public transport which allow guest to come and leave Disneyland efficiently

City Hall: A board displays the waiting time for different facilities which can help the guest to better organize their route and journey in theme park

Evaluation:

          Disneyland has an organized system and comprehensive guideline for guiding their cast members to provide magical moments for their journey. They always put their customer experience at the first priority and aims at providing unexpected services for their customer which match with what is needed in hospitality management. Our group learn more about the hotel operations and how to provide guests with best experience through this visiting.