Another Letter to Disney

Hav­ing tried to con­tact WDW Guest Ser­vices with­out suc­cess, I decided to esca­late the issue. Using this list of e-​mail addresses for Dis­ney exec­u­tives, com­pared against the Dis­ney Man­age­ment Team list, I decided to use the Consumerist’s exec­u­tive e-​mail car­pet bomb approach.

Hon­estly, I would have pre­ferred to have some response from Guest Com­mu­ni­ca­tions to address the issue. It’s fair to say that I’m dis­turbed that they ignored the issue and I would still like some res­o­lu­tion to the mat­ter. In this instance, res­o­lu­tion would be a clar­i­fi­ca­tion of Disney’s pol­icy regard­ing pho­tog­ra­phy and whether it con­sti­tutes a secu­rity threat. My let­ter (below) is very sim­i­lar to the first:

Ms. Crofton, et al:

My name is William Beem. On April 10, 2010, I vis­ited Down­town Dis­ney to take some pho­tographs at sun­set and then have din­ner. On three occa­sions, I was approached by mem­bers of Dis­ney Secu­rity inquir­ing whether I was tak­ing pho­tographs for com­mer­cial or edi­to­r­ial pur­pose. I let them know that I had no intent to sell and was not work­ing on any assign­ment. Pho­tog­ra­phy is my hobby.

On the fourth encounter, I was approached by a man whose nametag iden­ti­fied him as Don (Orlando, FL) and other uni­formed guards. Don pro­ceeded to esca­late the encounter into an unnec­es­sary con­fronta­tion. For roughly 30 min­utes, I was detained and ques­tioned by Don because I was tak­ing pho­tographs. I tried to assure him by show­ing my pho­tographs, telling him my full name, the city where I reside and even the name of my employer. Don still wasn’t sat­is­fied and told me to show him my ID or he could call the Sheriff’s Office to have a deputy get it. He expressed con­cern that my pho­tographs could be used to com­pro­mise secu­rity and he wanted to know who to find should any­thing bad happen.

I declined to show my ID. Nat­u­rally, I do not want to be the first per­son to be blamed for any poten­tial crime on Dis­ney prop­erty just because I hap­pened to take a pho­to­graph. I tried to explain that Dis­ney was likely one of the most pho­tographed loca­tions on Earth, includ­ing acces­si­ble pic­tures on the Inter­net, satel­lite pho­tos from Google, and Disney=92s own pub­li­ca­tions. It didn’t mat­ter. Don basi­cally treated me as though I were sup­port­ing a ter­ror­ist plot. The con­tin­gent of Secu­rity mem­bers increased as I decided to leave. Don instructed his staff to make sure they pho­tographed every­thing about me and my vehicle. A Dis­ney Secu­rity car fol­lowed me until I was on I-​4.

Dis­ney cast­mem­bers harassed, threat­ened and humil­i­ated me before other guests. This is not the kind of guest expe­ri­ence I would expect from Dis­ney, a com­pany that I pre­vi­ously con­sid­ered to be the world leader in hos­pi­tal­ity. I would still like to be a cus­tomer of Walt Dis­ney World and have recently thought of renew­ing my Annual Pass to take more pho­tographs. How­ever, that would be a waste of my money if this is the way Dis­ney intends to treat me in the future. I did not see any signs pro­hibit­ing pho­tog­ra­phy, nor did any of the guards inform me that I wasn’t per­mit­ted to take pic­tures. Clearly, other guests were taking photographs.

To resolve this issue, I merely want an expla­na­tion of why I was approached, detained, and threat­ened to be turned over to law enforce­ment if I did not pro­vide my iden­ti­fi­ca­tion to Don. Please tell me why this hap­pened and if I can expect sim­i­lar treat­ment upon my return to Walt Dis­ney World. I need to know if pho­tog­ra­phy is wel­come at Walt Dis­ney World or if it is con­sid­ered a secu­rity threat.

I tried to resolve this issue by con­tact­ing Walt Dis­ney World Guest Com­mu­ni­ca­tions by e-​mail on April 13^th, but I never received any response, even to indi­cate some­one was inves­ti­gat­ing the mat­ter. This issue is very impor­tant to me and I would appre­ci­ate a res­o­lu­tion to the mat­ter. Thank you.

You may reach me by email at [redacted] or by phone at [redacted].

I hope I’ll receive some response from this effort. All I can do is give it a bit more time to see if Dis­ney will elab­o­rate upon its pol­icy regard­ing pho­tog­ra­phy and security.