The following letter from a few years ago demonstrates how important kindness is. Are the employees in your organization delivering this kind of kindness and service?
Dear Lee
I wanted to write you regarding “Disney Magic,” which my new wife and I experienced. Ten years ago as a newly engaged groom-to-be, I was thinking hard as to where to take my college sweetheart on our honeymoon. After several weeks of research, I kept coming to the same conclusion: the Walt Disney World® Resort. She had been many years before, and I was intimately familiar with it as I had been 13 times between age six and twenty-four. And so I found the time we would go and researched and called and called to make sure all would be perfect.
On the day of our arrival, April 17, we were greeted as planned with a town car and driven to Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa where we were escorted to the private elevators of the Honeymoon area. All was great, and then the “magic” began.
I had some issues with some reservation, which were immediately solved, and off we went to the seafood restaurant at The Living Seas in Epcot®. Dinner was grand, and we dozed off to sleep by the fireworks outside our windows.
The next morning my wife awoke early, as she was very excited to have reservations in Cinderella Castle. We arrived early and sat down to order. As our food came, she became violently ill. As she sprinted to the restroom, the wait staff (Cast Members) trailed right behind her to help clean her up. Meanwhile, I sat stunned and confused at our table. As the Cast Members helped her out of the restroom, we were escorted back to our room at the Grand Floridian. I helped my new wife into bed after a shower, and she collapsed into sleep. As she slept, I stepped out and spoke with the hotel manager in charge and explained our situation. She offered any and all help needed and was very caring. As it turned out, my wife became better within a few hours. Our doctor at home surmised that the stress of the wedding and late nights’ planning had done her in, and she needed rest. By that evening we had been provided whatever we asked: dry toast, baked potato, Pepto Bismol, anything at no cost and no fuss. The next day we went about our schedule and had a great remainder of our honeymoon.
If this were all, I would not write to you. However, this is where “The Disney” came to meet the “magic.” We arrived back in our room on Sunday after a light morning at the Disney-MGM Studios to find a small stuffed Mickey and a handwritten note from the hotel staff to my wife that they all hoped she felt better. If that was not enough, a short while later there was a knock on our room door. A smartly dressed porter was there and asked if this was my wife’s room. I responded in the affirmative, and he handed over a letter-sized cardboard folder with the words, “Mickey hopes your wife is feeling better.” Inside was an 8 x 10 color photograph of Mickey Mouse with a hand-signed personal note, “Hope you are feeling better. Your Pal, Mickey Mouse!”
We have cherished that week our entire ten years, and the picture hangs in my wife’s office. Ten years later she teaches elementary school and I run a summer camp.
I wanted to say “Thank You” ten years later. What you and your crew gave to us will never fade. I still get emotional thinking of the look on my wife’s face as she opened the picture the first time. Things get crazy as you go on, but we are finally able to return to your place of “magic.” Though issues prevent us from being there in April or staying at the Grand Floridian, we are returning to celebrate our ten-year anniversary with those with whom we celebrated our honeymoon. We will see all of you in December at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge.
Thank you ever so much again!
Sincerely,
People Don’t Forget Kindness!
Ten years later he is thanking us, and he and his wife returned for their 10th wedding anniversary.
These are the kinds of lifetime memories that we create for people . . . and as you can see, our Vision of making cherished friends is alive and well! . . . Lee