Anyone ever received "pixie dust" for celebrating something at WDW?

[FancyNancy]

The year my DD turned 10 we were upgraded from a Standard Parking Lot view room at Port Orleans Riverside to a Royal River View room! It was noted on the reservation and the person checking us in said that they wanted "Princess April" to have a very good birthday.

 

[WEDWDW]

You might be surprised. My family rarely books deluxe and we are still treated great, including more than a few pixie dust moments. I think a better predictor is the number of trips a person books. That information is a part of your record that comes up at resort check in and at table service restaurants. It may be that people who make regular trips to the most magically expensive place on earth are more likely to have the means to stay at a moderate or better.

Or it could just be RANDOM having a lot to do with the individual Cast Members at the time.

 

[Shellyred8]

We got chocolate dipped strawberries delivered to our room once when we were there celebrating our anniversary.

 

[cobright]

Or it could just be RANDOM having a lot to do with the individual Cast Members at the time.

I suspect that the likelihood of being 'comped' (as they say in the casinos) is close to, but not actually pure random chance. A lot of factors are considered. Things affect the availability of the pixie dust. A better room must be available, and, more than that, idle before any CM may turn it over to a guest; certain types of guest rooms are in greater demand than others. There are all sorts of social biases that very subtly push decisions one way or the other. Perhaps a butterfly in the Philippines flapped its wings and the repercussions of it are felt as free Gray Stuff in Florida.

But... the pattern cisco911 pointed out is clearly not random. My point is that there is a lot of reason for the anecdotal contributions made to this thread to trend towards showing the 'extras' landing mostly on deluxe resort guests. A simple selection bias coming from the fact that the Disboard community runs heavy with fans of the place who are more likely than the general public to go more often and stay at better places when they do go. That they go more often than the average Joe means they are more likely to have been 'dusted'; and... I suspect in the case of the truly frequent visitors they are more likely to be deemed worthy by discerning CMs. Maybe not much more likely. Probably just a teensy bit more likely. But enough of an impact to rate statistical significance.

 

[BrownHP800]

We have gotten a couple little bits of pixie dust. We were celebrating our 25th anniversary. We walked up to go to the Beauty and the Beast show at HS and the CM stopped us and asked about our anniversary. He then asked another CM to take us to our seats. I was like Ok and they took us down to the 3rd row center. It was awesome. What was even neater, we were beside the family of one of the performers and the little girl yells out "Hi Daddy!"

Same trip we were at Crystal Palace and at the end of our meal our server brought out some chocolates and strawberries and it had "Happy 25th Anniversary" written on the plate in chocolate. It was very cool.

Most recently we were at Rainforest Cafe at DS and it was the day before my wife's birthday and our server had them all sing and brought her a cupcake.

 

[sunflowerblooms]

My daughter celebrated her 14th birthday at Disney. She received a lot of happy birthdays and a free Mickey ear ice cream. Pretty sure she made everyones day with that. The CM handed it to her and said “Happy Birthday”. Daughter is still holding out her arm to pay with her magic band. CM again says happy birthday. Myself and a Disney supervisor who happened to be walking by are now trying to explain that she doesn’t have to pay. It’s birthday pixie dust. She finally caught on and was so excited. Made her day. And I am sure the CMs were delighted that she was so shocked at something free for her birthday. I should add that I explained when she got her birthday pin that this was just a fun way of having the CMs know it was her Birthday so they could wish her a happy birthday. There was zero expectation of pixie dust. So when it happened she was super surprised. We will always go with that attitude. So that if something does happen is appreciated to the extreme.

 

[White Rose]

You might be surprised. My family rarely books deluxe and we are still treated great, including more than a few pixie dust moments. I think a better predictor is the number of trips a person books. That information is a part of your record that comes up at resort check in and at table service restaurants. It may be that people who make regular trips to the most magically expensive place on earth are more likely to have the means to stay at a moderate or better.

The number of trips just would be a greater chance...
Our first trip using my husband’s last name was in 2008 when we got the club level MK view upgrade at the Poly...my honeymoon was booked under my maiden name and we had about a half dozen family trips over the years from 1974 and up booked under that name, all moderates or delux, but never on any of those trips, did we get any pixie dust. Not even a king bed on our honeymoon, which we had noted on our reservation. I think it has more to do with room occupancy levels if you have a discounted rate already, and length of stay...

If someone decided to walk into a Disney hotel and book a room....It is far more likely for that walk in to want to book a regular room then CL or a suite, so if regular rooms are mostly booked, but there are club level rooms or suites available, and you are not paying a discounted rate, have a short stay, AND you are celebrating...you have a slightly greater chance of being offered an upgrade...

 

[cisco911]

not a special occasion but I remember being in the magic kingdom and going to a cart vendor to get a Mickey ice cream for myself the wife and our daughter. when we went to use our magic band the CM said his machine was not working and only took cash. we didnt have any cash on us so we asked where the closest place was where we could get them. He said not to worry about it and just gave them to us for free. It really made us feel special.

 

[Samantha Morgan]

How do you make a note of something on your reservation? We’ll be going for our 14th Anniversary in August.

 

[danikoski]

How do you make a note of something on your reservation? We’ll be going for our 14th Anniversary in August.

Call Reservations or Guest Services. I often add if we are celebrating something when I call and make a room request.

 

[danikoski]

Funny story...my Mom and I were at WL for just a girls trip and to celebrate my Mom's birthday. The CM indicated we were upgraded to a woods view room from standard. Cool. Except the room had a partial balcony encased in stone that caused the room to be musty. Triggered my asthma. We made it through the night, but they moved us the next day to a lovely room with a fireworks view, along with a note of apology from the manager. I wasn't expecting the note.

Beyond that, my mom got a lot of small freebies. Free box of popcorn, free Mickey chocolate at the Ganachery, free dessert at Spice Road, free drink at the old pool bar at WL. She actually got more comments and pixie dust then my DH and I did on our honeymoon. Although on our honeymoon we had a nice card at BOG and we had a free dessert at Whispering Canyon.

 

[paradesintherain]

Rarely, but once on my actual birthday (though they couldn’t have known that, I was just wearing a birthday button) I got transportation Magical Moment. Basically, when we got to Epcot from the bus there was a red carpet and balloons and a little treasure chest to pick a gift from. The bus also said Magical Moment on the marquee. They also gave us a paper fastpass and took a photo which they later mailed to our room with some postcards. It was pretty special and unexpected!

 

[michbaron]

At Disney on our honeymoon and any special trips we didn’t get pixie dusted with anything but have multiple times randomly experienced it in the parks with cast members, one gave us all churros, another gave our kids popcorn and ice cream, extra fast passes... at universal we stayed at the portofino and mentioned it was a delayed birthday celebration for my husband and they upgraded our room

 

[Kricketnp]

Just got back from an anniversary trip. On the first night, there were two Ghirardelli chocolates in our room with a card!

 

[Catvondita]

My husband and I have gone for multiple anniversaries.. We've gotten some free dessert but that is about it

 

[ElizabethG]

We just get Birthday/Anniversary good wishes. Although, we only wear the buttons on the actual day. On one anniversary, I was in the store inside Poly; there were four other people in the store, all with anniversary buttons!

At Disneyland Hotel (standard view), we did get an upgrade on checkin. We were celebrating DH's 50th birthday. We didn't even know we were upgraded until we got to the room. We had a great view, pretty high, straight across from downtown Disney and could see both parks.

 

[Euby]

I did a solo birthday trip a few years ago and got this at the Wave in the Contemporary. Minnie is made of white chocolate

 

[mevelandry]

When I set up the Magical Express, the CM on the phone asked if we were celebrating anything. I told her it was our anniversary. She immediately said she was making a note because they "definitely want to celebrate that with us". What do you think that means? Has anyone ever gotten anything "special" because Disney knew the trip was for an anniversary or similar event? Just curious.

Sometimes, it means a free cupcake at the end of your meal.

 

[Kricketnp]

Sometimes, it means a free cupcake at the end of your meal.

Yep! Chef Mickey's gave us two cupcakes and Ohana gave us two rice krispy treats to celebrate.

 

[mom2rtk]

Yep! Chef Mickey's gave us two cupcakes and Ohana gave us two rice krispy treats to celebrate.

You know, at Disney prices, those were pretty valuable gifts!