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I don't even know what to say about that story Sean. If it were an episode of a sitcom I wouldn't believe it. I have to admit the more I've learned about the entire situation there with Pete and so much of the staff the less I can enjoy even the rare good shows.
I have to wonder how John remains in business with him. I imagine it would be hard to unwind the entire enterprise now but he seems so normal and not only stayed in business with a crazy narcissist for 20+ years but managed to date him and get out apparently unscathed.
Is there any reason Corey and/or Julie aren't on the show as often? Is it just life is too busy for them with the kids or have they grown tired of the drama. I wish at least Corey was on more often. The last show would have been the perfect lineup with Corey also there.
I have to wonder how John remains in business with him. I imagine it would be hard to unwind the entire enterprise now but he seems so normal and not only stayed in business with a crazy narcissist for 20+ years but managed to date him and get out apparently unscathed.
Is there any reason Corey and/or Julie aren't on the show as often? Is it just life is too busy for them with the kids or have they grown tired of the drama. I wish at least Corey was on more often. The last show would have been the perfect lineup with Corey also there.
Here's her YouTube channel. I think if she knew your story with Pete, she would analyze the f*** out of him.
She does these segments called "Am I the A**hole?" where people write in with their experiences with narcissistic abuse. You should write in. I'd be so curious to hear her take of this situation.
John is a nice guy. I think he just has his thing over with Dreams. Pete was essentially drunk for most of it rising and he makes a good living off of it and doesn’t have to deal with Pete. He’s fine with pete getting his way 90% of the time so the few times he’s does buck Pete, he usually wins out which is usually about company money and spending.
I definitely wasn't as good to John/Kevin as I could've been or should've been. Pete wanted me to be an agent because most of the agents dont live in Florida and those that do, dont like being on camera so he wanted someone that the audience already knew a bit and that would be an on camera presence for the travel agency, but it really forced Johns hand and put Pete in a lot closer awareness of things at Dreams than John would've probably liked. Nothing 'bad' was happening, but you don't want Pete putting a spotlight on your part of a company because he is going to demand a lot of changes with no knowledge of why things are the way they are. When things were happening, I went back to Pete and not John and then Pete would get involved and it would cause problems. That wasn't fair to John, but as Pete would ask me about Dreams and how I was doing, I would vent frustrations. There are things I do still feel justified about, number 1 being about which agent is paid based on the bookings, but I was wrong a lot too. I pushed for changes that I genuinely thought would be good but I was also entering a 20 year old company with no experience and 'Norma Rae-ing' myself around the place with no sense of the whole story and that obviously didn't make me very liked, which I did deserve, I went about the changes in a bad way. So, when I would make a sensible suggestion it was met with a hard no. For example, when someone requests info for WDW, the clients have to enter each travelers name and age, Disney only needs the age for knowing which ticket age bracket to do. With DCL, Disney requires the names and DOB for everyone and its is required at the time of booking. However, Dreams form only included the names and asked people to just list birthdates for everyone in the notes below. People would often not do that or would put like 65,63,47,49,7,6,6,5,5 and Im like, ok I don't know who each of those are for and it needs to be the actual date, not the number. This could easily be solved on the form by requiring people to choose a date off calendars and thats an easy plug-in to do. But it made the agents have to call and track down the person who requested and often by the time we got a response back again, they got annoyed and went to Disney directly, or the room they wanted was gone or especially if it was a release day, we would just have to do TBA for everything and make stuff up and then call Disney to change it (couldn't be done online) and we all know how awful it is to call Disney. So, things like this were easy fixes but Id pretty much burned my bridges with John very early on and I also was getting Pete up in his business, so that was on me. I also had issues with going to the AbD form and it says to email Kevin directly, so it felt like nepotism kinda stuff because Kevin would essentially get all the AbDs as 'direct requests' because the emails went to him. However, I didn't realize that back when AbD was really struggling early on, Kevin was the agent who took on that work load years ago to really build that product with Disney and had really earned his email as being 'the email' but I entered the middle of the story and was unfair to him because I didn't know the hard work he had invested, I just saw that he was seemingly getting better treatment than the other agents because he was with John. So, I was unknowingly immature and handled everything badly.
I think Julie is just busy and Corey just got burnt out. I think he has a lot on his plate and being on the show was just another hurdle along with having to do like all the backend stuff with the sites and Corey does a lot with the content team as well. So, this was just another thing on top of all that.
Wait, are you telling me that every AbD goes to Kevin? I did always find it odd that he gave his email directly on the show instead of just the dreams messages but thought maybe that was just for the trips they also go on.
Whether he did a lot of work in the past or not it is totally shady to take all the high commission AbD business for himself.
Whether he did a lot of work in the past or not it is totally shady to take all the high commission AbD business for himself.
That Louis Vuitton budget has to come from somewhere...
That was another thing that turned me off about the live shows. Kevin pushing ABD hard and when people in the comments would say the trips are unaffordable Kevin would come back with a snide remark as if there was something wrong with the “little people” who didn’t have tens of thousands to spend on a trip. Kevin and John should do a show on how much of a discount they get for being travel agents while claiming it as a business expense too and how many trips they have been hosted on
Thanks for your insight. I thought Pete referred to the chef as his niece but I guess I was wrong. I did enjoy Charles’ contributions for the most part as he had a different style than many of the other contributors. I know he had a lot of issues and being in an environment like that probably wasn’t the best thing for him.
Yeah, I can say that I have it on pretty good authority that Charles definitely departed for the betterment of his mental health. I can imagine working for someone like Pete to take a toll on it.
Thank you Sean for sharing such illuminating insight into Pete’s behavior. Some of this behavior definitely shines through even his public persona.
Question, how in the world is the rest of the team dealing with such a loose cannon? How can John, for example, be business partners with this? How can Craig bet creating a family on a job this unstable? The rest of the team all seem like decent people so its hard to understand.
Sean, thank you for explaining the Charles situation. I remember that article where he described an incredibly abusive childhood. It broke my heart. He’s such a gifted writer. I guess Pete just expected him to accept being screamed at and abused, but he’d lived through that already.
Im glad he prioritised his mental health.
Im glad he prioritised his mental health.
Well, it’s finally happened. I turned the show on to listen to it (I was in a work meeting when it was live) and saw that Pete was hosting and said “nope”. I’m pretty much over it when it comes to Pete being around. Of course, I’ve been finding the show more enjoyable whenever he’s been absent as of late.
I miss the Off the Rails lineup of Craig, Ryno, Deni and Jackie. That was the sweet spot for me.
Also, when the time comes:
“This week on ‘As Walt Disney World Turns’…”
I miss the Off the Rails lineup of Craig, Ryno, Deni and Jackie. That was the sweet spot for me.
Also, when the time comes:
“This week on ‘As Walt Disney World Turns’…”
I'm a bit late on this - but I definitely did not like Charles at first. As time went on, he really grew on me and he became arguably my favorite of the team. I was really upset when he disappeared!
Can you image if Pete ever got started with plastic surgery. With his fashion choices he’s headed that way. He will become the next Pete Burns
Literally same. I was very judgmental of Charles at first. I even remember his first few in park videos he appeared in he just stood in the back with his sunglasses on, arms crossed, and a douchey smug look on his face. Or during a dining review (jolly holiday I think) one time he sat by himself at the table next to them, fully on camera, just angrily staring off into the distance. Wasn't my favorite.
Then, just like Sean said, everyone (including me) just changed their opinion overnight
@The Mando any insight into Oliver? Im unsure if you have spoken about him before, or if you two even worked together. He seemed to disappear super quickly with no explanation.
I could so see him go overboard with some filler...
@The Mando what’s the deal with Craig? I think we got all the information on everyone except for Craig. So he accuses people of stealing? Didn’t someone say he did the same to JennyLynn?
Speaking of JennyLynn, I though she was one of the best additions to the podcast. For years the show was missing the perspective of someone with kids that was a true Disney fan. However, I could tell pretty quick that she wouldn't last long. She didn't seem at all intimidated by Pete. I remember one show in particular where they were discussing Black Fish, and her and Pete kind of went at it.
Was yesterday's show any good? When I saw Ryno I was like uh...then I saw Erica I was like ugh... then Julie came on and I said nope and turned it off.
Julie added almost nothing other than Pete saying it wasnt possible that Disney was experiencing supply chain issues and Julie explained to him how wrong he was. Erika mumbled a few closed mouth sentences. Ryno and Craig were ok. Pete was pete..
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