A New Hampshire woman was left stunned when she couldn’t get anyone from Disney World on the phone to answer questions about a vacation she canceled.
So, she reached out to our NBC10 Boston Responds team for help.
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Jacky Sullivan of Brentwood, New Hampshire, said she was beyond excited to take her daughter Becky, who has autism and is non-verbal, back to Disney World.
“Disney movies 24/7 on the screen in her room since she was like two years old, and she's 27,” Sullivan said. “So, we're like, let's do the Disney trip we always dreamed about doing with her.”
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They booked a trip for six family members and a support nurse for Becky for a September 2021 vacation. But when Florida saw a summer surge in COVID-19 cases last year, they postponed it to March of this year.
But when March rolled around, Sullivan knew they couldn’t go. They had lost their support nurse and couldn’t find a replacement due to staffing shortages. They also realized how much Becky had regressed socially during the second half of the pandemic.
"Autistic people like routine and if you keep them in that routine, then they keep going because that's what they do,” Sullivan said. "If you take that routine away…they go back to where they are safe and comfortable. We didn't realize how far…the regression of what she's doing and capable of doing, or willing to do, how far it regressed until we stopped and went wait a minute, what are we doing?"
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Sullivan said she tried for weeks to get in touch with Disney customer relations to explain the situation and see what her ticket refund or credit options were. But she couldn’t get through.
"Nothing, nothing," she said. "Nobody picks up the phone. But there is, somehow, I got through to a message where you could leave a message. No response. Emails, no response. I’m telling you, we tried every which way to get a hold of them and couldn’t get anywhere.”
Sullivan reached out to NBC10 Boston Responds as a last resort.
We emailed Disney and Sullivan said she got a call the next day and a full refund of $2,200. Disney did not respond to our request for comment.
"I can't believe how quickly you guys managed to get everything refunded... That was amazing," Sullivan said. "The whole thing is sad, right? So, you know, at least we managed to get the money back. So that’s a little bit of a good outcome from the whole thing. Yeah, so thank you very, very much."
If you have a consumer problem you can’t get resolved yourself, reach out to us and we’ll try to help!
You can contact us on our website at www.nbcboston.com/contactresponds or call 1-888-521-NEWS.
