Tag: disney

Touched by Midas

We’re in the midst of America’s red-carpet season of horse racing; the trifecta otherwise known as the “Triple Crown”. Over the course of five weeks we’ll witness the fastest three-year old’s thoroughbred racing has to offer. The jewels of the Crown – the Kentucky Derby in Lexington, the Preakness in Maryland, and the Belmont Stakes in New York – showcase a combination of sport, fashion, and tradition like no other.  Don’t miss the Belmont on June 10th; at a mile-and-a-half the longest of the jewels.

The service industry also has crown jewels.  Apple, Starbucks, and Amazon deliver a customer experience just about as satisfying as the products they sell.  FedEx is so reliable a delayed or lost package is not even a remote possibility.  But let’s kick it up a notch and talk about the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company.  The Ritz-Carlton is such a renowned, decorated jewel of service excellence it deserves its own category.  Only the Walt Disney Company could claim such preeminence.

My wife and I were fortunate to experience “the new gold standard” of Ritz-Carlton’s hospitality this past weekend.  Celebrating our thirtieth wedding anniversary, we ventured into the Colorado Rockies for a couple of days of rest and relaxation at the Ritz in Beaver Creek, near Vail.  Colorado is in “mud season” now – mid-May through Memorial Day – so mountain-town resorts deep-discount, befitting the budgets of mere mortals like us.

Pulling up to the Ritz, the valet offered us bottled water and whisked away our luggage and car.  At the front desk we were assured a “lovely, quiet room far out on the north wing”.  In the room itself the porter promptly stowed our bags and explained all the little details.  With our modest room-service dinner our attendant produced a complimentary bottle of champagne and stack of those little pillow chocolates.  Happy Anniversary!

But here’s where our story gets a little dicey.  Sometime after midnight my wife and I woke to the sounds of a very nearby party.  Turns out the room next door housed the groomsmen and a whole lot of guests from a wedding at the hotel.  Blasting our sleepy ears: music, dancing, dozens of loud, happy voices, and… the unmistakable smell of marijuana.  Thank you neighbors; my dreams were colorful enough already.

The next morning over room service breakfast, we voiced a carefully-worded complaint to the attendant who brought our tray.  How many guests do you allow in a single hotel room?  Is this a non-smoking hotel?  Can you smell the still-pungent aroma of pot drifting under the doorway of the adjacent room?

Time for a taste of the Ritz-Carlton gold standard.  Our attendant immediately comped our breakfast, assured us we would be moved to another room, and said to expect a call from the hotel manager.  The manager told us another room was already being prepared and we would be moved at our earliest convenience.  When the bellhop escorted us to the south wing, he was quick to note, “this is one of my favorite rooms in the hotel”.

In fact, the room was breathtaking.  The Ritz labels this one an “executive suite”, complete with large sitting room, fireplace, refrigerator, two televisions, two bathrooms, separate shower and bath, and a spacious outdoor balcony facing spectacular Vail Mountain.  Safe to say, the remainder of our anniversary weekend was spent in unexpected luxury.

The gold standard of Ritz-Carlton service excellence is no secret.  Early in their colorful history, the hotelier recognized no amount of luxury or elegance derives the same return as an attitude of “the customer is always right”.  Every interaction begins with the thought, “The answer is ‘yes’!  What is the question?”  The hundreds of valets, bellhops, and concierges are trained as thoroughly as the management team, as they are the true face of the hotel.  Thus are these employees always addressed as “Ladies” and “Gentlemen”.  To add an exclamation point, the Ritz created a Leadership Center and Learning Institute, where thousands of managers from other companies train on the Ritz’s incomparable principles.

You can learn more about Ritz-Carlton’s brand of excellence by reading Joseph Michelli’s The New Gold Standard.  You can also sign up for a session at their Leadership Center.  My advice: stay at a Ritz hotel sometime (hopefully you have a “mud season”).  Nothing explains the gold standard better than the Midas touch itself.

 

 

Grim Reader

While visiting my parents last week, I was delighted to find a few dusty old children’s books on a quiet corner shelf in the family room.  The books carry sentimental value because they once occupied a shelf in my grandparents’ house.  They were the same books my father read when he was a child.  And as we grandchildren were expected to be “seen and not heard”, these books were our refuge, stoking our budding imaginations with dozens of characters and places we longed to be a part of.

51 - gratuitous

One book in particular – The Illustrated Treasury of Children’s Literature – stands out as a literary beacon of my childhood.  The stories within included Aesop’s Fables (i.e. The Hare and the Tortoise), the tales of Danish author Hans Christian Andersen (The Emperor’s New Clothes), and the works of The Brothers Grimm (Rumpelstiltskin).  The collection oozed with fantasy and adventure and innocence.

I reread a few of these stories last week and came to an unquestionable conclusion: The Brothers Grimm were a couple of messed-up dudes.  On the one hand the Grimms authored Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Rapunzel, which Disney sanitized and gave a more positive spin.  But more likely, you know the Grimms for their famous “fairy tales”, like Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood.

Fairy tales.  Doesn’t the term conjure up images of enchanted forests and candy castles and magical sprites?  That’s what I thought too, but Hansel and Gretel would vigorously disagree.  These kids endured a nightmare on par with today’s R-rated horror flicks.  Take ten minutes and read their story (you can find it here).  The only detail I recalled was the house in the forest; the one made of cake and candy and spun-sugar glass.  But this time around I couldn’t get past the other aspects.  Within the first three paragraphs we read that H & G’s mother’s solution to a lack of food is to abandon her children in the forest.  Even after they find their way back to the house the mother finds another (more successful) way to leave them behind.  Later on, an old woman holds the kids captive in the candy house and prepares to “slaughter and boil” (and eat) Hansel.  Gretel gets to watch.  But the kids surprise the old woman by pushing her into the oven, and then she burns to death.  A celebration ensues.

Little Red Riding Hood (which you can find here) is no less violent.  A little girl in red may sound adorable but the story is really about the murderous wolf.  Not only does the wolf consume LRR’s grandmother, he has LRR herself for dessert.  And it doesn’t end there.  A huntsman happens by, recognizes the wolf, decides not to shoot him because “maybe the grandmother is inside”; then cuts open the wolf and pulls out the grandmother and LLR alive and intact.  Seriously?

The Treasury introduction says “eight, nine and ten is the fairy tale age”.  The Treasury also says “many a child will haul the volume from the shelf and spend countless happy hours…” are you kidding me?  This is gratuitous violence disguised as bedtime stories!

I used to cringe at the thought of my young children watching a PG-rated movie.  Not anymore.  There are over half a million copies of The Treasury out there in the world.  I need to find them all and have a bonfire.  Those Grimm images go to the grave with you!