Disneyland revokes Club 33 membership for 87-year-old, man sues Disney

See, Disney doesn't just hate poor people, they hate some rich people too. :)

And old people. And men! Sexists...

As someone who has decided to identify as an 87-year old Club 33 member for the day, I'm quite insulted.

Just because you have money doesn't mean that you can ignore the fine print in the contract. If he and his attorney think that playing the senior citizen card is going to get him what he wants, I think he is in for a rude awakening. I would surmise that Disney has been documenting his breeches of contract over the years, and has a stack of warnings to prove it. This was just the straw that broke the mouses back.

It seems like Disney has been lenient for some time. The article does not indicate whether the man was given any warnings, though. If not, it does seem capricious to boot a near 50yr member for this situation.

I'm going to take Disney's side here. I find it hard to believe that they would boot a decades-long member without following their own established policies.

If their "guest privileges" were being abused, as indicated, it seems weird that there's no mention of a warning, either from Disney or from Cosgrove's team in terms of "we never got even a warning." The latter, to me, would be a compelling, even if not convincing, argument in his favor.

Well, there's no mention in the article.

Now, I've been watching Judge Judy for years, so clearly I'm a legal expert :-)

It seems to me that whether or not Cosgrove knew the woman auctioned the guest pass doesn't matter. He still bore the responsibility to ensure Disney's rules were followed.

I've been reading some comments on a couple of the Disney boards. Seems Mr. Cosgrove has been warned, and even had his membership suspended in the past for numerous infractions of the contract. One of the accusations is that he and his wife run a travel agency that specializes in Disneyland Resort vacation packages, and they were using the guest passes as part of the packages that they sold, in direct violation of his membership contract. I have been unable to substantiate this, but it wouldn't surprise me.

The smart thing would've been to auction off the pass as "Dinner and Drinks With Mr. Eightysevenyearold at Club 33."

My guess is, though, that he seldom shows up himself, he's just using his membership to supply perks for others.

Oh, the life of the idle rich. It's tough, I'm tellin' you.

Mouseplanet.com has a lengthy rundown of this story here. I thought it was pretty interesting.