A family’s Disney Cruise vacation turned unexpectedly controversial after a father accused one of the company’s cast members of taking “unfair” advantage of his young son during a collectible card exchange.
He claimed that Disney staff traded his son cards of far less value for a rare, expensive card featuring the Toy Story character Buzz Lightyear.
The dad blasted Disney in a social media post for refusing to help resolve the matter.
However, his criticism did not elicit the response he might have expected, as many attacked him online for not being present during the incident.
“Maybe you shouldn’t let your kid roam around the ship unattended,” one person said.
The Disney staff member allegedly traded Anthony’s son for a $4,000 card
Stephen Mease/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
On August 5, Anthony, a father of four and a petroleum engineer from Midland, Texas, according to his X (Twitter) bio, took to the platform to share his grievance about Disney.
“On a recent Disney Cruise sailing, a uniformed cast member traded my young son 5 promo cards for a rare Lorcana card he’d just pulled,” he wrote.
“The card is worth about $4,000. I spent 6 weeks going through every proper channel to resolve this. Disney’s answer was no.”
Laura Adai/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Lorcana is a collectible trading card game featuring Disney characters, where players buy sealed booster packs containing random card sets. While most cards in these sets are common, some rare variants are highly sought after by collectors and can sell for thousands of dollars.
Promo cards are special cards distributed at events or as giveaways rather than found inside regular booster packs.
“My son opened booster packs in an onboard store. A cast member working there helped him, then offered the trade,” Anthony explained, later adding that the promo cards offered by the cast member were worth about $1,000 combined.
“He told us directly he hadn’t planned to trade his promo set — he did it because of how rare my son’s card was. He knew the value. My son did not.”
Anthony further revealed that the cruise had no Wi-Fi unless one paid for it, which they did not, and thus had no way to know the rare card’s market value until the cruise was over.
Disney refused to compensate the father for the trade
Terry Jaskiw/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Upon reaching out to Disney, Anthony was told that cast members were “contractually barred from trading with guests, and anything received gets turned in to a manager.”
He did not believe that the staff involved in the trade turned in the Buzz Lightyear card, as he had his personal binders of cards behind the shop’s counter and claimed that he plays with strangers in airports.
Anthony escalated the matter with Disney and followed up with Guest Communications, documenting the entire incident. He followed up for six weeks.
The Disney representative handling his grievance “agreed this was unfair,” and she pushed for the management to “make it right,” Anthony said.
He asked for a new booster pack, worth around $140, in exchange for his troubles. However, Disney still turned him down.
Sung Jin Cho/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
“I’m not trying to get anyone fired. I just think a company built on trust with families should stand behind a kid when one of its own employees takes advantage of him,” he concluded.
Bored Panda has reached out to Disney Parks and Cruises for comment, but did not hear back
Netizens slammed Anthony for leaving his son “unsupervised”
Giorgio Trovato/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
While some sympathized with the family, most argued that the blame lay with the dad, not the employee, igniting a heated online debate over parenting.
“Sue the guy—minors can’t contract,” one individual said in his support. Another commented, “A child shouldn’t be talked into trading away a valuable collectible by an adult in uniform.”
“Your son does not know or care about the market. If you care so much, you should have been there,” one person called him out, to which Anthony replied that he was busy organizing the cards and cleaning up the packs they bought.’
Another wrote, “Why didn’t you confront the employee as soon as you found out?”
“I’m surprised you neither bought the Wi-Fi package nor were present when the trade occurred,” said a third.
A fourth said, “Why was your ‘young son’ alone in a store on a Disney cruise where no one could help him make the right decision?”
“To me, it sounds like you might be forcing him to be upset because you know the value of the card,” said a fifth.
In response to the backlash, Anthony later posted, “Didn’t expect the type of negativity towards me and my parenting or towards my son from my previous post.”
“You’re really at fault here.” Netizens dragged a father after he complained about a Disney cruise staff member scamming his son
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