Amber Earns Her Ears: My Secret Walt Disney World Cast Member Diary (17 page)

They were the cutest couple! Standing alone, he would have his arm around her waist or kiss her hand. When screaming fan girls would come and take pictures just with Flynn, Rapunzel would oversee with crossed arms and a raised brow. They knew their story completely, too. When Lindsey asked why he was leaving, Flynn responded that he was recruited for an expansion of the Snuggly Duckling, and asked if he could bring us back anything from his journey (she requested a rose; I told him books).

With promises to meet them again soon, we left and resumed character hunting. We met with Tiana and Peter Pan, and chatted with random guests in the line with us. I suppose being an enthusiastic Cast Member shows even when not in costume. It didn’t take too long before the parents figured out that we worked for the Mouse. In line for Tiana, two kids asked to have their pictures taken with us before the princess came out.

And that’s what keeps me so darn happy with my job.

Thursday I had the day off, and decided to make my way back to Magic Kingdom to see Flynn again, this time accompanied by a girl from work. We arranged to meet in front of the Sword in the Stone at 1:00 p.m., but I had lost my debit card that morning, and then the monorail I took from the TTC made it only a few yards before crunching to a halt. It was 1:30 by the time I made it to the Stone, panting from a fast walk there from the park entrance.

Otherwise, it was an enjoyable day. We started out by meeting with Peter, who was absolutely fantastic. The girl I was with had not been on Peter Pan’s Flight yet, so Peter gave us surprise FastPasses, which completely made her day; it was all she talked about!

We stowed them away and made for Rapunzel and Flynn’s line. The line (which ends at the alcove where Belle used to come out and tell stories) was backed up to the smoking section near Sir Mickey’s. It quickly dwindled when one of Florida’s lovely rainstorms hit, causing a river that flowed over my ankles and chased off all but the most determined of fans (or the fans’ fathers).

We spent the rest of the day happily meeting characters and riding rides. It ended with a lovely S’more from Frontierland, which we devoured as we watched the Electrical Parade.

Friday I picked up a shift at Mickey’s Pantry in Downtown Disney. It was a short shift, but that turned out to be a good thing, as it’s quite boring in that shop. I went early in the morning to Costuming to pick up my clothes for that night, and returned home to nap or eat (I don’t remember which, but those are my best guesses) until it was time to leave.

When I arrived, it was to find friendly Cast Members who made me feel far from awkward. The store had changed a lot since I’d last been there, and I was drawn to the spices area of the store more than once. The hours were spent straightening placemats and coffee mugs, and asking the Spice&Tea Company man the best way to cook chicken.

Later, while stationed at the cart outside, a co-worker and I noticed managers hurrying over to the fountain next to Earl of Sandwich. Curious, we asked a passing coordinator, who told us that a child had gotten stuck in the fountain.

How this had been accomplished, I cannot imagine, but sure enough, a crowd had formed around the fountain, and we watched a red-bill cap bob up and down as the poor kid was being pulled around by his parents.

Eventually, they turned the fountain off, and sirens were heard as someone had called in paramedics to help solve the problem. I’m still not entirely sure how they managed to release the kid, but I figure that if his hand was wedged in the hole securely enough to keep it stuck there for twenty minutes, it must have been an impressive feat.

Saturday was a typical day at work. I was tired, as usual, having been up until 2:00 a.m. doing laundry so I would have pants to wear that day to Image. I got off at 7:30 p.m., which was way too exciting.

Cassandra (a co-worker) and I made our way to the Cast Member exit, we were stopped by a staggering gentleman. I felt torn between amusement at his condition and trepidation at stopping to answer his question. Clearly inebriated, he wanted help finding his way out, and he kept cursing: “I am so f’ing messed up, you have no idea how wasted I am.”

He tossed his arms around our shoulders and leaned on us as we helped guide him toward the exit, and then into a cab. He told us about his dog, Amber, whom he hates, as she has psychological problems. I think he kept getting us confused, as he would be talking about how cool Amber was, and then rant about something to prove her mental disorder. We managed to find out that he was celebrating his daughter’s twenty-first birthday, and had somehow gotten separated from the other thirteen people in his party. He had forgotten his phone at the house they were renting, and just wanted to get home.

Finally, after much staggering, cursing, and professions of love, Cassandra and I got him to a taxi. We had been shadowed the last bit by a security guard, who kept an eye on us as we made sure the man knew his address. We stopped by Guest Relations to let them know that the man was on his way home (in case his friends came looking for him).

Another security guard then asked why we were so far from our location. We told her that we had helped an intoxicated guest to the cabs. “Oh, yeah, I heard about that on our radio.”

Cassandra looked at me. “How often do you hear that? We were on security’s radio!”

I HAVE NOT HAD time to take a breath.

The past two weeks have been some of the most hectic I’ve ever experienced. The previous week I was working as much as possible to earn extra money for my trip to New York, even picking up a shift in Downtown Disney. Extra shifts are a lot harder to come by in this program than they were in last year’s program; they’ve now changed it so that, even when people are trying to give away their shifts, managers can restrict it to those Cast Members already within the area. Which is great, except that usually those people ask around first, and the Hub is more of a last resort. That means there is a plethora of shifts out there, just out of my reach.

I was also frantically trying to find someone to take my shift for last Sunday. I was leaving for New York City on Saturday, and while my managers took a more, “Oh, well, I knew you were looking forward to that trip” tone, I was incredulous at the thought of canceling my trip for one day of work. It’s a side of Disney that I don’t exactly see eye-to-eye with.

I found four people willing to take my shift at the Seas — if Seas is short people, on some days you can really feel it, as it’s such a small staff anyway — but they were all denied because they were already working forty hours. While I understand not wanting anyone to work overtime, I was a little skeptical that they were willing to be short-staffed for most of the day rather than give someone willing to take my shift the hours.

Not much happened leading up to my trip; nothing of note, anyway. I worked as much as possible, fell asleep when I should have been writing, and then had to wake up at three in the morning to leave for the airport.

I spent a fabulous four days in New York City: seeing a show, sleeping in the street as my friend and I camped out for the Harry Potter premiere, eating hot dogs in Central Park. Words cannot describe how amazing it was. I would highly recommend that anyone in the College Program who isn’t desperately saving their money take at least one trip while in Florida.

For me, it was a much needed respite, especially after the 4th of July. By the end of that day, I was no longer the happy, smiling Amber that I usually am at work; I was grumpy, I was tired of obdurate parents forcing their kids to “fly” around the bloody castle for a novelty photo when the child was crying, and I was not able to tolerate anything else.

The next day was just as bad; people were behaving in a less than intelligent manner, to phrase it as nicely as possible, and I was quite ready to go home and wait for school to start again. I returned to a sink full of dishes, which only improved my mood, of course.

But I came back from New York much restored, which was good, as I’d gotten home from the airport at about eleven that night, and had to be at work at ten the next morning. I was so sleep-deprived, I can’t even put it into words, but I made it through.

The next day I was awake even earlier, at six o’clock, to meet with four girls whom I’d met at the Harry Potter premiere in New York. I managed to make it to Universal in one go, without my GPS (which is a huge accomplishment), and I spent the day in Islands of Adventure — mostly Wizarding World — hanging out with fellow Harry Potter fans. I went home with the intention of napping, as I knew I’d be up very late for the premiere of the movie, but found out that lines were already forming. I showered, donned my Harry Potter attire, and headed to the AMC Theatre in Downtown Disney, where my roommate showed up a few hours later with her father. We sobbed through the ending of our childhood, I drove home in a stupor, and then rose again early the next morning for work at eleven.

Sleep deprivation seems to be a running theme, and time seems to move slower. I found myself saying to my mother the other day that in some respects I would have preferred this to be a summer program; I’m not having nearly as much fun as I did on my last program, and staying home would have led to more benefits, as far as getting all of my general education requirements out of the way so I could focus on my major.

“PLEASE DO NOT PASS your infant across the clam-mobiles. There is a seven-foot drop full of machinery between them. Please do not pass your infant across the clam-mobiles.”

You hear a lot of unique conversation around the water coolers here at Disney World. Working at the Seas one day this week, I had run back to get a drink of water (yes, it was quite literally water-cooler talk) and two girls from Attractions were chatting about some...less than intelligent guests they had encountered that morning.

“Oh, you think we’re kidding,” one of the girls said to me as I snorted into my paper cup of water.

“No, no, I believe you.” And it’s true. Just when you think you’ve seen all there is out of people, when you think they can do absolutely nothing more to surprise you, they pull out some grand stunt like trying to pass their two-year-old from one clam shell to another, and you find yourself baffled all over again.

Like the hordes of people who never consult their Times Guide and so don’t realize that the Imagination Pavilion closes at seven — and yes, it has done so for many years now. Or the ones who ask why all the clownfish have different sized fins, or why there are seagulls on the merchandise in the Nemo store. What is that concrete track thing that makes a loop around EPCOT; I don’t remember it being there on our last trip. Yes, we spent the morning at Disney World before we came here, and we just got off Fast Track (I hate when people can’t get the names right; a pet peeve of mine).

Luckily, though, not all of the guests are that thick, and many of them are devoted Disney fans. I was working on the EO cart recently when a family came up, the parents and three kids. The mom told them all:

“Now, I don’t care what you all say, you are all getting a Captain EO shirt. Now, walk around this cart and pick you one out, ‘cause you ain’t leaving without one.”

She had seen Captain EO when it first debuted in the 1980s, and was adamant that her children were going to love it as much as she did. We chatted a bit, as the EO cart receives very little business, and I love the chance to talk with anyone who stops by for a minute or two. We talked about how Captain EO receives minimal attention, and how awesome it was that she was buying all of her kids the light-up sequined glove along with their shirts, a few Captain EO posters, and some light-up sunglasses which I was so charmingly sporting.

When a fellow Cast Member came to send me back for a new assignment, I warned her that she was about to receive a large purchase from the most awesome family I’d met all day — or possibly all week — and the mother gave me a hug as I went inside.

That night, the girl who replaced me at the cart told me that all three children had demonstrated their impressive moon-walking skills after they’d donned their superstar gloves. I was envious that I’d missed that sight.

Recently, roommate drama has had a momentary flare-up. Lindsey (whom I share a room with) and I get along very well; the mirroring Harry Potter pictures that we taped on our walls and the Disney stuffed animals that we piled on our beds (although hers is much more crowded than mine!) aid that friendship. Others, however, haven’t been so lucky.

Two of my other roommates work in Magic Kingdom; they often leave for work late, and don’t return until the early hours of the next morning. They each share a room with someone from Entertainment; those people work fairly regular hours in the middle of the day, sometimes earlier, sometimes later, but never arriving home at four or five in the morning.

One night, the two girls in Entertainment decided it would be wiser to share a room. It made sense, after all; this way, the people with similar schedules would be rooming together, and wouldn’t have to worry about waking up someone as they came in, or disturbing someone who’d just fallen asleep as they were leaving. They moved everything quickly and neatly; I hardly noticed that any change had been made until they told me.

I went to my room to watch a video on my computer. When it ended, I managed to catch the end of a row between two of the former roommates. Apparently, it was a huge inconvenience on the part of one of the girls who hadn’t moved that she had a new roommate (despite the fact that we all live in the same apartment). How she figured this, I’m not sure; she knew the person sleeping across from her already, she wouldn’t have to worry about waking her up when she came in, nor being awoken just as she’d fallen asleep. None of her stuff had been touched during the move; in fact, the girl who switched out of that room left behind her TV, since her former roommate had become used to it.

“...You’ve never lived with other people before, you’ve never had a roommate, you don’t know how this works. You didn’t take into account how much of an inconvenience this would be on my part. You think this was an adult decision, but it wasn’t; it was just stupid.” — Insert slightly fumbled explanation — ”No, I don’t even want to talk about it right now. I can’t talk to you about it. Maybe in a few days when I’ve cooled down, but don’t even go there.”