Ema Earns Her Ears: My Secret Walt Disney World Cast Member Diary (Earning Your Ears Book 2) (8 page)

After making a fairly large army of towel animals, I took some to Becca for her to use. I found her talking to a cute little girl and her mum on their way to the food court for a break from the hot and humid parks. They were staying in one of Becca’s rooms, and it was the little girl’s birthday.

I feel a Magic Moment coming on…

The girl’s favorite character was Shrek, who is not a Disney character, but that didn’t stop us. I wished the little girl a magical birthday and told her we’d see her later. I left Becca to continue cleaning her last room and told her to come to the office when she was done. I saw Leah in the office and let her know what I was planning; she wanted to join in. While I made a dog towel animal accessorized with green foam Shrek ears, a Disney name tag with the girl’s name on it, and a Mickey ice cream bar, Leah started making a towel birthday cake. We were just putting the final touches to our towel creations and waiting for the glue to dry when Becca walked in. We didn’t want the girl’s siblings to feel left out of the magic, so Becca took two of my other towel creations to give to them while Leah and I followed with Shrek and the cake creations.

The moment you see the look of amazement on a child’s face, and see the mum start to cry because you’ve gone out of your way to do something extra special for her child, is a moment you will never forget.

On June 24, I was back in Housekeeping, but I didn’t really mind because I enjoyed having the variety. It was a major checkout day for the resort, with 900 guests checking out and 700 checking in. While I sat in my jumper waiting in fear to get my board, I could see two of the mangers looking at me and clearly having a disagreement. I tried not to make eye contact because I didn’t want to get into trouble, but I could tell they were clearly talking about me. Surprisingly enough, I got my board and I only had 3 checkouts. Once I was at my building, I went to see if any of my checkouts had left yet, but they were all still packing up the last of their things so I started on the rooms where the guests had set off early to make the most of their day in the parks. As I went into my first room, I switched on the TV and
Happy Feet
was just starting, so I was tap dancing my way round the room as I cleaned, and it made my day much more enjoyable.

There was one thing I noticed, and the only reason I noticed it was because of a recent incident. Guests decide how much to tip, when to tip, and even
if
to tip their housekeepers. I was classed as a “floater”, which meant that I didn’t get my own block of rooms. This worked out well for me when I was switching between housekeeping and running, and it’s a good system for the housekeepers because they take better care of their assigned rooms, and they’re more likely to take pride in their job since it could lead to better tips when they are looking after the same guests throughout their stay. However, on the day of the major check-out, the managers found out that some housekeepers were telling the guests who were staying in their rooms what days they had off. As a result, any floaters, like myself, who would be cleaning these rooms wouldn’t get any tips, as the guests knew that it wasn’t their housekeeper doing the work.

I learned a valuable lesson. Whenever I’m a guest at a Disney resort, I’ll be leaving small tips every day instead of one big tip at the end. This way, every housekeeper who cleans my room, even the floaters, will get at least some reward.

Today, Amie was working as my manager, and she is so much fun. Amie told me that a couple of the managers don’t like me wearing my jumper in the assembly room when I’m waiting for my board (so it turns out I was right, those two managers
were
talking about me). Apparently, they think I wear it while I’m working, and they wanted to report me for it. Amie stuck up for me, and said I only wear it inside before I go to the pargo and take it off when I get to my building, so no guest ever sees me wearing it. Although she stuck up for me, and oddly enough it was a serious issue, she thought it was very funny and had a laugh with me about it.

Amie always made me feel welcome, and it never seemed that she said “hi” just because it would uncomfortable to walk past me in silence. After handing in my board that day, I sat with her in the office and made towel animals. I took out my college program planner to write down some stories from the day for my journal, and I showed her the stickers on the front cover. All of them had come off my board, and it was Amie who had put them on there, just as she put stickers on all the boards when she was managing. They were positive and smiley, and I liked that, so I used to pull them off and keep them. I told her and she thought this was the funniest thing, even more so that no other housekeeper had even mentioned the stickers, as if they didn’t really care.

I was runner 1 today, but I always hung out in the office at building one with the managers no matter what running assignment I was given. Celeste was runner 2. Celeste was friends with one of the other lads on the college program, so I had spoken to her before and got along with her quite well. She had never worked before at French Quarter, and during times when neither of us had requests coming in, I practically trained her on being a French Quarter runner. I showed her where the runner room was (this was where they kept all the additional supplies that weren’t in the linen rooms), talked her through the different areas of the resort, and told her the lunch times who covered what buildings during those lunch times. She didn’t have many calls to start off with, but when she did she sometimes had to radio me to ask me where to find things.

My manager Amie and I were having conversations in song (hence the title of this chapter) just to keep ourselves amused. Then I got four calls in one go, all of them for extra blankets, and while I was on my way to the linen room, Amie called me to say:
“Do you want to go on an adventure?”

This was a regular occurrence for us. On one of our last adventures, we delivered some special touches to a VIP room. This time, however, it was a mystery. I told Amie that I’d come to her office once I’d finished delivering the blankets. When I got there, she told me that we going to steal linen from building 7 for building 4, which was running low. To make it more fun, we hummed the theme song from James Bond, laughing the whole way. I never thought I’d have so much fun collecting linen from a building.

At 3:30pm, the manager will start collecting the papers of the housekeepers, and then they can go home early, if they’re finished. However, Amie had to go to the service building, so she asked me to collect them for her. It felt good being left with this responsibility.

When Amie returned, she came to the office to find me creating towel animals with Celeste, with no calls coming in for either of us. This was quite normal, because after 3:30pm most of the housekeepers had finished their rooms and so they weren’t requesting anything extra, and the majority of guests were out in the parks or at the pool. Amie admired all of our creations, then told me she had brought me a present: stickers! I affixed them to my planner, as usual, and saved a few to use in my journal. Amie laughed and said:
“You’re like the spoilt child of Housekeeping!”

There are multiple things that I said throughout my program that I was either asked to:

• Repeat what I said because they didn’t hear me;
  
• Repeat what I said because they want to hear me speak more; or
  
• Explain what it means.
  

It was a regular occurrence that when I was asked for the time, no American or Canadian would understand what I told them. There are two common ways to tell the time. The formal way is to say the hour first then the minutes, for example, 9:45 is nine-forty-five. However, the most popular way is to do it the opposite way around and say minutes before hours: 9:45 is quarter to ten. There are multiple possibilities, such as:

• 15 minutes past is quarter past
  
• 15 minutes to is quarter to
  
• 30 minutes past is half past
  

It is no wonder that Americans/Canadians get confused, because if you don’t learn to tell the time this way, it will sound very odd when you hear it for the first time. Put it together with a strong British accent and there’s a good chance of confusion.

On mornings when Abbie and I both had the day off, we would make pancakes for breakfast, and if it wasn’t really early and our roommates were awake, we’d put on some music and have a singalong. We went through 90s and early 00s bands, which consisted of Busted, McFly, and the Spice Girls. As we were singing “Wannabe”, Alexis walked in to the common room and said, “This is brilliant, my British roommates are singing the Spice Girls.” Abbie and I really were creating a typical British stereotype for ourselves, but we were enjoying it.

Another time, on the bus coming home from work, there was a group of 6–8 of us, mostly American, but also a Mexican and myself as the lone Brit. Trent, a housekeeper and runner at Port Orleans, kept telling me to say different words, and he’d repeat them to try and replicate my accent. One of the other girls, Talicia, also wanted to try out her English accent, and she wanted to practice with “Harry Potter”. For the 45-minute journey home, the two of them would ask me questions where the answer would always be Harry Potter.

It was the end of June, and I still hadn’t taken full advantage of the opportunities available to me. I had written on my bucket list that I wanted to pick up an extra shift doing something different. I’d heard you could pick up a shift called PAC, which was parade audience control. From what I had read online, you literally control where guests stand to ensure that all fire exits are accessible and walkways are clear. I managed to pick up one shift after several days of checking the extra hours site. Cast members, especially CPs, were keen to get these shifts for two reasons: you got paid to watch the fireworks, and they didn’t require any additional training.

I had a confusing start to my PAC shift, as I didn’t work in Magic Kingdom and so didn’t know my way around the tunnels. I was given directions when I picked up the shift, but I still got confused, and I’m pretty sure I just walked around in a circle the first time. Finally, I made it to the west side of Main Street where the parades set off. I found a cast member, and the only reason I asked him for help is because he were wearing the same costume as me. He was nice enough to radio my manager so I could report in. My job was to control the walkway through the first DEP (Disney’s Electrical Parade). I had a wonderful position from which to watch the parade, and I was complimented on my accent every time I spoke. I wish I could have this job all the time.

When the parade ended, I walked up to a group of cast members by the grassy area and was told where to go next. I was going to be working at the first trial of a FastPass prime viewing for Wishes. I was given a Wishes button, a map of the park (as I didn’t have one and might need it if a guest asked me for directions), a copy of “Tell-a-Cast” (a cast member leaflet that has information about show times, park hours, and everything you need to know for the week, as well as restroom locations and smoking areas), and finally some Buzz, Stitch, and Minnie stickers, just in case I wanted to hand them out or use them as part of a magical moment.

The FastPasses for the prime viewing area were randomly handed out to a select number of guests throughout the day. I had to make sure that no one jumped the fence and keep the walkway on the Tomorrowland bridge free for emergency use, but I basically got paid to watch the fireworks with a perfect view.

Toward the end of my shift, a man approached me to ask for directions to the nearest toilet. He then asked me 10 more questions, each one challenging my Magic Kingdom knowledge. At the end I thanked him, wished him a magical evening, and gave my last three stickers to his daughter in the push chair, to which he replied:
I’m sorry, I didn’t really need to know any of those answers, I just wanted to hear you talk in that beautiful accent.

For two weeks, Amy, Shauna, and I had been waiting for our character breakfast at Crystal Palace. I got up that morning to start my usual routine, which starts with me going to the bathroom to see whether the toilet lid is down with a Post-it note telling me that it’s broken again. Then I’d look through the Post-it notes on the mirror for anything new, and if not, I’d begin painting my face on, as my dad calls it.

With my face painted, I sent a text to the girls. They weren’t ready, but told me to come down to their apartment anyway. There was still plenty of time to make our bus. Except we didn’t make our bus, and it had nothing to do with getting up late or putting on makeup.

The reason we missed the first bus was a critter that had made its way into Amy and Shauna’s room, and taken up lodging on the ceiling right above Amy’s bed. Imagine the fear, shock, and pure disgust that Amy felt when she woke up to realize it had been staring at her while she slept. When I got there, they were plotting a way to catch or kill the bugger. Shauna tried spraying it with deodorant, while I constructed a stick out of straws long enough to poke it and dislodge, but it was a rather floppy stick. Despite the floppiness, I managed to poke the thing and it fell to the floor. Amy stuck a glass over the top of it and sprayed more hairspray and deodorant under the glass, then left a note by the glass stating that if anyone was to come in, they were not to move the glass and let the beast escape.

With the critter captured, we were able to head out for the bus. We had our breakfast and met the characters as they did their rounds. Tigger made his way over to our table, and I got so excited that I managed to spill my apple juice everywhere. Tigger saw what happened straight away, and he ran off to the kitchen and came back with a tea towel and a cast member to help clean up the mess I had made.