The Ride Delegate: Memoir of a Walt Disney World VIP Tour Guide (5 page)

Maneuvering guests into queues was a learned skill, not a simple one like learning to ride a bike, but something more difficult like hibachi cooking. One did not just simply put guests into line.

“Where are we going next?” Billy asked, as we walked along through Studios.

“Toy Story. It’s like a giant video game. You’re gonna play it! And it’s in 3D!”

“Cool!” Billy turned to his sister, Sally. “It’s like a video game, Sally!”

“Cool!” They said again in unison.

The first thing we needed to do was park the stroller. The stroller parking for Toy Story was located right outside of the exit. The thing about Toy Story is that no one ever anticipated it to be the most popular attraction out of all four of the parks, so no one thought, “Hey, maybe we should anticipate thousands of guests that will want to ride each day, and make a comfortably large stroller parking area and maybe a queue that isn’t on top of the sidewalk, what do you guys think?” I wasn’t invited to that meeting.

The stroller parking area was nestled literally on top of the walkway between the buildings, and there was never enough space to accommodate the throngs of strollers parked outside. Without fail, no matter where I parked the stroller it was in a different location by the time we exited roughly twenty minutes later. There were Cast Members tasked to organize stroller parking, but they acted more like stroller police.

Sally jumped out of the stroller and went to stand with her brother as Mom and Dad and Grandma and Grandpa and Second Aunt twice removed brought up the rear. “This way!” I yelled, as I held my hand up in the air, gesturing for them to follow me towards the entrance.

The Toy Story entrance was always crowded like a flash sale at the mall. The group of guests directly in front of us was trying to gain access to the FastPass return queue two hours early. The guests standing to the side of us were confused as to why they weren’t given FastPasses when they entered the park that morning. The group just behind us was yelling about where they could get the FastPasses to ride.

“All FastPasses have been distributed for the day!” the greeter Cast Member yelled, and then turned his attention to me. “How many?” he asked, bored with his day job and his life.

“I have seven friends.”

“Seven including you?”

“Eight including me.” Sometimes I forgot I counted as a person through the lines. I pulled my DSA ID hooked to my hip and showed the Cast Member my orange premium pass. He nodded, and counted my guests as we entered.

Down the hallway, past some giant life-like toys, around the corner, and then we stopped at the log cabin. My college program roommate Meg worked at Toy Story, and she always used to talk about the Log Cabin like it was a vacation destination. She just wanted to spend one night sleeping in there, and then make bacon for guests in the queue the next morning. It was hard to not pass the Log Cabin and laugh out loud thinking about that notion. Meg would throw back the curtains as you grabbed your yellow glasses and yell, “WHO’S HUNGRY?” I wish it happened.

The merge Cast Member stood up ahead of us, trying to figure out how many to let through the standby line. I hadn’t checked the wait time for it before we got in line, but on a good day Toy Story’s wait was right around 75 minutes. On a bad day it was close to 180 minutes. The movie,
Toy Story
, has a running time of 83 minutes. Waiting to ride Toy Story you could watch all of
Toy Story
. I found that to be the easiest day to describe wait times to kids.

“How many?” the girl asked me with distress in her voice. “Seven. Eight including me.” She nodded, and let four people from the standby line go. They hurried up the stairs to the bridge like they were just called as contestants on
The Price Is Right
. The girl signaled for me and my group to go, and I hurried after the lucky souls set free from standby.

“Whoa, are we gonna shoot a cannon?” Billy asked, placing his face against the glass overlooking the ride track.

“Yes. You’re going to shoot at targets on the screens! And for this ride, everyone needs a riding buddy. So if you don’t have a riding buddy, get one.” I said this line every time I needed my guests to group off in pairs, and every time I said it no one picked up on the fact that Sheriff Woody tells Andy’s toys to get moving buddies.

Mom and Dad paired off with the kids, Grandma and Grandpa were going to sit together, and I was left to sit with Second Aunt twice removed. “I’m actually not going to ride this one,” I said to Aunt, who didn’t seem too hurt learning she was going to be alone. “I have to make a phone call.” Some days all I wanted to do was ride Toy Story because who wouldn’t want to be paid to ride Toy Story? Seriously. At first I was hesitant to beat little kids at the game. Then I realized my destiny in life was to continuously receive not only the highest score out of the car, but also out of the hour. If I didn’t get the highest score, I forced the family to re-ride for my own hubris. After a while I no longer felt guilty completely creaming the little kids, since they were so impressed I could reach such a high score.

We reached the bottom of the stairs, and the Cast Member at merge asked how many. “Seven!” I said. “Two, two, two, one single.” She nodded, and sent us to appropriate rows. Meg always used to complain that smart-aleck guests would tell her numbers like seven and a half, or five and three fourths, and then she’d have a panic attack.

I stood in the corral with Mom and Sally and desperately tried to catch the attention of the Cast Member standing on the other side of the loading dock. I needed to tell him that I wasn’t riding, and that I needed to cross to the other side to wait for my guests. I had this huge fear of getting trapped in the loading area of Toy Story, or worse yet, falling into the ride track. I wasn’t scared of, you know, being crushed by a Toy Story car, but more the fact that if I fell into the ride track, Toy Story would emergency stop, and everyone in the 80-minute queue would have to be evacuated out and it would be entirely my fault.

The cars pulled up, I darted across the row and turned to wave goodbye to my tour family. They had already forgotten about me, though, and pulled their restraints down and disappeared into the first show room. I needed to make a “phone call”, which was actually code for “I really have to go to the bathroom and I’m starving”. Toy Story gave me enough time to do both of those things. It wasn’t a ride trifecta, though. It wouldn’t give me enough time to use the bathroom, get a snack,
and
check the messages on my personal phone.

I raced around the corner, and disappeared through a door that clearly told me CAST MEMBERS ONLY. I had six minutes to accomplish everything I needed to do. I had run down this Toy Story hallway so many times the coordinators no longer questioned what a tour guide was doing using their bathroom. I was in and out quickly, only fighting with my tights for a second, and then I hurried out the adjacent break room door, which led outside. I wiggled past strollers and dads holding maps, and a green army man, and put myself at the back of the popcorn line. I wanted water and lemonade, and maybe a granola bar, and most certainly a chocolate chip cookie. I was able to procure all of those things and shoved the food into my bag as I chugged the lemonade with literally seconds to spare before I needed to get back inside and to the unload area of the dock, waiting for my guests. I somehow managed.

“How was that?” I asked, as they piled out of the cars. I wiped a drop of lemonade off my chin. I had literally chugged it.

“Again!” Billy and Sally cried.

I repeated everything. Again.

I learned very quickly how to be a tour guide; I had to. It was a sink-or-swim situation and some weren’t cut out for it. Like it was common to see tour guides and coordinators yelling at each other, it was common to see guides crying hysterically at a coordinator’s desk. It was like going off to war if the parade route was our trench. If I hesitated for even a second when answering a question, the guests would sense I didn’t actually know the answer. I had to be ready with a response for everything because the guests could smell tour guide fear.

The second they smelled fear, they started asking for things they knew were outlandish and impossible. VIP viewing for Osborne Spectacle of Dancing Lights. Private Safari vehicles. A driving tour of backstage Studios. Fireworks viewing from the top of Tower of Terror. Cogsworth meet & greet. All impossible things, but if I appeared weary on any topic, it was like the guests knew to press the issue more. I needed to be completely resolute with everything I said. Guests would ask questions regarding things I didn’t have the slightest idea about, and I’d literally say the first thing that came to mind. Hey, Annie, how thick is the sidewalk we’re standing on? It’s about six feet. Everything was about six feet to me at Disney.

Guests assumed I could do anything, and everything, for them. In reality I was only in charge of the rides and getting the family to lunch on time. I had no control over anything at Disney, except for the fact that I could re-ride rides again and again. However, guests thought I was like second in command after CEO. They assumed I was invincible and asked outlandish things. No, I was never going to approve a guest feeding a giraffe from a safari vehicle on my watch. I was asked that question at least twice a week. There aren’t enough trees in Animal Kingdom to cut down and turn into paper for the liability contract guests would need to sign if I let them feed a giraffe from a moving vehicle. Yet, when I took a second to explain to a guest they were not going to be able to feed a giraffe, they looked at me like I must be joking.

“So what are we paying for?” Dad would then ask.

The guests were paying for the convenience of not having to worry about anything. I was well versed and adept at moving through Disney World, so with me in the lead they weren’t going to have to spend time trying to figure out where to go next, what to eat, where the bathrooms were located, what time Fantasmic! was on that night. That was my job.

For someone who’s never been to Disney before, it can be a very overwhelming experience for both kids and adults alike. I witnessed more breakdowns over missed parades than I would ever care to see. You know, I get it. Going to Disney isn’t a vacation; it’s a quest for fun, like Clark Griswold once said. One morning I was driving to pick up guests and Lindsay Buckingham’s “Holiday Road” came on the radio and I thought to myself,
this is as real as it’s ever going to get
.

Guests were always impressed when I gave them a brief itinerary of the day, explaining what rides we were going to do before lunch, where we were going to stop for lunch, and then what was after lunch, dinner, fireworks, bedtime. They were so impressed with my ability to manage time and get everything accomplished, and I wanted to break the bad news to them that I was just really
really
lucky with my timing. I could never anticipate when the next showing of PhilharMagic would begin. I guessed. Thankfully, most of the time I guessed right and we got to sit in air-conditioning for fifteen minutes. One time I managed to get into the line to meet the princesses just as they were coming back from ““tea time”“ and when my family was let in, the little girl got to meet Cinderella, Aurora, and Snow White all at the same time. Three princesses for the wait of one. The family was flabbergasted that I had arranged such a special meet and greet for them! I thought to myself, “I’m the queen of Disney World!”

I was in charge of the family’s vacation while they were with me. Sometimes it was just a six-hour day in Magic Kingdom where we’d race to every attraction as quickly as possible to cram it all in. Sometimes it was a four day vacation and I got to pick where the guests ate every single day. (Boma. Everyone always ate at Boma if I were in charge.) I wasn’t questioned too many times about the tour guide choices I was making, though a few times I was strong-armed into taking the family into It’s Tough to Be a Bug, even though I advised them that we could spend our time better elsewhere, like maybe cleaning park benches at Saratoga Springs.

All the family members on my tours were the same: Mom and Dad, and kids usually named Billy and Sally. Sometimes I would refer to the parents by Mr. and Mrs., but only when I felt no connection with the family. Usually they just wanted me to call them by their first names. I look ridiculously young for my age, and I didn’t want to call Mom and Dad by their first names, so I just called them Mom and Dad, and the kids on the tours always thought that was hilarious. For a few hours each day I had a newly adopted family of a mom and a dad and some younger siblings. If there were multiple moms and dads on a tour, they got numbers, like Mom #1 and Mom #2. Sometimes there were grandparents and aunts and uncles, and I’d call them whatever the kids called them. I acquired a lot of Bubbies doing tours.

I walked through the park thinking,
This is what Beyoncé must feel like when she walks out on stage
. I felt so powerful. I didn’t have restrictions like other Cast Members. I wasn’t assigned a trashcan to stand next to it all day and remind guests to please avoid the trashcan. I knew everyone was watching me move, both guests and Cast Members. Sometimes it was unnerving. One wrong move and the Office would get a call about me, and I’d get a discussion the next time I went in. I managed to avoid all discussions. The most that was ever discussed with me was, “We need to talk about your corn dog nugget eating habits.”

“Here, let me push,” I said, trying to edge my way in between Mom and Dad. They were leisurely pushing the stroller through Studios, and we were getting dangerously close to missing our lunch reservation at Sci-Fi. Someone once told me that Sci-Fi is the most popular restaurant on property. I’d like to see Sci-Fi duke it out with Chef Mickeys and see who comes out on top. It was by no means the most popular on property, but it was the restaurant with the most ludicrous seating arrangements. Guests would sit in convertible mock-ups to enjoy their meal, watching a giant film screen before them. A family of four was fine eating at the tables meant for even number parties, a family of five was awkward. Someone either had to sit three to a row, or someone sat awkwardly behind everyone else in a row to themselves. Usually that person was me. I quickly stopped eating at Sci-Fi with my guests.