The Ride Delegate: Memoir of a Walt Disney World VIP Tour Guide (9 page)

So, no, I didn’t think before I opened my mouth and replied to Mrs. Grey. It all just happened so fast.

“Well, ma’am, I don’t think Walt Disney would have liked you either. It’s time for the parade.” I turned on my heels and didn’t even bother to check if the rest of the family was following me. I marched from Tomorrowland, down Main Street, and towards the Fire Station where parade viewing had been booked for the family. Strangely enough, they kept up with my pace and we all arrived at the parade viewing location without speaking another word to each other. I checked them in with the Cast Member in charge of VIP viewing, and when they all gathered, penned in between the white parade ropes, I told them, “There’s a bus at the TTC that can take you back to the Waldorf. Enjoy the parade!”

I turned and I marched back across Town Square, out the Tony’s Gate and I was sitting in my empty 15-passenger van five minutes later.

A few days later I was pulled aside by one of the coordinators who wanted to read me an amusing email. Mrs. Grey had taken it upon herself to write a scathing review of my tour service, in which she called me “inexperienced” and “unprofessional”. The coordinator thought it was hilarious. I had come back to the Office after walking away from that family and debriefed anyone who would listen about how awful they had been. Every tour guide has that one awful family that makes them cringe even years later. I can only hope that the Grey Family never puts another tour guide through the strife they put me through in those five hours and forty five minutes. I didn’t even last six hours.

Prior to arriving at Disney World, I disliked kids. Kids weren’t my thing. I could barely tolerate anyone a year or so younger than me, so stick me in a room with five years olds and I was begging for help. Maybe it was just the fact that I never had a whole lot of interaction with kids. I had younger sisters, but one was only two years younger, and by the time that the youngest one was growing up I was already moving out of the house. I just saw kids as slimy and sticky and probably covered in germs like all those tissue commercials show.

After I arrived at Disney, I learned that kids are the best. Maybe it was just the setting I was meeting these kids in, but I realized that kids were way better than their parents. Their parents never wanted to talk about princesses and
The Incredibles
with me, but the kids did. As a kid going to Disney, I was never allowed to dress up in an awesome costume. Partly it was due to the fact that we were always going in August and it was hot and sticky and my mom never wanted to put me in a polyester costume and run around the park (funny, now I was getting paid to wear polyester and run around the park); partly it was because the costumes were so expensive and my mom thought she was going to pay all that money and I was just going to want to change out of it. So, as a child in Disney World I was deprived of dressing like my favorite princess. I envied the little girls who got to run down Main Street dressed as Belle because I never got to, and I said that to these little girls every chance I could. I also complimented their shoes, and their hair, and their fingernail polish, and told them to say hi to Belle for me because we were good friends. (True. I had a lot of friends who were Friends with Belle.).

With boys I’d be like, “Who’s your favorite character??” and the boys would yell back, “BATMAN!” and I’d be like, “Yes, that is correct!” because I was not about to explain to any seven year old that Batman is owned by D.C. Comics and not by Marvel Comics, which is owned by Disney. I always had a soft spot for kids who told me that their favorite Disney character was someone other than a Disney character.

Sometimes the parents were cool and I’d want to hang out with them, but more often than not dads wanted to talk about stocks and golf and moms wanted to talk about gardening and
Real Housewives
. I just wanted to talk about things like “Shake It Up” and Taylor Swift. Coming to Disney made me realize that kids are actually awesome because we liked all of the same things.

I gauged how much I came to like any kid by whether I could remember their name a week later. Guests would often ask who I had hosted the day before, and sometimes I’d stand in a queue and rack my memory because I couldn’t remember if I had had boys or girls the day before.

My favorite kid ever was named Jake. He was British. I remember him as British Jake. I met British Jake one spring day in the Magic Kingdom. He was an only child who had his parents and his grandparents with him. The parents were awesome, and the grandparents were awesome and I loved everything that little British Jake had to tell me because he told it to me in a little British accent. British Jake loved pirates and pizza so I made sure to find both of those things for him during our day together. British Jake was also a pretty shy kid, and his parents were amazed he took to me so quickly. We walked through the park hand in hand because that was the true sign of being a good tour guide; British Jake liked me enough to want to hold my hand. At one point during the day I made a joke to Dad about how I was going to be the newest Disney princess in the park.

“When can we buy your merchandise?” Dad asked me.

“It’s only available online right now. I’m huge in Tokyo.” I told him. For the rest of the day Dad only called me Princess Annie, and the rest of the family caught on. At the end of the tour British Jake asked to have my autograph, and I signed his autograph book “PRINCESS ANNIE OF THE MAGIC KINGDOM”. I knew I had completely won over a child when they asked me to sign their autograph book.

British Jake, in turn, gave me a thank you card with Donald Duck on it. I went home that evening and I hung the card on my refrigerator so I could look at it always.

Close to a year passed. It was a ridiculously hot day and I was doing a chaotic tour in Hollywood Studios for a family that didn’t really know what they wanted to do so I kept throwing them into shows all day. They were watching Indiana Jones and I was standing in line at Studio Catering Company, waiting for my cheeseburger. I was thinking to myself,
Why is this line so long and will the Office notice if I order two cupcakes just to eat the frosting off of both of them
? From behind me I heard, “I think that’s Princess Annie.”

I turned to see a vaguely familiar dad with a British accent. I looked down at the child standing next to him and I immediately recognized British Jake. I was so startled that they remembered me, and they were so startled that I recognized them.

“Jake! You gave me a Donald thank-you card!” I told the shy little kid who hid behind his dad for a second. Then he slowly remembered that I was one of his good friends at Disney World, and he came over and gave me a big hug. The moment was short-lived because they had just received their food, and I was next up to order mine. Mom and Grandma waved goodbye to me as they led Jake away. “I’ll never forget you!” I called after him. He waved goodbye.

Dad lingered with me for a second longer. “He’s going to be shell-shocked for the rest of the day that you knew his name,” he told me, giving me a hug was well. “On our screensaver at home your picture always comes up, and Jake will ask when he gets to come visit you again.”

I have no idea how I held back tears of happiness standing in Studio Catering Company, but I managed somehow. Dad apologized for not hiring a tour this time, but they were spending most days lounging by the pool at their DVC hotel. It didn’t matter to me, though. Not like I was seeing any money from the cost of my service, anyway. I was just happy to see British Jake.

I saw him once more that day as he was loading onto an attraction and I was loading off. I called goodbye to him and he to me, and British Jake and I went our separate ways.

Last time I rode Splash Mountain I was nine years old and the only reason I rode it was because Michelle Tanner on
Full House
had ridden it and I wanted to be just like her. (Why don’t TV shows go to Disney anymore?)

I don’t like drops and I don’t like heights so why would I subject myself to an attraction based solely on those two things. Last time I rode it, age seven, I sat with my dad in the last row, and as soon as we hit the beehives I started crying hysterically, begging him to let me off. Well, you can’t just get off Splash Mountain on the final hill. The guy sitting in front of us was taping the whole ride, too, so wherever you are, I’m sorry that you have a hysterical little girl screaming in the background of your home movie.

I’d approach Splash Mountain with my guests and I’d inform them that I couldn’t actually ride, because the Office forbids it. “I can’t get my costume wet!” I’d tell them, pointing to my wool vest and polyester skirt. It wasn’t true, but it was the only excuse I had not to ride. All I needed was one little kid to beg me to ride with them, and I’d have to cave in, and then they’d always remember their Disney VIP tour because they were paired with the guide who cried hysterically on Splash Mountain.

“How about I hold all of your bags?” I asked the family as we gathered into line.

“That’d be so sweet of you!” Mom said, unhinging her Coach fannypack from around her waist. She slung it over my neck and shoulder like a sling. A little bit farther down the line, the two teenage girls draped their Longchamp bags over my other shoulder. Just before we reached the boats, the brother took his backpack off and slipped it around my arms. As the family turned to get into the boat, Dad handed me the three blue merchandise bags they had been lugging through the park with sweatshirts and plush toys and Mom’s new Mickey teapot that she just had to buy. They climbed into their log while I fought my way to the overpass stairs like a pack-mule fighting through a herd of cattle. I went up the stairs, across the waterway, and down the other side. One Cast Member at unload told me that it looked like I was “going camping” and I laughed because I was still in earshot of all guests.

The exit route of Splash twisted and turned around corners, and at one point there’s a hallway with two doors. The door on the right led nowhere useful for me. The door to the left led into the Splash maintenance bay, and I pushed through that door, waddled down some steps and came out behind the mountain. Splash wasn’t the ride trifecta, because I could go to the bathroom and I could check my phone, but there was nothing I could eat within range. Sometimes there was an ice cream cart by Woody and Jessie’s meet and greet, but that was only on really hot summer days. There would be no ice cream today.

I was looking for a wheelchair because that’s what I wanted to sit on for thirteen minutes while I waited for my guests. I found one in a corner, but it was missing one wheel. I wanted to sit. I was willing to take that chance.

I slowly unloaded my guests belongings, and placed them carefully down onto the ground literally shedding pounds left and right. I checked my phone and calculated ten minutes from now. That’s when I’d head back inside to claim them.

I dug through my tour bag, rummaged past the granola bars and the body spray and the small bottle of Advil and the Tootsie Rolls, and found my iPhone buried at the bottom. I pulled it out, connected to the weak Disney wi-fi reception available on the backside of Splash, and checked my emails, my Facebook, my Twitter, my emails again, and scrolled through Instagram. Checked Twitter one more time.

From around the corner of the building, two Cast Members approached, both clad in Splash garb. One held a thick three-ring binger in his hands; the other had an EARNING MY EARS tag pinned to her shirt. They were deep in conversation about the evacuation procedures of Splash Mountain.

“…the yellow lines on the ground will indicate to guests where to go in the event that we need to get everyone out,” the trainer was saying. He looked up from his notebook as soon as they had stopped in front of me.

“Hi.” I offered, from my seat in the broken wheelchair.

“And this is where the tour guides hide,” he said to his trainee. I nodded, because it was true. “Just please don’t…fall into the maintenance water with all of that? It’s her first day.” The trainer gestured to my hodgepodge of belongings, and then pointed to the girl.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I told him. “Well, you know, carry on.”

The trainee looked terrified at the notion of anything falling into the maintenance water. I wondered what day of training it was for her, and if she would survive to the end. She looked young enough to be a College Program Cast Member. The trainer led her down towards the maintenance bay, and she stuck close to the cement wall, away from the water, in case she were to trip and fall into the shallow pool there.

After seven or so minutes, I rose back up to my feet and slowly slung the bags and purses and backpacks around my arms and shoulders, and struggled to move forward under the weight. I waddled down into the mountain again, and emerged out the same door I had exited through. I turned the corner to stand in one of the windows of the exiting queue, and dropped the bags to the ground again.

The family exited off the ride a few minutes later, and came rushing around the corner towards me. A few of them were wetter than the others, and I could easily figure out who had sat in the front seat.

“Can we go again?” asked one of the teenage girls.

“If you guys want to,” I said, looking to the parents for confirmation that this was okay.

“That’s fine, we’ve still got time till lunch, right?”

“Right. So let’s exit out this way…” I initiated movement for the group, as they slowly grabbed their bags from my arms and followed me out of the exit.

Fifteen minutes later I found myself once again sitting behind Splash, in the same wheelchair as before, scrolling through my phone and no one had posted anything new to Twitter. The trainer exited out of the door in the side of the building.

“Have you been sitting here this whole time?” he asked.

“Did you push your trainee into the Rivers of America?”

“It’s lunch time.”

“Ah. I promise I went through the queue again. And then came back here. Again. Don’t tell anyone you saw me back here.”

“This is your hiding spot. I get it. Just fold up the wheelchair when you’re done?” I nodded and the trainer disappeared towards the Splash break room.