Would You Like Magic with That?: Working at Walt Disney World Guest Relations (24 page)

Here’s how this thing works.

Let’s say you’ve won the Disney dream of a lifetime, and you get to spend one night in the Castle. Yeah, just one night. That’s all you get. But anyway, a Guest Relations cast member will pick you up, wherever you are, and take you to the Castle. They’ll bring you up there, you can drop your stuff, and then that same GR cast member will work as your VIP tour guide for the day, and take you around to all the rides and you won’t have to wait in a single line. Awesome, right?

You’ll also get to watch the parade and fireworks in VIP viewing. Following those things, the GR cast member takes you back up to the suite, drops you off, and says goodnight.

The GR cast member locks you in the room for the night. You are not allowed to leave till morning. Where are you going to go, anyway? The park’s closed, so you really don’t have anywhere to go. Besides, the last thing Disney wants is a family aimlessly wandering around the Magic Kingdom at 4am.

The GR cast member who leaves you in the Castle will say that they’re heading downstairs to sit at the concierge desk down on the lower level of the Castle (where you walk through the Castle from Main Street to Fantasyland). In reality, that GR cast member is sitting in a secret, hidden room just off the elevator for the suite. It’s hidden behind a fake wall panel, and inside there’s a desk, a computer, and a fridge. That’s where the GR cast member will sit ALL NIGHT and just twiddle their thumbs as you sleep. Disney isn’t going to let a bunch of guests stay in the Castle all night without GR supervision. Someone is being paid to stay up all night and sit around in case the guests inside need anything—or try to escape.

Because every now and then, there is a call for a late-night snack. The guests inside will pick up the room phone, call the GR cast member, and ask for pretzels. Then the GR cast member has to go get them pretzels, acting as their own personal Magic Kingdom Castle room service.

I do know that there was one celebrity, a very well-known and famous singer, who somehow managed to get out of the Castle suite and down the elevator by himself in the morning. That GR cast member forgot to lock everything up behind them and stop the elevator from running. So this Grammy-winning singer got up, realized he was hungry, and he figured he could go get a snack himself. He left the room, got into the elevator, and traveled down to what he assumed was the ground floor of the Castle.

When he stepped off the elevator, he found himself in the kitchen for Cinderella’s Royal Table, and there were princesses standing nearby. They freaked out seeing this singer, and caused a little bit of a commotion. Because it’s not every day that someone manages to get out of the Castle.

The suite itself was relatively small—larger than your average hotel room, sure, but still small for what it was. It had two king-sized beds in the main chamber, and then a little sitting area off to the side with a pull-out couch. In total, the room could sleep six, but it was really meant for three to four people.

There were two windows in the suite: one looked over Fantasyland, the other looked over half of Liberty Square. The glass was completely frosted over, and included some stained glass, so while you could look out, it was next to impossible to look in. Of all the times I gazed up at the windows, I never once saw anyone looking back at me.

The space was filled with all your typical Disney touches, from pixie dust to illusions to princesses — especially Cinderella. But all in all, it was just a hotel room. I’ve come across better hotel rooms elsewhere on property, so I could never figure out what the fuss was all about. Sure, it was pretty and it sparkled and I get that it’s inside the Castle. But it’s still just a place to sleep at night.

My favorite part of the suite was the bathroom. That’s because it had a Jacuzzi tub inside, and if you climbed into it, and turned off the lights in the bathroom, you could turn on fiber optic stars above the tub. Not that I once climbed into the tub inside the Castle suite.

I only visited the suite maybe half a dozen times. I was never trained to work up there, so I never had a reason to head up to the Castle and visit it. The first time I went up there was for a quick tour. The second time I went up there, the Castle guide on duty said, “Hey, want to go out onto the Castle roof?”

And who was I to say, “No, please don’t take me out onto the Castle roof.”

We had to climb through a tiny little exit window up a small flight of stairs (the same stairs that Tinker Bell uses to climb to the top of the castle) and shimmy our way out onto the roof. The roof area overlooks Fantasyland, and I stood up there and stared down at Magic Kingdom for a while. Everything looked so tiny and small down below. It was fascinating. There are lots of people who cay say that they’ve walked through the castle, and many others who cay say they’ve had a princess dinner in the castle, but few have actually stood on the roof.

Also, if you’re inside the Castle suite while the fireworks are going off, everything shakes and it’s terrifying. If you accidentally open up one of the windows inside the Castle suite while the fireworks are going off, the fireworks automatically stop. So don’t open up any windows inside the suite. Don’t open up any of the windows up there,
ever
.

Once upon a time, Disney used to offer something called the Guest Assistant Card, or GAC for short. I lived through the worst of those days at Disney, and I was also there when the system changed over to the new assistant pass for guests with disabilities. Explaining this is an entire novel in itself.

The long and the short of it with GACs is that, bottom line, they were a FastPass. When a GAC was issued, I always had to ask, “What kind of assistance are you looking for?” and most guests would simply say, “I can’t wait in line.”

And then I’d say, “OK, well, why can’t you wait in line?”

And the guest would say something like, “I can’t stand in line for that long.”

And I’d sayo, “Well, OK, but this GAC isn’t really going to help you not stand.”

“Yes, but it will get me on the ride faster.”

“Yes, but it’s not a FastPass, so what kind of assistance are you looking for?”

“I can’t walk for long distances.”

“Well, the distance between attractions is actually farther than the distance from the beginning of the queue to the loading area for the ride.”

“Yeah, but I can’t stand in that.”

“But, WHY can’t you stand in that?”

“Because I don’t want to stand in that line.”

This would sometimes continue on for fifteen minutes. It was an endless circle of asking guests why they couldn’t wait in line, and having them tell me that they simply didn’t want to wait in line, and that was their disability.

For lots of instances, the GAC was great, such as for children with autism. The GAC did wonders for not only the kids, but their families, too. It made things a lot easier for everyone in that family, and many guests would come into City Hall at the end of the night, praising Disney for its help in getting through the park during the day.

The GAC worked wonders in other situations, as well. Guests who had some vision or hearing issues were given a GAC that allowed them to sit in the front of any theater or ride vehicle, so they could see and hear so much better. Guests with diabetes were given a pass that let them sit in the shade and out of the sun for the length of the queue. There were many things that made the GAC work smoothly for many guests. And then there were the guests who abused it.

These guests would come in and say that they couldn’t wait in line and needed a GAC, for a variety of excuses, like, “Oh, I hurt my back!”, or “Oh, I sprained my foot!” and I’d tell them to go get a wheelchair, since walking through the park would be worse than standing in a fifteen-minute line. A lot of these guests were teenagers who had heard through friends and family that if they told someone in Guest Relations that they “couldn’t wait in line”, they’d get the ultimate FastPass.

Yeah, sure, but if you come into Guest Relations with fifteen of your closest friends, all dressed in matching outfits, and tell me, in between smacking your gum, that your foot hurts and you need a GAC, I’m not going to give you one. It was an abuse of the system, and it made me sad, because there were guests out there who really needed the true benefits of the GAC, and because of these teenagers, they weren’t getting it.

Once, when I asked a woman why she needed a GAC, she told me it was because she was pregnant, and without missing a beat I bluntly told her, “Then you really shouldn’t be riding any rides.” The coordinator, Monica, behind me yelled, “THAT IS A GIFT, NOT A DISABILITY.” She did not get a GAC.

There was also the woman who came in, already fuming, and demanded a GAC. I asked her why. She gave me the usual “I can’t wait in line” excuse. I asked why.

“I just can’t wait in line, the lines are too long and it’s giving me a headache.”

“Well, have you heard of the FastPass system? It alleviates most of your wait time, and it makes your day so much easier—” I began, but she cut me off.

“I don’t want your shitty FastPasses, I want the GAC so I don’t have to wait in any line,” the woman spat back. “I’m not waiting 40 minutes to ride Winnie the Pooh. My kid is crying in that line. We don’t want to wait 40 minutes.”

“Ma’am, If I had to wait 40 minutes in the Winnie the Pooh line, I’d cry, too,” I told her, without really thinking my words through. The woman slammed her fist down on the City Hall counter and stormed out.

Then there was the woman who told me she was allergic to gravity.

It was the middle of the afternoon and I was sitting at the window. No one was coming into the park, and there were too many cast members hanging around. No one was getting Ers (early releases), either, so it was a surplus of Guest Relations cast members doing nothing. I was fooling around on the computer in front of me.

A guest appeared at my window. I leaned forward. “Hi, how can I help you?” I asked, all perky and happy.

“I need one of those passes.” She pulled a folder out of her backpack and laid it down on the window counter outside. “I have a medical condition.”

Sometimes guests brought doctor’s notes to give us, to prove that they needed a GAC. I really didn’t need to see that, since I (most of the time) believed them. I could see her leafing through papers, clearly looking for one.

“I don’t need to see any doctor’s note, don’t worry. What kind of assistance can I prove you with?” I had a feeling I was about to get one of the token “I can’t wait in lines” responses.

“I can’t wait in lines,” the woman said, and it was like, AH HA.

“So what kind of assistance can I give to help you out?”

“I just can’t wait in lines,” she said again. “I can’t stand for very long.”

“Oh, have you thought about a wheelchair?”

“It’s just me, so there’s no one to push it.”

“You can always consider one of our electronic scooters, which you can drive yourself. Would that work? Then you don’t have to stand in any lines, you can sit!”

“I can’t sit for very long, either.”

“Oh. So, what can I do to help you?”

“I need one of those passes, OK? Whatever it’s called. I need it.”

“Yes, I understand that, I just need to know what kind of service I can provide you with the pass. Like, do you need a shaded wait area or a hearing device?”

“I am allergic to gravity and I can’t stand in line.”

“What!?” I probably shouldn’t have said
what!?
, but that’s what I said, because I was literally like,
what!?

“I have Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome and there have been studies in medical magazines about me, and I can’t stand for very long, and I can’t sit for very long, because all the blood in my body pools downwards.”

“Oh.” That was actually way more information than I needed. “OK, so you can’t walk or stand for very long? I’d still suggest a wheelchair.”

“I don’t even want to ride any rides. I just want to go in and see everything, take it all in, and then leave. Do you have a two-hour pass?” By this point, others in the window had started eavesdropping on my conversation. Everyone suddenly became very interested in my conversation with this woman.

She slid a magazine through the window. “You can read about me here.”

I didn’t really want to read a magazine, but I thought it would be impolite to push it away. I glanced down at it quickly, and the woman on the two-page spread matched the woman standing in front of me.

Or, she was standing in front of me, but suddenly she ducked down beneath the window and disappeared.

“Ma’am? Ma’am!?” I yelled a little bit louder, leaning out of my chair.

“I think she’s sitting down,” the girl in the window next to me said, leaning forward, too. “Oh, no, wait, she’s lying down on the ground.”

“What!?” I jumped out of my chair and hoisted myself up to look out the window and peer down. All I could see were her feet, sticking straight out in front of her. There were other guests standing in the window line at this point, all looking down at the ground.

“Do you want me to check on her?” someone else yelled from the other side of the room.

“Um, yeah, could you?” I looked over as Christopher ducked out of the window. I watched him walk past each window, until he got to mine. That’s when he bent down. I couldn’t hear his conversation, but he stood up a minuet later.

“She’s resting,” he told me, as if, duh, of course she’s just resting on the ground outside my window.

“Does she need anything? Water?”

“No, she says she’ll be fine, she just needs a few moments to relax,” he told me, after asking her those questions. Christopher looked back up at me and shrugged.

I started writing up the GAC for her, because at this point I was willing to give this woman whatever she wanted. I’d make her Grand Marshal in the parade if I needed to.

Christopher awkwardly stood outside right next to her for a few minutes, while she gathered her bearings. When she finally stood back up, it was more of a crouched kneel, never making it fully upright.

“Do you want me to call a medic for you?”