Would You Like Magic with That?: Working at Walt Disney World Guest Relations (19 page)

The tour starts at Package Pickup, right next to City Hall. From there, the first clue is about Bolt — and guess what? Kids don’t really like Bolt, as we learned the hard way again and again. Kids would say, “Who is Bolt?” And I’d have to be tell them, “He’s a dog, but he also thinks he’s a superhero.” It was easier at this point to just tell kids where the first clue was located, because they were never going to get it.

First clue, the tour was off to a rocky start.

From there, the next clue led us down Center Street, to a puzzle that needed to be assembled so we could find the Ellie Badge from
Up
. Yes, it really was an actual puzzle that we had to assemble with little kids, all of whom were mumbling, “Why are we assembling a puzzle on Main Street?” Because it’s part of the tour, kid.

This clue led us to the Partner Statue right in front of the Castle. Except, that’s not where we were supposed to go. We were
really
supposed to go over to that tiny little shack next to the Liberty Square Bridge, but kids didn’t get that. This was usually when I had to whisper, “I’m pretty sure it’s over here,
wink wink nudge nudge
!”

This clue — which was a small cast-iron frying pan, for Rapunzel, of course, and weighed roughly ten pounds — took us over to Jungle Cruise, or the bushes directly next to Jungle Cruise. The fun thing about this area is that while there was a small nook in the bushes to place the clue, there was also a great big box on the ground that read RAT POISON: DO NOT TOUCH. Without fail, every single tour, some kid tried to grab the rat poison and I’d yell, “NOOOOOOOO!”

From Jungle Cruise, we doubled back a little bit and made our way through Frontierland to Liberty Tree Tavern. There are giant pots outside, and that’s where the next clue was hidden. This clue usually took a very long time, since no one really wants to go rummaging around in the giant pots outside of Liberty Tree Tavern.

Once this clue had been located, we walked, nay,
ran
to Fantasyland. The clue there was hidden inside the giant, plastic beanstalk outside of Sir Mickey’s. I used to joke that someone was going to have to “climb the beanstalk” and then one kid actually did “climb the beanstalk” and it turned into a whole safety incident, so I no longer suggested that one kid was going to have to volunteer to “climb the beanstalk”.

The clue inside of the beanstalk, a set of keys, led us over to Winnie the Pooh. We were supposed to be looking for Lightning McQueen’s racing flag, but
oh no
, it was nowhere to be found!

Another tour guide — a “spare” tour guide — was standing off to the side a little bit, holding the flag. But, they couldn’t place the flag out for us just yet. We were here to ride Winnie the Pooh, but no one grasped that concept. The kids were always so focused on finding the next clue and no one ever wanted to ride the ride. Well, the parents wanted to ride, and it was often a struggle trying to coax the children onto Winnie the Pooh.

I’d say, “We can look through the queue line for the clue! Which line should we look in first? The really
looooooong
one, or the short one?” Without fail, some kid always suggested that we get into the longer line and I wanted to shut him down with, “No, kid, we are going through FastPass.”

So me, and sometimes twenty of my closest friends on the Family Magic tour, all piled into the FastPass queue to wave our way through. The kids would quickly realize that we were going to ride the ride, and would then fight over who got to sit with me. Sometimes, all the kids sat with me, and I’d ride in a honeypot with five small children. Sometimes, none of the kids wanted to ride with me, and I took this as an out to go stand in the air-conditioned merchandise shop for ten minutes and wait for them.

While we were on the ride, the spare tour guide would go and plant the Lightning McQueen flat outside the queue. Then, when we exited, SURPRISE, what would we find? The flag.

The flag would then take us next to the Cheshire Café. Know that little café nestled between the Teacups and Cosmic Rays and the Princess meet and greet? It’s a tiny little quick-service stand, and next to that is an unattended alcove. I have no idea what the space was originally used for, but for Family Magic, we used it as a meet-and-greet location.

I’d usher them in, and they’d say, “What are we doing here, this isn’t a ride or a bathroom!” and then SUPRPRISE, Peter Pan would pop out! He’d play a quick tossing game with the kids, pose for pictures, and then disappear back into Fantasyland.

My favorites were the days when Peter either called out sick, or something went wrong, and he couldn’t make it to the meet and greet. Entertainment didn’t want to leave us hanging, so they’d send another character in Peter’s place. On those days, I’d turn the corner and have to improvise: “Tigger, what are you doing here?” And since Tigger couldn’t exactly say that Peter Pan had called in sick, he’d just nod his head and give me a big thumbs up.

One time I turned the corner and I had to say, “Belle, what are you dong here?” because for some strange reason, Entertainment had sent Belle in her golden dress, and it was really awkward for everyone. I mean, the kids loved it, because… Belle! But poor Belle usually wasn’at pleased with the assignment, and would say [in a princess voice], “What do you mean you’re on a scavenger hunt?”

After leaving the meet and greet, we walked over to the DVC Kiosk, where we picked up a stuffed Duffy. From there, over to the FastPass area for Buzz Lightyear.

Now here, I was supposed to start a giant game of follow the leader for these kids. Sometimes I did it. Other times I thought to myself,
It is too hot to pretend to be a penguin/dinosaur/robot here in Magic Kingdom right now, and I’d skip follow the leader.
No one ever
knew
I was skipping follow the leader, so it was fine.

Sorry to all those Family Magic tours where I skipped follow the leader.

This follow-the-leader game (whether I played it or not) led us to the tip board. By this time, it was around 11:30am, and the sun was out and it was HOT. There is no shade at the tip board, and the group and I stood there, reading the next clue in direct sun. This clue brought us back down Main Street, to the Confectionery.

Two huge problems here. For one, it was 11:30 in the morning, and it was crowded in the park. On top of that, there was usually a small mini-parade going on, so Main Street was always ridiculously crowded, and there was no way to easily maneuver everyone through the throngs of people. I would just plow right ahead and hope that everyone else followed along behind me.

And two, the Family Magic tour created a
literal
kids-in-a-candy store situation. I sometimes had fifteen kids with me, all excited, all running and laughing and jumping around, and then I was like, “HEY KIDS, let’s go into this candy store, because what could possibly go wrong?” Without fail every single time, I lost a kid. And then I had to spend anywhere from five to fifteen minutes trying to find this MIA kid, who had usually wandered over into the Chapeau.

After I had gathered up all my children, it was time for the last clue at the last location, which brought us over to the Mickey meet and greet. Which was usually fine, except for the days when the queue was backed up, and instead of waiting five minutes to meet Mickey, we waited twenty.

The last clue for Family Magic read: “Time to bring all these things back to the boss.” And the boss is Mickey. Kids always wanted to hold specific items that we had picked up, like the Duffy or the frying pan, and hand them to Mickey themselves. Sometimes this was fine. Other times we got a Mickey who had no idea what was going on, and couldn’t understand why he was being handed a frying pan by some little kid who was going, “Mickey, we found your frying pan!”

Hugs, autographs, pictures, and we were out.

This was the end of the tour. I’d gather everyone outside and say, “Oh my gosh, you guys, thank you so much for helping me find all this stuff! I couldn’t have done it without you! Now I’ve got a busy day ahead of me, because I’ve got to sort through everything here and return it back to their owners! I’m going to head over to Mickey’s office and do this now, so I hope you all have a wonderful day here in the Magic Kingdom! Bye!” And I’d try and walk away, because there wasn’t anything else left to do for the tour.

“Can we come with you?” a little kid would ask.

“Oh, no, I’ve got so much boring paperwork to do for these lost items. You don’t want to come with me. You want to go ride some rides!”

This was the most awkward part of the tour. The goodbye. There wasn’t really a flow to it, and no real proper way to do it, and it would happen so fast. I’d just say bye and walk away. There wasn’t anything else to say, the tour was done. It was set to be a short, two-hour tour, in and out through the Magic Kingdom, and that was it.

By this time the parents would be ready to bail, since they were hot and sweaty and wanted something to eat. So they’d grab little Sally and Billy by the hand, and lead them away from me and into the Magic Kingdom. That was it.

Seems easy enough, right?

Wrong.

If something was going to go wrong, it was going to happen on a Family Magic tour.

If it rained, it was the only tour that might be canceled. It was simply because of the children involved. We didn’t want to deal with having children out in thunder and lightning storms on one of the tours, so if the weather looked bad, we’d cancel the whole thing and give everyone back their money. It happened a few times.

There were also a few times where no one showed up for the tour, and I packed up all of my tour stuff and started putting it away, and then at 10:20 the family would come rushing in, breathlessly asking if they were too late. Yes, they were too late.

One time, there was a huge mix-up with the tour, and it had been booked by a group of cast members as a “bonding experience”. There were fifteen cast members in the group… and then I still had a family of four booked as well. So nineteen altogether, and most of them thought they were going on an actual scavenger hunt of the park, but without a four and a five year old. I started out that tour with nineteen, and by the time it was over, I only had four left. The family. The cast members slowly trickled off as I walked through the park.

Another time, someone not on the tour happened to discover one of the clues. So they did the entire scavenger hunt ahead of me, and ahead of the tour, and as we walked through the park, there was nothing for us to find.

The best thing that ever happened to me was one day when I turned the corner toward Winnie the Pooh and noticed that it was down. We couldn’t ride it. But I had been running through the park with the kids so quickly, I needed to kill fifteen minutes before Peter Pan arrived and we had to do
something
. I turned to my group and I said, “Anyone want to ride Barnstormer?” Everyone said yes, of course.

So my Family Magic tour and I went to go ride Barnstormer, and the spare tour guide that day was FURIOUS since he had no idea what to do, since we were riding Barnstormer. I remember him giving me the “cut it out” hand signal as I walked away from Pooh and into Storybook Circus, but I clearly didn’t care to please him that day. Barnstormer had no idea what to do with the Family Magic tour, either, and gave us our own vehicle.

I was yelled at for a solid week about the Barnstormer incident. A memo was sent out to all Family Magic tour guides, explicitly stating that no one was ever allowed to ride Barnstormer. Ever.

A lot of stuff at Disney is just about timing. How long it’ll take you to get to work. How long you’ll end up working for a shift. How long it’ll take you to get home. But maybe the most important of these things is, how long will I have for lunch?

Unless you’re a performer/character, the rules for breaks are as follows. If you work less than a six-hour shift, no break. If you work a six-hour shift, you get one 15-minute break. If you work longer than a six hour shift, you get a 15-minute break and a 30-minute unpaid lunch. As soon as you hit eight hours, then that becomes two 15-minute breaks and one 30-minute unpaid lunch. At ten hours, you get two lunches and two breaks, and so on and so forth.

In Guest Relations, we got a 45-minute lunch. It was described to me that this was because we had to walk so far to get something to eat. Walking from City Hall to the Mouse was going to take ten minutes, if not longer. And then take into account the fact that you’ve got to wait for your hot food, and then pay for it, and then eat it, and still walk back within 45 minutes. While 45 minutes might seem like a lot of time, really it wasn’t enough.

There was a smaller hot grill closer to City Hall, hidden away in the Tomorrowland backstage parking lot. It was called the Bistro. Or, the Backstage Bistro. It didn’t hold the same hours as the Mouse, since it was smaller and only meant for Main Street and Tomorrowland cast members. Most days, it was open from 9am to 5pm. Then of course on the weekends, it was closed, since all Guest Relations cast members got the weekend off, too.

(That was sarcastic.)

The Bistro was a lot easier to get to than the Mouse, so if I hadn’t brought a lunch and wanted something to eat, I’d go there. I just had to leave City Hall, walk across Main Street, duck backstage, and there I was. It usually wasn’t too crowded, and there were tables inside where I could sit. I spent a good majority of my money on Texas-toast grilled cheese and French fries from the Bistro, because it was the cheapest thing to buy, and also the quickest thing to make. I didn’t have time to wait for someone to cook me a hamburger. Also, the hamburgers at the Bistro frightened me, so I really didn’t want to eat one.

There were some days where I would happily sit in the Bistro, all alone, and eat my grilled cheese. However, sometimes there were days when I couldn’t find a table, let alone a single seat, so I had to leave. I’d take my little Bistro to-go box, head back across the street to City Hall, and sit in the break room there.

There was one other place I could go and sit, but I dreaded having to do so. You might think Guest Relations is full of all sorts of glitz and glamor, and while somedays it is, other days you find yourself sitting all alone in a metal folding chair in a 4x3 tiny alcove behind the window, which I properly dubbed “the break closet”.