Story Time!

Hello world! I’m alive-ish and have time where I am not sleeping or out to write a post. YAY!!!! I know, I know; you’re welcome ;-) hahaha. Anyways, at the moment it is 7 a.m. and I need to be on the 9:13 bus to Magic Kingdom. However, I am doing laundry; let me share with you a lesson that I have learned: do your laundry on your days off. No, I’m serious do it! Because then you don’t have to wake up and do laundry in the morning 2 hours before work before a 14 hour shift, and following another 14 hour shift that got you home at 1:30 in the morning. Okay rant over!

The point of this little post was to share a few guest stories! So gather around my friends because it is story time! Let’s start with missing children; I used to think that I would never have to deal with the issue of a missing child because there were so many of us cast members that someone would find before me. Yeah, I was wrong about that. Just yesterday, I had two different cases of missing kids: the first was really only an alert. It was still the first 10 minutes after this dad lost his daughter, but he found her almost immediately after he notified me. The second child was a more serious situation, a little girl found a mom who then found us (yay for parents teaching their children what to do!!!) and let us know that she was lost. We took her aside and one of my coworkers called for a leader while I took care of her. She was one of the sweetest little girls ever and she just kept crying, so she got lots of stickers from me… I asked her what her mom’s name was, her favorite color and princesses, if she liked Magic Kingdom, etc. Thankfully the mom saw me with her and everything turned out fine. Missing children, a.k.a lost parents, can be difficult because you don’t want to freak out, but you kind of are inside, yet you have to stay calm on stage.

Anyways, more stories! Ummm… there was a guy sleeping on a bench behind the castle, and we were setting up for Wishes. Well he had been there for at least a good half hour, and I was doing strollers at Castle Couture, so I was just standing by him. And, all of my coordinators and coworkers kept asking me if he was dead, and I honestly could not tell for sure. I thought he kept moving but I didn’t know if he truly did or not. But I have yet to hear anything about him being dead or what not, so I’m taking that as a good sign!

Okay, just to keep you guys on track, I started this post 3 days ago and I am now coming back to it because I have time to do so! Anyways, this is one of my all-time favorite things that have happened to me at work and it just occurred yesterday. I just got off my break yesterday, went to CDS and pulled Carrousel rotation. Most everyone hates the Carrousel because you usually work it alone, nobody listens, and it’s an extremely difficult safety position that you are in charge of and always at fault for. So I pulled rotation and went to the Carrousel, well of course one of the trainers is doing an assessment with a new cast member, which he just ended. I then take over the operator position, and thankfully I had a grouper or else I would have been even more stressed out. So I do the safety check for my first cycle and start the ride. A few seconds later I notice a guy is standing outside the boundary, so I tell him he needs to stand inside. The carrousel does one more rotation and I see that he didn’t move, so I have to ride stop the carrousel. It was just short enough where we were going to try and keep everyone on the carrousel and do another cycle. Guests were just not having it so I’m running behind guests are confused and everything is just going wrong. Finally, I get everyone off and start a new cycle with new guests, well guess what. Another guest is standing outside the boundary! I do the whole spiel, they don’t hear me, and then I need to ride stop it AGAIN! Twice in a row guys, that is no bueno. At this point I’m stressed out, and I have lost my voice so I’m trying to tell people to exit the carrousel and they are laughing at me because my voice keeps cracking, it was great… Now to the good part! I start a new cycle with new rule obeying guests! And I’m watching the monitors and guests’ making sure everything is going smoothly, then I hear a voice over my shoulder and I look behind me and there is a little princess dressed as Belle! She had just been to BBB that day because her hair was fresh and her dress was still clean. She then puts her hand up with a bunch of flowers, and says, “Hi! I just wanted to give you these, they are for you”! Guys I just about started crying. I was having such a terrible time and this little princess made it all completely worth it. She is why I am here in Disney, making magic for guests and I wish that more of them knew how magical they make it for the cast members as well!

So those are just a few of my guest stories. I am just ending a 60 hour work week, consisting of three 14 hour days, and today is my ‘Friday’. I miss sleep and I know we will get along quite well when I reach my bed tonight. Okay lovely’s until next time, have a philharmagical day!!!