Would You Like Magic with That?: Working at Walt Disney World Guest Relations (10 page)

Arriving on the Magic Kingdom level, I’d walk outside. I was still a good hundred yards away from City Hall. I needed to walk through a sad looking backstage parking lot, round a corner, and then I could actually see City Hall.

This route would take me by the Firehouse gate. You know, the big gate next to the Firehouse where the parade usually begins at the start of the day (or exits, if it’s on a reversed route). I needed to cross behind this gate, so I had to time my walk to City Hall perfectly. If there was a parade going on, I couldn’t cross over to the other side. At all. I would be yelled at by a thousand parade cast members and their managers for not upholding “safety” and for screwing up their show. So, if I had a shift that started at 3pm, I had to already be standing inside City Hall by 2:45, or I wasn’t making it to work on time. The parade took about 20 minutes to fully make it onto Main Street, and I’d just be standing there, waiting, for it to go.

Sometimes, I would be running late. I’d make it to Magic Kingdom at 2:35, and I knew I needed to run as fast as I possibly could, through the tunnel, up some stairs, and across the parade route before I was cut off. It didn’t count that I was
in
Magic Kingdom at the start of my shift if I wasn’t physically
in
the building.

There was one time I was late. I was really late. I was with my friend Lindsay — who was my best friend in Guest Relations — and we got to the park early enough one day and wanted to grab lunch there. We went to Pecos Bill’s, not thinking it would take too long and it didn’t. But making it back to Main Street took awhile and we needed to change. 3pm was quickly approaching, and there was no way we were making it over the parade route before it stepped out.

We ended up changing in the Main Street breakroom bathroom (which was actually a huge no-no) and then we tried to race the parade before it started. We didn’t make it. So what we did instead was run all the way across the backstage parking lot, exit on stage next to Crystal Palace, run across the street to the other side, run backstage behind the Plaza Restaurant, run across
that
backstage parking lot through Tomorrowland, enter back on stage at the Tony’s gate, run around the flag pole hub to the other side, through the backstage entrance next to Package Pick-up, and
then
made it to City Hall. Somehow we made it on time. But it was a struggle, and also we were now pretty disgusting having run up and down the street.

Once inside City Hall, I could clock in.

The first floor had the main lobby area, of course, that took up a majority of the building. Behind that was the aforementioned VIP Room. Behind that, the Bank Out Room and two bathrooms. Then there was a staircase that led up to the second floor. All the buildings on Main Street actually have a second floor. They’re used for offices and storage spaces, but they’re nothing too exciting. As a kid I always used to think about what it must be like to have a little space on the second floor of Main Street. Would I be able to look out the window and peer down at everyone standing outside? Could I wave to little kids? Would it be distracting hearing a parade every single day?

Truth is, none of the second floors look out onto Main Street. There are big wooden boards separating the windows from the offices just so people can’t look out. It’s kind of upsetting. But then again, having people staring down from the windows all day would be distracting for guests, and might take away some of that turn-of-the-centaury magic. Can you imagine looking up into a window above the Emporium and seeing someone on their cell phone?

The second floor of City Hall has office for all the Main Street and Guest Relations managers. There’s also a tiny, tiny break room that is really only supposed to fit maybe ten people inside of it, and sometimes it’d be jam packed with twenty or thirty. But, no one wanted to give Guest Relations a larger break area. There were also fridges upstairs, too, but they were disgusting. The theme is that everyone out in the park is nice and clean because cast members are paid to keep it clean. Backstage, cast members are not paid to keep it clean, so no one cares how long stuff has been molding in a refrigerator.

After I had gotten all settled in for the day, it was time to go to work.

I’d clock in, and then I needed to “get an assignment”. Guest Relations isn’t like all the other locations in the parks. There are no set points where cast members have to stand, such as at greeter, or merger, or load. Instead, I’d get assignments like, “go stand out on the counter”. Sometimes I’d get assignments that were like, “go give Susie her break, and then stand on the counter”. That’s all we ever did in Guest Relations. We stood at the counter, waiting for guests to come in so we could help them.

The counter in City Hall is pretty big. It spans the entire length of the room, one side to another. Last I was there, there were six computers along the desk that we could use, and then two computers behind the big counter, kind of tucked away to the side. Guests would come in, they’d say they want dining reservations, and I could easily jump onto a computer and do that for them. I could upgrade tickets, I could check hotel reservations, I could check weather and other things in the Ccentral Florida area. I never knew what a guest was going to ask.

That would go on for the first two hours of my shift. Then I’d get a break. I’d come back. More standing.

Then, sometimes, I’d be sent out to the tip board.

Mind you, this was back before smart phones really took off, and before everyone was always staring at their phone. When I was in Guest Relations, there was no My Disney Experience app. You couldn’t book FastPasses ahead of time. If you wanted a FastPass, you had to walk to the attraction and get a FastPass.

The tip board was there for wait times, pre-smart phones. The tip board actually had its own Blackberry phone that would receive updated wait times every half hour. Sometimes the entire message wouldn’t come in. Sometimes no message would come. Sometimes you’d just guess the wait time for attractions, which is what I did a majority of the time. I never let Peter Pan’s Flight dip below 75 minutes, because that seemed reasonable. I was also supposed to keep track of downtimes, and physically change the placards on the tip board to say stuff like “SPLASH MOUNTAIN IS DOWN”. But those messages never came in either, and guests were always coming back to me, saying that they had walked all the way to Splash Mountain just to find it closed.

Disney probably rolled out the Disney Experience app just because I singlehandedly sucked at updating the tip board with relevant information.

Being out at the tip board was the worst. Don’t take my word for it, though. If you want to experience what it’s like being out at the tip board, just stand somewhere in Magic Kingdom. Doesn’t matter where; just make sure it is in direct sunlight at all times. Also, wear a giant nametag on your chest, and a golden D pin that suggests you know the answers to
everything
. Look friendly and approachable, so everyone wants to talk to you and ask you questions, preferably all at the same time, sometimes in languages you don’t speak. Oh, and make sure that there is at least one guest yelling at you about height restrictions or dining options, because that’s a must. Are you still standing in direct sunlight? Good. And now there’s a parade coming so there are five billion people standing in your personal space and also it is so goddamn hot and you have run out of water and might pass out? Yeah, that’s what it was like being at the tip board.

The tip board was themed to Main Street, U.S.A., so that meant that it couldn’t have “shade control”. The tip board at Epcot has fans. Studios even has an AC unit in their tiny little tip board location. So could Magic Kingdom get those fancy things? Nope. The managers tried repeatedly to get some sort of umbrella for us to stand underneath at the tip board, but the VP of Magic Kingdom refused every time. It broke the “theme”. He finally caved and gave us a giant circular tree that we could sort of stand under to shield ourselves from the sun. But the fun thing about the sun is that it moves, and we only got a little bit of shade in the morning. By afternoon, the sun had moved, and so had the shade, and we were left out there to slowly melt.

The rule was that we could only be out at the tip board for a half hour at a time, which is the same rule that character performers have for standing outside. However, while characters don’t have to go out while it’s raining, we still had to. The only time we could leave the tip board was if it was thundering and lightning. If the weather wasn’t that bad, we had to stay out there.

But still, no giant umbrella to stand underneath. No umbrella to even
hold
out at the tip board. It was miserable.

Whenever I was tasked to go to the tip board, I begged to get out of it. I tried to get another cast member to switch with me so I wouldn’t have to go. If you had done something to piss off a coordinator during the day, sometimes they’d make you go to the tip board twice, which was a terrible punishment.

Even worse, sometimes you’d get out to the tip board and do your required half hour, and then you’d wait. And wait some more. And keep on waiting until someone else would come to bump you out of the position. Sometimes that could take forty-five minutes or an hour. Cast members would literally forget to go to the tip board, or they’d get pulled into a guest situation they couldn’t get out of. So that half hour at the tip board suddenly turned into an hour, and once again, you’d melt.

Lunch for Guest Relations was a half hour. Some people would walk to the Mouse, but I never did. It took too much time and I wanted to sit and relax, not walk the entire length of the park.

After lunch, I’d return to the counter, and this is when I’d really start to feel the day drag on. Eight hours can be long if you’re standing in one spot the whole time, and even longer when it feels like every single guest who walks through the door is there to yell at you.

Along with the counter, there was also the button cart. The button car is exactly what you think it is. It is a cart full of the celebration buttons. Standing there is almost as awful as standing at the tip board, but a little bit better because you’re in the shade and usually you have someone to talk to.

But once again don’t take my word for it. Imagine this: a little girl comes up and tells you that it’s her birthday. So you grab a birthday button, lean down, and ask, “What’s your name, Princess?” and she tells you. You start to write her name. And then an entire tour group of non-English speaking guests rush the button cart, all yelling and grabbing and pushing each other, and suddenly you and the little girl get lost in them. These non-English speaking guests start pushing buttons at you, pointing at your sharpie pen and the button, the universal sign for “WRITE MY NAME”. But they don’t speak English so you can’t explain to them that you’re trying to help the little birthday girl, who is now just completely lost in this melee. You step aside for a second, go back to the little girl, and then a snotty couple approaches you and politely demands two “Just Engaged” buttons. Those buttons are hidden, so not everyone can just grab them (because those buttons are pink, and little girls like pink, and if they were left out for the taking all the little girls in the park would be wearing Just Engaged buttons).

Anyway. You tell the couple that you’re helping someone else at the moment, and then they spit back that they’re already late for their reservation at Cinderella’s Royal Table (because all Just Engaged couples actually eat there; it’s a fact), so they need their buttons now or the princesses won’t give them the time of day. This is five minutes of your time out at the button cart. It was always that chaotic. One cast member once told me that I was the button “guardian” not the button “keeper”, so it shouldn’t bother me that guests would literally grab handfuls of the buttons before shoving them into their backpacks.

Time would move slowly some days, and other days it would speed right by. About forty-five minutes before it was time for me to clock out, I’d get “bumped”. That meant I could grab my cash till, walk to the Bank Out Room, and sort my money. I put it in a big bag, and then I put it in another big bag, and then I locked it up tight.

I’d gather my things, leave with the other cast members clocking out at the same time that I was, and the group of us would walk underneath Magic Kingdom back to the RCC. We’d deposit our money there. We’d clock out. And then we’d get on the bus to go home for the day.

Have you heard about that secret, underground tunnel at Magic Kingdom? It’s like a real working city down there! Cast Members eat down there, they live down there, everything is controlled down there, and it’s like a fascinating functioning basement for the Most Magical Place on Earth.

Except, none of that is really true.

The tunnel — or, Utilidor — is not an underground tunnel. The Utilidor is the first floor of Magic Kingdom. It could
not
be the basement of Magic Kingdom, because this is Florida we’re talking about. If you dig down into the ground, what are you going to hit? Water. So if the Utilidor were a true basement, or underground tunnel, then all the cast members down there would be wading through about four feet of water every single day.

Walt visited the Magic Kingdom property a few times before he died, and he had a grand vision for how he wanted the land used. He designated the area for Magic Kingdom, but it was a swamp. So, the nice construction crews working on Disney World in the late 1960s needed to make it not-a-swamp. They took the dirt from the man-made Seven Seas Lagoon and brought it to the swamp and made the whole area usable. The Utilidor was built on top of this old swampland.

The Utilidor is not technically underground. It was built first, and then the dirt from the Seven Seas Lagoon was brought in to fill around its walls, so I can clearly see why many assume that it’s underground when you look at construction pictures of the Magic Kingdom. But it’s not, and I can’t stress that enough. The Utilidor is the first floor of Magic Kingdom, and everything else was built on top of it.