Would You Like Magic with That?: Working at Walt Disney World Guest Relations (25 page)

“I’m fine. I just need a GAC.”

I slid it toward her — since I had gotten her full name from the magazine she had slid to me — and pointed at the big read arrow on it. “This will alleviate your wait time, but you will still be walking, standing, and waiting in line. There’s nothing I can do about that.”

“I still have to wait in line?”

“There’s no way to get rid of all wait times.”

“I was told that I could come down here and get a pass so I wouldn’t have to wait in line for anything.”

“That’s unfortunately incorrect information, and you will have to wait. This will help a lot, but there’ll still be a short wait, maybe five, ten minutes?”

“I can’t do that,” She said, before disappearing below the window again. She lay down, and I could see her outstretched feet. Christopher jumped to attention again and went rushing outside.

This went back and forth for about another twenty minutes. She would sit up, say a few words to me, and then lay back down on the ground. Others in the window started Googling the medical condition she had, and we read all sorts of fun facts about it. So yeah, this woman needed a GAC. But there’s no such thing as a front-of-the-line pass. She refused to believe that, however, and argued with me on and on until finally she took her one day ticket and left.

Then an hour later, she showed back up at my window. Well, first she lay down on the ground, and Christopher went running back outside, this time with a bottle of water. She told me the park was too stressful for her to handle, and wanted a refund. I issued her a refund, and she left.

At the end of my Keys tour, I always used to ask guests if they had any more questions. Even though I covered basically everything they could ever want to ask (and then some), I knew that a few in the group would have these burning questions that had maybe been stewing over the entire tour, or maybe their whole lives.

While the group and I were still backstage, I used to say, “This is your last chance, we’re backstage, and I’ll answer and talk about whatever you want.” Sometimes no one had any questions. Sometimes everyone had questions. This is the best question I was ever asked.

It was an older woman, maybe late 50s or so. She had been relatively quiet the entire tour, which was fine, and normal. I didn’t think anything of it. When I asked for questions, her hand was the first one that shot up.

“Where’s the Disney maternity ward?” she asked.

“What?” I replied, not sure I had heard the question correctly.

“The Disney maternity ward.”

“What?”

“Disney maternity! Where do the cast members have babies?”

I looked square at this woman. She was serious. She wanted to know where babies are born at Disney World. The correct answer is, “Um, they’re not, because they’re born at, like, Celebration Hospital?”

But I didn’t feel like saying that today. Instead I told her:

“Disney maternity is housed over in the Odyssey building at Epcot. You know, that place between Test Track and Mexico?”

“Thanks!” the woman called back, and I decided that there were no more questions for today’s tour and walked my group back into the park.

So if you’re that one random guest who asked me about Disney maternity on a Keys tour a few years ago, I’m sorry I lied to you. There is no Disney maternity ward at Epcot. I made it up.

I still wanted to do more in Guest Relations.

I applied for a few more inner-GR positions. The first one I was told I “hadn’t been in the area long enough” to take the position, since I needed to be familiar with every aspect of GR. The girl they ended up giving the spot to had only been in GR for about six months.

Another inner-GR position I applied for made me go through a panel interview with the managers, and a written test. In the end, I was told that I “just wasn’t ready” and should maybe “try again in 6 months”. I asked for feedback about my interview and performance, and I never got it. So I still don’t really know what I did wrong there.

At one point I was also told I needed to “work on my communication skills”. But in the next breath the manager reassured me that I was “perfectly approachable and very friendly”. I asked what kind of communication skills I needed to work on, and I was told, “written”. And I was like [long silence].

The best one, though, was when I auditioned for another tour at Magic Kingdom. I realized I loved the tours, and I wanted to do more of them. I learned a new spiel, I got up in front of the mangers and the tour admin, Jennifer, and I did my thing. I wowed them. They loved me.

However, a week later I got a call from one of the managers informing me that I wasn’t ready for the tour. I asked why.

The manager on the other end of the phone said very calmly, “We don’t think you care about Walt Disney enough.”

Me, being me, I said without even thinking, “But he’s dead, it’s not like I’m going to take him out to lunch anytime soon.”

It was at this point that I realized that inner-GR promotions weren’t really based on knowledge, or time in the area, or eve how much I cared about the park. It was all strictly political in Disney’s eyes, and they were going to promote the people who sucked up the most. It happens. I just never thought it would actually happen at Disney.

And for the record, I care about Walt Disney
a lot
.

Annie Salisbury spent 1,164 days at The Walt Disney World Resort and probably ate about 7,000+ corn dog nuggets from Casey’s Corner in the Magic Kingdom. In contrast, she has never eaten a turkey leg. Her favorite attraction always has been, and always will be, The Haunted Mansion. She still remembers what it was like before the invention of FastPass, and thinks of that time as the good old days.

She has a fancy degree in Film & Television and looks forward to using it one day. She currently lives in Massachusetts with her family, where she is enjoying her newly earned non-Disney Look freedom. Annie would like to thank her fishy, her buddy, her princess, and Scotty.

She is the author of
The Ride Delegate
and
Murder in the Magic Kingdom
, both available from Theme Park Press.

Theme Park Press publishes dozens of books each year for Disney fans and for general and academic audiences. Here are just a few of our titles. For the complete catalog, including book descriptions and excerpts, please visit:

ThemeParkPress.com

Disney World for the 1%. The rich and famous experience Disney World differently from the rest of us: they're escorted by VIP tour guides, elite Cast Members who truly do hold the keys to the kingdom. Come meet the eccentric, outrageous guests who turned former VIP tour guide Annie Salisbury's life into a reality show.

Who's Killing Cast Members? In this debut novel by former Disney World VIP Tour Guide Annie Salisbury, a body has turned up in the waters of the Jungle Cruise and Disney wants to pin the murder on Cast Member Josh Bates. With security closing in, Josh must race through the theme parks to solve the murderer's maddening riddles and clear his name.

My Boss, Mickey Mouse. Come read Amber Sewell's Disney College Program diary and share her successes and her failures, her moments of delight and her moments of despair, and learn what happens when the pixie dust settles and the guests have gone home.

The Rosetta Stone of Disney Magic. Warning! There be secrets ahead. Disney secrets. Mickey doesn't want you to know how the magic is made, but Jim Korkis knows, and if you read Jim's book, you'll know, too. Put the kids to bed. Pull those curtains. Power down that iPhone. Let's keep this just between us...