Amber Earns Her Ears: My Secret Walt Disney World Cast Member Diary (19 page)

Registers 1, 2 and 4: These are the regular registers. You ring up guests as they bring you over-priced bouncy balls and their photo vouchers, do price checks on Legos, and then wander around the store and attempt to straighten things when it’s slow. If the registers aren’t busy and photo editing of guest pictures needs to be done, usually someone on register 1 or 2 will step back and help out.

Register 3: This is the most dreaded of the registers (though I know Cast Members more afraid of register one, because they have to deal with showing guests their completed pictures). The person on this register is on rotation with the EO Cart and Theatre Sales, and very few people actually look forward to going outside to the EO cart. Registers 3 and 4 are also the hardest hit when it rains, as they’re right next to the doors.

EO Cart: After you serve your stint at register 3, you get bumped to the EO Cart, located outside the Imagination Pavilion, and hope someone will stop and chat with you, because it rarely gets much attention. Occasionally, you’ll run into a hardcore Captain EO fan, but usually people stop by to laugh at the sequined rockstar glove or inquire about the price of a squeeze breeze fan (they rarely buy one, though, at seventeen dollars). Most often you’re asked for directions to Soarin' and the World Showcase, and that’s about as exciting as it gets.

Theatre Sales: From the EO Cart, you’re bumped to Theatre Sales, where you stand in front of the wall of photos and sign people up for their own photos. While it can be a fun role, interacting with guests as they walk by, you often end up serving as decoration: guests will look at the wall of photos, maybe nod at you politely, and then — despite the fact that they’ve watched someone else sign up with you, and completely ignoring the clipboard in hand — walk up to the people in the theatres and pester them with questions.

Theatre: There are two theatres, and neither of them really has any advantage over the other, besides one being more accessible for guests, which means they hover there, oblivious to the shorter line in the other theatre. It can easily be one of the most frustrating roles: trying to coax children to look in your direction and smile at the same time, dealing with demanding guests who want their photo to look just right (“no, no, up a bit. That’s too far. I want it to be right there” — and typically poke the puzzle touch-screen and screw everything up), and unreliable software. But it can also be one of the most rewarding roles, as the high level of guest interaction ensures that you’ll meet some interesting people.

Tasking: The duties for this role are greeting guests, creating a magical moment, or cleaning glass and straightening shelves. Cast Members usually take this to mean wander around; depending on the Cast Member, some actually do straighten and clean, but others wander over to their friends for prolonged chats.

Water Cart/Squeeze Breeze/Glow Cart: Our cart has been broken for a while, so we haven’t had anyone go out to these positions, but from previous entries, I’m guessing you have a pretty good idea of what we do there.

Editing: By far the most popular position in Image, Cast Members on editing sit in the closed area behind registers 1 and 2 in really cool chairs and edit guests’ photos. The detail Cast Members go into while editing varies: I’m a tad OCD, so I like everything to be edited as best as possible, though I’ll speed up if we get behind. Depending on the size of the photo, editing can be a tricky process. (Fingers together is all I have to say. It is ridiculous, trying to get our editing tools in between guests’ open fingers!)

I have also worked several stocking shifts. While at first the idea of being by myself for the day, opening boxes and hanging t-shirts, sounded mundane, I really do enjoy these shifts. On days you are scheduled for the heart of house (stocking shifts), you show up in your generic costume (the same blue and purple shirts and khaki pants we wore for training; you can wear them to perform any role in Future World) and clock in. From there, you are pretty much left to your own devices.

I’ve come in at seven in the morning to open and left at three-thirty in the afternoon, unpacking boxes that had been received by the six a.m. stocker. I have closed, coming in at two in the afternoon and wandering around our three locations to make sure they have everything they need throughout the evening. You take your breaks when you want them; sometimes you are required to go to the Land and give someone there a thirty minute break; sometimes you have to bring in the squeeze breeze cart and clean it for the next day’s use.

Usually, though, the majority of the time is spent making lists — 3 medium purple Figment shirts, 2 x-small sweatshirts, 4 small unicorn pops, etc. — and running back to the stock room to replenish whatever guests have bought.

My fear that I would be bored out of my mind was quickly allayed as I bustled back and forth. The shifts pass quickly, and it’s quite refreshing to spend the day by yourself. If there are people working that I don’t like (there aren’t many of them, but goodness knows they exist), I can avoid them while stocking the store, then make my way to a location where people I do like are working. There’s a level of independence to the role that suits me well.

And that’s about all for my locations. All rather easy positions, all rather self-explanatory; but all capable of being underestimated.

THIS TIME LAST YEAR, it was I who was packing my bags and saying my farewells. School was about to start, and I was being forced back into the real world without ceremony. This week, it was my turn to witness it from the opposite vantage point.

There isn’t a huge difference between this bunch of CPs leaving and those leaving last year, other than that I was only here with these people for two months or so; last year, I was with people for five or six months before their time was up. I was definitely aware of the shortness of time, but that’s not to say we didn’t have some fun.

In my entire program last year, I didn’t venture too far from Orlando. Actually, the only time I left Orlando was when I got lost one of those first few days driving back from Target. A little while ago, however, some friends and I made the spontaneous decision to take a trip to Cocoa Beach. I honestly can’t even remember how we decided on going, but I do remember getting everything ready (sunscreen, camera, Powerade — check) and picking everyone up after my Adventures info-session early in the morning (more about that later).

We packed into my car. Grace, sitting in the passenger seat, DJ’ed, and we set out. The road trip was one of the best parts of my program. When we finally got to the beach and parked at Ron Jon’s, it was already into the afternoon, but we found a relatively clear spot on the beach to leave our stuff. I put on some sunscreen, and we spent the next few hours immersed in the ocean, being knocked about by waves and swallowing way too much salt water.

Eventually, it was time to get out and find some place to eat. After a few minutes wasted trying to make a decision, we got in the car and drove, everyone calling out directions until Chris spotted the pier. We pulled in, heard the live band playing and smelled the seafood, and found a table. Starving after our day spent jumping over waves, we ordered massive amounts of food and tucked in.

It was dark when we left, laden with Styrofoam containers of crab cakes and fried shrimp. The drive home was just as fun as the ride out, except this time it was set against the background of an awesome display of lightning ahead of us for the majority of the drive.

My last few weeks were also punctuated by quite a few impromptu sleepovers, where conversations lasted long into the night and sleep overtook us before the urge to get up and make our way back to our own apartments. After one such night, we woke up around noon and decided to head to IHOP for breakfast. Our waitress was an amiable woman from Macon, and when she heard one of the girls in our group say that her goal was to pick an orange in Florida, she immediately gave us heavily-accented directions to the orange grove near her house.

We had planned on spending the afternoon moving things from one apartment to another, but when we reached the parking lot, I found myself turning onto I-4 rather than Little Lake Bryan. We drove along with no clear directions in mind, music playing and our random, sporadic conversation drifting over it. Somehow, we managed to find the place after driving around randomly — only to discover that it was closed until October 1. But we were having too much fun to turn around and return home, so we drove on for several miles, everyone in the car shouting out left or right when we came to a stop sign. Eventually, when we emerged from the arbitrary backroads and returned to civilization, I set the GPS for home.

That afternoon was spent casually doing whatever, as it was one of the last days for two in our group. After a quick stop at EPCOT to pick up stuff they had left for co-workers to sign, and some quick-service food in Mexico, we headed back to our apartments to regroup for our fireworks excursion that night. We drove to the Polynesian just minutes before Wishes began, and spent our last night as a group sitting on the beach, someone’s phone playing the soundtrack perfectly in sync with the colorful flashes of light across the lake.

As far as work goes, there have been a few changes. I went to an info-session for the Adventures program; for the first time since 2008, Disney is hiring guides for this program. Since traveling is the one thing I am absolutely certain of in my future, I figured that Adventures would be a wonderful place to start; planning vacations for people and then leading them around places like Italy or England? What could be better?

After just two hours of sleep, I woke up, donned my business attire, stopped by Starbucks for some coffee, and made my way to the Contemporary. There I found out that, while it still sounds like an exceptional opportunity, the numbers aren’t exactly encouraging. There are about forty-five Adventures guides for the entire program; when they last opened positions in 2008 (and they didn’t even specify how many positions were available at that time), 12,000 people applied. As someone who doesn’t speak another language and is not majoring in tourism or is a travel planner, the odds are slim. But since I’m fairly certain that I don’t want to work for Disney again, it wasn’t a huge upset.

At work, I was trained for hotel delivery and package pickup. It was a random training; apparently, one usually requests to be trained in that area, but I just had it scheduled for me, without any of my managers — or the managers in Future World North, where package pickup is located — aware of it. I turned up in the North and clocked in, and the manager, after figuring out that I really was supposed to be there, gave me vague instructions to wait for my trainer, whoever that would turn out to be.

After getting lost a bit (I hadn’t been to the North since my training in May), I finally found someone who led me to the package pickup room, where I sat and waited. My trainer showed up a little late, completely unaware that she would be training someone — understandable, as she isn’t a trainer. But she did very well, explaining things as I shadowed her around her normal day. It seems like a fairly easy job; it’s primarily organization, which I love. Sorting and logging packages, going on runs and picking them up from the different areas in the park — nothing too difficult. Maneuvering the large delivery van is potentially problematic, as is the fact that I’m certain I’m going to get lost while navigating backstage, but I was assured that was totally normal, and all I would need to do is page someone at base and they’d talk me through whatever mess I got myself into.

The only downside to being trained for package pickup is that I’ll be sent over there more often, limiting my time in the West. While I like the backstage roles — stocking is one of my favorite shifts, after all — I’ll also be missing out on some of the guest interaction that reminds me why I like working for Disney in the first place.

Today, for example, I was taking pictures all day. A little girl of about three or four was getting her picture put into a puzzle with the princesses, but she wasn’t having any of this smiling business. After quite a few pictures, hoping to catch one of the rare moments when she would be smiling in the direction of the camera, we finally, finally got a wonderful shot. Later, as I was waiting for the puzzlemaker to free up and was chatting with the next family in line, I felt someone tap at my leg. I looked down and the little girl was back with a card in her hand. Her family had made little laminated thank you cards for Cast Members who made their trip especially magical, and I was deemed special enough to receive one.

I HAVE ROUGHLY SEVENTEEN weeks left on my program, as my mother reminds me every time I am on the phone with her.

While seventeen weeks sounds like a long time, the reality is that the weeks, as you experience them, are speeding by. Between work and going to the parks with friends and all other manner of activities, the time from one Thursday to the next (always Thursday, as that’s when you get paid unless you’re an international CP) is startlingly brief. They seem to rush by in a blur, so that I don’t remember exactly what I did throughout the week, but am acutely aware that a large chunk of time has elapsed.

As I predicted, I am scheduled for package pickup from now until the seventeen weeks are up (I don’t actually know this, but based upon my schedule since I’ve been trained for that role, it seems likely). Which is actually okay, because I’m quite enjoying my time there. I overcame my fear of driving the behemoth van, and now enjoy taking an hour to drive around backstage and pick up packages from the different locations. Two of the people I work with aren’t such big fans of driving, which works out well for each of us, as they are always willing to take the Mouse Gear run (which involves pushing a big black bin around outside) while I or someone else drives for them. The rest of the time is spent logging in the packages and putting them in their places, which takes no time at all, really. Then we all just relax, lounging about in the two chairs, on the floor, or in one of the bins. It’s a good thing that I like the people who work at package pickup; everyone seems to possess a laid-back air that makes doing nothing rather fun.