The Ride Delegate: Memoir of a Walt Disney World VIP Tour Guide (16 page)

“You can just charge them to the room,” Mom says, waving to a kid high above us in the air. I know for a fact that no general admission ticket to Disney World includes admission into any special parties, but it’s the easiest way to broach the subject. Mom hands me her Key to the World Card, like I can do the transaction standing at Dumbo.

I email the Office back, telling them to buy tickets for the guests for the evening, and then beg for parade viewing.

You got lucky, party’s not sold out! Bridge is full, you guys are at firehouse.

I don’t mind watching parades at the firehouse. I know most guests dislike it because there isn’t any place to sit, but it’s 90% of the time completely in the shade, and with the way the parade turns it’s a wonderful view of every single float. It’s a large space so the characters can come right up to the rope to shake hands and give hugs. Also, the Firehouse is directly next to City Hall, which means I can go inside and lie down on the VIP couch for fifteen minutes.

I tell Mom that I’ve secured party tickets for the family and that we’ve got parade viewing as well. She’s pleased with the news, and we continue on our day. We finish up in Magic Kingdom, and then head over to Studios for dinner. I opt out of eating at Prime Time with them, and instead sit behind Star Tours eating a cheeseburger and fries.

After dinner I piled the family back into my 15-passenger van and we drive back to Magic Kingdom for the second time that day. By the time we arrived it was already dark, and the kids requested to ride Splash and Thunder before the parade. We stopped by City Hall, I printed out their Christmas party tickets, and then activated the tickets and got them Christmas party wristbands. We headed down Main Street and turned into Adventureland, heading towards Frontierland.

We rode Splash and Thunder.

By the time we were off those attractions it was almost time for the parade. I wanted to make sure my guests got a good spot, so we crossed through Fronterieland and into Liberty Square. With everything that had happened that day, I completely forgot that our parade viewing was at the Firehouse, not on the bridge. I approached the bridge anyway.

There was a little bit of chaos happening on the bridge. A coordinator I recognized by the name of Tom stood by the rope, talking to four other parade Cast Members. They were having a heated discussion, and I waited a second to interrupt and ask who was in charge of VIP viewing.

There was a lull in their conversation. I took it as an opportunity. “Excuse me, I’m checking the Red family in?” I asked the group of them.

Tom rolled his eyes and pulled a piece of paper out of his chest pocket. “Are you sure you guys have viewing?” he asked, looking over his sheet.

“Yeah, I reserved it earlier in the day.”

“You guys aren’t here on the bridge. You’re at Firehouse,” he scolded me, assuming I was one of the many other tour guides (and guests) who had already tried to weasel their way into parade viewing on the bridge.

I didn’t realize that Mom was standing right behind me. “
What
?”

Tom looked at Mom. “Your viewing is down at the firehouse,” he said to her. Then he turned to me. “And we’ve taken so many call-outs today I know no one’s taped it off yet.”

“
What
?” Mom asked again, only halfway understanding our conversation.

“What do you mean no one’s taped it off yet?” I asked Tom, getting closer to him so Mom couldn’t hear us. But Tom decided to be less than a star Cast Member at that point in time.

“You’re going to have to get tape from someone and block off space yourself.”

“No one is down there in charge of viewing?”

“That’s what I just said. Go make space for yourself down there.”

I stared at Tom. I had encountered rude Cast Members before, but none of them had ever told me, in front of my guests, that I was going to need to tape off my own viewing area. He turned his back to me and restarted the conversation with his Cast Members that I had interrupted.

Mom stood dangerously close to me. I knew she had heard everything said between Tom and me. “What was he talking about?”

I turned to face her. I found this mom to be a much taller woman that I was used to, with short choppy dirty blonde hair and from everything that had already happened today I found her to be a little bit mean. The last thing I wanted to do was make her mad, but we were well beyond that point now.

“Our viewing area is down at the Firehouse…” I began, but she cut me off.

“There are plenty of seats here!” she yelled, gesturing to the bridge. It had about ten people on it so far. The Office only liked to put about twenty guests on it, so the area didn’t feel cramped. I was once on the bridge for 43 guests and I assumed it was going to collapse and we were all going to fall into the lagoon around the Castle.

There were in fact a lot of empty benches on the bridge right now. Only ¾ of the front row had been taken up. Two more rows sat behind that.

“This area is reserved,” Tom turned around to yell at Mom and me. There was no way I was getting on the bridge with him standing right in front of us.

I had no choice but to lead the family away from the bridge and down Main Street towards the Firehouse. Mom yelled the entire time about how unorganized the tour had been, how I was an unorganized tour guide, and how her last tour guide had everything planned out ahead of time so they didn’t run into any bumps like this. I stopped listening to her by the time we reached Center Street. I turned to the to adult sisters and told them to stay back with the family while I ran ahead to the Firehouse to see what was happening there.

Chaos, is what was happening.

It was close to 8pm, which meant that the parade would be starting soon from Frontierland. It would take about 45 minutes for it to reach Main Street, but by that time every single spot along the parade route would be gone. All the spots along the parade route were already gone. Guests and their kids and their kid’s strollers lined all up and down the pavement, and the area usually reserved for VIP viewing was packed with weary guests.

Mom knew what was happening. She knew that there wasn’t any reserved space, and she knew that there was no way I was about to make guests move to make way for us, and she knew that I was quickly losing control of the situation. “This is ridiculous, take us back to the hotel,” she demanded, standing on the Emporium corner.

“No, I can go and get us an area…”

“Annie, don’t bullshit me. There’s no space here. Get one of your managers on the phone.”

“There’s unfortunately no one in the Office at this hour.” Yes, but there was still the tour coordinator on duty. However, I was not about to call him and explain that I was standing in Magic Kingdom with an irate guest upset over her parade viewing. “What can I do to fix this right now?”

“I don’t even want to see the parade anymore. Take us back to the hotel. I’ll be demanding a full refund for the tour.” If there’s one thing that never happened, it was this. Guests were never refunded for the tour. I picked the guests up at 9am, and it was just past 8pm. We had been out for eleven hours. There’s no way the Office was going to give them today for free. I’d still get paid, sure, but the Office would be furious.

“I don’t…” I started, but Mom knew I had nothing else to say. There was no space for us to watch the parade at Firehouse.

“Just take us back, Annie. I’ll deal with your managers tomorrow.”

I hung my head as I led them from the Emporium corner to the Tony’s gate and we disappeared backstage. I looked at my watch. It was 8:20. The parade had started in Frontierland. I had one last option.

“Wait here. Wait right here. Don’t go anywhere,” I told the family. I made the ridiculously bold decision to leave my family backstage. No, I was too timid to slip Trevor my phone number on a DSA business card, but I was about to leave guests completely unattended in a backstage area because they were threatening to demand a full refund for my tour service.

I ran from the Plaza Gate out into Main Street. I ran down Main Street, following the parade route, in front of the Castle and to the bridge. As I ran I wondered what guests waiting for the parade thought of me. This tiny little tour guide, completely frazzled and out of sorts running as fast as her flat feet would take her trying to save a tour in the eleventh hour, literally. I made it to the bridge, completely out of breath. I hunched over and leaned against the rail. There was a tour guide standing on the other side of the rope who immediately jumped up like he knew something was horribly wrong.

“I need…who’s in charge?” I panted.

“I don’t know.” The tour guide’s name was Adam. “Are you okay?”

“No,” I told him, as I tried to catch my breath. “My family’s furious. The parade viewing got all messed up, and now they want a refund, and I’ve been with them for almost twelve hours, and…is there any way…” I trailed off, looking across the bridge at the four empty benches still there.

“How many?” Adam asked.

“Seven.” I told him. “But they’ll totally stand if they have to. I just need to get them somewhere to watch the parade. I can’t have them yelling at the Office because of me!” I took a deep breath and exhaled in the form of tears. Adam threw his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close, not out of solace but to shield me from view for all of the other guests on the bridge. They were here to watch the Christmas Parade, not a hysterical tour guide fall apart.

“Go get them. I’ll take care of it,” Adam told me, and I nodded into his shoulder. “Quick. You gotta make it back before they close the bridge.”

I wiped tears away on the seam of my sleeve and nodded. I gave myself three seconds to collect my bearings, and then I was back, running in front of the Castle, down Main Street, and towards the Plaza Gate. The family was waiting there for me.

“We have to run,” I said, panting. “The parade has already started.”

“Where are we going?” Mom snapped. I didn’t have time for this right now. We had to beat a parade.

“The bridge. Come on. Run!” I took off sprinting through the crowd, and headed onto Main Street again, this time with my own little parade in tow. The family and I ran down Main Street, in front of the Castle, and to the bridge. We hit the bridge just as the announcement came over the loud speaker, announcing that the parade was mere seconds from starting. The family didn’t even bother unhooking the rope, they jumped over it and ducked under it and took the benches in the back. I collapsed into Adam’s arms.

“Don’t worry, it’s okay.” He said, rubbing my back. “It’s just a parade. It’s not the end of the world.”

“But it was the end of my world!” I cried. My tears were now drowned out by Christmas music filling the air.

“Come on, let’s go to the back.” Adam let me out of his grasp and moved to the back of the bridge. I turned to follow him, but someone sitting in the front row of the bridge caught my eye. It was dark, so it took me a second to focus on her face, and her hair, and her kind smile as she nodded at me, because she had heard everything that Adam had said to me, and she felt bad for me. It was Snow White.

Not the character Snow White. No, she was going to be passing by us in the parade. It was the actress who portrays Snow White on
Once Upon a Time
, one of ABC’s flagship shows. Ginnifer Goodwin smiled at me, like the real-life princess that she is, and at first I thought, oh, that’s so awesome, Ginnifer Goodwin’s here! Then I thought, oh god, Ginnifer Goodwin just saw me completely and emotionally break down over a parade.

My guests noticed Ginnifer before I did. They couldn’t care less about the parade now, they were completely focused on the fact that they were watching the parade with Snow White herself, and that Snow White was watching the parade. Mom completely forgot about the fact that she had threatened to demand a refund for the tour, and that she had completely lost it on me only a half hour prior. None of that mattered because she was ten feet away from a delightfully adorable actress.

Mom was still simmering down as I drove the family back to the hotel. She knew I had cried over the tour, but she didn’t feel the need to apologize for her behavior. She told me that, regardless, everyone had in fact had a fun day, and she was thankful for that.

“But if Trevor is standing outside at the valet with that stupid smile on his face, I’m going to punch him,” she snarled, as I approached the hotel. Thankfully, Trevor was gone for the night and spared a physical beating from the mom who had just given me an emotional beating.

“Tim, stop poking Sasha,” I said, again, for about the fifteenth time that day. Tim was pretty adamant about poking his sister in the arm, though. Like he had been doing since we had picked the family up seven hours ago. I pulled out my Blackberry and sent a message to Abby.

Why are we still in Animal Kingdom?

Do you think they’d believe us if we told them that it was closing now?

It’s 4pm.

Do you think they actually know when Animal Kingdom closes?

True. Doubtful the family was keeping tabs on park operating hours, because that’s what Abby and I were there for. We were doing one of the rare two-guide tours. These tours required more than ten guests, and it was rare that guests were willing to shell out $600 an hour to be led around the parks. But this family was special. The Orange family had been to Disney many times before and always brought extended family members and always needed two guides. They were a return tour for another set of guides, but those guides opted out of hosting them again. Abby and I couldn’t figure out why. The family seemed perfectly normal, most of the time. All families seem perfectly normal.

I was leading the family from the back of the park up to the front, and Abby was bringing up the rear of the group, pushing the stroller with the two youngest girls on the tour inside. While Abby got the adorable three year olds, I got Tim the Terrorizer and his sister, Sasha the Socially Maladjusted. They were odd kids. Tim had no concept of personal space, and Sasha asked the same question again and again until you just wanted to scream YOU’RE ELEVEN YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND THIS.