Would You Like Magic with That?: Working at Walt Disney World Guest Relations (5 page)

When I transferred to Hollywood Studios, I needed to go through the park’s version of orientation, which they called “On with the Show!” It was simply a day of walking around the park with a Hollywood Studios trainer who showed us important things like the bathroom and first aid. Myself and about twenty other new trainees learned the backstage areas, where to park our cars in the parking lot, and what was the quickest way to get to Take 5, Studios’ cafeteria.

I also learned that I could bike around backstage. Everyone has to enter the park at the front, right behind where Indiana Jones is located. If you’re working on the far end of the park, such as at Lights, Motors, Action!, it’s a long trek to the other side. Besides, who wants to walk onstage if it’s hot and crowded?

Hollywood Studios provided us with bikes. You could pick up a bike at the front entrance and ride it all the way around backstage to your work location. It was amazing. I was so excited to be able to ride around on a bike.

Even though one of my Disney dreams had come true, and I’d be working at Great Movie Ride, there was no convenient way to bike there. I had to bike around backstage, and I couldn’t physically ride the bike to GMR (seeing as how it’s completely onstage, without an entrance hidden from guests). What I could do was ride the bike to Star Tours, drop the bike there, and then walk from Star Tours to GMR. But, from the backstage entrance of the bark to Star Tours, it was maybe 50 yards Riding a bike that short distance was foolish, because I was just going to have to walk onstage anyway. I was so jealous of those who got to work way in the back of the park and could hop on a bike instead of walking there

I showed up bright and early to Studios one morning and waited in the cast services building for my trainer to arrive. He was late. His name was Erik, and he was a tall lanky guy with dark glasses and short hair. He helped me pick out a costume in the correct size. He had me change into it, and then the two of us trekked over to Great Movie Ride together.

This first day of training with Erik was all about getting acquainted with the attraction. We rode it a bunch of times. He showed me the break room. Mundane and routine stuff like that.

Then, Erik gave me the script for the attraction.

The Great Movie Ride script was 46 pages long. It went over everything I was supposed to say while driving one of the tram vehicles. I needed to learn it
verbatim
. I could not make stuff up on the tram, and I could not go off script. This was of the utmost importance. I had to stick to the script. There was no leeway with that. If I was caught making up stuff on trams, or leaving out parts of the spiel, I’d wind up with a documented discussion on my record card — Disney-speak for a reprimand from my managers.

I questioned Erik a lot on this rule. I kept bringing up Jungle Cruise, and how I knew Skippers there would often make up their own jokes on the fly. He explained that they weren’t supposed to do that. It was harder for Jungle Cruise skippers to get caught, though, since there was no way to listen to their spiels out on the water, unless a manager snuck on the boat to eavesdrop. At Great Movie Ride, managers could duck in and out through secret doors to make sure I was actually talking about Gene Kelly and not about Zac Efron. The Great Movie Ride wasn’t supposed to be funny, but rather an educational experience about movies from yesteryear. I couldn’t crack jokes.

If I forgot an “a” or a “the” or a line every now and then, I’d be fine. But if it continued, and managers got wind that I wasn’t sticking to the spiel, I’d be in trouble. I also learned that sometimes other GMR cast members would ride the attraction to make sure I was saying exactly what I was supposed to, or they’d tell a manger on me. GMR was full of a lot of tattletales, as I quickly learned. Erik warned me of that, too. He told me I always needed to be on my toes, because with 60 people in a tram at any given time, I wouldn’t be able to see all of them, let alone recognize fellow cast members.

I would have four days of training to learn the script. Then I would be assessed on it. I also needed to learn how to drive the tram, along with working all the other GMR positions, like the greeter outside, and the merge position, and also controlling the preshow area. There was a lot to do in a very short amount of time.

The trams for GMR are on a track. However, they can jump the track, so that’s something terrifying to think about next time you ride. The vehicles are controlled by magnets in the floor and on the bottom of the trams, and they work as a guide to move everything along. But sometimes the trams just don’t want to follow the track. When this happens, a loud buzzer blares in the car, and then lights on the control panel flash, and then you have about five seconds to respond or you’re going to crash into the
Wizard of Oz
scene. I once saw it happen.

Along with keeping your tram from jumping the tracks, you’ve got to learn how to actually start and stop the thing. It should be as easy as hitting a START and STOP button. But for some reason, Disney bought the most complicated tram vehicles ever. To start the trams, you first have to engage the vehicle (basically, tell it that you’re about ready to go) and then hit two other buttons simultaneously and shift the tram into first gear. If you take too long to do one of these things, the tram switches back over to its off position, and you have to start it up all over again. Meanwhile, there’s probably another car behind you, and everything in GMR is perfectly synched as it is. Even a five-second delay can take the whole attraction off sync for the rest of the day.

On top of all of this, there’s going to be a gangster or cowboy who hijacks your tram. What happens after they do? Only the worst five minutes of your life.

So, your car has stopped in the New York City scene, and the gangster comes out, the firefight erupts, and you disappear into the scenery. You then have to run down a flight of stairs, then up a flight of stairs, and then down a long hallway before running up more stairs, before you arrive at the
Indiana Jones
scene where you then take over again. It’s just a mess. It’s so chaotic, and the guests barely realize what’s happened so they’re not really impressed when you suddenly “appear”. It’s also kind of guessing when the tram will arrive. They could have slowed down, there could have been a delay, or maybe the gangster is being a jerk and decides to take his sweet time driving the tram back to you — while I couldn’t go off script in the least bit, the gangsters kind of did whatever the hell they wanted.

They really were all jerks. At least the gangsters I met were. Maybe you’re a Great Movie Ride gangster and you’re the nicest person around, but all the ones I came in contact with were incredibly self-absorbed, and thought the world revolved around them and their hijacking skills.

They also had the easiest job in the world. They just needed to appear, drive a tram around for maybe five minutes, and then return to their own private breakroom. There were usually anywhere from five to ten gangsters (and/or cowboys) a day, and they would take turns going on and off of the attraction. Sometimes there’d be a gangster who wanted to do every single show, so they hogged the hijackings. That left the other gangsters to just sit back and fool around all day in a secret hidden location inside of a Disney attraction. They had couches. They had TVs. They had a small fridge and a microwave and they literally did jack shit. If you want a job that requires very little work and lots of downtime, you want to apply at Disney World for the position of Great Movie Ride gangster.

The worst was when you, the tram driver, messed up one of
your
lines during their hijack scene. Because then you had messed up the gangster’s grand entrance, and they were known to
never
forgive you for that. During one of my first shifts, I accidentally flubbed a line, and when I tried to correct myself, I talked over one of the gangster’s line. She was a short and stout gangster, and was probably in her mid fifties, and Great Movie Ride was her
life
. I had ruined her show. She never forgave me for it. For the rest of my time at Great Movie Ride, she was nothing but mean and rude to me. She forgot to give me my breaks, she spread rumors about me, and once she hid my grey GMR tour guide jacket. Here was this middle-aged woman, ragging on some 20-something barely a week into the job.

According to Erik, I passed my GMR assessment with flying colors. I nailed the entire spiel (save a few times I left out a word or two) and knew how to run all the other posts. He passed me, and the next day I worked my first official shift as a Great Movie Ride cast member.

I enjoyed that shift. I enjoyed all of my shifts. Maybe I would have enjoyed them more if I had spent more than ten days working at GMR.

I transferred to GMR in the beginning of March. Just before I transferred, I applied to work in Guest Relations. My managers at DisneyQuest thought I would be a good fit for the role, and I didn’t really think anything of it either way. I filled out a few questions online, attached my resume, hit submit, and forgot about it.

On my second day working at Great Movie Ride — which was actually four days later, since I was part time and struggling with a weird shift and irregular hours — I got a call telling me that I had been selected to interview for Guest Relations.

On my third day at Great Movie Ride, I asked if I could have my fourth day of work off, so I could go and interview for GR. My manager said yes.

A week later, I worked my real fourth day, and the day after that I worked my fifth day. On the sixth day, I got a call saying that I was being offered a position at Magic Kingdom Guest Relations, and my transfer would happen in two weeks.

On my seventh day — which, once again, was a few days later — I had to go in and tell everyone I had just met at GMR that I was transferring.

On my eighth day, which was a Sunday, I got a brand new schedule, and it showed my Guest Relations training on it.

I worked my ninth day at GMR, saying goodbye to everyone as I went.

My tenth day was my last day, and I had to open the attraction. It was not the best way to end my short tenure at GMR, seeing as how it was an Extra Magic Morning and I needed to be at Studios for 6:30am. I was not a happy camper that morning, but at least I was done at 12:30pm.

I clocked out of GMR in the breakroom and I walked back to my car in the parking lot. Along the way, I stopped to buy a celebratory chocolate chip cookie in the Writer’s Stop. I ate the cookie as I walked and called my mom to tell her I had just completed my last shift at GMR. It was onto another adventure.

Once upon a time, Walt Disney opened up Disneyland. It was incredibly popular, though it got off to a rocky start. But Walt loved the park, regardless, and it showed. He spent much of his time at the park, and sometimes he’d sleep there, too. Cast members would come to work in the morning and find Walt already in Disneyland, walking around, making sure everything was in perfect condition for guests that day.

Now, Walt loved questions. Really. For all those guests out there who think that certain things “ruin” the magic, Walt would disagree with you on that. He loved explaining how things worked, and would talk for hours about the details in his park. But soon, there were so many questions for Walt to answer, and he was only one person. He couldn’t answer all the questions. Walt realized that he needed a group of cast members to answer these questions when he couldn’t.

Outside the front of Disneyland were ticket booths. Guests would line up outside of these booths to purchase their tickets in the morning, just like they do now at the parks (that is, if they haven’t already purchased them ahead of time online). One day, Walt happened to be standing outside the front of the park, and he was watching the ticket lines. He noticed that one ticket line happened to be a lot longer than the others, and he thought this was strange. Did the cast member inside the booth not know what they were doing? Walt decided to check it out. He was curious as to why there was a line.

Inside the booth Walt found a young woman by the name of Cicely Rigdon. Cicely was an outstanding cast member, and she knew exactly what she was doing. But, she was not simply selling tickets. Instead, she was planning out itineraries for the guests. She was scribbling on maps, showing what attractions were the best, and where the best places to eat where, and if the family had younger kids, where they could meet characters. Cicely was basically working as an unofficial Disney tour guide, and Walt realized he had found the perfect cast member to lead his newly developed role, Guest Relations.

Walt made Cicely the first Guest Relations cast member. So now, when Walt wasn’t around to answer questions, Cicely could answer them for him. There were days that even Cicely needed help, so Walt hired more of these Guest Relations cast members until he had a team of them answering questions and planning out itineraries for guests. After a while, these cast members also started leading guided tours through the park, to answer even
more
questions. Even though this all happened decades ago, it’s still the same job I did in 2010.

Before I could put on the Guest Relations costume, I needed to go through training. If you haven’t picked up on this yet, Disney loves training. Disney will sometimes find any excuse to train a bunch of cast members, whether they’ve been on the payroll for years or have just been hired. Disney is constantly rolling out training updates, sometimes just for fun. Why not do some more training?

Training for Guest Relations was intense. It wasn’t just any sort of training, but detailed, guest-orientated training that spanned four days. Seven, if you count the addition three-day ticketing class, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

There were twenty of us in the training class, all going to different parks. Eight of us were headed to Magic Kingdom, the most out of any of the parks. Before even coming into this session, I had heard that Magic Kingdom Guest Relations cast members could be kind of “cliquey” and “full of themselves”. That is true. In fact, there’s a term coined for Guest Relations cast members who thought they were better than everyone else, and that term is
pladitude
. Magic Kingdom Guest Relations cast members bleed
pladitude
.