On The Safari: Randoms

On Strollers: Stroller parking is one of my many jobs.  It's actually called "Pram Parking."  Because "Prams" are strollers.  Anyway, it's a fun job because it's the only job where you actually get to interact and talk with other cast members as well as guests.  It's also not such a great job because parking strollers and keeping everything looking good and organized is really, really hard.  But we encounter funny things too, every once in a while.

I can officially say that I have now had a parent attempt to leave their child in the stroller while they went on the ride.  Many parents do so jokingly.  They'll jokingly ask about babysitting and such.  But then there was that one dad.  Who pushed his stroller, with four year old in it, into our area (which is what we like them to do... just we prefer them to take the child out first), and continued down the walkway leaving his four year old happily munching on his Pringles and watching the birds fly around.

It took us a second to track him down since he just continued walking and didn't speak English.  We told him he needed to take his child with him, and he got mad at us!  He actually got mad at us because he said that we told him he wasn't allowed to take the kid with him because his kid had Pringles.  Okay, the Pringles can't go on the ride, but the kid can.  Crazy!

We ask the guests to unload their child from the stroller quickly, and/or in line to make the process as smooth as possible.  It's always annoying when a parent takes five minutes to unload their stroller because they have child, other child, certain buckles, rain shades, food, candy, cameras, purses, etc. etc. to deal with.  This is very understandable.  They are tourists and there is a lot to keep up with.  I just really appreciate it, though, when we have very simple people who have nothing but a backpack and a small foldable stroller with a kid in it.  It's always a relief.

Sometimes guests don't like us to park their strollers.  This is really annoying, but again, understandable for those with trust issues. But it's hard on us because there's a fairly specific system that we use in order to keep everything looking good and organized (and keeping it easy for guests to later find their strollers - for example: park strollers in one places, "limos" in another, foldables are together, and big clunky singles in another, etc. etc.).  But then others come in and mess it up.  But, overall, it really is a nice job.  Plus we get fans.

On Fastpasses: I am thoroughly amazed at the amount of guests who don't understand the Fastpass system.  The more I learn about it, the more I can see where people could get confused, but still.  It's always been a very simple concept for me.  You go to the ride for which you want a Fastpass, you put your park ticket in, it spits out a Fastpass that says "Return between 'A time' and 'B time'" and you return between those times to skip to the head of the line.  You can't get another Fastpass until your current one expires OR two hours from the time you got it, whichever comes first.

I had a very angry man today who showed me his Key To The World card (the card that Disney Resort guests get that is basically their room key, but they can also charge money to it in the parks... kind of like a credit card, and it is their park ticket to get in as well) and insisted that he had paid "good money" for it to have Fastpasses on it and why wouldn't I let him skip the line when he paid "good money" to skip to the front of each line for the duration of his vacation.

It doesn't work like that.  I tried to explain how it worked to him, but he was so mad he couldn't even listen.  He just walked away grumbling about how everyone changes their stories and Disney gipped him out of his "good money."  I literally couldn't even get five words out.  The funny thing is, the way Disney works, if he had just talked to me we were slow enough that I could have just given him some Fastpasses to "make up" for his anger and such.  But he wouldn't even listen to anything I had to say.  He just wanted to yell.  Lame.

It's the worst when I get people who don't speak English asking about it.  It's hard to explain in a foreign language.  But people think you have to pay extra, some think you have to have a Fastpass in order to ride the ride at all, some also get Fastpasses and then still enter through the normal line.  At the very end, right before they get on the truck, they'll pull it out... this always confuses me because I'm wondering what in the world they're thinking it's for.  Weird.  And then of course, they get mad that they paid extra and didn't get anything.

Don't worry though, I get really, really happy guests too!

On BoCo: Booking Coordinator is another really fun position, but it can get extremely boring when it's slow.  You basically stand at the front of the line scanning for food and drinks, making sure everyone is "appropriate" to ride (everyone, even children and babies has to have clothes on, including shoes, which we have to enforce sometimes because parents will strip down their kids when it's hot sometimes), and counting the guests and helping the wheelchairs and such.  I had two little kids the other day who came through and were your classic Disney kids who were unbelievably excited about everything.  "We went on Everest!  It was so much fun!"  "No, my favorite part was Dinosaur, but it was really scary."  "Yeah, she was scared, but I didn't even close my eyes even once!"  "Yes you did!  Remember, with the big dinosaur!?"  "No I didn't, it was so much fun."  "Oh oh, and we got to see Tigger!  We saw Tigger!"  "Mom, where's the autograph book, I want to show her his autograph because we really met him!"

Cutest thing EVER!

On Cute Things:  Baby elephants drinking the water together.  Rhinos rolling around in the mud.  Lions playing, pacing, and climbing.  Giraffes running (actually that looks a little more awkward than cute because their bodies are so long and gangly... it looks like it's got to be hard).  Thompson's Gazelles wagging their tails like puppies.  Baby mandrills the size of my foot running around playing with each other (okay, so my foot is an awkward thing to compare them to, but I couldn't think of anything else that's their size).  Warthogs leaning down on their elbows to eat.  Hippos freaking out at the birds that land on their backs.

I get to see this stuff.  All. The. Time. :)

On Free Stuff: Definitely one of the best parts of any poor college students life (or anyone's life, for that matter) is free food.  I love that Disney randomly has these picnic things where the managers cook for all their employees and we all pig out on the food that is served to us by our managers.  It's just great on so many different levels.  But anyway, yesterday they made hamburgers and hot dogs with Disney potato chips and every kind of dessert imaginable.  Seriously, there were so freaking many desserts.  I'm pretty sure every manger must have brought one, and some more than one. 


Anyway, along with all that free food (which in and of itself was awesome) we had a raffle with prizes.  And nearly everyone who entered won something.  I won another copy of the Toy Story 3 Commemorative Edition on BluRay and DVD.  Goody!


On Playing: I've been out playing a few times lately.  I'll try and put up pictures soon.  LOTS of pictures.  Yesterday we went to Hollywood Studios and then Beaches and Cream and then visited some resorts.  So much fun! :)