Parking Lot Woes: Tales from a Disney Cast Member

A little back story to the Magic Kingdom cast parking lot.  It's big.  HUGE.  It has to be.  We'll call it "West Clock."

Did I mention it's big?  Well, even with a decent sized parking lot, West Clock sometimes overflows with Cast Member cars.  Therefore, when I first worked at MK, I realized it was better to park across the street and park at DU (Disney University).  It was a bit of a longer walk, but at least that way I was guaranteed a parking space since that lot didn't fill up nearly as fast.  I got into the habit of parking at DU for quite a while and it worked out nicely, despite the longer walk.  And it was nice because I could park in the same spot every day.

Then, I got a job in Deployment.  I got access to a special parking lot in a different area completely.  It even has it's own different bus that takes you to the mouth of the tunnel!  Fancy!  Trouble is, you have to remember that you parked in that special other parking lot (named "Pluto"), because at the end of the day if you got on the wrong bus... well... you'd have to take the West Clock bus all the way to West Clock, get off (because they clear the bus each time it stops), go back through security, get back on the bus, ride back to the mouth of the tunnel, go through the tunnel to where you catch the Pluto bus, and then ride it to the appropriate parking lot.  Ugh.

You still with me?  Good.  It's gonna get worse.

So here we have the parking lots.  The "main" one is West Clock.  The "side" one is DU.  And the "manager" one is Pluto. 

I stopped parking in Pluto because I'd forget that I parked there and the buses didn't come as frequently.  So I still parked at DU.  But Disney, in all their "safety" protocols, decided that they didn't want people parking at DU anymore because it wasn't safe to have so many cast members crossing the street, especially during rush hour.  So they put up cones and traffic blocks to make it much more complicated to get to the DU lot to discourage people from parking there.  It became so complicated that I decided to try parking at West Clock again.  Only West Clock was too crowded and I'd drive in circles for nearly twenty minutes before my shift searching for a spot. 

So then I started parking at Pluto, where I could be guaranteed a spot. (Keep in mind that my poor brain, through all this, is trying to recollect each and every day where in the world I parked!)  Only because they discouraged so many people from parking at DU, and because they were hiring piles of new Cast Members for the new Starbucks and the new Fantasyland expansion, they opened Pluto to everyone.  Pluto was no longer a guaranteed parking spot.

Back to DU.  I didn't care about the extra five minutes it took for me to drive back behind buildings and deal with all the stop signs.  I wanted to be guaranteed a parking space without having to stalk people for twenty minutes!

Well, then someone at Disney came up with this grand idea.  They decided to close the Pluto lot entirely.  When I said this was a grand idea, I mean it was a terrible one. 

They thought they'd be able to cram ALL the CM cars into the one, West Clock parking lot, on top of the new Fantasyland expansion, Starbucks opening, and the expansion that is to come.  Also, this decision came shortly before the Holidays.

Their reasoning was that they would expand the original West Clock lot.  And they did!  Let's use some rough numbers (these numbers are waaay off, but in the sense of relativity it feels accurate, at least to me)

Say West Clock had 1000 spots.  Pluto had 300.  DU had 200.  They cut off Pluto and DU, but added 200 spots to West Clock to make up for it.  That's still 300 spots less than what we originally had, and that was BEFORE the extra CMs that were hired! 

Then, on top of that, they decided to reorganize the West Clock parking lot because it was very difficult to navigate.  Decent idea, but in doing so they built a driveway straight through the center erasing about 100 more spots.  In the end, we have significantly less spots, with more cast members to come.

And this all happened right before the Holidays last year.  I remember as we approached December we discussed it in my department.  There is no way this is going to turn out well.  Not a chance.  As I drove through the parking lot on the first few days of the Holidays there were people parking in illegal park zones and even in the grass all over the place!  We were forced to reopen the Pluto lot.  Literally forced.

Then, they redirected the traffic back around so we could again have better access to park at DU.  They put a crossing guard out to help direct the traffic for pedestrians.  I find it funny that whoever was making these decisions never saw these problems coming.  Especially since you could ask any cast member in all of MK and they would have called it from miles away!  West Clock is simply not enough.

Well, during this whole shamboozle, my parking habits got entirely messed up.  Depending on the time of day I had to go to a different part of the lot that I knew would be open.  For a few weeks we actually had cast members out directing traffic around the parking lots with radios determining where the open spaces were and telling cars to go there.

The worst part in all this is that I wouldn't remember where I parked each day.  With three different parking lots, each one larger than the next, I was lucky if I even remembered which lot I was in!  It actually became quite hilarious as I'd wander aimlessly through the parking lot, trying to find where I thought I'd parked but then wondering if I was even in the right lot, and what did I even have for lunch today!?    I'd take frequent turns in circles and chuckled to myself telling me that "at least I'm getting my exercise."

Tonight, however, it was less funny.  When I forget my jacket and it's only 40 degrees and rainy... and I don't know which parking lot my car is in... my life becomes suddenly much sadder.  Put that at the end of a twelve hour shift of a sixty hour work week and you have a very dreary me.

Despite this long post complaining about parking, I have to say that I do love working for Disney.  I'm confident that the people in charge of these parking issues are working to find the best solution as quickly as possible. I am always able to get a spot, and I've never been late to work yet (except that one time when I accidentally slept through my alarm).  It's hard to keep that many cast members safe and organized all the time and I admire what they do.

Now if only I could get an app on my phone that remembers where my car is for me...