One more before I sleep. This is one of my favorite stories to tell because it was one of my favorite days of "work" at Magic Kingdom. But first, there's a bit of backstory.
The attraction "it's a small world" closed in May 2004 for a really long refurb/renovation, as they'd be redesigning the facade to resemble Disneyland's, and add some new animatronics and update the sound system. The attraction re-opened again in late March 2005.
I started the College Program in late January 2005 and was part of the Magic Kingdom OutDoor Foods department. We handled the popcorn wagons, ice cream wagons, and the two nut wagons as well as the Main Street beverage station on the Castle Hub. By March 2005, I had formed a close circle of friends: Rachael, James, Joyce, Jenny Lamb, Bill, Marissa, and LaCharles. Lucky for all seven of us, on one fateful March day, we were given the unique role of "guinea pigs". "Guinea Pigs?" you ask. Yes, we were guinea pigs.
You see, "it's a small world" was pretty much closed for ten months, and during those ten months, castmembers who originally worked that ride were assigned to work elsewhere, and while they were still certified to work it, a whole slew of additional castmembers weren't. So, in order to train them on the ride, as well as re-train castmembers, most of them were sent to work at Pirates of the Caribbean, as it has the same loading system. Thus, castmembers would learn how to load the boats properly, when to push the buttons to let each boat come and go, etc.
But at the same time, they needed to learn additional things as well, such as how to do emergency evacuations, how to direct guests onto the boats, etc. Because while the loading system is the same between Pirates and Small World, the environment isn't. Castmembers needed to learn how to handle wheelchair guests, how to get guests in and out as fast and safely as possible in emergency evacuations, etc.
However, they couldn't do this with real guests. After all, what guest would want to spend X-amount of hours during their vacation being a guinea pig? So, Disney chose the next best thing: fellow castmembers.
Yes, fellow castmembers. A group of castmembers from each department of Magic Kingdom were randomly assigned to report to "it's a small world" one fateful March morning, to spend the next seven hours of their lives being "guests" to help the castmembers train. And in most cases, the randomly assigned castmembers were from the College Program (perhaps the way to make it a more fun assignment). But we did see our share of managers (!), coordinators, and full-timers who reported for duty.
And what did we do as guests?
We rode "it's a small world" OVER AND OVER AGAIN. And let me tell you, you haven't ridden small world until you've ridden it OVER AND OVER AGAIN. With half the animatronics not moving. And some of them are naked. While about a dozen in each scene are *headless*. All the while, the damn song plays OVER AND OVER AGAIN.
The first few times wasn't so bad. All of us were able to get that sneak peek at the new facade and the new animatronics before the guests did. And for some "it's a small world" virgins, it was like a dream come true. But then, as fifteen minutes turned to an hour, and an hour turned to two, we were going crazy.
Our boat had fun, though. Since it was mostly young College Program kids, we all had fun talking to each other and admiring the attraction. And we had fun with every trip, as one guy had the great idea of having us do different poses as the boat came back into view of the castmembers at load/unload. The first one we did was "sleep", which was obvious, we all "fell asleep" on the ride. Next we did a wave (front to back wave, not side to side). There were several others, among them strangulation, sitting backwards, and there was also talk of mooning the castmembers, but no one had the balls to do it.
Anyway, we did that ride for THREE WHOLE HOURS. Three hours of the same melody, the same robot children, the same naked and headless dolls. If I had done it alone, I'd have killed myself. But I was with my friends, and it was AWESOME.
After the three hours, all the guinea pig castmembers finally were deployed off the boats (well, finally in the sense that we didn't have to get on them again, as we did emergency evacuations as well). And we all went back down to the tunnels to check with the Deployment Base, and see what our next assignment was.
And rather than change our time and have us clock out four hours early, the managers basically said "Just ask your managers if they need you to stay on, and if they don't...go play in the park and clock out when it says to on your shift." None of us could believe it. WE WOULD GET PAID TO PLAY IN THE PARK FOR FOUR HOURS!!!
All of us were excited, obviously, because before we all clocked in and headed to "it's a small world", we asked the managers what we should do if we finish early, and our managers said "well, we don't really have you guys scheduled for anything here since you'll be there, and we've got a pretty full roster of workers coming in today, so just do whatever they tell you to do. If you want to come back, you can."
Two of our friends went back to work (James and Joyce, but that was obvious since Joyce is a dedicated worker and back then James would follow her to the ends of the earth). But the rest of us (if you forgot, it's Rachael, Jenny Lamb, LaCharles, Bill, Marissa, and me) decided to play.
And play we did! Within the four hours, we covered nearly all of Tomorrowland and all that was worth seeing in Liberty Square! Unfortunately, somewhere down the road we lost Marissa (who met some friends and stayed with them). When it came for us to clock out, we all went back down to the tunnels, clocked out quickly, and were back up in the park in and under 10 minutes.
Perhaps the best part of the day was when we went to Toontown Fair, and got a group picture with Mickey Mouse. We weren't interested in getting pictures with any other character, we felt that because of how awesome the day was, we could not go without a Mickey picture. And so, I present...
(In Clockwise from left to right: Me, Jenny Lamb, Mickey, Bill, LaCharles, and Rachael)
It's one of my favorite pictures from my time in Florida, along with this...
(LaCharles, me, and Bill)
Anyway, the rest of the day pretty much was a blur of us having a lot of fun in the Magic Kingdom (though once again, we lost a friend as Bill met up with his sister Kat, and she hung out with us for a bit before the both of them left to meet up with other hometown friends). Rachael, Jenny Lamb, LaCharles, and me spent the rest of the day at Magic Kingdom, and the day concluded with the four of us getting our tired selves onto the "A" bus to the apartments. Rachael & LaCharles got off at Chatham, while me and Jenny Lamb went on to Vista.
And thus ended the best day of work in my entire time at Walt Disney World.
Albert
, and "Snow White was only 14!" And I told her I was going to the Halloween party that night as Katrina Van Tassel on Ichabod and Mr. Toad. And then the next time she saw me she remembered me as dressing up as Katrina, I thought that was pretty kewl she remembered me!
