THANKSGIVING AND CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEARS, OH MY

Living in a town with three major theme park companies, you start to see where each develop their special niche. Universal Studios it's Halloween. With all of the classic monster movies to pull from, they have became the masters of the things that go bump in the night. During Holloween Horror Nights they scare the snot out of normaly sane individuals with deranged clowns, Bloody Mary, demented nursery ryhme characters and thier own creation: The Chain Saw Drill Team.(zombies chasing people around the park with real chain saws. . .with the blades removed of course.) I have heard of many occasions where half drunk guests try to challenge the cast for thier chain saws. Word to the wise, unlike at Disney and SeaWorld, scare characters at Universal can and do fight back.

Sea World always seems to have a 'We are the World' feel. For a while anyway, Fourth of July was thier niche. They had special patriotic Shamu shows and firworks. At the time I'm writing this, they had just been bought out by a foreign company, so time will tell if that will still be thier niche. A side note, they have a Shamu show called 'Believe'. My friend saw it the other day and said it was really cool. . . until the whales stopped believing. Apparently something happened and they started aggressively circling the tank. Needless to say, the trainers bailed out of the water until they get them calmed down.

Disney's niche in the holidays is Christmas. Nobody can even come close to all of the details that Disney puts in thier displays. There's a Forty Five foot Christmas Tree in the lobby of Wilderness Lodge. Although the uneven placement of the Teepee ornaments has bugged me all Season. Yacht and Beach club had a chocolate carousel. Boardwalk had a gingerbread gazebo with a moving train set running around it. Why a Gazebo? I'd like to know. If anyone has an answer, emial me. THe Grand Florida has a huge ginger bread house in their lobby. Our guests in the campgrounds who set up for the whole season have taken it upon thier self to decorate thier motor homes with lights and christmas displays to such a degree that is has drawn the attention of a travel channel television show.

The Millions of lights in the Osbourne Family lights display at the Studios lost alot of it's charm once residential street was plowed over for the new stunt show. The Spectical of Lights, or as we call it, S O L . . .(Yeah we have a few other choice discriptions as well), anyway, it all started in Little Rock Arkansaw. Mr Osbourne managed to tick off some neighbors with his massive Christmas light display every year. Law enforcement was called in to manage the crowds and government officals fined him for disrupting the peace and creating traffic jams. Story has it that a particular neighbor got mad, so he bought their house and threw lights on it as well. As this battle was spinning out of control, in steps Disney. They offered to pay off his fines and in return Disney would have the rights to the displays. And thus a Disney legend is born. A little side note, I was told that in 2008, as the metal globe that sits above the display was being installed, it was accidently dropped from the crane and it rolled several hundred yards into the park before stopping. It survived. Dented, but survived. One of my favorite memories of SOL, was back when they used to hand out 3D glasses. With them on, you'd see angels every where. One day, I came across a five or six years old child, standing inches away from a tall lit up candy cane. She'd put the glasses look at the lights. She'd take them off and look at the lights. Put them on, take them off. She must have done this five or six timed in a row. It was like she was trying to figure out where the angels came from.

Epcot always has the warm fuzzy 'all is well with the world' shows. Besides Illuminations, during chriatmas, they have a retelling of the Christmas story by guest celebrity narrators. It's always standing room only, which is why i haven't seen it yet. When you work for the mouse, you tend to not wait around when the lines are long.

Magic Kingdom, being the grand daddy of them all has a Christmas parade, an electric light parade, fireworks and characters out the ying yang. One year back in the nineties, it was a rainy, nasty mess here in Orlando on Christmas day. But the Disney Christmas parade that was televised showed bright sunny skys. So we had guests from Tampa decide to take a drive over to Orlando and get into the sunny side of the state. . . I mean after all, it was sunny on TV. Ooops, Faux Pas. Most, if not all of the Parade is filled in advance. This year Millie Cyrus was supposed to host it. I didn't have the heart to tell Millie's fans that her parts were aleady taped.

New Years has it's usual fireworks and confetti. On the eve of the new millenium, however, Disney had planned for everything from a mild hiccup in the computer systems to an all out Armaggeddon. They had high powered construction lights at every intersection in case the Y2K struck down our power grid. THey had lengthy plans in case of senario A, B and X. THEN. . .nothing happened. Universal Studios, in contrast, gave us one sheet of paper with some meager instructions in case of power outages and/ or Y2K mayhem. Again, nothing happened.

Poor Thanksgiving tends to get over looked alot. Management always gets a turkey and/ or ham for us and we potluck the rest. One year, Epic had several turkeys delievered to the stage on a tall, metal catering cart. The cart was pushed outside to give us room in the trailer. And there it sat . . . and sat . . . and sat. It had to have been nearly a month that it was forgotten outside of the Epic trailer. When one day, some one decided to send it back to catering. It was then that we realized we still had aleast two roast turkey's in there. Needless to say they were a bit fuzzy.
Martin Luther King day, I never really thought much about him, UNTIL his day turned into a paid holiday.

November is Native American Month and at the Wilderness Lodge, we have a tribal leader bless the lodge. Maybe that's why we're staying busy in the slow periods. In our lobby we have two totem poles. Since it is considered to be bad luck to have them face each other, ours are off set just a bit, but I was told that the totems almost facing each other is another reason we get it blessed every year, in order to keep all of the bad spirits, karma, ect away.

Another November memory was the year Disney decided to float the Macy's Thanksgiving day ballons over New York street. I was told that there had to technicians on the building roofs 24/7 to keep the helium ballond from tearing up or getting tangled up since they would sink in the cool night air and could possibly over inflate in the heated up day time air. We still managed to kill the a few ballons. I can'r remember if we did that one or two years, but when the Osbourne lights moved in the Macy's ballons moved up the road to Universal.

THanks for readiing. Keep coming back each month for more inside the insider's view of Disney

W T H

In today's Blog I'm starting a 'W'hat 'T'he 'H'ell moments section. I'm sure I will have many additions over time.

Anything political brings out the best in most people. The day of the last Obama/McCain presidnetial debate I had a gentleman (I use this term losely) come to the desk and question why we didn't have FoxNews on the cable system. I told him we had Fox Network. He blew up. "I DIDN'T SAY FOX NETWORK. I SAID FOX NEWS. IT IS NOT RIGHT THAT YOU DON'T HAVE FOX NEWS. I WILL NEVER COME BACK TO DISNEY AND I WILL NEVER STAY HERE AGAIN. He had his finger in my face as he yelled, then stormed off. I was floored and speachless. I went to the back office and the only thing i could say was, "What the Hell was that all about ?" I later found out that FoxNews has the reputation for being ultra conservative Republican. So Mr MadMan had to have been McCain Repulican Supporter Poster Child.

As I have said before, we are a swamp state. We have bugs and we have reptiles. That's not to say we like them, BUT most of us under stand that there are more roaches and mosquitoes than humans and bug spray can only due so much. I had a guest at AllStar get upset about a cockroach in an out side laundry room. I tried to explain that it had rained alot recently and bugs, like people, tend to move to drier ground. He said, "Is that acceptible to have roaches around here ?" I said, "No, but bug spray can only do so much." He came back with, "So you have roaches in your house." "No i Don't." "Then why is it acceptible here ?" . . . basically he wanted to pick a fight, so I sent him to a manager.

I love the "My plane broke down. We're 12 hours late. How are you going to compensate me." comments. I tried to explain to this guest that we are not an airlines. We don't have anything to do with the airlines. "It was Disney that booked this flight." "Mam, Reservations books alot of people on a lot of different flights." She came back with, "It's not my fault I lost a day. You are the ones that booked me on that flight." ". . . Did I mention that WE ARE NOT THE AIRLINES."

My first day back from several weeks vacation, I had a guest at the Wilderness Lodge ask me, "Where's the Geshia ?" He spoke with a heavy spanish accent, so I could barely understand him, but he kept asking about the Geshias. I kid you not, in the back of my mind I kept thinking, 'I know I've been gone for a while, but I didn't think it had been THAT long.' When the elderly gentleman asked again he made a hand motion for water. I FINALLY understood. He was asking about the Geysers. The Lodge had our version of Old Faithful down behind the pool.

I got this guest moment second hand. Apparently, at All Star Resort, a lady has a wee bit too much to drink and on her way back to her room either fell into the bushes or passed out in the bushes. However, she was wide a wake when an armadillo decided to run up her leg. She came to the desk and claimed she had been 'raped' by an armadillo. The terrified animal could not be found for questioning.

I was working at the bus stop for Boardwalk Resort one morning and heard a child tell her mom. "I finished my Goldfish(crackers)." I didn't too much about it, until the buses came and the crowds left. Then I realized that her version of "I finished my Goldfish." meant she had dumped the bag of crackers on the ground. After the large group of guests waiting for the bus trompled through them, the entire bus stop floor was covered in orange cracker crumbs.

Bless thier hearts, some people get so confused. I can't tell you how many times I have had people ask me where The Hulk Roller Coaster is, or where is the Beetlejuice Show? I can really mess with thier heads when I say, "about ten miles north of here." "Huh ?" Sometimes when we tell them that a particular ride isn't at Disney, people will want to argue with you. I have been known to say, " Look I work at Universal Studios too. Trust me when I say that ride (or show) is at Universal, not Disney."

Jumping over to our Studios for a moment. For those old timers who may remember Super Star Television, I have some precious children moments to share. Did I say Precious, what I meant to say was, W T H moments. Super Star would pick 20 to 24 people out of the audience, costuming would dress them in costumes then send them out on stage for thier acting debute. As the moms of the entertainment world, costuming people became pretty darn good at preventing melt downs with the younger kids, most of the time.

In the Bonanza scene we'd put a vest and tie on a child and the techs put them on a fake horse. In the camera shot it's supposed to look like they're one of the Cartwright brothers. One day I tried to put the tie on a girl. She said, "No." I said, " Can you try it for five minutes ?" "NO." "Well, then you need to go sit back down." "NO." "You're going to get stepped on if you stay in the middle of the floor." "NO." I gave up. I don't think she ever did move.


After Little Ms. NO, we had Damion child. Super Star had three large turn tables with large sets on them for the differnt scenes. Damion child kept trying to jump on the turn tables everytime they moved. During scenes he'd stomp around back stage with his Mickey ears in one had and a pair of Mickey glasses in the other. Apparently, he wanted more attention, so he threw his hat and glasses down and fell to the floor. The other guests thought he was hurt. He wasn't. Finally one of the techs literally picked him up and said, "You're staying with me for a while." . . . or at least until the end of the show.

A ride operations host working at Star Tours was bored one day and began acting like a animatron as the guests were leaving the ride. One guest stuck her hand down his shirt to see if he was real and in the process, ripped several buttons off his shirt. When questioned later, she said she wanted see if he had nipples. (I don't elaborate on this stuff, I just report it.)

I have been told that Guest Relations, you know them as them complaint people, have been asked why Disney World wasn't covered so that people wouldn't get rained on.
Speaking of rain. Can anyone tell me why people Keep Running for Cover in the rain after you're already soaked to the bone ? You are already wet. You can't get any wetter than wet.

Though I have never worked there, i was told that a typical day at Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground consists of:


HISK Cast Member
(clears throat)

"Get down from there. Get down from there. Don't climb on
that. Get down from there. You lost you mom ? Don't worry
we'll find her. Get down from there. Get, get, get, get,
down. Yes You!. "

HISK Cast Member exists stage left with mental break down eminent.

HISK Cast Member
"What The Hell !!"