So far? So good! I'm loving it at Toy Story Midway Mania. I'm now pretty comfortable with everything, as I've been working at Toy Story for about 2 months. I've gotten settled, found my nitch of friends. I get along with mostly everybody, but in anything you do, you will always find that small group of people that you just fit in with. I'm very happy with the new friends I have made, and with the new experiences. Sure, there are some people that drive my crazy, and I've already run across some cast members, both front line and authority figure, that know how to press my buttons. But all in all, I've found a nice little corner to call home.
Toy Story is so busy. If we were to meet our goal, we'd carry almost 15,000 people in a day. However, due to down times and everything else, it's usually a couple thousand less. But still over 10,000 in a day. We run out of Fast Passes by about 3pm every day. Sometimes it's a little later, and when it's busy, we can be out by noon. No matter what position you are assigned, it's heavy guest interaction. But I love it. It keeps me busy, and makes my day (normally) fly by.
There are several positions that I love! And a few more that I hate. And many in between. One of my favorite is what we call the Grouper. Grouper is in charge of grouping party members into the right size and places them into rows for the ride, so that they ride together. At Toy Story, I will admit, because our cars are so small, it's actually fairly simple compared to other attractions. But you have to be on your toes, and be vigilant. You don't want to split up families/parties. But you also can't send cars with little or no people in them. Another position I like is what we call WAV and WAV Assist. WAV stands for Wheelchair Assist Vehicle (I think...). It's a special vehicle that allows non-transferable people to still ride. It's just a lot of fun. There is more time to get to know the guests. And, it's just a really great feeling when you have a guest that can't go on many rides because they are in a wheel chair, but thank you profusely when we are able to accommodate them. There are a few positions I hate. Mostly, because they are repetitive. So no need to get into them.
And with any guest-related job, there is bound to be unhappy people. In just two months, I've had several people threaten (and maybe follow through) to go to Guest Relations and complain about me. I had one family go as far as to take a picture of me to take with them to Guest Relations. But I believe it's safe to say that in every case where a guest has threatened to or actually gone to Guest Relations, I was simply following protocol, and thus not doing anything wrong. People just think that because it is Disney World, that we as cast members are not allowed to say "No!" to them. But we are, and we do when we have to.
The few people who threaten to "tell on me" are totally put in the dark by the hundreds and thousands of people I see leaving our ride thanking us or even simply smiling. I love seeing a little kid so incredibly happy after "winning a prize" on the game. Or an old lady leaving saying "now that I can do over and over and over again!" The amount of people who, despite their hour and a half wait, come off saying that it was totally worth it. The healthy competition that comes within a family, bragging about who got the highest score. It's these people that keep me here in Florida, working for the Mouse!
