Unlike last time I did a secrets and stories, there are a couple of interesting facts here behind the scenes plus some good stories (at least to me).
This is the only park I officially worked for. During my transportation days, I was considered a part of the Magic Kingdom. After the monorail broke my arm, I was on light duty at EPCOT for a few weeks.
Here’s how it went down, in case you don’t know. After I got into a fight with Monorail Red and lost, I called a manager and was transported to Walt Disney World Health Services located behind Norway. It’s basically a doctor’s office. In fact, you wouldn’t even know it’s Disney except for the fact all the doctor’s and nurses wear the nametag ovals. Interesting note: the nametags include first and last names, as well as MD plus hometown.
Okay, so I go to Disney Doctors and they wrap me up and determine that I am to be on light duty for a while. Other doctors look at me in the meantime, but I’m going to be on light duty.
As a part of light duty, I reported to an office behind China to get the low down and paperwork and everything. I then reported to Cast Services and the Costuming department. There, I got my “Rescue Ranger” costume. No, not the same as the chipmunks. It was a blue shirt with purple highlights, Spaceship Earth, and kaki pants. This was a costume that could blend anywhere in EPCOT, so I could do different jobs even in the same day without having to change costumes.
Cast Services is located behind Mexico, very close to Test Track. In fact, you can see cast parking and the Cast Services building while doing the bank turn. Underneath the track are some picnic tables for cast members. If you know what you are looking at, you can actually see a lot of this backstage area.
During that time, I worked in a number of positions. I don’t remember what order I worked in these roles, but I was in the bus information booth at the Ticket and Transportation Center, an Exit Assistant at the Character Spot and Main Entrance of EPCOT, a Character Assistance in the World Showcase and Future World, and the worst job of all: Food and Wine Greeter.
I’ll start with the worst of the worst. Food and Wine Greeter. If this had been my job, I would have quit. I really would have. It would have put me a semester behind in school (since I was earning school credit for the Disney experience), but it would have been worth it. I only did it once.
Sounds pretty exciting, doesn’t it? Food and Wine Greeter. Well, it’s a totally backstage role which means I only talk to cast members, not guests. Cast members are great and friendly and wonderful people on stage, but some of them have fangs backstage. Not all, but a select few. Here’s the deal. During the food and wine festival, a significant number of cast members who normally don’t frequent the parks as guests come in droves. It is strictly against policy to enter from backstage as a guest. You must use the guest entrances to get in or out. From EPCOT’s cast parking, you can take a bus to the entrance.
A large concern during food and wine is intoxicated guests will see “regular people” coming from an area and then attempt to enter that area. It’s also poor show. Again, most cast members do the right thing, but those coming to the Food and Wine Festival will not make the best decisions, particularly college program participants.
That’s where my job comes in. I sat at the bus stop just outside Cast Services and looked for people not in costume. I asked for Disney Identification and encouraged them to use the buses and not enter from backstage. That’s it. I had no authority to do anything more, so many of the cast members were very rude, harsh, and insulting to me telling them what to do. It was only a eight hour shift, but it was the worst job I’ve ever done. Anywhere for any company. Frankly, I didn’t see the point since there was enough signage and everyone knew the rules to begin with.
One good thing was this was the same bus stop where many of the cast members would catch their bus to their country. It was really unique to see because apparently the shifts in the different countries are staggered. So, while standing out there, there would be a group of Mexicans, Norwegians, Chinese, Americans, Italians, Canadians, Brits, Japanese, Germans, French, and Moroccans that would come up. Those going to Mexico, China, or Norway would just walk to their location, but everyone else would take the bus.
By the way, there is no such thing as an unattractive Norwegian woman. Even though I got to stand in the presence of all this multicultural awesomeness, the role was horrible.
The Food and Wine Greeter aside, I loved EPCOT. I worked the Exit to the Character Spot. That was pretty neat. It wasn’t very hard work either. Basically, I just stood there and directed people to the entrance and assisted with the gate should someone not use the turnstile. I stood there right next to Goofy.
Getting to this area was a bit of a challenge. A bus picked me up and we rode around behind all the countries, under the International Gateway, and around to the backside of The Seas with Nemo and Friends. There was a tunnel entrance. Did you know that EPCOT has tunnels too similar to the Magic Kingdom? It’s only under FutureWorld, not the World Showcase. I followed a trail of acorns (literally) to the Character Spot, just past Innovations West. There, it was up the stairs to my assignment.
I worked in Future World as an Exit Assistant as well. Again, my job was pretty simple. I stayed by the exit, thanked people for coming, and opened the gate for anyone needing to use the gate and not a turnstile. I did this twice. Once, when at least some of the FBO+1 were there, I worked in this position and if memory serves true, Jesse saw me in this position. I liked this role a lot. I especially liked the big Mickey glove I got to wear at the end of the night.
While there, I lost my voice because I was very vocal and really tried to thank each and every guest that came past me.
“Thanks for coming!”
“See ya real soon!”
“Sir you need to finish your (alcoholic) beverage before exiting please…”
“Thanks for celebrating with us today!”
“Bye now!”
A manager took note and gave me a Fantastic Recognition. This is a program for recognizing cast members that go above and beyond (sponsored by Tinker Bell). It’s kinda a big deal, at least I thought so.
There was one guest who was apparently intoxicated and he didn’t make it through the turnstile. He stumbled and hit his head. This was the only time while working at the Walt Disney World Resort where I intiated a call for EMS assistance. There was another time I almost called, but thank God for cute lifeguards with sunscreen (wait for the Downtown Disney Resorts secrets). The guests were fine in both situations.
Okay, now let me go back to the Cast Service building for a second. There is a hallway that leads to the outside door enroute to the Entertainment Building. In this hallway are several paintings done by cast members. Some are awesome. Some are decent. And some are worse than nephew art. One was an amazing painting of Figment. Incorporated into the art where florecent lights and a motion sensor. If someone walked past, Figment’s voice could be heard saying a few different things.
“Dream Finder! I’m just right!”
“Ooo! Look! Look! A rainbow! I’ll use that…to paint with!”
“Huh?”
“[Laughter]”
“Can they imagine too?”
“Wow wow wow! Numbers letters, papers for writing! Costumes makeup, stages for lighting!”
“Science? We’ll need electron beams and crystal prisms! Gyroscropes and magnetisms!”
“Are we almost there?”
I still think he said something about work not being fun.
So, on to Entertainment!
Here, the characters meet and get into vans to take them to their respective locations. I worked with a few different characters. Stitch, Daisy Duck, Snow White, Belle, the Beast, and Three Caballeros Donald with a special appearance by Princess Aurora.
Stitch and Daisy worked together at the entrance area of EPCOT. They needed to go off stage every twenty minutes or so and return in about two minutes. This happened all day. Technically, I was just suppose to help manage the lines, but I got a little bit of training about what to look out for with the characters, and I was able to essentially be Stitch’s assistant. The full-time character assistant was very close, working with Daisy, and keeping an eye on things, but it felt like just me and Stitch. It was a little bizarre because there would be stretches of time where no one would notice us and we’d just be standing there by ourselves. Mostly talking about surfing, eating, and space travel. Stitch is very quiet and he’s really a good alien at heart. I guess that’s why I like Stitch’s Great Escape in Magic Kingdom’s Tomorrowland. It reminds me of working with Stitch.
During the breaks, I would help Stitch out if needed, but mostly I helped Daisy. I love Daisy Duck! It was a real hands-on experience working with her. SDB’s.
On to our princesses. Snow White was the first character I ever worked with. She would stay out for about forty minutes, then check on her gooseberry pies for Grumpy. My job was not quite as fun with the princesses because I was the bad guy at the end of the line telling guests of the culinary timing and how it would interfere with meeting Snow.
I worked with Snow throughout the afternoon and, subsequently, the girl who ‘hung out’ with Snow all day was named Emily told me she gets confused for Alice of Alice in Wonderland all the time. Later, after I was clocked out, changed, and leaving EPCOT’s Cast Services, a blonde girl with a black band in her hair, stopped me and started talking to me. She was not exactly ugly so I was flattered. It took a good 30 seconds before I picked up on the fact that it was Emily, the girl who was hanging out with Snow all day! One thing that threw me off was her deeper voice. Snow White has a very high, very melodic voice and was just so excited about everything as she greeted guests by her wishing well. Once we left to go check the pies, Emily would speak in a deep tone so far from Snow’s it was unreal. It took a minute to put two and two together since Emily was fairly quiet when we were backstage.
Poor Snow. On the day I worked with her it was terribly hot. She was glistening profusely (because princesses don’t sweat). While looking into those pies, she would often lift her dress over a large fan to help cool off. One of the favorite activities of the girls who would hang out with Snow White was coloring. There were tons of pictures on the wall backstage, mostly of other Disney Princesses. However, the girls would color them with traditional Snow White color schemes. So there would a coloring page of Ariel with a yellow fin, black hair, red bow, and blue shells. It was a little odd to say the least. Ironically, there were no pictures of Snow White.
Donald loved me. I would only go over and see Donald in the late evening by the Mexico pyramid. I made only one appearance per night and that was to cut off the line for the remainder of the evening. People weren’t thrilled about this, but Donald had a daily date with Daisy at San Angels he had to get ready for. He was generally very ready to go get ready for his date.
Still, my favorite day was working in France with Belle, the Beast and meeting Princess Aurora. Belle would come out for about forty minutes and be joined by the Beast for the last twenty. The Character Assistant assigned to these two would go and pull Beast away from his tea with Mrs. Potts backstage (and assist with any last minute adjustments) leaving me with Belle. They discovered I actually knew what I was doing and the assistant preferred working the back of the line (my job) rather than being by the characters (his job). That was perfect for me, so we switched roles. Again, Belle had the unique situation of having times when no one would come up to her. Many were waiting for the Beast to arrive, so Belle and I just stood in the shade of a large oak on the shores of World Showcase Lagoon just talking.
Unlike others, Belle and I could converse about any subject. Snow White just knew about forest things and mining, Stitch was all about surfing and space and even then, he didn’t talk much. But Belle was a reader and seemed to know about everything, so it wasn’t odd to discuss a range of subjects.
Tara was the girl hanging out with Belle that day and she was wonderful. When we went offstage to get some more cookies and tea from Mrs. Potts, we would all sit around and discuss a wide range of things. Ashley was hanging out with Princess Aurora and would join us. It was more than surreal because we had a DVD player showing Sleeping Beauty. I must say sitting on a couch watching Sleeping Beauty next to Ashley was pretty amazingly cool. Sean, they guy hanging out with the Beast, had some funnel cake from American Adventure with vanilla ice cream. Pretty good, but I think I’d opt out of ice cream if given the option.
That’s about all the stories I have for EPCOT. This was a long entry, but I hope it’s been fun for you. It has been for me just going down memory lane.
I normally don’t put pictures with my secrets and stories entries, but I wanted to include these. I made sure to get photos with Snow White, Belle, and Aurora while they were hanging out with Emily, Tara, and Ashley.
TTFN
On Deck: Block Party Bash
In The Hole: An EPCOT Country
