Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Tales From the Turntable: Earning My Ears


I really want to just jump to the fun stuff, like giving nicknames to fellow Cast Members without their knowledge, impressions of fellow Cast Members on the turntable, singing competitions at Jellyrolls, drinking around the World, and embalming fluid... but I guess we better set the scene first.

I worked at multiple places during my long stint in Walt Disney World, but it all got started at Kali River Rapids, a place I will always hold dear to my heart, even though I pretty much have no desire to ever ride again! It was early August 2001 and I was nervous and excited to finally be an Attractions Hostess! Growing up I always thought that would be the coolest thing. I'd go to Disneyland and see the Cast Members in fun costumes, sending guests to ride vehicles and walking on moving platforms. Sure, I had a Bachelors Degree, but I had a personal goal and I was finally achieving it. I was going to be doing all of that fun cool kid stuff!! I got to wear shorts as my costume (versus a dress with nylons like in Magic Kingdom!), I would get to send guests to a variety of rafts and I would be walking on a moving platform. I set lofty goals!

Check out the photo above for proof of this awesome costume. HA! I never wore that hat after training was over... well, not until Halloween 2015 when I dressed up as a pregnant Kali River Rapids Expedition Guide. Those socks went bye bye as well. I didn't need any extra tan lines. We river kids were always sporting the worst farmer's tans with those costumes as it was! That photo is taken from in the ride area right before guests exist their rafts. When operational, that elephant will spray water on the rafts below after being triggered by other guests on the bridge behind me. Training was intense and lasted 4 days, with a final day being one where you showed that you can in fact do all of the tasks. After that you are on your own and the real fun begins!

I figure most of you haven't been on Kali considering it is on the other side of the continent and a lot of us Oregonians head to Disneyland easier than The World, so let me give you some back story! Kali Rapids Expeditions is in the village of Anandapur. In a round 12 person raft guests will venture into the jungle, taking in the scent of jasmine and peaceful animal noises. But things start to go awry. The water gets choppier as we hear the sound of chainsaws. As you round a corner you begin to see habitat destruction. A logging truck is sliding down toward the water, and a burning log (that you can actually smell) is resting right over the flume. You pause for a moment before beginning your plunge down the hill, no doubt leaving you soaked at the bottom, and continuing to get wet as you float through the rough water while hearing rowdier animal noises. Wanna hear those sounds? Get our old Kali crew together with a lot of alcohol and we will imitate the hell out of it for you!


I began this job as an intern, and once that ended I quickly became an official full time cast member AND a trainer. I LOVED being a trainer, and not just for the slight pay increase when I was training. I loved what Walt stood for, and I always wanted to help create and keep the magic alive. As a trainer I was able to share my passion with my trainees and help them learn not only how to operate the attraction, but how to interact with guests and what to do in the not so favorable situations we sometimes found ourselves in. It felt like quite an honor when the managers approached me about being a trainer, and I am so glad it all came to fruition!

Hard at work at Load
In any given day we Expeidition Guides would be in a number of positions, always following the same rotation. These positions were:
  • Height Stick: which is at the front of the line, and way harder than it sounds. Parents tend to forget about SAFETY and focus on wanting their child to get on the ride no matter what.
  • Crossing Guard: probably my least favorite spot. The last check point for shoes and height.
  • Guide: My absolute favorite. Sending guests to the rafts. You could be filling 4 at a time with 12 people in each raft, so the math got fun and tricky. Especially when some guests need to be counted as two because of size and seat belts. I could do this all day and be happy.
  • Load: We had multiple load positions going at once. When guests were sent to a raft a Load cast member was assisting them in sliding to the back and sitting two people per seat to make sure everyone fits. This position would communicate with the Guide non-stop, and also make sure our smallest rafters were in their special seats under the lap bar. You definitely work up a sweat when you're at Load.
  • Checker: Oh my, the checker. This is the last spot on the turntable where we had to make sure everyone had shoes on (this rule may have changed since I left) and mainly making sure everyone had a seat belt on. Seriously. I can do an entire post on seat belts.
  • Unload: This is where you, can you guess it?, unload from the raft. Pretty mindless and easy - until you get a difficult guest, and trust me, you do get difficult guests. One even fired me! And one is now in a TV show I refuse to watch just because of her attitude in this spot!
  • Base: This might be the most coveted job because you are sitting alone in a room staring at monitors watching the rafts travel through the flume. But when things go wrong, you are far from alone and bored. This is where the action happens to get things rolling for things like evacuations. We will cover those for sure!
Those positions were always used. Occasionally we would have other tasks, like sweeping the queue - loved it. Pretty self explanatory - cleaning garbage and making the queue stay pretty! The other position we didn't always have and the one I probably despised the most... FastPass Merge. FastPass Distribution was simple and basically babysitting machines and helping guests that can't do what the basic photo shows them on how to insert a ticket to get a FastPass. But the merge. Oh man. This is where the stand-by guests glare at you while you make them wait so you can get the FastPass guests in at the proper ratio. Being here when the ride breaks down is absolutely the worst, especially when nobody calls to tell you the ride has broken down. I'm sure this will be covered later as well! Once in a rare while you'd get assigned to do a Magical Moment. Oftentimes we would then pick a family to ride with and give them a more in depth experience of the attraction, then send them home with a special certificate signed by the Guides.

Robin and Yuli in the break room
At the start and end of every day we had Trek Talk, where we would discus what was coming up for the day, or how the day went. Pretty standard, and always enjoyable! 

Backstage we had a small break area that often smelled terrible from the combination of foods people were fixing and oftentimes the body odor some people were emitting. As miserable as it felt, sometimes sitting outside was the better option!

So that is your basic rundown of Kali River Rapids and will set the stage for the stories that are bound to come up along the way. 

Tomorrow we will start meeting my friends! There were so many awesome people I had the pleasure of working with, and thanks to modern technology we are still in touch. The core group, however, would be me, Robin, Sarah and Bobby. We were the base group that watched as the interns would come and go. This is where we will pick up with next time... meeting my "family"!

See ya real soon! °o°

1 comment:

  1. SKittendorfMay 02, 2018

    Can't wait to stroll down memory lane with you.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for reading my little blog, your comments rock my compression socks!! ºoº