Read The Ride Delegate: Memoir of a Walt Disney World VIP Tour Guide Online
Authors: Annie Salisbury
Tags: #disney world, #vip tour, #cinderella, #magic kingdom, #epcot
“With my non-existent company credit card?” I asked. The coordinator didn’t like that answer.
“William was booked through Disney Travel. We paid for his flight, so just call someone over there. They should be able to rebook him.” She gave me the number and I jotted it down on a napkin and stuffed it into my vest pocket, then went running from my car into the terminal.
The time allotment of a tour guide can be divided as:
I’ve never spent so much time at an airport before. I never dreamed that becoming a tour guide would have me spending at least five hours at week at MCO, either dropping guests off, or picking guests up, or sitting at the Delta baggage claim hoping that my guests would arrive on schedule. I spent so much time there that some flight attendants actually started recognizing me when I would fly myself. Security recognized me from all the times I had pulled into express parking located underneath the terminal.
By the time I made it inside the building, I had an email from the Office on my phone.
If they want to stay another night, the Grand will put them up. Just talked to the GM.
It was a Saturday afternoon, and that was probably going to be the best bet. I looked at my watch, and it was almost 4:30pm. Their original flight was supposed to leave at 6. Now they weren’t going anywhere.
I found William and Catherine sitting off to the side of the ticketing counter. Catherine waved me over. “Any news?” she asked.
“The flight’s been canceled. Technical problems. It was the last flight out for the day. Your room at the Grand is still available, if you’d like to leave early tomorrow morning. I can arrange that now.”
“We have a christening to attend in the morning.” Catherine told me.
There were very few times I felt like I had no control over the tour. There was the time I somehow wound up hosting nine 11-year olds for a birthday party in the Magic Kingdom, while Mom made business calls on her phone all day. There was the time my guests thought I was giving them a “Christian-based Christmas Tour” of the Magic Kingdom during one of the Christmas parties. There was also the two-guide 16-person tour that only spoke Spanish and I trailed along behind them, having no idea where we were going or what we were doing. But this was the first time I wasn’t in control of the situation on Disney property. I had no power at Orlando International Airport. I didn’t know what to do.
Catherine could sense that I didn’t know what to do. She made the suggestion that we head into the main part of the airport, where we could see the big ARRIVAL and DEPARTURE boards, and maybe William could get something to eat. He hadn’t eaten since lunch.
Meanwhile, I thought about the yogurt and banana I had eaten around 9am, and the crepe I had around 2. That’s all I had eaten thus far. I didn’t realize I was hungry until Catherine mentioned that William might be.
The two of them settled into metal chairs in the open atrium of the airport and I pulled out my Blackberry and typed numbers into the keypad. Moments later I was connected to Kelly, the woman who had set up their initial tickets. I gave her a quick rundown of the situation and ended with, “They need to be back in LA tonight. They have a christening in the morning.”
“Jesus Christ, I’m not that magical,” Kelly grumbled on the other end. “What am I supposed to do? Charter the Disney One for them?”
“We gotta get them back to LA.” I looked over at them. Catherine was completely unrecognizable, unless someone knew she was married to William. William was recognizable. He was a nice man, yes, but he wasn’t too found of the attention that came with being on television. He explicitly told me that he wanted to enjoy time in Disney World with Catherine, not with guests following him asking for autographs. I made him wear a hat and sunglasses as we went through the park, and he went unnoticed. Here in the airport he wasn’t wearing a hat or sunglasses, and teenage girls were beginning to notice him.
“I’m going to have to call you back. Let me see what I can do,” Kelly said, and then hung up on me. I motioned to Catherine to have William put on his hat and he did so.
Seeing very few options, I wandered over to the customer service desk at MCO. The girl behind the counter was more than eager to help me, and I realized it was because I wasn’t a passing tourist. I had a nametag on, just like her.
“Is that…” She started, looking over in William’s direction.
“Yes. His flight was canceled. Help?”
“Can I have a picture with him?”
“He’s really camera shy. How about you just take a picture from afar here and then tell all your friends you helped him get home?” The girl must have been three or four years younger than I was, and she nodded like the president had just assigned her a Secret Service task. She punched things into her computer.
“There are three more flights to LA today. One leaves in…twenty minutes. The other in two hours, and the last one leaves at 10pm tonight.”
“They have to get home ASAP.”
“I can’t book the flight here. You have to go to the counter to do that.”
MCO is probably the worst designed airport ever, in my opinion. It’s separated between A and B terminals, and it’s gigantic, and there’s no easy way to get from one terminal to the other without literally running the full length of the terminal.
My Blackberry rang. Kelly was on the other end. “I can get them on the flight, but it leaves in fifteen minutes.” I could see security off in the distance. The really cool thing about MCO is that just like Disney World, the wait times are posted so you know what kind of line you’re going to be waiting in. The wait time for security said 20 MINS. I had no idea how to FastPass it.
“We won’t make it,” I told Kelly. What about the one in two hours?” Kelly typed into her computer so loudly I could hear her keys.
“It’s full.”
I groaned. I turned back to the girl behind the service counter. “Can you overbook a plane?” She looked at me like I had six heads. You can’t overbook Chef Mickeys, but did tour guides do it anyway? Yes. Why couldn’t I overbook a plane?
I made my way back to William and Catherine. Catherine was reading a book. “Good news?” she asked happily.
“There’s one flight in fifteen minutes, but we’ll never make it. The other is in two hours, and it’s completely booked.” I dropped my head in defeat.
“We need to make it back to LA tonight.”
I called Kelly again. “Do you think I could run down to the ticket counter and beg them to bump someone so William and Catherine can get home?”
“I don’t know, I’m not there,” Kelly told me. She was literally the worst Gary Sinise.
I made the decision to run from the spot in terminal A all the way to the ticket counter in Terminal B, my hair flopping behind me as I hurried down the corridor, past duty-free shops and confused tourists. I arrived at the ticket counter, completely out of breath.
“Is there any way I could get two guests onto the next flight to LA?” I told them William’s name, thinking that might help. They might be more apt to take a guest knowing he had Emmy nominations.
The woman behind the counter shook her head. “Sorry, sweetheart! We’re completely booked!”
My phone buzzed. Kelly. “Ask them if they’d be okay sitting separately.”
Hold on. Lemme just run all the way back to Terminal A.
“Would it be okay if you guys didn’t sit together?” I asked Catherine, still deep in her book.
“That’d be fine. Does one of the seats have extra legroom?”
Kelly heard the question through the phone. “Nope.” She said into my ear.
“Unfortunately, no.” I told Catherine.
“He needs extra legroom. He just had knee surgery, and I don’t want his leg going stiff in the air.”
“Did you hear that?” I asked Kelly, into the phone.
“No extra legroom,” she said. I hung up with her. Turned back to Catherine.
“Is there any scenario where you guys would consider staying the night? I’ll take you back early tomorrow morning. With the time difference you should still arrive in LA before the christening.”
“We need to be back tonight.” Catherine said. She was firm with her words, and I knew I couldn’t ask the question again. I had to get them on a flight.
My phone buzzed. Again. Kelly. “Hey, ask the ticket counter if they can bump someone from an emergency exit row. See if you can get seats switched around.”
Hold on. Lemme run back to the ticket counter.
“Possibly. But we won’t know that till we’re boarding!” The woman behind the ticket counter told me. I told Kelly this. I ran back to Catherine and William.
“Do you think it’s possible?” Catherine said, turning to look at William, deep in a celebrity magazine. The teenage girl sitting across from him stared at him with wide eyes of recognition.
“I have no idea. But it’ll be the only way to get you home tonight.”
“Book the tickets.”
I called Kelly back. “The tickets are gone now. Someone else bought them while you were running.”
“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” I yelled into my Blackberry. Everyone sitting in the nearby Chili’s turned in my direction.
“I’m going to call the service number here,” Kelly said. “Maybe they can help.” So Kelly had just been sitting by the computer, playing Angry Bird while I ran the terminal twice over. I was on hold with her for about five minutes before she came back. I had started pacing around the airport, in and out of the newsstand.
“So, they can get two tickets. Not together. Not an extra legroom seat. But one of them might be an exit row. They’re going to try to switch someone out.”
“Buy them. Just do it.” I told her. I’m surprised I didn’t have a collection of teenage onlookers as well. If William and Catherine didn’t get on the flight, I was going to LAX myself.
“You have to go get their boarding passes.” She read me the credit card number over the phone. “The flight starts boarding in forty five.”
So, one more time, I ran through the airport, darting by suitcases and rolling luggage as I dashed to the ticket counter like my life depended on it. I furiously punched the credit card number into the machine and verified what I hoped was William’s personal information. Two boarding passes printed out and I was moving again before they had time to properly discharge from the computer.
Catherine saw me come running towards her. “Do we have tickets?”
“Here, here!” I basically hurdled over a suitcase. “You’re not together. And it might not be extra legroom. But it might be an exit row.” I handed her the boarding passes as I grabbed her rolling suitcase.
“Honey, come on, it’s time to go,” Catherine called to William. He opened his eyes. He had fallen asleep. Did he even know I had just run the course of the airport three times?
I led them through the terminal and towards the security checkpoint closest to their gate. Catherine gave me a big hug, and William gave me a firm handshake. “Thanks for everything.” he said, as the two of them disappeared into the herd of tourists trying to get places.
I might as well have collapsed on the floor there. I sighed so heavily people around me turned to look at what was going on. I pulled my cellphone out of my pocket. I wasn’t on Disney property. I didn’t care. Two hours had passed. I felt like I might pass out.
There was a text from my best friend asking me what time I wanted to meet for dinner.
I’m still at MCO. (I typed back.)
I don’t understand.
Neither do I.
I stumbled through MCO trying to remember what ticket counter I had parked near. I passed the food court and I saw, like Gatsby’s green light, the neon sign of Chick-fil-A. I don’t even like Chick-fil-A. But suddenly, that’s all I could ever want in the world. I ordered a chicken sandwich, two orders of waffle fries, and the largest diet Coke they had. I sat in a booth in the middle of the food court, all alone, and ate my food like a hungry scavenger. I thought about the etiquette lessons I had been given so long ago, and I wiped ketchup off of the corner of my mouth. This was probably way worse than eating a corn dog at the exit of Jungle.
I didn’t realize my last VIP tours were my last VIP tours until they were over. I had asked for the weekend off to go to a friend’s wedding out of state, and she moved her wedding date at the last second to a month earlier. I didn’t know you could reschedule your wedding, but I guess you can. I now had a long weekend, and if my mom knew I had a long weekend she’d get mad at me for having so many days off. I called up the Office and told them that I’d be willing to work Friday and Saturday.
Those two tours were the epitome of the juxtaposition of my time as a tour guide. One tour was awful; the other was wonderful.
Two weeks before those tours I had applied and interviewed for a job outside of Disney. While I enjoyed being at Disney, part of me thought that maybe it was time to spread my wings and fly away. Go the distance. Find a new dream. The job told me I would hear back about the position in two weeks, and Friday was the two-week mark. I kept my phone in my vest pocket all day in case anyone called me to give me good news.
Friday’s tour was Grandpa and Grandma and two bratty kids, and Grandma and Grandpa had hired me to watch over the bratty kids. That day, I just wasn’t feeling the babysitter’s role. My mind was elsewhere, and I spent most of the day distracted. I was waiting for a phone call that would hopefully change my life. But hours passed, and I didn’t hear anything. It got to be middle of the afternoon and I thought, what the heck, might as well email them regarding my application.
We were eating in Cosmic Rays, and I snuck away from the table, ordered chicken nuggets, and ducked into a custodial closet by the bathroom. I sat on the ledge of the floor-sink and I composed an email on my phone asking if I could have an update on my candidacy.
An hour later I found myself standing in the queue for Pirates of the Caribbean with my guests. I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. Without thinking I pulled it out, like I had done so many other times on tour, and I read the email. I got so far as “regrettably” when I stopped reading and shoved my phone back into my pocket. We were standing at the cannons in the queue line, the part where you can actually see the boats approaching the loading dock. My guests and I walked down the ramp, towards the boats, and I told the Cast Member that four people would be riding.