#chrisfromorlando

The purple and gold getup was also fairly unflattering. It didn’t help that the elastic on the sleeves was completely stretched out. At some point I realized I didn’t have my name tag with me. At Animal Kingdom, my location had name tags to sign out. The name on the borrowed tags was Peyton. At Magic Kingdom, though, you have to check one out at costuming. 

Chris Orlando, FL The infamous borrowed name tag. “Chris from Orlando”. The day was getting interesting already. But, I was excited to help pixie dust princesses all day, so I headed off to the tunnels and got ready for work in the locker rooms.

I had figured that Fantasyland would be the easiest of the lands to navigate. The tunnels are kind of weird in that you’re dropped off just behind Fantasyland, so it’s the first land you see when you go into the tunnels. Someone was even nice enough to give me directions before I got there. “Go under the castle and follow a small hallway to your left. Open that door and there you are.” Sounded easy enough.

Except I didn’t know what “under the castle” meant. So I walked all the way under the castle, down the straight long pathway until the walls were a deep red. Main Street. I had obviously gone too far, but I didn’t see any hallways on that long stretch. A leader spotted my confusion from a mile away and asked me if I was lost. The thing is, she was a leader in Main Street and only knew how to get to one of the Fantasyland shops. As we were walking up the steps, I asked her where I could put my bag, knowing full well that we are absolutely not supposed to carry personal belongings with us on stage when we are in costume. I kid you not, this leader took my bag in her hands and said, “I’ll carry it. We’re lost and just have to get you where you need to be. If someone gets in trouble, it will be me.” We went through the doorway and ended up on stage. The leader asked a Cast Member where we needed to be, and the Cast Member looked absolutely horrified that this leader was casually holding a random tote bag with my change of clothes. The Cast Member got somebody to cover her and she walked us over to the other Fantasyland store where we walked through the “Cast Members only” door and found the CDS station where I needed to clock in. The leader waited with me until we could find a coordinator to put me into the system. 

At some point during this fiasco, my shift was changed from Fantasyland Zone 1 to Fantasyland Zone 2. Not a big deal, but I had no idea where to go next. A coordinator finally arrived and looked completely overwhelmed. The leader introduced me to him and took off, heading back to wherever she was supposed to be. 

By this point I knew that the coordinator needed to put me in the system so I could work at the registers. He handed me a booklet that had information on it for my shift. In addition to the stores I’d be working in, there was also a passcode on it. That passcode opened the door from the hallway I was supposed to find the first time, and the second stockroom I’d be going through to get to the second store on my rotation. Then he grabbed a random Cast Member from the stock room and told him to give me a tour. The Cast Member tried to get out of it because they were literally surrounded by boxes and was right in the middle of organizing everything, but the coordinator flat out ignored him. I apologized to the Cast Member and he was super nice about it. I asked the coordinator if I was put into the system and he insisted that I didn’t need to be and that all was fine. 

We walked down the stairs, through the mystery hallway I was originally looking for, around a corner towards the main entrance of the tunnels, and down another hallway to some lockers. Then we walked back up and he showed me where I’d be working as part of Zone 2: Enchanted Grove Cart and Hundred Acre Goods.

Hundred Acre Goods was the Winnie-the-Pooh store that was the ride dump for Winnie-the-Pooh. From there we walked through the stock room, down a hallway that was level with Magic Kingdom and had another clock-in area, down a flight of stairs, and through a door until we were walking right along the base of the castle. I had never realized that all the bushes there hid an entire cast pathway and an outdoor break room for people who wanted to smoke. A small “Cast Members only” gate dumped us out by the bathrooms across from Cosmic Ray’s. We walked down the ramp and arrived at Enchanted Grove Cart, a small cart next to the Merida meet and greet in the strange pass that is both Tomorrowland and Fantasyland. We then walked back up to CDS and I pulled an assignment, “Have a magical stock shift”. I went back to the coordinator to ask what I was supposed to do as a stocker, and he moved things around so I would have a register shift the rest of the time. My first assignment was at the "E-grove” cart where I ran into another Cast Member with a “Chris from Orlando” name tag. I attempted to sign in to the register and was promptly locked out because I wasn’t put in correctly. It took a while to track down another coordinator and explain to them how to put me into the system. As soon as that was taken care of, I was back at the cart with Chris Number 2. 

About 1,000 guests took notice of us both being “Chris from Orlando” and asked us if those were our real names. Chris Number 2 said no. One cynical guest assumed it was “the mouse” taking away our individuality by giving us all the same name. I still haven’t figured out how they thought that would work out.

Throughout my time at the cart I was asked a large number of odd questions. I had heard some interesting questions working at Animal Kingdom Main Entrance, so I thought nothing could surprise me.  “How do I get to Jungle Cruise?” and “Where’s the monorail to Universal?” were two of the amazingly popular questions I was asked. But while working at the cart (at the base of Cinderella Castle) I was thoroughly impressed with how little guests know about the parks before taking them on.

“Where’s the castle?” was SO common. The first time someone asked me, I thought they were joking. I should’ve known better. I literally just looked up, saw the top of a turret above me, and just looked back at the guest. I pointed my thumb over my shoulder and said, “Right there.” They were amazed. Originally I had been worried about not being able to answer their questions since I didn’t know the area that well. After a handful of guests asked me that, I felt much more confident.

Another guest asked me where the Rapunzel restaurant was. She was SO disappointed to learn that they were actually restROOMS. 

I was also amazed at the number of guests who didn’t appear to know how to read a map. So many people asked me where Big Thunder Mountain was. When I told them how to get there (to walk across the entire park) they said they had just come from that direction to try to find it on this side of the park. I double checked to make sure they weren’t looking for Space Mountain, but they weren’t. I don’t know why they thought Big Thunder Mountain would be in Tomorrowland or how they got so turned around, but I quickly caught on to the fact that most people just held on to a map for show.

The only thing I truly couldn’t stand about the cart were the Brave bow and arrows we sold. The amount of plastic in those toys is insane and people would buy them with the expectation that we would unwrap everything so their kid could hold onto it at that moment in time. The problem is, the only trash can the cart got was a tiny trash can that one may keep at their office desk. Literally a waste paper basket, and we’d be shoving tons of stiff plastic into it, hoping that the stocker would come by soon to empty it. I didn’t love it.

It was then “tea time”, Fantasyland’s way of releasing people to go on break. This one was less of a surprise to me than Tomorrowland’s “feeding Stitch” break time, but it was still fun to at least have some themed language. That’s one of the things that separates working for Disney from working any other retail job. I had no idea how much I was missing out until I picked up shifts in other places. 

I took my 30 minute break in the Mousecateria. Every park has a backstage cafeteria for Cast Members. Most, if not all, also have a small convenience store type thing that sells food for Cast Members who don’t take breaks anywhere near the main cafeteria. The Mousecateria was the break room for Fantasyland Cast Members, at least for those who worked merchandise in “old Fantasyland”. It was located right at the front of the tunnels, directly in Fantasyland. The layout of Fantasyland underground is super weird to me. Tomorrowland has it set up so that once you go down the flight of stairs to get to the tunnels, you’re directly at your lockers and break room. Fantasyland, however, had their lockers nowhere near their staircase and not even really close to their break room to be honest. It was just overall more inconvenient to stop at your locker during breaks. That being said though, they still get 30 minute breaks instead of 15 minute breaks. 

The other store I worked at was Hundred Acre Goods, the ride dump for Winnie-the-Pooh. No pixie dusting for me. I was actually kind of relieved. I was somehow already covered in the stuff, even without working in any of the shops that pixie dusted people. I guess it just showers from the skies in Fantasyland or something. The shop was small but at least a little bit busier than the Tomorrowland stores. The middle-of-the-day lull wasn’t quite as common in Fantasyland for some reason. Being a Winnie-the-Pooh themed shop, you can imagine that we sold predominantly Winnie-the-Pooh themed merchandise. Actually the shop even sold some Animal Kingdom merchandise, which bothered me to no end. Some of the Cast Members were like, “Well it has Tigger on it so it’s fine”. 

And here lies my weird nit-picky issue with Walt Disney World. Not to get too off topic here but in my head, walking into Magic Kingdom is an experience where you are transported to a completely different realm. Almost as if when you are in Magic Kingdom, the outside world doesn’t exist. When you are in Tomorrowland, it’s all about a fantastically technologically advanced future, and the people who live in Tomorrowland know nothing about the royalty that live next door in Fantasyland. Obviously this illusion has to get shattered a little bit because guests will ask questions about how to get to the other side of the park but ultimately, I always thought that Cast Members were supposed to get really immersed in the story and truly BE space cadets or princesses or cowboys or WHATEVER. So with that in mind, Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom are on two separate planets to me. Magic Kingdom shouldn’t be selling Animal Kingdom merchandise because in my head, the people who work in the castle have no idea about the exploration realm that is Animal Kingdom. The thing is, because Walt Disney World Resort is so huge, a lot of merchandise boasts all 4 parks. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of all four parks and I think they should be represented. Business-wise it only makes sense to offer that as frequently as you can so that customers don’t have to go to Disney Springs to get those things, but it still bothers me a little bit because it takes you out of that realm for a second. It’s an issue that I’ve never really noticed in Disneyland, but is EVERYWHERE in Walt Disney World. I KNOW that it’s a SUPER nit-picky thing, but I just really, truly think that’s part of the magic of the parks. 

Anyway, beyond that, I loved the shop. It was so cute! I’m a huge fan of Winnie-the-Pooh so it was easy for me to fall in love with it. I didn’t get as many laughable questions in that shop although one guest DID complain (and I mean full on WHINING) that there was too much Winnie-the-Pooh merchandise. She literally said to me, “UGH Does Magic Kingdom sell anything OTHER than Winnie-the-Pooh stuff???” and I’m thinking, “Yeah... literally everywhere else.”

My shift ended and it was time to walk back through the tunnels towards the overcrowded bus full of cowboys, space cadets, princesses, bakers, and ghost hosts. 

This should have been weird. This should have been different. This should have been the moment I thought, “Wow, I work on the most magical place on Earth”. And instead I sat down and flipped through my phone just like every other tired Cast Member did. Perhaps this is because I’m incredibly empathetic and have a tendency to get my energy from other people, or perhaps I had been there so long that this was all normal to me now. Overall, my shift hadn’t been quite as magical as I had expected. I still had fun pretending to work in the castle for a day, though, and spending some extra time in Magic Kingdom. It was definitely worth picking up the extra shift just to test it out and try on the costume. But, I was thankful I wouldn’t always have to be “Chris from Orlando” working in the castle.