Oo-de-lally Golly What A Day

Sooooo... yeah. It's starting to get reallyyyy slow at the Disneyland Resort. Apparently peak season ends the day after Labor Day, which is in about a week. And trust me, it's already a big difference now that school has started for a lot of people. During this entire summer, our lines at Mickey's Fun Wheel have ranged from 30-60 minutes. Yesterday it was a 10-20 minute wait almost all day long. Which leads me to a really funny story...

A few days ago I was opening Mickey's Fun Wheel. Usually we already have a 20-30 minute line by about 10:20 (the park opens at 10am). However, on THIS day, there was barely a soul in sight. Around 10:15, a few parties got in line, and we let them right onto the ride. During the time that they were cycling (meaning, while the wheel was going around non-stop) only ONE person got in line. So, we got him onto Gondola #2. The other parties were in Gondolas 11-14. After the gondolas with those parties came back into the station and we got them off, there was nobody in line or even anywhere NEAR our line.

Since there was nobody in line, the other two girls and I didn't see any point in cycling it. We decided to just talk and wait for people to get in line. It was ten minutes before more people finally came. We loaded them into the gondolas, and kept loading gondolas until the end of the set (we have 24 gondolas; after we load them all, they cycle non-stop one time). As the wheel starts to cycle, Gondola #2 goes past us.

That ONE GUY is sitting in the gondola. All three of us stared at the gondola, then one by one our mouths dropped open as the realization dawned on us. Somehow we ALL forgot that he was on the ride! He was up at the top for ten minutes! We all looked at each other and just started dying laughing. It was reallyyyyyy funny. But kind of sad. At least it wasn't hot yet, and at least he had a cool view? When the wheel finished cycling and we let him out, Keisha made up some kind of excuse about how we were loading a wheelchair party and they didn't speak English... but the guy didn't speak English either, so he just walked away really confused.

Other than that, today was my first official shift at California Screamin' since I got trained there a couple weeks ago! I was really nervous about it, but it wasn't so bad :) Well, the ride DID break down and we had to evacuate guests off of it, but it was in no way my fault. However, when we go down at Screamin', in order to go back up we have to reset all the brake zones. Remember in my last blog post how I was complaining about hiking up to Zone 4 during my training? Guess which Zone I got drafted to go reset today? Yep, Zone 4.

Here's a visual, so you can understand my pain:

Zone 4 is at the very top of that hill, inside the blue tunnel. There are stairs alongside the track all the way up to that point. And there is another staircase to get up to THOSE stairs. But I don't think I'll be as sore this time - I stretched before going up, and I took it a little slower. Don't get me wrong, I still wanted to faint when I got to the top, but I don't think my recovery will take as long this time around.

Other than that, today went pretty smoothly. One weird thing is how many people manage to leave important things on the ride. You're only on there for about a minute, but people still forget to grab the things they put in the little bag. Today I had a guy come up to me and hand me an iPhone that someone had left (which was nice of him to turn in). Literally two minutes later, someone else handed me a forgotten iPhone. It's lucky for those people that I'm a good person, because I've really been wanting an iPhone...

I have five more Screamin' shifts before it goes down for refurbishment, then I'm back to FunWheel/Swings =[ My shifts on the most recent schedule are a bit shorter too, now that peak season is over. I also have a DCA Parade Guest Control shift - which basically means I walk in front of the Phineus & Ferb float and tell people to get out of the way.

Not much more to report - I can't wait to start doing some of the official College Program events! Things to look forward to: Disneyland Scavenger Hunt this Tuesday, and a tour of the Dream Suite later next month!!