here's the thing: the internationals know parade. no one else does. but the big wigs on high decided that internationals can no longer do parade. cold turkey. in the middle of the holiday season. which means a very, very high volume of people. with cast members who don't have a clue what they're doing.
we would have ignored the bigwigs but they were actually physically coming to see the internationals dance with the banghra DJ at the yak'n'yeti. go figure.
so we finally got the stanchions up at probably 3:20, after putting one in, realizing the rope didn't fit, and taking it back out again, repeatedly. (parade starts at 3:45, stanchions should be up no later than 2:45.) the coordinator who was supposed to be coordinating at this time had done parade maybe once or twice, and (through no fault of her own) was completely lost. katie & i ended up "taking over", assigning positions, and telling people what to do.
it was all going seemingly well (as well as could be expected from our point...a bit stressful but not too overwhelming) until the fight broke out, just minutes before parade was at our door. thankfully the manager on hand spoke spanish, because the offending family was only spanish speaking and that was fun. its always fun when guests fight. the coordinator was running back and forth between helping the manager deal with them and trying to see how far away parade was. of course it was hot on our heels, and she was close to panicking but kept her cool. the spot that the guests had chosen to cause this big ordeal was also idyllic-the tightest spot on my walkway (only barely two ECV's worth), meaning i had a backup going all the way behind tiger tree and unhappy guests in front of me. finally it cleared up (after parade had already hit us) and i assumed the situation was alleviated.
well then we tried to follow right behind parade (like we normally do with internationals) but sans internationals no one knew how to roll ropes that fast or that well. the manager (victor) tried and failed, katie tried and failed, i tried and failed. finally victor just yelled to take off every other rope and don't even worry about stanchions, so as i'm doing that, i start rolling rope in front of the fight family. the family next to them stops me (when i'm supposed to be keeping up with the cart & other parade breakers, but we were so screwed over anyway it didn't matter) and starts asking about the procedure and if there will be a report filed and they'd testify if there was a lawsuit because they were totally in the wrong and they saw the whole thing and they want something to be done and victor said this and victor said that ...all the while i say "yes of course" "right" "victor will take care of everything" while thinking "these people are idiots. what do they think I can do? the parade isn't even good enough to fight over, you morons. get over yourselves and get on with your life. oh good, here comes guests relations." it might have been a "sit down before you pass out from the stress" moment if my favorite manager ray hadn't stopped and helped, then made me laugh at myself in spite of the situation. he's good at that. but oh, the disaster. thankfully, its so not my problem anymore.
we would have ignored the bigwigs but they were actually physically coming to see the internationals dance with the banghra DJ at the yak'n'yeti. go figure.
so we finally got the stanchions up at probably 3:20, after putting one in, realizing the rope didn't fit, and taking it back out again, repeatedly. (parade starts at 3:45, stanchions should be up no later than 2:45.) the coordinator who was supposed to be coordinating at this time had done parade maybe once or twice, and (through no fault of her own) was completely lost. katie & i ended up "taking over", assigning positions, and telling people what to do.
it was all going seemingly well (as well as could be expected from our point...a bit stressful but not too overwhelming) until the fight broke out, just minutes before parade was at our door. thankfully the manager on hand spoke spanish, because the offending family was only spanish speaking and that was fun. its always fun when guests fight. the coordinator was running back and forth between helping the manager deal with them and trying to see how far away parade was. of course it was hot on our heels, and she was close to panicking but kept her cool. the spot that the guests had chosen to cause this big ordeal was also idyllic-the tightest spot on my walkway (only barely two ECV's worth), meaning i had a backup going all the way behind tiger tree and unhappy guests in front of me. finally it cleared up (after parade had already hit us) and i assumed the situation was alleviated.
well then we tried to follow right behind parade (like we normally do with internationals) but sans internationals no one knew how to roll ropes that fast or that well. the manager (victor) tried and failed, katie tried and failed, i tried and failed. finally victor just yelled to take off every other rope and don't even worry about stanchions, so as i'm doing that, i start rolling rope in front of the fight family. the family next to them stops me (when i'm supposed to be keeping up with the cart & other parade breakers, but we were so screwed over anyway it didn't matter) and starts asking about the procedure and if there will be a report filed and they'd testify if there was a lawsuit because they were totally in the wrong and they saw the whole thing and they want something to be done and victor said this and victor said that ...all the while i say "yes of course" "right" "victor will take care of everything" while thinking "these people are idiots. what do they think I can do? the parade isn't even good enough to fight over, you morons. get over yourselves and get on with your life. oh good, here comes guests relations." it might have been a "sit down before you pass out from the stress" moment if my favorite manager ray hadn't stopped and helped, then made me laugh at myself in spite of the situation. he's good at that. but oh, the disaster. thankfully, its so not my problem anymore.
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