Week 7

This week I experienced a unique guest situation. Every morning a life guard comes down and selects one family to be the first family and they get to open the park to by being the first to go down Summit Plummet, which is our tallest water slide.

One morning we had a father and a daughter at the gate an hour before we opened, which is unusual for this time of the year. One of our cast members started talking to them and they said they were from Georgia and were leaving latter that day and just wanted to get a few rides in before leaving for the airport. That was the end of it, or so we thought. Later, the lifeguard comes down and selects a different family to be the first family. The guest who was from Georgia threw a fit that he and his daughter were not selected. It turns out this family was not from Georgia but from Florida and are Disney Annual Pass Holders. They obviously knew that we do this magical moment every day and they wanted it to be them so they created this story in hopes of being selected. The man became very angry and we had to call security in just in case because we were worried about what the man might do. Later he yelled at the lifeguard who made the selection, demanded that his daughter gets the medal we hand out and then demanded to talk to the park's GM.

He told the GM that he told us he wanted to be the first family, which wasn't true, and that we had broken his daughter's heart for not being selected, and that we at the turnstiles had told him that we will make sure that he will never be the first family, again, not true.

So what happens to this crazy guest who threw a temper tantrum and cried in front of everyone? The GM set up a day for them to return to be the first family. The first day he picked out didn't work for the family so they had to pick another day. I found it absolutely ridiculous that this man was getting what he wanted after the way he had acted. The magical moment is suppose to be a surprise to an unsuspecting family, not a reservation system.

Two weeks later he was back and he got to be the first family and everything that goes with it. He was all smiles as the crowd applauded for him and his daughter, shaking the hand of the GM who was also there. This came on the heels of yesterday's first family taking time to stop on their way out to ask for a pen and paper to write a thank you note to everyone who made their day magical and special. Those are the ones who deserve to be first family, not this guy who acted like a three year old until he got what he wanted.

However, even though I didn't agree with the decision I can see why it was done. Disney is all about making every guest feel special and going above and beyond. For the most part deserving guests get the special things but every once and awhile you are going to get the type of people who will try to take advantage of Disney being Disney. You just have to understand that the deserving guests far out weigh the ones who aren't.