For those of you who have been reading, it's nice to see you again, and for those of you just joining us, welcome.
To preface this post, all you need to know is that I work at Splash Mountain in Frontierland in the Magic Kingdom. Which brings us to training:
The first thing that my trainer told me was that first day is called "Oh Shit Day" because they show you everything that you would be doing, and then on the other days, we would focus on each aspect. So we started with the queue and all 5 combinations of it. Then we took some time to shadow all of the ride positions (Dispatch 1, 2, and 3, Unload 1, 2, and 3, Grouper 1, 2, and 3, Merge Point, Photocells, Wheelchair Assist, Stand-By Greeter, Fastpass Distribution, Fastpass Return, and Tower). Then I read from the Operations Guide Manual, which describes what to do during Downtimes, Cascades, Intrusions, Resets, and Evacuations as well as random facts such as Splash Mountain opened in 1992 and the ride lasts 11 minutes and 24 seconds.
Oh Shit.
While it was a lot of information to process it wasn't too bad... until I actually had to perform the positions. My first time at Photocells, a person passed out in the line, someone got of their log, a couple's photo got "washed away" by someone else making an obscene gesture in the background, a lady left her aluminum water bottle in a log, and the Wheelchair line was backed up.
Oh Shit.
Over the next few days I spent time being trained at all of the positions and reading some more out of the O.G. everday. Now let me tell you about reading the O.G. The room they have you read it in is just warm enough that it makes you tired, and the constant hum of the A/C unit in the wall might as well be a lullaby. Couple that with the fact training was in the morning and I was already tired and that's a recipe for disaster. I would pay moneys for a video of me trying to read that manual because it must have looked like I was head bangin to some dope beats the way that I was nodding in and out of consciousness. Training lasted 5 days but it was spread out over 2 weeks. I had finished day 4 and my day 5 wasn't until next week, but I still needed to work to fulfill the minimum number of hours so I spent all day at Fastpass distribution.
Oh Shit.
For those of you who don't know a Fastpass is an ticket that helps you bypass the normal stand-by line, and its free with your park ticket, but you can get one every 2 hours. While at distribution, you get a lanyard with pins on it so guests can trade their pins with you. Also, when people walk through the front gates, their IQ drops a substantial amount. This will make the next few sentences clear. So I stood around the Fastpass machines all day helping guests get their tickets un-stuck from the machines and that's fun, but then you get the same 3 questions all day? "So how do I get a Fastpass?," "Why is the ticket not valid?," and my personal favorite "Why can't I get a Fastpass?" There were some highlights though: This Dad came up to me all shady and whatnot and I'm thinking, "Oh great, what does this crazy person want?" So he comes up to me and says, "I hear you're the guy to talk to about getting free Fastpasses."
So now I'm thinking I'm gonna have some fun with this guy so I say, "I'm known to locate certain things from time to time... how many ya need?"
"3"
"Oh the Father's Day Special," so I take 3 Fastpass tickets out of my pocket and turn around and hold them behind my back.
"Thank you so much sir"
"Just remember that you didn't get these from me"
And that brings us to the pins. Apparently these pin traders are all into it and its a big deal. I'm just like whatever, I've got pins, they're not spectacular, but I think they're alright. Well all day I would get people, of all ages, asking to see my pins. Some of the adults were nice and would say, "thanks" and then walk away, while the kids would walk up, look at my pins and just say, "no" and walk away, so it was like whatever, I've got bad pins its no snot out of my nose and then an hour before close, I finally got one person who wanted to trade a pin with me... and then it was like dominoes. It seemed like every person who looked at my pins after that traded with me. I traded like 10 pins. So then it finally ended and I was able to finish my training... or so I thought.
Oh Shit
On the day that I was supposed to be assessed and certified to work at Splash Mountain, I was halfway through, and I was running that ish like Usain Bolt. But then it started raining, and lightning-ing and we had to shut the ride down. Well that's just great, so now I'm not assessed.
Oh Shit
Not really though cuz I breezed through the last half the next day and I am currently a certified Splash Mountain Host.
