The hardest question known to man:...How many in your Party?

[TinkerBelleRoo]

I actually had a bad experience once with this question on Spaceship Earth in Epcot. My family had gone on vacation there at the end of August and we were five people. Two parents, three kids. We had told the cast member when they asked this question that we were 5 and then they proceeded to squish three of us into a seat clearly meant for two. Now that I think back it probably was even a little unsafe and not at all our idea.

If anyone's familiar with the ride vehicles you'll know what I'm talking about with the speakers and molded seats meant for two. Needless to say, now whenever anyone in my family is ever asked this question at WDW we look at the ride vehicles first and then answer as to not have a repeat of this.

[monorail_man1979]

I really dont get this! It is a simple question, and yet every time I egt it, they all say the same, they can never give me one answer, they have to think about it, and every time, they think it is so friggin cute if the lady is pregnant, and she says a half for the stupid fetus in her belly! I dont care about the unborn child that will have attributes of their moronic parents!

Nice "magical" attitude there.

[smileNnod]

ya the whole "we have 5 and a half" thing gets old real fast.

[mechurchlady]

CM: How many in your party?
Guest: Let me see. uuuuuummm, Uncle Sal, his wife, their daughter, her three kids, me, my wife, oh and our 5 kids, and our daughter's boyfriend and his 4 cousins.
CM: How many in you party?
Guest: I just told you. ( or other annoyed remark because the CM should know there are 21 people in the group. He forgot some of his kids when counting, lol.


I have had that happen to me too many times. You are hungry or want to see a ride or show but they chit chat away. Where is that poker.

[wolfchild]

Well, when the DH and I go to Disneyland just the two of us, obviously the answer is pretty darned easy.

But the first two times we went, it was with large groups. The first year got up to 22 and the second year was around 18. Now, for all the people that keep saying that by the end of the day you should know how many are in your party, I have to respond to that. As people are known to do, they have have differing tastes and opinions so we, as a single group, did not stay together all day long. Sometimes pairs split off, sometimes we all split up, sometimes we split in two equal groups. And sometimes you have specific meet-up times to regroup and other times you run into folks on your way to a ride and decide to regroup. Whatever the reason though, we were very rarely ever the same number in the group for more than a few hours.

Mind you, pretty much everyone there was a Disneyland vet and we always had a solid count before we got to the front. But I just wanted to shed a little light on why it's possible that people have different counts than are actually in their party. It may have very well been only eight people for the last half a dozen rides that they went on and is suddenly 10 or 12 becase they ran into some friends along the way.

And actually, on a similar note that I remembered as I typed that, I made a solo trip to Disneyland in August and bumped into some friends halfway through the second day, but had my own SG moment when I got the front and started to say one (but was saying "no, three" practically before I finished the word.) ;)

[AlpineDL]

What I want to know is if the "and a half!" for kids people had two 6 year old kids, they'd add them together as one.

[Main Streeter]

people had two 6 year old kids, they'd add them together as one.

Doubt this would happen as SG can't add nor even count to 6! :(

[Zazu]

I was thinking about this thread today when a guest replied to The Question with, "Let's see, two adults, three kids, and a baby."

I quietly placed the calculator on the counter and as I pressed the buttons I muttered, "Two... plus three... plus one... equals...." I then looked up and said, "For future reference, that works out to be six," then moved on to book their reservation.

I don't know if it sunk in, but they did look at me like deer in headlights for a while.

[bpgstudios]

I was thinking about this thread today when a guest replied to The Question with, "Let's see, two adults, three kids, and a baby."

I quietly placed the calculator on the counter and as I pressed the buttons I muttered, "Two... plus three... plus one... equals...." I then looked up and said, "For future reference, that works out to be six," then moved on to book their reservation.

Exactly! I'm standing at load trying to count these up, looking at the size of the baby, and trying to remember which row I last loaded. It gets worse when they interject my thought pattern with new numbers, row suggestions, and "someone can go before us".
Like our speil says... "...Please know the TOTAL number of passengers in your party". But they don't listen to it. Proof: I was a bit rusty on the speil, and tried to do it from memory.."In order to keep your wait time as short as possible, the lighting around the magic kingdom will be reduced. For your own saftey---ah dang!" Noone even questioned it or gave a weird look.

[SirWillow]

If it's any consolation, my kids made sure that we ended up looking like SG's the other day at Animal Kingdom. It was just me and my 2 kids. Every time we walked up to Expedition Everest, they gave a different number in our group. The first time they thought it was 4 (oops, forgot mom is working today). The second time it was 2 (they forgot me). The third time they just stared. Urgk.

The number is 3 kids. Three! How they made it to 10 and 11 years old, I'm still wondering. :)