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The day the magic died.
Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2004 11:43 pm
by thundercatjamie
Ok so we've all been there. Standing in the tunnel on day one and Mickey comes around the corner holding her head in her arms. But was that your breaking point? The day that really hit my magic was when I got into the elevator with Aladdin and Jasmine in full character garb, and "Jasmine" looked at my name tag and responded oh cool my name is Jamie too. for some reason seeing them in costume and then having them act like"normal people" just the Breaking point for me. I am interested in hearing everyone elses stories. I know I'm not the only one who still had some glimmer of magic when they started.
Posted: Sat Nov 13, 2004 1:36 am
by BirdMom
I was 23 when I hired in, and a little less *starry* eyed than some new hires. I think I knew I was working someplace a little different when I was waiting in CFA for my new hire physical and saw a short person in a duck outfit walk by holding the head. Total cliche, but it was true. I think the thing that killed the magic for me was realizing that there were jerk managers/supervisors there just like every other company on Earth. Go figure. That was within my first - oh - eight months of working there. My original department had one of the biggest liars around for a deparment head and I found out the hard way. He's long gone - they couldn't hide him anymore...but I swear this is true - he had a back door put into his office so he could sneak out if there was someone coming to see him that he didn't want to deal with.
Posted: Sat Nov 13, 2004 2:36 am
by Stduck
I had done musical theater as a young child so the whole characters without their heads or face characters acting like normal people back stage never upset me. What killed the magic for me was getting screwed over and the guests getting free tickets for it.
Posted: Sat Nov 13, 2004 2:59 am
by GMC
there was never magic to be ruined for me, i always had a pretty firlm grasp on the fact that there were people inside the costumes, and that they were there to make things fun. I always thought it was cool that people know how to operate more than one attraction. seeing people act normal in costume is just the facts of life. seing the lady that plays bell walk around in the character garb at the inn between, chatting with friends, is normal. Marching band probly did it to me, when we were in public, we were to behave, but once we were on the bus.... oh the things that happened.
Posted: Sat Nov 13, 2004 3:34 am
by Grumpy
GMC wrote: Marching band probly did it to me, when we were in public, we were to behave, but once we were on the bus... oh the things that happened.
if all the non-marching band (ok, I'll include the auxiliary units too [dance, tall flags, banner, etc]) people only KNEW what we all went through... maybe they'd think twice before thinking we're that stupid.

Posted: Sat Nov 13, 2004 11:29 am
by Stduck
Grumpy wrote:GMC wrote: Marching band probly did it to me, when we were in public, we were to behave, but once we were on the bus... oh the things that happened.
if all the non-marching band (ok, I'll include the auxiliary units too [dance, tall flags, banner, etc]) people only KNEW what we all went through... maybe they'd think twice before thinking we're that stupid.

Oh yeah... hey GMC were your bus rides home as interesting as my bus rides home? Forget rule number 12!
Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2004 2:52 am
by GMC
Grumpy wrote:GMC wrote: Marching band probly did it to me, when we were in public, we were to behave, but once we were on the bus... oh the things that happened.
if all the non-marching band (ok, I'll include the auxiliary units too [dance, tall flags, banner, etc]) people only KNEW what we all went through... maybe they'd think twice before thinking we're that stupid.

i'm not sure i follow... as in like we band-types thought people didn't know what happened on the bus. Our band was always well behaved in public, and whenever there was an issue, even if it wasn't worth a tissue, we were delt with severly. my senior year we had a disneyland trip taken away for diciplinary reasons.
Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2004 11:35 am
by SRT_GB
I was about 5 or 6 years old when I realized the characters weren't real and that wasn't really traumatizing to me at all. The thing that ruined the Disneyland "magic" to me was when I realized what a corporate powerhouse Disney really is, doing everything for the almighty dollar at the expense of the guests and employees.
Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2004 4:37 pm
by GMC
i try and forget about the corporate part. However sometimes they can't be ignored, take friday night for example. Appearently the park got spanked by large masses of people. So of course, b/c of this we were spilitting main street till about 2230, granted i wasn't there, but i know that that would have sucked. So naturally someone has to be blamed for this. (randome interruption, our fish tank has several of the same fish as in Finding Nemo (R), and out Jaques(R?) shirmp has appearntly recently shed, and did a very tidy job, and in fact this old exoskeleton is still haning onto a rock in the tank, it's very exciting, and kinda gross.) [back to story] so someone has to be blamed, so of course, instead of placing it onto whoever made the staffing issues, it gets placed on the GC landhelp crew, when really it's probly more based on the corporate decided bugets, not providing us with the staffing nessecary to actually efficently run such an operation. BUT we showed them who was boss, even with the show stop, we had THE MOST well done split i've EVER seen. It was a very uncomfortable situation however, because I was in the middle of the Main Street pyro mob, just as the fireworks stopped, and well, didn't quite know what to say... other than, yes it will be snow, and no, please don't kill me. However most of the people were suprisingly ok with it, and even more suprisingly complyant with out directions. overall it was a good night for me.
Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2004 5:02 pm
by Stduck
Yeah it was bad I was at Coke Corner that night and I got stranded on the one side of the street. Our lead went down and got the split started so that it would work. Then traffic flowed till the fireworks ended.
Last night fireworks went into phase 3 about a minute into the show....