Disney After Hours..... (long!)
Back in the early 80s while attending college, I would spend my summer, christmas and easter breaks working at
Disneyland. I had this dream of taking my 6 plus years of high school and college french and moving to France to work at the then-planned Paris Disneyland, still MANY years from completion. What a dork I was, but that's really the subject of another thread entirely!
When I got hired at Disneyland, I was given the option of food service, ride operations, or merchandise for employment. I really wanted to work in the administrative offices, but my typing test didn't get me the 30 WPM score they required (clearly, before the internet and chat taught me to type 385 WPM with a single hand! Ha!) I was also offered custodial employment, but even the extra 50 cents an hour to start couldn't entice me (an aside, most of the sweepers working around DL who had been there over 4 years were making in the range of $11.85 per hour, a fortune to me in those days!!) Needless to say, hot sweepers got more dates than hot ride operators (again, information better suited to another thread!) Everyone wanted ride operations because of the status and the generous union-mandated break schedule (15 minutes every hour), but I decided to enter into the world of shopping from the other side of the register, so to speak.
Where was I? Oh yes, the park after hours....
Being young, I preferred to stay out late and sleep until the crack of noon. Most of my shifts were from 4 pm until closing. The park would close at 12:30 or 1:30, and I would make it out of there an hour or so later. I worked in New Orleans Square which, at that time, included Bear Country and Frontierland Shops, too. I worked most often in the store by which you must pass as you exit the Pirates of the Caribbean, Pieces of Eight. More commonly known as the Pirate shop, we had to wear the MOST unflattering cropped pants and had to fasten bowtie-like buckles to our industrial shoes. Most of the time the shop was littered with kids who loved nothing better than to duel with the plastic swords for sale in large whiskey barrels, or claw at total strangers with plastic hook hands found in the next barrel. But I digress.
At park closing, after the last guest is ushered out of the shop, you quickly close your shop door and run a register tape. Remember, this is Disneyland. Thousands of small purchases, most made with small denomination bills or change. I won't mention my age, but people generally used cash back then for purchases. Occasional traveler's checks, but credit cards were rare in a small ticket shop like that. I would spend as long as it took to count my drawer and balance it with my register tape. Sometimes I had to count several registers. I would take each register's haul and its associated documents and place it into a large canvas bank bag and tie it up. We would walk through the empty park to the cash room carrying several bags filled with thousands and thousands of dollars in each.
As we walked, we would step over huge hoses used to wash the concrete, and the music that playing in each land sounded SO LOUD because it didn't have to compete with the noise of 43000 guests. Feral cats scurried from one bushy area to another, and hordes of maintenace workers would be re-painting railings and walls and re-planting flower beds. The indoor attractions would be lit with floodlights inside to be cleaned and maintained by small armies of electricians and mechanics.
If it was a particularly tiring shift, my arms would feel like jello by the time I arrived at the cashroom behind Space Mountain. I would turn in my money bags and get receipts for each one. I had to keep them in my locker or on my person in case a bag went missing, in order to prove I had released my responsibility for it to accounting. I never once heard about a bag going missing, at least not while I worked there. From the cashroom, I would walk into space mountain from the backside and up a flight of stairs to the women's locker room. I would change into my civvies and take any soiled pieces of my costume over to wardrobe and trade them for freshly cleaned items, which I would place in my locker for my next shift. Too many times I would make it to DL JUST in time to start my shift, no time to get a fresh costume! I had to keep a schedule taped to the inside of my locker because there were times I worked in a different shop which required a completely different costume. I made THAT mistake a couple of times! If we lost our name badge we had to buy a new one for $1. If you didn't want to spend the $1, you could choose a name from the box of extras they had. I was Penelope for most of the summer of 1984.
Great memories, and I thank you for letting me post them here. My original intent with this reply was to indicate how unlikely it would be to remain in the park undetected for any length of time after closing. Fun, yes... and the stuff of great (disney) fantasies... but oh so unlikely!
I love the DISboards!
