ehagerty
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2001
- Messages
- 2,099
When we have PAPs, we usually spend only 1/2 of a given day at a water park, mixing activities up during the course of a day with theme parks and DTD.
However, using a water park day pass, our standing strategy is:
AM - Blizzard Beach. This park has more rides with lines that get long by 11:00 than TL does.
PM - Typhoon Lagoon focusing on the wave pool, where lines are a non-issue during peak crowd periods.
As always, being at the gate when the park opens AND having the park pass in hand paid off today. DS16, Ds14, DSF13 and ME49 immediately headed to Summit Plummet. This was great fun; something I had not done before because I never wanted to want in a 60++ queue.
Boys got back in line immediately and went down Slush Gusher (also fun, but I had done it 2 years ago and didnt want to wait in line). Our goal was to get on every ride at least once, so that DSF13 could experience it (remember he is a first-timer to WDW).
Teamboat Springs was fun definitely more fun now that the boys are older and weigh more. Next, off to the back side of the mountain, Runoff Rapids, for the tube rides, especially the one in the dark. It was even more fun when you could ride down backwards, but those clever Disney people have the inner tubes designed with a protrusion so that you cant turn around in the chute-tube any more.
Next, tube races at Downhill Double Dipper. This was our first and very nominal encounter with a CM who could have tried harder to communicate more effectively. The tube races have people going down a slide on an inner tube. When you get to the bottom, your inclination is to turn around and see the posted race times on the clock (which you cant see in the morning sun because it washes out the lit sign, but I didnt know that then).
Also, for first timers, the exit process isnt crystal clear I had to look around to see where I was supposed to go. Finally, you are in 2-3 of water not as easy to walk out of as, say the 6 of water at the end of Summit Plummet. So Lifeguard/CM, trying the clear the bottom of the pool to keep traffic moving at the top (a desirable goal) keeps yelling at these disoriented people who are simultaneously trying to read scores and figure out how to get out. I think a megaphone and / or some hand signals would have helped me . I think I would have understood waving arms and pointing fingers more quickly that whatever she was shouting but I suppose arm gestures would get tiring over time.
Possible Solutions:
1. Have exit instructions at the top of the slide so that racers can preview what they are supposed to do while they are still oriented (and dont have anything else to occupy their brain at the moment).
2. Re-locate the speed clocks from behind you, over the slides to in front of you, or even over the exit one for each side where the racers are expected to exit. Or eliminate the clocks all together.
3. Have universal exit instructions (pictures) at the end of the ride
4. If #1, #2 and #3 are not viable for some reason, give the lifeguard a megaphone. No one likes to be shouted at, even with the best of intentions. I dont mind being spoken to through a megaphone pleasantly, though.
OK, the pair-wise tube race was OK. Onto the big games next door at Toboggan Racers 8 toboggan racers at time, no clock. We get to the top, wait briefly for a sled which is brought up on a conveyor belt from below and get in a 4-deep, 8-across queue.
Every other time (year) I have been on these slides, there is a race every minute or two just enough of a delay between races for the racers at the bottom to clear out. If there are not always 6 people ready, 5 go. No big deal. If someone wants to hang behind until all of their family / friends are aligned in the queue so that they can race together, they figure it out themselves (as we were doing in other queues).
Running this show (Constipating this Queue would be more appropriate) was a complete anomaly, a snarly Lifeguard/CM. If you take every less-than-perfect CM moment Ive had in the past 17 years and rolled into one critical mass, you would have about 10% of this woman.
The problem was that she was determined to organize each set of 6 racers by family / friends, spending at least 5 minutes setting up each race. At that pace, there were no racers at the bottom dropping off sleds, no sleds coming up the conveyor belt (which was shared with the other toboggan race) and no one going down either slide. No one cared about racing with the family / friends at least not that they werent willing to figure out on their own. We only wanted to race.
A couple of people in the queue started with Come ON and Youve got to be kidding. I consider myself a fairly even-termpered person, and comfortable offering suggestions (I got a Jaguar upgrade, didnt I?). When I suggested that perhaps she was trying to control something that didnt need control and that the operation was at a dead halt, her response (to all of us) was and I QUOTE If you dont like how I am doing it, dont get back in line. Followed by, My name is Adelaine if you want to talk to my manager. It was so weird, it was funny. We took our ball and bat (sleds) to the other slide and moved on. Our vacation is too short to spend it helping Disney straighten out a rouge employee. But my life-after-vacation has some slack time to provide this essential customer-feedback-service.
To what did I attribute this egregious lapse in customer relations? The teens in my group say she has issues. Anything I might deduce would have to be conjecture, but Im not doing anything more important at the moment. By process of elimination:
1. I dont think she was having a bad day. First of all, the park had only been open 1/2 hour. Usually people who are having a bad day understand that what they are doing is wrong, but they choose to do it anyway. Adelaine was so focused establishing a queue configuration that met some internal need of her own that she was oblivious to what was going on around her. She wasnt connected to reality at all.
2. Ive seen people like that off their meds but I wouldnt think a lifeguard could function properly (as a lifeguard) on any meds. So I hope to rule that out.
3. Quitting day sometimes people who are ending their employment violate the code. In this case, Disneys code, so nicely explained and demonstrated in the Keys to the Kingdom tour by Fred, is Courtesy, Efficiency, Safety and Show. But usually, employees on their way out, dont bother exerting themselves, whereas Adelaine was working very hard to create her imaginary configuration requirement.
4. Starting day perhaps she was not yet fully trained? Perhaps lifeguards, contracted to Disney, dont get the same customer service training?
5. Perhaps she was really a plant by Disney to help us all appreciate just what a great job all of the other CMs do? Perhaps it was a test to see if any alert guests were paying attention? Cared enough to post a notice about it?
6. Perhaps she was supposed to work at 50s Prime Time café as a waitress that day, bossing paying patrons around by design - and was blown of course by the same typhoon that created the lagoon and didnt realize it. Or didnt like it. Or something.
In 17 years of writing complimentary letters/emails about CMs, and NO uncomplimentary ones, here is my management assessment of Adelaines work performance, based on her employers (Disney) criteria, and my assessment (since I dont know their scale):
Criteria: Courtesy
Assessment: Discourteous; belligerent even
Criteria: Efficiency
Assessment: Completely shutdown operation single-handedly; counter-productive; oblivious to customers wants
Criteria: Safety
Assessment: On one hand, if she doesnt let anyone on the slide, no one can get hurt. On the other hand, creating a combustible queue could lead to some disorderly self-launching. Didnt stick around to see. No injuries while clearing out of queue and backtracking into another queue while carrying sled.
Criteria: Show
Assessment: It was a show, all right. An excerpt from Fantasmic, with no Mickey to the rescue.
Possible solutions:
1. If, in fact, Adelaine was attempting to implement some documented rules of the ride on queue management, then this is a, minimally, 2-3 Lifeguard/CM queue job - One to manage the queue (including single riders, etc ) and another to coordinate the launch of the race with the safe clearing of the bottom.
2. Provide more CM training to lifeguards
3. Find a more suitable role for Adelaine to play. Maybe cracking the whip in mousekeeping would be a better use of her talents, based on some of the other trip reports. No, she should be playing Snow White's step-mother. Type-cast. A perfect fit. Talk about win-win.
4. If all else fails, there are some departments where I work where she would fit in quite nicely; flourish, even.
From the toboggans, we floated around the lazy river, and headed out around noon to eat lunch at the Pepper Market, on our way to Typhoon Lagoon.
Around 1:30, we attempt to enter TL but it was closed, due to capacity. This hasnt happened to us before, so I hadnt thought about a Plan B. I somehow had in the back of my mind that (a) we were resort guests and (b) we were already water park ticket holders for the day. There was a VERY smooth CM in a Tilley hat explaining the situations and options to each car in line. I have never seen a more firm, pleasant management of a difficult situation. The Anti-Adelaine. He suggested we have a drink at DTD (across the street), gave us a 20% off coupon for Bongos and recommended we try again after 2:30. We did go over to DTD. We did order a drink at Bongos. I HEARD what Tilley-man said, but I didnt actually READ the sheet he gave us. That 20% was for NON-alcoholic drinks. Win some, lose some. No big deal. Especially after what has to be the best margarita Ive ever had and one Mojito for DH47.
The boys are very into their Oakley sunglasses, so they had no problem spending the down time talking to the employees there (ICON, West End), trying on glasses they cant afford, asking questions about the different lenses, etc.
OK, 3:00, back to Typhoon Lagoon. Had a great time in the wave pool, floated the lazy river a couple of time. Boys did the shark pool (I enjoy it, just didnt feel like cooling off that much at the time). Closed the place.
However, using a water park day pass, our standing strategy is:
AM - Blizzard Beach. This park has more rides with lines that get long by 11:00 than TL does.
PM - Typhoon Lagoon focusing on the wave pool, where lines are a non-issue during peak crowd periods.
As always, being at the gate when the park opens AND having the park pass in hand paid off today. DS16, Ds14, DSF13 and ME49 immediately headed to Summit Plummet. This was great fun; something I had not done before because I never wanted to want in a 60++ queue.
Boys got back in line immediately and went down Slush Gusher (also fun, but I had done it 2 years ago and didnt want to wait in line). Our goal was to get on every ride at least once, so that DSF13 could experience it (remember he is a first-timer to WDW).
Teamboat Springs was fun definitely more fun now that the boys are older and weigh more. Next, off to the back side of the mountain, Runoff Rapids, for the tube rides, especially the one in the dark. It was even more fun when you could ride down backwards, but those clever Disney people have the inner tubes designed with a protrusion so that you cant turn around in the chute-tube any more.
Next, tube races at Downhill Double Dipper. This was our first and very nominal encounter with a CM who could have tried harder to communicate more effectively. The tube races have people going down a slide on an inner tube. When you get to the bottom, your inclination is to turn around and see the posted race times on the clock (which you cant see in the morning sun because it washes out the lit sign, but I didnt know that then).
Also, for first timers, the exit process isnt crystal clear I had to look around to see where I was supposed to go. Finally, you are in 2-3 of water not as easy to walk out of as, say the 6 of water at the end of Summit Plummet. So Lifeguard/CM, trying the clear the bottom of the pool to keep traffic moving at the top (a desirable goal) keeps yelling at these disoriented people who are simultaneously trying to read scores and figure out how to get out. I think a megaphone and / or some hand signals would have helped me . I think I would have understood waving arms and pointing fingers more quickly that whatever she was shouting but I suppose arm gestures would get tiring over time.
Possible Solutions:
1. Have exit instructions at the top of the slide so that racers can preview what they are supposed to do while they are still oriented (and dont have anything else to occupy their brain at the moment).
2. Re-locate the speed clocks from behind you, over the slides to in front of you, or even over the exit one for each side where the racers are expected to exit. Or eliminate the clocks all together.
3. Have universal exit instructions (pictures) at the end of the ride
4. If #1, #2 and #3 are not viable for some reason, give the lifeguard a megaphone. No one likes to be shouted at, even with the best of intentions. I dont mind being spoken to through a megaphone pleasantly, though.
OK, the pair-wise tube race was OK. Onto the big games next door at Toboggan Racers 8 toboggan racers at time, no clock. We get to the top, wait briefly for a sled which is brought up on a conveyor belt from below and get in a 4-deep, 8-across queue.
Every other time (year) I have been on these slides, there is a race every minute or two just enough of a delay between races for the racers at the bottom to clear out. If there are not always 6 people ready, 5 go. No big deal. If someone wants to hang behind until all of their family / friends are aligned in the queue so that they can race together, they figure it out themselves (as we were doing in other queues).
Running this show (Constipating this Queue would be more appropriate) was a complete anomaly, a snarly Lifeguard/CM. If you take every less-than-perfect CM moment Ive had in the past 17 years and rolled into one critical mass, you would have about 10% of this woman.
The problem was that she was determined to organize each set of 6 racers by family / friends, spending at least 5 minutes setting up each race. At that pace, there were no racers at the bottom dropping off sleds, no sleds coming up the conveyor belt (which was shared with the other toboggan race) and no one going down either slide. No one cared about racing with the family / friends at least not that they werent willing to figure out on their own. We only wanted to race.
A couple of people in the queue started with Come ON and Youve got to be kidding. I consider myself a fairly even-termpered person, and comfortable offering suggestions (I got a Jaguar upgrade, didnt I?). When I suggested that perhaps she was trying to control something that didnt need control and that the operation was at a dead halt, her response (to all of us) was and I QUOTE If you dont like how I am doing it, dont get back in line. Followed by, My name is Adelaine if you want to talk to my manager. It was so weird, it was funny. We took our ball and bat (sleds) to the other slide and moved on. Our vacation is too short to spend it helping Disney straighten out a rouge employee. But my life-after-vacation has some slack time to provide this essential customer-feedback-service.
To what did I attribute this egregious lapse in customer relations? The teens in my group say she has issues. Anything I might deduce would have to be conjecture, but Im not doing anything more important at the moment. By process of elimination:
1. I dont think she was having a bad day. First of all, the park had only been open 1/2 hour. Usually people who are having a bad day understand that what they are doing is wrong, but they choose to do it anyway. Adelaine was so focused establishing a queue configuration that met some internal need of her own that she was oblivious to what was going on around her. She wasnt connected to reality at all.
2. Ive seen people like that off their meds but I wouldnt think a lifeguard could function properly (as a lifeguard) on any meds. So I hope to rule that out.
3. Quitting day sometimes people who are ending their employment violate the code. In this case, Disneys code, so nicely explained and demonstrated in the Keys to the Kingdom tour by Fred, is Courtesy, Efficiency, Safety and Show. But usually, employees on their way out, dont bother exerting themselves, whereas Adelaine was working very hard to create her imaginary configuration requirement.
4. Starting day perhaps she was not yet fully trained? Perhaps lifeguards, contracted to Disney, dont get the same customer service training?
5. Perhaps she was really a plant by Disney to help us all appreciate just what a great job all of the other CMs do? Perhaps it was a test to see if any alert guests were paying attention? Cared enough to post a notice about it?
6. Perhaps she was supposed to work at 50s Prime Time café as a waitress that day, bossing paying patrons around by design - and was blown of course by the same typhoon that created the lagoon and didnt realize it. Or didnt like it. Or something.
In 17 years of writing complimentary letters/emails about CMs, and NO uncomplimentary ones, here is my management assessment of Adelaines work performance, based on her employers (Disney) criteria, and my assessment (since I dont know their scale):
Criteria: Courtesy
Assessment: Discourteous; belligerent even
Criteria: Efficiency
Assessment: Completely shutdown operation single-handedly; counter-productive; oblivious to customers wants
Criteria: Safety
Assessment: On one hand, if she doesnt let anyone on the slide, no one can get hurt. On the other hand, creating a combustible queue could lead to some disorderly self-launching. Didnt stick around to see. No injuries while clearing out of queue and backtracking into another queue while carrying sled.
Criteria: Show
Assessment: It was a show, all right. An excerpt from Fantasmic, with no Mickey to the rescue.
Possible solutions:
1. If, in fact, Adelaine was attempting to implement some documented rules of the ride on queue management, then this is a, minimally, 2-3 Lifeguard/CM queue job - One to manage the queue (including single riders, etc ) and another to coordinate the launch of the race with the safe clearing of the bottom.
2. Provide more CM training to lifeguards
3. Find a more suitable role for Adelaine to play. Maybe cracking the whip in mousekeeping would be a better use of her talents, based on some of the other trip reports. No, she should be playing Snow White's step-mother. Type-cast. A perfect fit. Talk about win-win.
4. If all else fails, there are some departments where I work where she would fit in quite nicely; flourish, even.
From the toboggans, we floated around the lazy river, and headed out around noon to eat lunch at the Pepper Market, on our way to Typhoon Lagoon.
Around 1:30, we attempt to enter TL but it was closed, due to capacity. This hasnt happened to us before, so I hadnt thought about a Plan B. I somehow had in the back of my mind that (a) we were resort guests and (b) we were already water park ticket holders for the day. There was a VERY smooth CM in a Tilley hat explaining the situations and options to each car in line. I have never seen a more firm, pleasant management of a difficult situation. The Anti-Adelaine. He suggested we have a drink at DTD (across the street), gave us a 20% off coupon for Bongos and recommended we try again after 2:30. We did go over to DTD. We did order a drink at Bongos. I HEARD what Tilley-man said, but I didnt actually READ the sheet he gave us. That 20% was for NON-alcoholic drinks. Win some, lose some. No big deal. Especially after what has to be the best margarita Ive ever had and one Mojito for DH47.
The boys are very into their Oakley sunglasses, so they had no problem spending the down time talking to the employees there (ICON, West End), trying on glasses they cant afford, asking questions about the different lenses, etc.
OK, 3:00, back to Typhoon Lagoon. Had a great time in the wave pool, floated the lazy river a couple of time. Boys did the shark pool (I enjoy it, just didnt feel like cooling off that much at the time). Closed the place.
.
