Friday, June 11, 2004

Grad Nights, Workin' at the Disneyland
It's 8:30 p.m. and I've only just woken up. Why did I just wake up? Because thanks to the Disneyland Resort, I didn't make it to bed until about 1:30 in the afternoon.

Last night, and several other nights for these past two months Disneyland has been hosting what are known as "Grad Nights." These are private parties for graduating high school Seniors, and it generates a huge amount of money to let these hooligans run amok in the park after hours. Only about half of the attractions remain open, and unfortunately I work on two of them that do: Splash Mountain and the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

Splash Mountain, for one reason or another is quite possibly the most popular attraction in Disneyland's 49 year history. Regardless of how busy the park is, or even how cold it is, this water ride manages to keep a consistent two-hour wait.

I don't really understand this phenomena. The other major attractions at Disneyland, some of which can't handle as many guests-per-hour and theoretically should have longer waits, have nothing on the big wet mountain. Even on Grad Nights, when only an insignificant number of guests enter the park we manage to have a two hour wait. That's two hours you could be enjoying other attractions, or doing something productive with your time. Oh well, I'm happy to be on everyone's favorite, I suppose, but Lord knows I'm not always there.

There is also the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Disneyland's newest attraction, which opened last year to some very mixed criticism. Personally, I think it's a cute ride, but a lot of people don't seem to agree. It replaced one of the more beloved attractions, and is placed directly across the road from Splash Mountain, so it certainly has a lot to live up to. Unfortunately most people feel that it's lacking.

It's not uncommon for Winnie the Pooh to have nobody in line on an average day. Literally, NOBODY. I mean, ten minutes could pass on a weekday afternoon without somebody deciding to come in and try the darned thing out. By comparison, Splash, which is only ten feet away, will have many thousands of people waiting in it's queue at the exact same time.

It's not that I don't enjoy working the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, but due to it's laid-back pace I find it difficult to stay awake during the day there; having to operate it at 3:30am is an incredibly difficult thing to do. Since getting trained on Splash my loyalty has shifted considerably, and I feel bad about it. But working Grad Nights on a busy attraction is much more interesting than standing around and doing nothing at Pooh.

The graduating Seniors at Splash are ruthless. They try to get out of the vehicles during the ride, play with scenery and props, or worse yet, attempt some sort of naughty act. I’m not talking about chewing gum here, kids. Many of the seniors are underage, but it’s still common to find them smoking, drinking, and engaging in all sorts of “adult” acts at these private parties. Why anyone would want to do such things at Disneyland is beyond me (speaking of which, there is a great book Mouse Tales by David Koenig, which has a lot of great stories) but it’s an awful lot of fun getting the people we catch thrown out of the park. They aren’t just booted out of Disneyland, they have their diplomas taken away by the school, and in some cases they are even arrested by the police. Yay!

So that’s why I prefer working Splash to Pooh on Grad Night – it’s where the action is.

In case you were wondering, here are links to videos of my two attractions. Compare and contrast.

Splash Mountain!

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh!

Warning: These are large files. 18 and 13 MB, respectively. They may take a while to load, especially on slow connections.
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