Hi Folks. Welcome to the Snow Rotation... It's going to be a busy day in here. Here's the order we're working this set today:
Snow White:
Early morning rotation. I go in and clean up around the site, there's bubble gum wrappers, kleenex, Mickey Mouse ears, sunglasses, all kinds of stuff. Some of it was lost, some discarded; it all has to be picked up and taken care of. Then I stand at the console and do the safety checks, test the automatic (recorded) spiels, and make sure everything is working. Five minutes before the attraction opens I have to do a hard spiel (non-recorded) making sure there aren't any castmembers inside the attraction. Maintenance could be putting on another car or doing something with the track. Now I talk over with the other cast member who mans which station first. The first station is grouper; this is the person who groups the people coming from the queue as they're getting ready to board the attraction. This is the person who asks "How many in your party, folks?" Then you line them up to board. The funniest response when you ask this question is "All of us!" Try setting them up to board ;-)
The grouper always tries to put the little kids in front so they can see. A lot of times real small children are afraid (Snow White is actually considered a dark ride). My formula is to use the "magic rock,". In the morning I go over to the Mining Company and get a pocketful of the tumbled rocks, which I keep handy. If a child ccomes up who is really afraid to go on the ride, I hand him one of the magic rocks from the Dwarf's mine. I tell him I'm a personal friend of the Dwarfs and that they gave me their magic rocks to give the little guys and girls to keep them safe from the Witch. Most of the times this strategy works! So if any prospective future castmembers are reading this, keep it in mind. It works and the parents love you.
Ok, I just got bumped to Panel.
Now I'm standing up looking over my domain. The grouper is moving people into the cars. After the guests have been loaded into the car, the grouper gives me a hand signal that the guests are seated and it's ok for me to jog the next car up. I push the button to move the car up, then I say "OK, put your lap bars down now, folks." As the car is sitting there, it will dispatch automatically. There are 20 second intervals between the cars; you can talk to the kids, to their parents, etc. When we get into a groove, we can really keep those cars moving; Danny Martin and I worked there one Sunday afternoon for four hours straight without a break. He was the grouper and I was working the panel. We got into that groove and even the guests were commenting on how fast the queue was moving! We were having fun and decided not to take breaks. We just froze there; it's called freezing when you stay in one position without rotating out. It moved the other castmembers along quicker because we eliminated two rotations for that afternoon.
If this is a Friday, Saturday, or especially a Sunday or holiday, we have a third person to do Special Needs (people loading from wheelchairs). The special needs people get loaded one stop before the grouper loads his guests. The car is loaded, then goes up to the grouper and he fills in the rest. If there are more than four people in the special needs person's party, then they overflow to a second car. Only two cars at a time are supposed to be loaded there, then I'll need to let three or four cars go by before I load the next special needs party. This gets very difficult with large parties because they don't like to be split up; on the other hand it's policy to not hold up the regular queue too much.
Today I'm not "freezing;" two people are coming in and I'm getting bumped to Dumbo.
In FantasyLand, Dumbo is really the most popular ride. Coming from Snow side I'll be working the panel and bump the person who is on there to Toad. (I won't operate the actual ride in this rotation, but I will give my spiels from the panel). I get there when Dumbo is starting to come down, so I go into the following spiel:
"Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls. Dumbo is now coming in for a landing. Please be seated until your dumbo comes to a full and complete stop. After exiting your dumbo, please check for all personal items, take small children by the hand, and exit through one of our three green gates. Thank you for riding Dumbo, and have a wonderful day in Disney World."
I wait for everyone to get off. There are two holding areas, gate A and gate B. I have whichever holding area is full at the time. The other person is giving out Dumbo passes. He loads his gate into one holding area, I let the people in my area out to get onto the Dumbos. Since I did the exit spiel, I'll do the long walk. I collect the Dumbo passes from the people inside the dumbo cars. There are 16 Dumbos and 16 Dumbo passes; there may be 2 or 3 people in each dumbo. Since I am doing the long walk, I will pick up three-fourths of the passes. As I collect the passes, I tell everyone "Please fasten your seatbelt." Also while I'm collecting the passes, I explain to the passengers how to make their dumbo fly up and down, and emphasize to the parents that they must make sure the children stay seated and fastened in. Dumbo will not fly if anyone is standing up!
Sometimes someone will have a Dumbo pass, but no dumbo car. This means someone has come in one of the exit gates and climbed in a dumbo, or they have not exited from the previous cycle. So whoever is on a dumbo that does not have the pass, I have to politely ask to get out of the Dumbo and go back through the queue. Usually people are pretty polite about doing so. Once in a while they really don't want to go. Andy once got kicked in a rather delicate place by a young teen who did not want to relinquish his dumbo. The kid then got out and ran. I don't recommend you wear special equipment to work the ride, but you should be prepared for the unexpected!
Now I'll walk 2 Dumbos past the middle gate, and I should be able to see the other person who has just 
done the quarter walk and is now standing at the panel ready to give the boarding spiel (I'll give that spiel in the Toad Rotation). While that cast member is giving the spiel, he'll be looking at me. My hand will be in the air. If my fist is closed, that means do not start Dumbo. When I open my hand and point upward, it's ok to start. So he starts Dumbo. I will then walk back to the panel and wait for Dumbo to go through its cycle. I'll be talking to the people in the holding area next to the panel while waiting for the next cycle to begin. I'll ask who has a birthday, I'll pick up little kids, tease guys about their loud shirts, do as much as I can to communicate with the guests and make them have fun, make them want to ride Dumbo, especially the parents who often are only there to take the kids on the ride.
I'll probably be here for about half an hour to an hour, going through the same cycle maybe six to 12 times. Here comes my bump, now I go to the late Toad B. I walk out, go over to the B side of Toad, cross over the tracks, and bump the person there to break.
Now I'm standing in front of the Toad panel; the people in the queue are standing in front of me, and a car comes up. I step down on an air release pedal next to my stand; that releases the lap bars. Toad cars have a back seat and a front seat; you can get up to 6 people in a car, but sometimes you have a couple who wants a car to themselves. Also, you'll get families of 7 or 8 people who all want to go on at once. It's kind of a judgement call, depending on their sizes and their degree of cooperation...
This is another time when you get to interact with the guests. One of my favorite things is to single out an older couple; I ask the older gentleman if he would like to let his daughter drive. The wives always think it is so charming, the guy will either go along with it or growl "what're you, looking for a tip?" Of course you can't take tips, and I wouldn't have taken one even if it was offered. It was just a way of having fun with the guests and making them feel the magic. When the little kids get behind the wheel, I always ask them if they have their Disney driver's license. They say no, so I tell them when they came in the main gate, they should have got it. I'll say ok, you can drive but be sure to ask for your license when you go through the main gate. That makes the main gate castmembers really happy about 11:30 at night!
Now I hit the dispatch button on the console to send the car off; this goes on about every 22 seconds. I do the jog button, load, dispatch over and over again until someone comes to relieve me. Here someone comes to bump me, now I'm on break. My break is 15 minutes, then I'll start back in at Snow again.
This is the end of the Snow Rotation, be watching for the Toad Rotation coming next month. It's been over a year since I worked these attractions; if anyone spots a spiel or a step that I missed, feel free to contact me with the correction at DisFolks@aol.com.
If you didn't come here from the Working page or haven't been to our Welcome page, you may have missed the explanation that Toad actually does not exist any more, except in our memories. The powers that be decided the time has come to get something "more popular" in its place, so the 100-acre wood will soon be operating in Toad's place. Toad was there when I was there, so I've gone through the procedure as if I were doing it today, but in fact it will never run again. For a very thorough description of the ride, and what was done to attempt to save it, click on the Toad banner on the Welcome/Intro page.
