Would You Like Magic with That?: Working at Walt Disney World Guest Relations by Annie Salisbury Page A

someone, but it was one-hundred-percent true about Whitney.
    I buddied up with others, and they showed me the GR ropes. A few of them even walked me through complicated ticket things so I could see them done slowly , and remember the steps for later. That’s what I really wanted. I didn’t want someone to talk down to me, or even take 35 minutes to explain something to me. I just wanted to be shown how to do things like an adult.
    Whitney did sit with me for a while in the Bank Out Room while I went over ticket things. Even though she was sitting next to me, it’s not like she was really sitting with me, as she spent the majority of the time on her cell phone. Someone else mentioned to me that she had recently gone through a pretty bad breakup, and she was seemingly taking it out on me — someone she had known for three days.
    On the last day of training, I was set to open. That meant arriving at the Magic Kingdom for 7am, and actually opening up Guest Relations (and the park) for the day. I wasn’t supposed to meet Whitney in City Hall, but rather wait for her at the mouth of the tunnel underneath Magic Kingdom. I showed up at 6:50am and Whitney was already there, sprawled out on one of the benches, a sweatshirt over her costume and sunglasses over her eyes.
    “I’ve been up all night and I’m really hung over.” She pushed herself into a sitting position. “Don’t talk to me unless it’s urgent.”
    The two of us walked to City Hall, her mostly straggling behind because, as I heard her tell someone else, she didn’t sleep last night since she left the club at 4am and needed to be at Magic Kingdom three hours later. She smelled like cigarette smoke, beer, and desperately needed a shower since her hair was matted to her face. This is the woman who was here to train me for Guest Relations.
    On this last day, I needed to pass a GR test. I was tested first on ATS, showing another trainer (not Whitney) that I knew what I was doing (and thankfully, so many other cast members had stepped into help me out, I knew what I was doing). And then I needed to pass a written test. The written test included questions like naming all the smoking areas in the park, where certain quick-service locations were located, and how to get to such and such hotel. It was easy. I passed.
    Passing this test meant that I got my Guest Relations golden D pin. It’s the bling-bling you see GR cast members wear on the opposite side of their nametags. The pin is supposed to represent that this cast member has passed all the tests and knows the answers to all the questions. There’s a small little “ceremony” where a trainer hands their trainee the D pin, and everyone else in Guest Relations cheers and congratulates the newest member of their family.
    It sounds like fun and, oh wait , Whitney didn’t do that for me. She pulled me into the VIP room with three other random cast members she had found, handed me my pin, and then told me to go out onto the counter and actually work.
    “That’s it?” I pinned the giant golden D to my chest.
    “Yeah, now go do something.” She shooed me away and then demanded an early release since she was hung over and tired, and wanted to go home.
    Just like that. I was a brand-new Guest Relations cast member. For real. I headed out to the counter to actually work for real .
    It was a Saturday in June, and I think Whitney knew what she was sending me into after training. She had gotten released from work early, so she didn’t have to deal with the craziness of the park. She didn’t bother to warn me about what was happening out there, but I’m pretty sure she knew what I was stepping into.
    This was my first day. It also happened to be Gay Days in Magic Kingdom.
    Most guests are now familiar with Gay Days. It’s not a Magic Kingdom-sanctioned event. It’s like Dapper Day, in the sense that it’s organized (and promoted) by an outside party — not Disney — and after a day is designated to attend, anyone