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Disney Cast Member

In recent months, we've carried out a series of interviews with current and former Cast Members at Walt Disney World. Almost all of them loved their jobs, and spoke in glowing terms about the daily interactions that they had with guests at the resort.

Of course, the reality of working at a resort that handles tens of thousands of visitors every single day can't all be pixie dust. Most of the guests are polite, excited and thrilled to be on a Disney vacation. Mingled in with them, though, are a handful of visitors who a rude, obnoxious or outright dangerous.

Former Cast Member Amy Ziese knows this better than anyone, having undertaken a wide range of roles during her time at Walt Disney World - including working as a housekeeper, a Jungle Cruise "skipper", a Kilimanjaro Safaris driver and in several of the Magic Kingdom's retail stores.

So that we can avoid making Cast Members' jobs more difficult than they need to be, we asked Amy what annoyed her most in each of those jobs - and uncovered these 5 "pet hates".

5. Queue-jumpers

Magic Carpets

Image: Darren Wittko

"I strongly disliked the line jumpers," remembers Amy, who also worked on the Magic Carpets of Aladdin at the Magic Kingdom. "The queue at the Magic Carpets was a small, cozy queue and people thought that they could just jump over the chains to get into the line. Rather than walk the extra seven feet to go into the actual entrance, they’d risk injury by stepping over a giant metal trip hazard. We also had low walls around the queue that people would sit on and we’d tell them to get down. While that was bad, it wasn’t the worst. My least favorite was when you asked a kid to get down from the wall or off the chain and their parent would say something like, 'See? I told you to get down.' I always wanted to say, 'No you didn’t, because if you had, they should have gotten down.'"

4. Parents who don't care about their child's safety

One Yeti Foot

Image: Bzar

Disney rides generally have lower minimum height requirements than those at other theme parks, because the company knows that it needs to make them accessible to as broad a spectrum of guests as possible. There are limits, though, particularly when it comes to roller coasters or other thrill rides.

That was the case at Dinosaur at Disney's Animal Kingdom, where dealing with the height sign was the least favorite part of Amy's job. "Parents would get very upset if their children were too short, despite the fact that Dinosaur is very intense and usually inappropriate for anyone too small to ride it."

The same was at Star Tours at Disney's Hollywood Studios: "I hated dealing with the height sign. Parents could get so upset when their children were too short to ride. The Cast Members aren’t the ones who make the rules, but we could lose our jobs for missing a child that’s too short. Parents never seemed to appreciate that the height limit is a safety consideration and we have to follow it the same way for each and every guest, even if the child is only a hair too short."

3. Slobs

Disney towels

There were many fun aspects to Amy's role as a housekeeper, particularly leaving behind "towel animals" in guests' rooms. Some visitors, though, leave their rooms in a pretty unmanageable state: "Many guests would leave their rooms in really abhorrent conditions with trash on the floor and a huge mess around the room. It was often difficult to clean rooms like this because you’re not supposed to touch the guests’ belongings, but you can’t easily vacuum or make beds when things are left really messy."

 
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Comments

I enjoy the cast members. They are always very helpful. tTey have to know the parks inside and out to be able to answer all questions. I try to thank them and mention their name, it's on their name tag. Even when things go wrong, it's not always their fault, rides break, they didn't do it, be nice people, you're at Disney, the happiest place on earth be it California or Florida.

We are annual pass holders to WDW,Hollywood Studios,Animal Kingdom,Epcot we go once or twice a month and we love it we have stayed at the resorts,but since son in law works for Lowes properties we now stay at hard rock,portifino,etc.We give all the cast members thumbs up we have witness the abuse that some guest give these cast members.We love Disney thank u to all the cast members

I will never work at either of the park complexes again (UO or WDW). I have never been treated worse by management or by guests - the service industry treats people like used kleenex. And the pay sucks.

As a current Tower of Terror bellhop at Disney California Adventure, the management demands that we smile and be as friendly to our guests as possible. This whole "creepiness" that's described in the story wouldn't fly on the West Coast. Frankly, if anyone watched enough episodes of "Twilight Zone" you'd find the show was never meant to be scary. I mean, we'd call it the Stephen King Tower of Terror if we wanted that.

Yeah, while the five listed hit the nail on the head, I'd add one more pet peeve. The drunken weekend crowds we deal with since we're so close to the Mad T Party. I mean, considering how much you paid to get in and the drink prices, you should've thought about getting intoxicated somewhere cheaper.

Sure we have one or two bellhops who like to startle the guests but DCA Tower of Terror is a fun ride where we give them their money's worth. I mean, frankly, what other attraction at DLR has cast members like us?

In reply to by Dave P (not verified)

That's funny! True, but funny. I grew up in Orlando and some friends and I after we were in our 20's, would on occasion drink "around the world" which is going to Epcot and having 1 drink at each country. That's hard to do and expensive. Think we managed it 2 times. After that, we just did magic kingdom til lunch, pop over to Mexico for a Jimbo Margarita then back to the Kingdom...

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