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Keep Your Party Together

September 1, 2005 on 4:17 am | In General Nonsense | Comments Off

When I have the opportunity, I tell Guests that it is their responsibility to keep their parties together. I have no way to know where one party ends and another begins. I tell them “the next train is just minutes away” when they become separated.

Today I was standing on exterior load at the Magic Kingdom talking on the phone when apparently a 10- or 11-year-old boy’s family boards Silver without him. The doors and gates shut and the mother starts pounding on the door. The child looks nervous.

Andy puts his fist up to get the driver to hold but it’s too late. Silver starts to leave the station. Andy hurls himself over the railing (we have no emergency gates on the load side) and pulls an E-handle on the train. Silver slows to a stop.

I’m yelling “LET IT GO!” into Thomas’ ear on the phone. “LET IT GO, THERE’S ANOTHER TRAIN IN A MINUTE!! YOU CAN’T DO THAT.” But Andy is tugging at the door to the left of the E-handle. Fortunately, he forgot that only the door to the right of the E-handle can be pulled open.

Rob comes down and calmly explains that Andy has probably violated nine different clearance codes doing what he did. Andy finally gives in and pushes the E-handle back down. Silver’s brakes puff as it resumes its departure and the boy’s mother gives another round of rapping on the doors as they pull out of the station.

So now Andy is trying to console the child who has begun crying into his hands. I told him “Why don’t you take him over there [to TTC].” He agreed and took off on Lime with the child.

I called base and warned Tracie that an angry mother was going to be getting out of Silver, so she kept an eye out for them. I found out later that while they were waiting, another one of their children had run down the ramp. We suspected this isn’t the first time their party had separated.