Planning a family outing to an amusement park can be an ordeal, so you can probably imagine how awful it is for those who spend every single day there as employees. Sure, they get a paycheck, but I’m not sure there’s actually any amount of money that can repay their time spent in the hot sun dealing with sugared up kiddos and emotionally exhausted parents.
Those who have made it out and on to less cartoon-driven careers have spilled their secrets about what it’s really like to work at Six Flags, Disney World, and other amusement parks around the world.
1.) Parking is pretty much always a pain.
Even for employees, though Disney does offer them a convenient shuttle service. However, they still have to enter the front of the park like everyone else.
2.) Ride safety is checked daily.
Specific employees are hired to ride and maintain the safety of each ride on a daily basis.
3.) There’s surprisingly less vomit than you’d think.
A former Disney janitor admitted that it wasn’t as big an issue as people probably assumed.
4.) People ask if they’re going to die on the ride. A lot.
They would typically reassure the rider that said ride was “certainly safer than their shower/bathtub and their car.”
5.) Ride operators are forced to listen to the same songs over and over again.
Imagine the poor souls working “It’s A Small World” all these years.
6.) Disney Princesses must be able to think on their feet.
One former employee confessed that, as Mulan, a child once asked her to speak Chinese. Not knowing the language, she told the child, “I bet Mushu if I could go an entire day without speaking Chinese, he’d feed the chickens for me tomorrow.”
7.) Princesses are responsible for their own makeup.
But they must coincide with the precise routines outlined for them for each character.
8.) Disney makes sure their employees stay hydrated.
In fact, they require employees to always have a water bottle handy.
(via Cracked.)
I’m glad to know it’s not all bad, but I’m sure those who survived these jobs have even more stories to tell.
