[private]

Of course, you cant get through a trip without one or two snags, right? We went to see the Princesses in Mickeys Toontown and wouldn’t you know, the line was a mere 45 minutes long. Sigh. Lucky for us, it was in a massive tent that held a pretty large shop as well.

I stood there while Dh and Charlotte ran around for a few minutes and then we switched. I wanted to get a mickey mouse hat. I was gone about 10 minutes, maybe 15, when I found a hat and went back to them. In theory, they should have only been about 10 more steps in line with that kind of wait. But they were not there!

I squeezed through the line looking for them and got to the front where the rope hung and no DH or Charlotte. I could not believe it, they had made it in without me. So I stepped over the rope and turned left and there was a ‘cast member’ there. I use that term loosely as she wasn’t of high Disney caliber. She said “You cant go this way”, I said, oh, I’m just looking for my husband and daughter. I went to buy a hat and came back and they were gone.” And she said “you have to wait for them at the exit” and I said “but they just went through, I have the camera, we waited in this line to meet the princesses and I want to take a picture of my daughter with them” and she said “We don’t know where they are at, you have to go to the exit.”

Ok, lets just stop right now. There is one line. When the line gets to the front, you go in a room and meet them and leave. I was pretty sure they were JUST in that room, so her whole drama to me was getting old quick. I was also completely pissed that she was treating me like a Disney Terrorist out to jump the line of all the other 5 year olds, to meet Cinderella first.

Then she had the nerve to touch my elbow like leading me OUT of the line. That’s where I lost it. I said

“You are RUINING my Disney experience! I want to take pictures of my daughter with the princesses and i want a MANAGER right NOW.” She proceeds to bossily push me back through the line and I am making the largest “I want a manager” scene I could and I grab another employee and call him to the side and told him I wanted a manager. And the mean non-Disney worthy lady says ” I already called for one” and I turned at her and I said ” I don’t want a manager YOU called, I don’t want to deal with you” and I looked at the guy and asked HIM to call me a manager.

Man, this guy was a saint. He got a manager on the phone, he waited with me and talked with me about the trip, and he told me that sometimes “bad eggs” get through on any job…he had me breathing normal by the time Parker, the manager, arrived.

Parker went to find Chris and Charlotte and of course, by this time, they had exited and were waiting on ME. So he took us right up the back, back into the princesses and we did another round with them. Had that lady got off her lazy butt and used some common sense and looked around the corner to see if they were in there, we could have avoided the entire fiasco, on top of, not wasted another 5 minutes holding up the line to do a reroute so I could do pictures.

(nothing like being next to a 6 foot princess to make you feel inadequate)

What I don’t get, is why people just don’t put two and two together. The room is about the size of a living room with partitions where the princesses sit. They let about 10 people through at a time. Its very small and Charlotte had that big ass sucker with her. She wasn’t a hard person to find. I think she was having a bad day and wanted to pass it back onto me, and it was totally unfair. Even if there are ‘rules’, common sense would say, “let me go see if your family is here and if so, Ill walk you to join them. Cause this is Disney and its costing you $2000 in this crappy economy to be here, so I am going to respect you want a photo with Cinderella…oh, and next time, we will even change the sign on the line to say 15 minutes instead of 40 so we don’t even HAVE this predicament.”

The funniest part of the whole thing is when we went to leave, there was a small team outside the doors in official looking Disney gear and they told us we won the Year of a Million Dreams today and gave us special 2008 Year of a Million Dreams Disney Mickey Mouse Ears Hats. I could just imagine the manager calling the team after he dropped us off “insane lady at Cinderella tent, need Disney Ears here, stat”. Anytime I saw someone in the park with these special ears on, I was wondering what kind of scene they pulled to ‘earn’ them. Maybe its how Disney identify raving mothers in the park. “Look, blue ears coming, you take her..”

Didn’t they see I just spent $16.95 on ears that started this whole thing? The irony.

~Trisha

[/private]