Now, imagine if you will, you are just entering a 5 spot rotation for Jungle. Normally, 5 spot rotations start off as greeter, or some other form of dock position, and then boat, dock, boat, break. Somehow, this 5 spot rotation started off with boat, dock, boat, dock, break.
So needless to say, I started off in a boat when I hear that pirates is down, everyone is frozen in place until further notice, and did I mention that I'm now stuck in a boat? Fantastic. I ended up doing 9 trips, almost 10 (I got lucky that my bump caught me before I left the loading dock for the 10th time.) Now again, pirate evac normally takes about 20 - 30 minutes, which is roughly estimated to 2 - 3 extra trips around the Jungle.
How I ended up with 9 really got me wondering what went wrong, and then later that day I found out what happened. My bump was on lunch when he was pulled to help with evac, so when he got back when everything went back to normal, he started his 30 minutes back to minute 1 and enjoyed his lunch. I don't blame him, I would have done the same. Ok, so that would have counted for 3 more trips around.
So now we're at 4 - 6 trips. Still not 9, but getting close. 7th time around, starting to get paranoid, watching the other skips get bumped out, and I'm still stuck on Zelda, ugh. "Where's my bump?!" Still on lunch. 8th time around. "Where's my bump?!" He should be back by now. 9th time around. "Please tell me he's hiding behind the dock box or something, get me off this thing!" We don't know where he is.
I pull up to load, and see him loading my boat. "Um . . . what are you doing?" "What's it look like I'm doing? I'm front load." "No, you're supposted to bump me out, remember?" "No, the board said F-Load, and then Zelda." (Apparently, our coordinator was revising our rotations, which is normal, but it is also normal that everyone affected was in the know, but not this time.) We ended up switching places, and during some free time as we loaded Wanda up (our wheelchair boat) I went to the dock box to talk with the coordinator about my rotation.
I wish this story ended here where we all finished our days logging in countless hours behind the wheel, but it just keeps getting better.
Pirates opened back up again, and within 30 minutes, went down again and needed to evac. This time, I wasn't on a boat. (Thank GOD!) This time, however, was stuck at FP merge point. I really don't know what's worse, being stuck on a boat for 9 trips in a row, or being the road block of thousands of angry and upset guests for 40 minutes. What got me through that mess was the fact that I had the power of making their line move quicker.
The more angry taunts and insults I get from one line, the more I clear the other. Usually these taunts are from standby guests obviously upset of the sudden mob of people filling up our FP line. These are the same guests that were just recently evac'd off pirates and given a re-ad ticket to be used as a FP for any attraction, it just so happens they came next door to us all at once. So FP line is whining that FP isn't "Fast" enough, and standby thinks I've completely ignored them. There's no fair way to please both sides, so no matter what you do, you are always the bad guy preventing you from riding this ride.
And you know what's even better? When you continue your rotation and go back on a boat, and get a fully loaded boat full of the same people you held up in line. As a skipper, you probably won't recognize them, but they all know you very well, and makes for a really delightful 10 minute cruise of ackward silence and angry glares. And I thought this was the Happiest Place on Earth.
Come on now. We all get sick from hearing the same thing over and over again. I thought when Henry "peed" himself was your worst day.
Still a great story!