Funniest Theme Park Stories
Read the title ;)
Share some of your funniest most hilarious, hysterical theme park stories you have.
One funny moment was when Space Mountain was 101. I was outside telling guest that the ride was broken down. A man walks up and I repeat the message. The man said "I blame Obama." His wife looked at him funny and asked why. He replied "NASA budget cuts."
^ Ha ha ha! :P
Adam,
Giving away my Disney ignorance, perhaps, but can you explain what this phrase means?
"Space Mountain was 101."
I'm sure it's something easily explained, but I have no clue.
I saw a really Fat guy get stuck half way through the turnstile... I did all I could to hold back the laughter.. I know some of you folks will find this offensive, but ya know, who cares….. It was funny… I am sure it was the turnstile's fault for being too small…
From Amy Smith
Posted November 2, 2011 at 1:05 PM
101 is Disney for the ride isn't operational. They say 101 so guests don't hear on the radio "Space Mountain is broken/shut down". The thing is, so many people now know what that means that it doesn't really work as well anymore. You will hear a cast member say something is 101 and nearby guests will immediately start telling their friend x ride isn't working. I also believe 102 is code for the ride being reopened, right?
Universal also has a similar policy, just with different codes. (Of course, sometimes helpful new team members in areas other then attractions don't know this and announce to the entire park over the radio "hey does everyone know that Rockit isn't working again?" ::sigh::)
From Amy Smith
Posted November 2, 2011 at 1:12 PM
And for a funny story, when I was working at Islands one day I had a guest spend 30 minutes insisting to me that Cinderella could come meet her. She was fine with the fact that we don't have Cinderella's castle and understood that Disney and Universal are totally separate companies, but I could not for the life of me get her to put two and two together and see that Cinderella would NOT be visiting IOA that day or ever. (It's only funny in retrospect. At the time, I wanted to clock her.)
Also I used to work at the movie theater at the front of Citywalk and was greatly amused by the number of people who thought that our box office ticket prices of (at the time) $7.00 adults/$6.25 children would grant them access to the parks. They'd choose a movie and time and everything and then take off and come back an hour later screaming that the tickets weren't any good.
People really do leave their brains at home when they take a vacation.
While in line for the Haunted Mansion at WDW back in 2008 a couple was waiting with a screaming baby. The mother sensing this wasn't going to work for the baby or anyone else, tried to get her husband to leave. He refused saying something like "it's no big deal, I want to ride." The baby continued to scream and the woman luckily dragged her husband out while he whined about how "unfair" this was to him.
^ That is actually both sad and funny!
I'm sorry about the 101 thing. 101 by Disney's definition is a ride that is not operable, which isn't the same as broken down. 102 means it's operable by Disney's codes and safety rules. 103 is a restroom break, 104 is a wheel chair party and 105 is a very unofficial term for a good looking person. There are a million codes. DAK has series of codes for kinds of escaped animals.
Space Mountain has the rainbow code. Each seat starting from the front is a color. Red, orange, yellow, green blue purple. Cast member's a load can say a seat for various things, but often in addition to codes like meteor, asteroid, full moon etc-ways to describe guest, which I will not admit here.
Tomorrowland and Fantasyland at WDW cast members hiss to get eachother's attentions. It's fun to hiss as cast members from the Peoplemover...they'll look around all confused.
I know Midway Mania at DHS has a code system based on the picture of the Chutes and Ladders board game ceiling.
When I was a Skipper at the Jungle Cruise, that was an exception. We pretty much just said anything, no codes.
This is kind of mess up but it was funny in mission space a men with claustrophobia (don't know if I spell this right)went on mission space and when they close the thing that you are on the men started to hit the thing and say get me out of here and hitting and kicking the thing it was funny the funniest thing was that he was my uncle
"claustrophobia (don't know if I spell this right)"
You did.
When we met Captain Hook at Disneyland a couple of weeks ago, my older daughter walked up to him and said, "Do you know my mom is Wendy?" Of course, Hook starts shaking his hook at me. Then, my younger daughter walks up to him, waves her little hand and says (in her best Jedi mind trick voice), "She is not the Wendy you are looking for." I thought the Disney photographer was going to fall over.
Wendy, that made my day!!! What a good story. Seeing those things at the parks makes being a Cast Member worth it.
Wendy, +1. Awesome. Great story. Get the kid a comedy gig, now. :^)
From Stevo B
Posted November 8, 2011 at 8:17 PM
When my nephew was around 2 he said no to everything. So one day at Disneyland after lunch at the Hungry Bear we asked him if he wanted to go on Winnie the Pooh. Of course he said no but we headed that way anyway. We asked him again in line, "No!", We asked him again when boarding the car, "No!". About the time we were heading through the second set of doors into the attraction the screaming and I mean screaming started. The ride stopped and an attractions attendant walked up and asked if we wanted to exit the ride - "Yes, please." That was the day we realized that no meant no.
At Universal Studios Hollywood it was my first time on the Jurassic Park water ride with my dad and cousin. Its a water ride, you get wet, I understand the risks.
Getting on the ride, the attendant shows the 2 young Japanese couples in front of us to the front seats with a smirk on his face. Nasty guy ;-)
During the ride, their response to various bits of water gets progressively more dramatic, and we notice that one of them has an unopened umbrella in their hand. Coming out of the installation at the top of the drop they see the "waterfall" and start to freak. Out comes the umbrella and the ride comes to a grinding halt, and we hear the voice on loudspeaker, "The ride will not continue until you put the umbrella away!"
I knew the tyranosaur was coming, and it was a lot less scary than the potential umbrella flying across our face on the drop.
From steve lee
Posted November 9, 2011 at 9:37 AM
Love the insight into Disney codes. Sounds like the sort of stuff we used to do on the radios at the movie theater. Of course, only 2 or 3 people knew the codes, so half the staff would have no clue what it meant if the projectionist was in Auditorium 15 (there's only 14 screens) or what exactly DDF referred to.
(Auditorium 15 is a bathroom break. DDF is an acronym for Distance Distortion Factor, utilized as an escape clause when a person points out an attractive person from a distance who turns out to be not-so-unattractive as they get closer)
This happened to me and my family about 15 years ago and we still relive it every time we ride Splash Mountain.
Pre-fastpass days...goes into a misty eyed haze...
We waited our 45 minutes to go on Splash Mountain, we are in the 2nd and 3rd row of the car, in front of us were 2 rather smartly dressed Japanese gentlemen in the front row. They had obviously never been on the ride before and we were enjoying their reactions to the animatronics etc. So - the drop comes, we all got a soaking and were all laughing, until Japanese man 1 jumps up, takes out his tiny cotton hankerchief and starts mopping the drenching from Japanese man 2.
The ride stopped as he was stood up, while still trying to dry his friend/colleague off... We all just sat in hysterics until he finally sat down and we could move on.
Like you can mop up a Splash in August with a cotton hanky! :-)
Last year my son, husband and myself went on Thunder Mountain. As you are aware, you sit two per row and have to wait by the gates which open up for you to board the train. I was at one gate with my Son while my husband stood alone at the gate in front of us. When the gates opened all three of us boarded the train. As we sat down, the gates remained opened for a few moments to finish letting everyone board but the couple who was stood behind my husband didn't understand this (again Japanese - bless 'em) and both of them tried to sit in the car with my husband. The funny thing about this was my husband knew this was wrong but he still tried to budge over as far as he could to try to get three grown adults in the seats! It took a cast member to come over to try to explain the the bewildered couple that they would have to wait for the next train. I was sat behind laughing my head off at them!
My family and I were watching the kids drive by on the Tomorrowland Indy Speedway at the Magic Kingdom. We watched eight or nine kids slowly drive by before a very large, very hairy man emerged from behind a bush. He was far too large for the dinky car and was overflowing into the lane next to him. He was wearing an expression of absolute degradation and defeat which only made it funnier. Naturally, we began laughing so loudly that we overpowered the speedway noises and caught his attention. He looked up at us, frowned, and said in the thickest, most stereotypical New York accent you could imagine:
"Dis is the closest thing to really driving I can get. They took away my license. I can't drive no more!"
To this day, we quote that misunderstood genius any time we witness a car accident.
From Tony Duda
Posted November 10, 2011 at 4:21 PM
I was in Epcot in January 1997 with my cousin Stephanie and her daughter Christina. Their 1st visit, my 2nd. At the Japan Pavilion we were looking at the garden area behind the koi pond when one of those CM-controlled walking animal stilt bird thingys came out of nowhere and sneaked up on Stephanie and put it's head right up to her's before she saw it. Well, Stephanie shrieked and jumped more than a 5'2" mom should be able to. Very, very funny moment.
From Steven D
Posted December 10, 2011 at 2:13 PM
So, I was at Lagoon in utah and On the jet star 2 a fat lady in her mid twenties got on the ride next to me, and since the ride had no seat belt she slid over and was on top of me for the entire ride, It was bad luck for me.. That ride is now my least favorite in the world and at the time, it was one of my favorites.
Going back to the Disney codes:
While at Tower of Terror one day it was a slow day and so to occupy my time and to humor myself I decided to test the Tower Manager and Tower Coordinator (supervisor). I read off a series of codes to to see if they they new what they mean.
You can literally have a whole conversation without saying a word. The code system is also meant to talk to other CM's about sensitive information or incidents. For example fire, broken attraction, protein spill (which they just recently changed we cant say that anymore on stage) and other things.
So back to the story, a few seconds later I hear "Tower Control? Theres are 'wild animals specifically lions, loose in the building'. There is also a 'hunter on property'? But a 'lion' has had a 'protein spill' because of 'dead animals'."
(All the 'words' are the codes.)
I started everyone in the room just started cracking up but got it all right. I barely got out "10-4" which is "OK".
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