A Look into the Future...

This past Saturday at Cosmic Ray's was an eye-opener into what life at work will be like during the holidays. Since the magic Kingdom held Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party so many nights last week, ad because it was a Saturday without a Halloween Party, park attendance was expected to be somehwhere around 50,000 plus people. Crowds have been around 20,000 people on average since I've been here, which is not too bad. But 50,000 is a LOT of guests in one park.

So inside the restaurant, black ropes were set up all over to keep guests in line and help reduce congestion. A whole group of CMs, including myself, were on crowd control duty.

There were CMs standing outside the lower doors telling guests they couldn't enter there, that they had to enter on the upper side entrances. Once inside, guests would get in a long line at one of the three bays. After getting their food, they had to find a table. This was the hard part. The place was packed. Most guests wanted to eat in the lower dining room with Sonny Eclipse. But in order to get into the dining room, they had to get in yet another line.

Cast Member Layshia was at one side of the entrance to the dining room, telling guests that this was an exit only, for guests who were already in the dinig room. CM Whitney was at the front of the sectioned-off line to get into the dining room. In order to even get in the line, you had to have already ordered and gotten your food. If you didn't have a tray of food, you weren't allowed to enter. This was to prevent people from saving tables and to keep unnecessary traffic out. Once they passed the "food check," they arrived at my station. I was right inside the dining room, with a radio. I would check with CM Adam over the radio to see if tables were available, and if so, how many people they would fit. Once an open table was located, either myself or CM Sofia would direct the guests to their table.

We would get a lot of guests with a party of 6 or 8. We usually couldn't offer them two tables together, or even remotely close to each other. Boy oh boy, people were getting upset. It was crowded and hot, and all they wanted to do was sit down and eat their lunch.

A lot of guests actually were quite nice and appreciative of the help we were trying to provide. We did our best to get them seated as quick as possible and to seat their entire party together. But with so many people, it was just a frantic and confusing situation.

I actually didn't mind my job at crowd control. It wasn't as hectic and stressful as working filler or drinks. But I can't imagine the restaurant being like this every single day, as its definitely going to be during Thanksgiving and Christmas.

For now, I'm enjoying the "slower" days at Cosmic Ray's. Sometimes it's a little too slow, but boy was it crazy last Saturday. Thanksgiving and Christmas, here we come...