So in case you weren’t aware, I work at Walt Disney World, more specifically in Hollywood Studios, at Star Tours (the Star Wars ride in case that isn’t blatantly obvious :P). Today was hot and cranky (95 degrees with 86% humidity!! And it’s April folks!!) and like me, Studios was PMSing hardcore. Tower of Terror was down most of the day. The Indiana Jones stunt show canceled four out of its six shows. Construction walls were abound and the remaining rides had wait times longer than Kim Kardashian’s marriage. People were not happy, myself included.
So I’m flying cabin A and I get this Make A Wish family, party of 8. Now the flight before theirs, I had broken a seat, I had a family bitch to me in Spanish about “No veo! No veo!” (Newsflash- the reason I’m brown is because of interracial marriage, I’m not Hispanic. It’s a thing that exists!) and multiple people did not understand the phrase “Please pull on the yellow strap,” so I was not in the best of moods. However, there was a little boy in the wheelchair who was probably like eight or nine and he was wearing a Darth Vader shirt and hat, clearly a Star Wars fan. Excitedly, he jumped up when I told them they’d be in row 1, and then mom quietly reminded him, “Jacob, do you want to sit down until we go in? Remember yesterday at Magic Kingdom when you walked too much and got tired and we had to rest?” And so he sat down, a little disappointed, and I was like, “Shit. This kid is sick.”
So I loaded my cabin as normal. And when I was done and the safety video wasn’t finished yet, I knelt down next to Jacob and I asked him if he was excited to ride. He nodded and said that Star Wars is his favorite movie and asked if he was going to see Darth Vader. I told him I couldn’t guarantee anything, considering Lord Vader was very busy with the Empire, and his mom chuckled and said, “This is what he’s been waiting to do all day. Tower of Terror is broken and he can’t go that upside down rollercoaster, but this, he can do.” And so then we just kind of talked about Star Wars until the flight came (which was super interesting considering I know legitimately nothing about Star Wars, even after having worked here almost a year now) and then I launched the flight. For those of you who haven’t ever flown with us before (lol who am I?), at the beginning of the flight, C3PO, your awful captain, locates a Rebel Spy onboard your flight, and a picture of someone in the cabin pops up on the ride screen. Well wouldn’t you know it? This Rebel Spy was Jacob, and from the ride camera, I watched his little face light up and he got super excited and showed his mother and father and I was internally bawling.
And at the end of the flight, Jacob came up to me and said, “I WAS THE REBEL SPY!!” and I was like, “You were?! No way!!” And he’s like, “Yeah and we saw Darth Vader and Boba Fett and they were after me!!” And when he and dad went out to get the wheelchair, mom turned to me with tears in her eyes and said, “Thank you. Thank you so much. You really made his day. No, you made his vacation.“ And I had to fly my next flight fighting back tears, casually, because this would’ve gotten me on a regular day, but I’m already an emotional bitch, these days, so I was a wreck.
And yeah. This is why I work for Disney. Sometimes I forget, honestly. Sometimes I have hard days or days where I question every decision I’ve made since I got down here. But then I get families like this. I have days like this. Sometimes I forget why I work for Disney.
tangentwithtanner
blakekathryn
titsay
kaledo-art
