I wonder what the Ariels had to say about Melody (but again, what would they say about Eric or anyone, really)- Oh, she's looking for treasure with Tip and Dash! or Eric's posing for a statue for Grimsby or something.
The last time I met Ariel, I was wearing a button for the end of my CP and I guess Ariel asked me if I was going to see the fireworks and of course, I said, yes. And then she said, “The first time I saw Eric, it was with fireworks! And every time I see fireworks, I think of him. Maybe when you see the fireworks tonight, you’ll think of Eric, too!” I thought that was *such* a weird thing to say, but bless her heart, it can’t be easy trying to talk to a 6ft tall bald guy sitting next to you when you’re wearing a mermaid costume haha. So I always tried to keep that in the back of my mind when I interacted with the performers, but I did have some experiences where the cast members really did an excellent job.
Okay and the memory I came here to share haha:
I just read that the 2020-2021 Brazilian cultural program was cancelled. That’s sad, especially because there is so much less global travel nowadays, but it brought back some happy memories of working for the Mouse.
One of the “tasks” we had to do as a park greeter when we weren’t at a touch point was to re-fill the map kiosks at the front of the park. I think it’s two or three rows of English language maps and then one or two rows for all the other languages: Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Japanese, and a special English language disability access map.
Obviously, the English maps went the quickest. This is all based on my personal observation, but I think the majority of guests are English-speaking people from across the US, and we had guests from Canada and the UK (UK guests, when I worked there, were easy to spot because the whole family would wear Toy Story Land MagicBands. I thought that was so weird until a cast member from the UK explained that they were all booking through the same agency and the agency gave the whole family those Toy Story Land Magic Bands— I assume now it’s Galaxy’s Edge or something else new to advertise). I don’t remember ever meeting an Australian guest, but we had tons of Australian cultural representatives— some of them became very good friends, although they didn’t make good on their promise to let me try Australian fairy bread!
The next most used map was the Portuguese-language map. A lot of Brazilian tourists come to Walt Disney World, but there are not many Portuguese-speaking cast members. I have seen Spanish-speaking cast members attempt to speak to Portuguese guests because apparently the languages are very similar, but I also had cast members tell me that sometimes it’s worse— the languages are so close and yet not the same, so sometimes these interactions would leave the Brazilian guests extra frustrated! That’s why there’s a large Brazilian cultural representative program (although the programs are short, 2-4 months during peak summer and Christmastime only) even though there is no Brazilian pavilion in the World Showcase.
At the end of my time at the Boardwalk, I briefly worked with a Brazilian CP and we worked together on New Year’s Eve (which, btw was a lot of work but a lot of fun). He told me how in Brazil, New Year’s Eve is a very big deal and they all wear white, and that’s how he could pick out his fellow Brazilians at the Boardwalk that night. He said he spoke Portuguese to one guest, and she took him and she hugged him and said she was so sad he wasn’t spending New Year’s with his own family, so to think of her hug as one from his own mother. Very sweet.
The next language that got used the most was Spanish, but really, Portuguese outpaced every other language besides English by a country mile. At the Boardwalk, I worked with a lot of wonderful people who were Spanish speakers and one of my best friends was from Mexico, so I tried to pick up a little Spanish. Well, I picked up just that— a little! But it did come in handy, not so much at the Boardwalk, but as a park greeter. I knew very, very basic things like colors etc. and sometimes I could give people directions based on my limited vocabulary. I was very proud when I was successful! But many other times, I had to ask for the assistance of Spanish-speaking cast members and usually there was someone nearby. One time a guest came up to me with Google Translate and we communicated back and forth this way, and I thought that was absolutely brilliant!
I didn’t hear any other languages used as frequently as English, Portuguese, and Spanish and a lot of times you didn’t need to restock the Japanese (the Japanese guests always have the cutest Disney merch, and when you ask them where they got it, it’s always Tokyo Disneyland) or German maps at all. There was an uptick of French-speaking guests during Holy Week, I assume perhaps that is spring break for the French or maybe the French Canadians? I took French in high school and so I’d try to greet French speaking guests with a “bienvenue” or something but maybe that was cringey haha?
But anyway, I loved the multiculturalism of working at Walt Disney World. Coming from a very homogeneous region, it was so wonderful and exciting to have conversations with people from all over the world— if they were from a nation with a World Showcase pavilion, sometimes I’d ask them if it reminded them of home and invariably they’d say no, but I expected that. And I made some life-long friends around the globe, too. That’s truly one of the best gifts I was given when I worked in Orlando.