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CMs and Grad Nite
- Thread starter Dementia
- Start date
A CM friend of mine said that this past Friday night, the managers said it was wild - fights and an almost-riot broke out at one of the concerts at the Castle stage. Some of the *solid-steel* stanchions (the poles used to hold up the ropes for corwd control) were BENT OVER from kids pulling, leaning, and tugging on the ropes trying to rush the stage. From what I understand, that night was mostly south Florida schools (which makes me ashamed to be from South Florida), which have some pretty heated rivalries from what I hear. So when hundreds of kids get together in the same place from some of those schools, it got pretty heavy. Security had to be called on more than one occasion, along with Reedy Creek Medical because of the injuries.
Just after hearing this, and IMAGINING what it must be like.. CMs should get ovetime, bonuses, AND a cherry on top for this
So CM's? No one? Bueller... Bueller.. Bueller....
Just after hearing this, and IMAGINING what it must be like.. CMs should get ovetime, bonuses, AND a cherry on top for this
So CM's? No one? Bueller... Bueller.. Bueller....
ChrisH9339
New Member
How bout this... get rid of grad nites. If they want to go to the parks, let them pay for it and go with their school, but if all they're going to do is trash the park (and ruin it for other guests by actually catering to the kids by closing early), why give them the privilege of having the park to themselves? Walt would be spinning in his grave if he saw what was described above, and the current park management should take heed.
General Grizz
New Member
Grad Nite is to blame for a recent "Trash Mountain" (http://www.micechat.com/showthread.php?t=3225) and night-long disturbances for nearby WDW resort guests (http://mousepad.mouseplanet.com/showthread.php?t=41136).
While it's fun for teens, I can see why the event will be pulled if the situation becomes worse.
While it's fun for teens, I can see why the event will be pulled if the situation becomes worse.
ballewclan
New Member
OMG! That is so bad! Even im in HS and i think that grad nights should be cancelled if things like that are going on! I feel so bad for the CM's...
ISTCrew20
Well-Known Member
I worked one Grad Nite last Saturday, and even the Blast Off Party (the party before the party, where only selected schools can attend) was crazy.
People came in through 2 entrances in either Tomorrowland or Frontierland. Since I was working in Tomorrowland, everyone made a beeline for Space Mountain. NOBODY walked. It was run to this, run to that. They were excited and after being on the bus for so many hours, I can understand. From what I heard though, it got real crazy during some of the performances on the other side of the park.
And myself, being a High School Junior, was a little worried after hearing some of the stories I was told. It was nice though, everyone was respectful and nobody got too insane.
People came in through 2 entrances in either Tomorrowland or Frontierland. Since I was working in Tomorrowland, everyone made a beeline for Space Mountain. NOBODY walked. It was run to this, run to that. They were excited and after being on the bus for so many hours, I can understand. From what I heard though, it got real crazy during some of the performances on the other side of the park.
And myself, being a High School Junior, was a little worried after hearing some of the stories I was told. It was nice though, everyone was respectful and nobody got too insane.
Mickeyman819
Member
I had mentioned this in a previous post in another thread. I went to grad nite april 23. At out "blast-off party" there was a fight, and found a heroin needle in a club. I cant say i heard that bad of stuff during the stay at MK, but people obviosly didnt care about disney. At one point, im very ashamed of this, a person from my school jumped up by the statue of mickey and walt and was dancing up there. That was the only reason why i thought i wouldnt like grad nite but it ended up being pretty sweet
OmegaKnight
New Member
A lot of these high schools made full WDW trips out of their Grad Nite visit so they have been visiting the other parks too and from personal experience with them, a lot of them are very rude, inconsiderate and just a plain nuisance. As someone who is just 4 years removed from HS, it made me sad to realize how much better my school behaved than some of the ones I saw.
CaptainMichael
Well-Known Member
General Grizz said:
I'm a teen who was there Friday night. I didn't have fun because of the long lines and rude teenagers. They were so loud in the Haunted Mansion stretching room that I could not hear the ghost host. The castmembers tried to quiet them down, but it did not work. Castmembers do deserve more money for this event!
thimblekisses
New Member
I was at Grad Nite on Friday, too. Granted there were the usual obnoxious people, but that didn't stop us from having a great time! I had a BLAST. We had fun, our dorky selves, hanging out with the cool teachers and ignoring the delinquents, except for that one drug deal I witnessed.
I do agree, however, that CMs should be paid overtime for that. We did see a great many extremely cheerful CMs though, all night long.
Three cheers for Grad Nite CMs!!! :king: :wave:
I do agree, however, that CMs should be paid overtime for that. We did see a great many extremely cheerful CMs though, all night long.
Three cheers for Grad Nite CMs!!! :king: :wave:
should-be-BELLE
Member
Wow, that's a shame. At first, I was jealous my HS is too far away to go, but now I'm glad I didnt see WDW in that crazy ridiculous way. The crazy kids from my school probably would have added much more chaos to the Grad Nites. Sorry for everyone that had a bad time becuase of us kids! Just to let you know, there are some of us who aren't rude, inconsiderate jerks..and do appreciate WDW
Mission: SPACE
New Member
I have quite an interesting story from last night...
I worked yesterday at LMA (from 11 AM-6:45 PM) and I wanted to pull some overtime, so I called MK to see if I could pick up a Grad Nite shift. They had me come in from 8 PM to 4 AM at Speedway (where I used to work). Around 2 or 2:30 (it was a long day on not much sleep) I was assigned to greeter. I went out and was talking with the other greeter, and noticed there was a lot of people in the area. It seemed unusual, especially considering Grad Nite shouldn't be THIS crowded. I started to get this really bad feeling deep inside me...
That's when I noticed that a mass, and I mean mass, covering from Cosmic Ray's over to the Speedway entrance, were following something. I walked over that way to see what was going on, and right before I got behind the people they all started running and screaming. I immediately got a horrible feeling that a knife or gun had been pulled, and after fighting my way through the crowd that remained I saw this brawl breaking out.
I'm not going to go into major details, but one kid was hurt badly. He wasn't hurt to the point that he had to be carried away or anything, but he was having some trouble for a few minutes. He got off and walked off. And the thing that bugs me the most is that the ones who beat him up left... missing a shoe!
My friend who was working events (and came over to Speedway to visit) saw more than I did, and since he saw the extreme details he told the sheriffs and security what he saw. And when he mentioned that the guy left missing a shoe they didn't seem to care. Yes, there are a lot of people in that place on Grad Nite, but not a lot missing a shoe... There should have been a search notice sent out to the entire park, but nothing of the kind was done.
I attended Grad Nite last year, and I'll admit that it was one of the best nights of my life. But when stuff like this happens, something needs to be done. Someone told me the fight in front of Speedway last night was caused by verbal arguments over whose school was better (they were rival schools). There's no reason Disney can't arrange the schools so that rival schools DON'T attend Grad Nite on the same night... they've got the ability to find out that kind of information...
Just thought I'd chime in. I actually wanted to work Grad Nite at least once, but an hour into my shift, and after 9 hours of work already, I was questioning why I was stupid enough to pick up that shift.
I worked yesterday at LMA (from 11 AM-6:45 PM) and I wanted to pull some overtime, so I called MK to see if I could pick up a Grad Nite shift. They had me come in from 8 PM to 4 AM at Speedway (where I used to work). Around 2 or 2:30 (it was a long day on not much sleep) I was assigned to greeter. I went out and was talking with the other greeter, and noticed there was a lot of people in the area. It seemed unusual, especially considering Grad Nite shouldn't be THIS crowded. I started to get this really bad feeling deep inside me...
That's when I noticed that a mass, and I mean mass, covering from Cosmic Ray's over to the Speedway entrance, were following something. I walked over that way to see what was going on, and right before I got behind the people they all started running and screaming. I immediately got a horrible feeling that a knife or gun had been pulled, and after fighting my way through the crowd that remained I saw this brawl breaking out.
I'm not going to go into major details, but one kid was hurt badly. He wasn't hurt to the point that he had to be carried away or anything, but he was having some trouble for a few minutes. He got off and walked off. And the thing that bugs me the most is that the ones who beat him up left... missing a shoe!
My friend who was working events (and came over to Speedway to visit) saw more than I did, and since he saw the extreme details he told the sheriffs and security what he saw. And when he mentioned that the guy left missing a shoe they didn't seem to care. Yes, there are a lot of people in that place on Grad Nite, but not a lot missing a shoe... There should have been a search notice sent out to the entire park, but nothing of the kind was done.
I attended Grad Nite last year, and I'll admit that it was one of the best nights of my life. But when stuff like this happens, something needs to be done. Someone told me the fight in front of Speedway last night was caused by verbal arguments over whose school was better (they were rival schools). There's no reason Disney can't arrange the schools so that rival schools DON'T attend Grad Nite on the same night... they've got the ability to find out that kind of information...
Just thought I'd chime in. I actually wanted to work Grad Nite at least once, but an hour into my shift, and after 9 hours of work already, I was questioning why I was stupid enough to pick up that shift.
Michael72688
New Member
Wow, this is the one time teens actually want to go to Disney and most of you are complaining. I'm looking foward to it next year. But I guess since they just ruin the park feel Disney should get rid of it. Let Universal pick up the slack and the take another thing from Disney. Most teens would rather go there anyways
should-be-BELLE
Member
Im a teen...and fairy tales and pixie dust are my thing..:lookaroun
luckyeye13
New Member
should-be-BELLE said:
Oh man, that makes me think of that Universal commercial that I would see all the time when I was in Florida. (Of course, that could be what you were referring to, but I'm a little slow. :lookaroun
)But yeah, I worked during three Grad Nites (There were five that year.) during my Spring 2003 CP and, honestly, I had a blast. I didn't really know what to expect, but I actually ended up making sure that my managers knew that I was upset about not being scheduled for either of the first two Grad Nites and I was then scheduled for the last two. Actually, I was so bent on working Grad Nite that on the day of the third one, when I got called while at Dumbo and asked if I wanted to extend, I said okay and agreed to be extended until 4 AM, making my shift a whole twelve hours.
During the Grad Nites, I found many of the Guests coming through Fantasyland to be fairly well behaved. We did have some problems, of course, (Although I didn't know what pot smelled like, I'm almost positive that's what I detected while riding through Snow White's Scary Adventures one time.) and we had Cast Members continually riding through SWSA and Peter Pan's Flight. (The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh was closed for refurbishment, so it was not exposed to Grad Nite.) "it's a small world" was closed for the last three Grad Nites due to Guests getting out and walking around the ride or partaking in non-Disney sanctioned activities. Beyond that, I can't really remember much of a major problem, although I can't speak for the other areas.
What was very interesting in Fantasyland was that the attractions Cast Members were really into the Grad Nite mood. (Maybe it was because so many of us, including myself, were freshmen.) One of the Cast Members would sometimes stand behind the doors in the dungeon scene of SWSA and scare Guests riding by. (This was in the days before RAC procedures were introduced at that ride.) At Dumbo, most of the CMs would mute the ride music and spiels to allow the regular music to dominate and some of the CMs, including my best friend and me, would switch Dumbo from normal mode to maintenance mode so that we could control the ride manually. We would do things like start the ride by lifting up all of the Dumbos before starting the spin, start the spin but not raise the Dumbos, keep the ride going for a few minutes, and bring all of the Dumbos either up or down and keep them that way for about a minute before releasing them to give enough time for the Guests to give up on the controls and then see how long-1:30, from what my best friend and I saw-it would take for the Guests to realize that they were able to contol them again. (Incidentally, the rules for Dumbo were changed sometime between my CP and last summer to disallow running the ride in maintenance mode, although it used to be allowed, though not encouraged, if the ride was really empty.)
Maybe it was just the fact that by the last three Grad Nites, only CMs who really wanted to work them were scheduled, the fact that our CMs were in the Grad Nite spirit, and/or just plain luck, but my experience from Grad Nites 2003 was very positive. I'm making sure that I keep my Fantasyland Attractions training so that I can possibly work Grad Nites 2007 when I'm back in WDW after graduation.
Michael72688 said:
Maybe you misunderstood.
I personally don't feel teens should get the "right" to go to Disney just because they want to. If all that's going to happen is havoc and problems and rampant rude, vandalous, and disrespectful behaviour, maybe they SHOULD go to Universal. I think teens should EARN the PRIVILEGE to go to Disney. We're not complaining that teens WANT to go to Disney, but I don't feel damage should be risked to the park JUST to let teens in if there are going to be fights/brawls breaking out and complete and utter disregard for authority and respect everywhere.
islandbeachnut
New Member
My husband & I just returned last night from a four-day stay at Disney.
We were witness to the hundreds of busses entering non-stop for hours as we had dinner at the California Grille and all we could do was shudder to think of how awful it would be to work in the MK on grad night. It's bad enough to encounter a rude bunch of teens when they are in a group of 10-20, but a whole park filled with them?? Ugh, it must be awful.
I have to say, Disney does an amazing job of having the parks ready for guests the next morning. Everything we saw was in tip top shape. Way to go guys!
We were witness to the hundreds of busses entering non-stop for hours as we had dinner at the California Grille and all we could do was shudder to think of how awful it would be to work in the MK on grad night. It's bad enough to encounter a rude bunch of teens when they are in a group of 10-20, but a whole park filled with them?? Ugh, it must be awful.
I have to say, Disney does an amazing job of having the parks ready for guests the next morning. Everything we saw was in tip top shape. Way to go guys!