Epcot is the park every adult loves. Especially the World Showcase and especially during the Food and Wine Festival. Every fall Epcot hosts Food and Wine. Booths from all different countries are set up all over the World Showcase and the purpose of the festival is to celebrate and try food and drinks from all over the world. As a guest, it is an absolutely wonderful festival. They have been doing it for so long and have perfected it along the way. Cast members who work in Epcot are on high alter for very "festive" people during this time of year and in my role, I have to make sure that they don't annoy my characters too much. Some of the people are harder to deal with then others and sometimes I get a really entertaining story out of it. Here are two of my favorite moments from working Food and Wine 2013.
While working with Duffy (Mickey's teddy bear Minnie made for him to travel with) we got a lot of shout outs from people passing by. Duffy is located right at the end of Future World and the beginning of the World Showcase, so everyone passes by him, although he is not as popular here as he is in other countries so his line i never very long. It was a few days before Halloween and Duffy wanted to wear his Halloween costume so he was dressed as a pumpkin, which was absolutely adorable. We heard the normal shout outs such as, "Duffy! My man! I love you!" and "Hey you look like a pumpkin! Awesome!" But one stood out because it was absolutely ridiculous. Duffy and I were going back inside to get a cookie and as we were walking through the large crowd of people a man who had been enjoying more drinks than food shouts out, "Hey! Chipmunk! Over here! Chipmunk!" then turns to his friend and says, "the chipmunk ignored me!" As we passed by him I said, "that's because Duffy is a teddy bear." The guy and his friends were sitting down as Duffy and I passed by on our way back to his gazebo after getting a cookie and Duffy tried to wave to him and give him a high five and the guy shook his head and said, "nope! You ignored me! No love for you chipmunk!" I again reminded him that Duffy is a teddy bear, not a chipmunk. Someone needs to cut him off from the "wine" part of the festival.
Germany is one of those countries that people go to for drinks rather than food during the festival so being with a character in Germany all day, I knew I'd get some good laughs, but I am always surprised by guests an what they will say. I had spent the whole day with Snow White and the "festive" people had pretty much left us alone. We got to the last few minutes of her greeting guests and she had a completely full line. A group of four adults came up to me to see if they could slide their way into the line. Of course the answer is no but they tried very hard. It was a group to two women and two men. The women had a beer in each hand and the men (one younger and shorter and the other older and taller) each had a beer and food selection in their hands. One of the women comes up to me and asks, "is there any way you can let us in? We love Snow White." "I have already turned others away so unfortunately I cannot let you in the line" I responded.
She continued to try by saying, "please! What do I have to do? I'll give you a dollar?"
"I'm not allowed to accept bribes."
"How about this, I'll give you the first sip of my beer!"
"No, I'm sorry. That's your beer. You paid for it. You shouldn't give up any of it."
"Well come on, look at him (pointing to the taller, older man) he's on his last days. His final wish is to meet Snow White. Look at him he's so old!" she continued.
"He's not old! He's got years left in him! I'm sure he'll get another opportunity to meet her."
She then tried another excuse. "What about him? (pointing to the shorter male in the group) he's a midget! He's had a rough life!"
"No, I know much shorter people than him. Have you seen Snow White's dwarves?"
"Yes! He's a dwarf he has to see Snow White." she tried as well.
"Well if he's a dwarf then she will see him later at the cottage. In the mean time why don't you all go back to the festival and try some of the food at the Germany booth. Snow White said it's her favorite booth," I responded and then turned to Snow White and said, "how about we go for a walk?" We then took the long way back to her cottage through the Germany pavilion in the World Showcase so she could say goodnight to all of the guests.
When Snow got back to her cottage she said to me, "the people who choose to celebrate the 'wine' part of the festival should also try the food, that might help them a little bit at least."
It was definitely an entertaining way to end the day.
I am glad the festival is over because it will be a little calmer in Epcot but we will always be on the look out for people choosing to "drink around the world" in the World Showcase. Walt Disney World guests will never fail to surprise and entertain me.
Hope you're having a magical day, I know I am!
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This week we were focused on taking everything we've learned over the weeks and observing how companies, other than Disney, add these ideas into their daily operations. So we headed to the Florida Mall. We were given questions to ask at 6 or 7 stores in order to observe how their creative process works. We visited so many different stores with different outlooks on creativity and sales. It was very interesting to listen to the employees of different companies to see how they are encouraged to add creativity to their stores. Every store was different and most of the employees were happy to talk to us..jpg)
This class has been full of creating new ideas and thinking about how to creatively improve not only things we see outside of Disney but also new ideas that would creatively enhance our own workplaces. We have also been required to keep an idea journal throughout the entire class and it has allowed my mind to expand on a few creative ideas I had thought about in the past but then never came back to. Each week we would learn about something new in the world of creativity or innovation and by the end we found out that everything built off the thing we had learned during the previous week. I have really enjoyed this class and now we are starting to work on our final group projects. My group is sticking to the store idea and for our final project we will have to pitch our idea to a specific group of people. Challenge accepted.
Germany is one of those countries that people go to for drinks rather than food during the festival so being with a character in Germany all day, I knew I'd get some good laughs, but I am always surprised by guests an what they will say. I had spent the whole day with Snow White and the "festive" people had pretty much left us alone. We got to the last few minutes of her greeting guests and she had a completely full line. A group of four adults came up to me to see if they could slide their way into the line. Of course the answer is no but they tried very hard. It was a group to two women and two men. The women had a beer in each hand and the men (one younger and shorter and the other older and taller) each had a beer and food selection in their hands. One of the women comes up to me and asks, "is there any way you can let us in? We love Snow White." "I have already turned others away so unfortunately I cannot let you in the line" I responded.
