In many ways, working for Walt Disney World is just like working anywhere else. You worry about getting there on time, clock in for your shift, perform often-repetitive job duties, take a lunch, clock out, and head home. Yet Walt Disney created the modern theme park experience through a set of company-wide values that stood in sharp contrast to those of the dirty and dangerous amusement parks of his day. Today, those values are codified as the Four Keys to Guest Service: Safety, Courtesy, Show and Efficiency.
To provide an excellent and consistent Show element, Disney Cast Members receive a great deal of training and background information regarding their role in the Show. Whether a Cast Member is flipping hamburgers, sweeping the streets or selling merchandise, he or she is ultimately playing a role. The costume, props, accessories and even ways of greeting guests are carefully designed to enhance the believability of a particular themed land.
Attractions spielers are Cast Members who perform their role throughout a ride or show. They must memorize a lengthy script, known as a spiel, and deliver it to guests as part of the attraction. Like all attractions spielers, guides on Kilimanjaro Safaris at Disney’s Animal Kingdom perform numerous land-based positions as well as driving and spieling on the trucks. The attraction employs more than 200 Cast Members, with roughly 85 working on any given day. The sheer size of the operation, coupled with the unpredictability of live animals, makes every day on the job a true adventure. Here are 6 ways that driving a safari truck is unlike a regular job.
1. Stopping for animals
The predatory animals, such as cheetahs and lions, are kept away from the safari trucks through a carefully designed combination of natural and mechanical barriers. Gentler creatures, including giraffes and ostriches, are allowed to roam freely. When one stops in front of a truck, the entire line of vehicles grinds to a halt. If you happen to be in the front truck, this is a golden opportunity for photographs, as Safari guides are not normally allowed to stop. Further back in line, however, guides often scramble for something to say to cover the fact that you might be stopped for several minutes with absolutely no animals in sight.
Wildlife experts are called to move the animal along if it stays in the path for more than a few minutes, so you are not likely to miss your dinner reservations due to an errant giraffe. But next time you experience an animal stop, take a moment to put yourself in your guide’s shoes. Shop talk is common in many workplaces, but how many people’s stories center around being stuck waiting for an ostrich to move?
2. The Voice of God
The wheelchair boarding dock is just one of dozens of positions at Kilimanjaro Safaris.
When you go to work, you probably have a pretty good idea what you will do all day. If a new project comes up, you probably receive a visit, an email or a phone call from your boss or team leader. With more than 80 employees coming in and out at various shift times, going to lunch or on break, and different trucks going on- and off-line depending on crowd levels and operational needs, it is simply impossible to pre-plan each Cast Member’s entire day. Likewise, it would be impossible to get personalized messages out to each person regarding what to do next.
Instead, Kilimanjaro Safaris employs a system that is affectionately known as “the Voice of God.” The team leaders sit in a small office connected to the massive cast break room. Cast Members are expected to be in the break room whenever they are not on a scheduled break or lunch. When the team leaders need a particular Cast Member to go to a specific land or truck position, they make an announcement over the loudspeaker. While imminently practical, the system can be quite disconcerting to newbies. You’re sitting on the couch watching TV when suddenly a booming disembodied voice announces, “Lisa. Go bump Pram Parking and send Jennifer to lunch.” You never argue with the Voice of God!
3. Two-week safari every 20 minutes
As mentioned above, Show is one of Disney’s Four Keys to Guest Service. Kilimanjaro Safaris is themed as a two-week African safari. Cast Members often play with the guests waiting in line, asking them if they packed enough clothing or food for the full two weeks. In reality, the ride circuit takes approximately 20 minutes to complete. Yet Disney does a masterful job of packing most of the essential elements of a full two-week safari into that time period.
Most people consider an African safari a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Only Kilimanjaro Safaris guides are lucky enough to take a two-week safari every 20 minutes. With an average of four hours per day on trucks, that means a typical Kilimanjaro Safaris guide experiences 60 safaris per week, 240 safaris per month, or nearly 3,000 safaris per year. That’s a lot of animal spotting!
4. Speaking Swahili
Kilimanjaro Safaris guides must speak a few words of Swahili.
According to the ride’s back story, the safari takes place in the Harambe Wildlife Reserve, an animal sanctuary in East Africa. Each Cast Member is free to develop his or her own character and reason for coming to Africa, but all are expected to be a part of life on the reserve. This includes speaking some of the local language, Swahili.
While the tours are given in English, keep an ear out for “jambo,” “kwaherini,” “asante” and other Swahili words. The guides are excellent at throwing them casually into an otherwise English-language conversation, so listen carefully or you might miss them altogether!
5. Driving over pucks
Your guide must accurately drive over a series of buried pucks to trigger the ride’s audio track.
Unlike Jungle Cruise boats and Great Movie Ride vehicles, Kilimanjaro Safaris trucks are not on a track. They are free-moving vehicles driven by the guides. At various points during each safari, an audio loop complements your guided tour. Yet you now know that the length of the safari varies depending on animal stops. How on earth does the audio play at the right time, no matter how long an individual safari lasts?
The answer is buried deep beneath the ground. At various points along the route, your Kilimanjaro Safaris guide must be careful to drive over a series of pucks, which trigger the various audio effects. If the guide misses a puck, he or she must figure out a way to cover for the missing audio and get the storyline back on track.
Although missing a puck during the tour feels awkward, it is not as bad as missing the initial puck on the way out of the parking lot. At night, the Safari trucks are stored in a massive parking area two miles from the attraction. The perimeter road around Animal Kingdom is traveled by a wide variety of vehicles, most of which are driven at normal speeds. For safety, the Safari trucks are governed at eight miles per hour. But if you hit the parking lot puck just right, you can drive the perimeter road at a relatively speedy 20 mph.
The next time you are stuck in traffic on your way to work, be glad you are not trapped behind a Safari guide who missed the puck! It is amazing how long that two-mile drive of shame can feel when traffic is stacked up behind you.
6. Parking spotters
At night, these 45-foot trucks must park canopy to canopy.
At night, the trucks are parked tightly together, literally canopy to canopy. At roughly 45 feet long, with a passenger capacity of nearly 40 guests, the massive trucks are tricky to drive in reverse. For safety reasons, parking a truck at night looks a lot like a strange ceremonial ritual. The guide must first stop at the propane filling station, and then make his or her way to a crowd of team leaders and managers standing in the parking lot. The group encircles the truck and gives exact directions on which way to turn the wheel, how far to go and precisely when to stop. Don’t you wish you had that kind of help when trying to parallel park in a crowded city on a Saturday night?
