Please check your brain at the gate

Brandon & Benjamin want to ride Test Track. I’m curious on this busy day what kind of wait there will be for it, so we walk towards it to investigate. Becky & Linda detour into the Mouse Gear store to shop while we ride, and a few steps further along, Bob decides he’ll sit out riding TT and join them in the store. So, the boys and I walk on together.

On our way, another CM Moment: “How do you get to ‘Space Mission’?” Another golden opportunity for a snippy answer – “It’s Mission: Space, doofus!” – but I somehow manage to smile and point the guest in the right direction without betraying even a hint of a smirk.

At least until the guest is out of earshot and the boys start snickering. It makes sense now. That’s how real CM’s survive the idiocy -- nothing but smiles and pleasantness to the guest, but vent when the guests aren't around. Hence the existence of Stupid Guest Tricks.

I experience a flash of worry over what cast members say about me when I get out of earshot.

We spot the east side electronic message board before we ever get to Test Track, and it is… showing a wait time of 90 minutes. No thanks! We theoretically have the time, but… I think I’d more enjoy just wandering around, people-watching and enjoying the atmosphere than stand in line for that long.

Hey… the newly-refurbished Spaceship Earth is open, and its wait time is only 45 minutes! Hmmm…

The boys and I double back and go into Mouse Gear looking for their mom and grandparents. Would they be interested in riding Spaceship Earth? They would!

We make our way to the central plaza, and cross over to the left side of the big ball. That’s where I recall seeing the end of the Spaceship Earth queue.

I’m wrong, so we end up walking all the way under the ball, past all the people, and up the other side to find the entrance to the line. The queue snakes back and forth over and over underneath the giant sphere of Spaceship Earth, so we find ourselves passing the same people again and again.

At one point a man passing us gestures to me and says to his companions, “See? Even the staff has to wait in line.”

Sigh.