You might have been a target of the Disney Stroller Police.
Yeah, I served on the force. People curse our work, but trust me, you don't want to try walking through a theme park without Stroller Police there to clear the way.
When you work at a theme park attraction, one of your responsibilities is to keep the area around the entrance clean and orderly. So when folks pull their kids from their strollers before coming inside, we follow behind to move those strollers into neat lines.
Once we get the stroller parking zone established in the morning, most folks follow along, parking their strollers at the end of the rows, or filling a space left empty by a previous visitor.
But some folks never do get the hint. They just leave the stroller wherever the kid got out, with no concern that it be blocking a pathway, an exit door, or even someone else's stroller. So we stroller cops would have to grab that stroller and push it into place.
Funny thing, though, is that most of those folks never complained. I always suspected that they had no idea where they'd left the stroller, nor did they care. They just came to assume that they'd find it somewhere in the line-up of the strollers in front of the attraction when they exited. To them, the stroller police were more like the stroller valets.
Let's talk about the real stroller felons, though:
The pack rats
These folks pack for a day at Disney World like they were hauling their kid across the Arctic tundra. The over-worn wheels of their top-heavy strollers barely roll as you try to wrestle the mess into place. I can understand why you might need to bring half the contents of your child's bedroom with you to occupy the kid if you were spending the afternoon waiting in line at the DMV. But this is Disney World, people. We've got plenty of stuff here to keep your children entertained.
Stinky McStroller
Disney World is not a wilderness campsite. You don't need to pack out everything you brought in. So, really, it's okay to dump your soiled diapers in the bathroom someplace. You don't need to haul them around the park with you all day. Okay?
I couldn't afford a Ferrari, so I bought this stroller instead
Dad - and it is always Dad - charges toward the nearest cast member, pointing at his Deluxe, Top-of-the-Line Stroller Machine: "Hey, this is a very expensive stroller," he always says. "I know that you guys are supposed to move the strollers around, but we parked it in an okay place, and really don't want anyone touching it, okay?" Then he storms off, running after the rest of the family, who have hurried into the attraction queue early to enjoy a moment or two away from the presence of Daddy-with-issues. Of course, half the time Mr. Wonderful hasn't parked the stroller in "an okay place." But even if he did, for his performance, I guarantee that we will decide that next to his precious Ferrari substitute is the perfect place to relocate... Stinky McStroller (see above).
And the worst of the stroller felons?
The lockers
Incredibly, some people are so afraid of their strollers being stolen, or even relocated, that they lock them to stanchions, lampposts or fences. Do this far enough away from the attraction, and maybe we won't notice. But when the Stroller Police see a locked stroller blocking an exit door or pathway next to an attraction, we call out the Stroller SWAT Team.
I only saw the Stroller SWAT Team in action once. Someone had locked a pack-rat stroller (ooh, a multiple offender!) to a lamppost outside Frontier Mercantile, blocking the breezeway to Adventureland that runs next to the Country Bear queue. The Bear Band host called the lead for advice. She delivered her response with a steely eye: "Call Security. Tell them to bring bolt cutters."
And they did. One snip, and the Stroller Police were free to relocate the offender... right next to a Stinky McStroller on the other side of the queue.
A few of us lingered to see who would claim it. A mom carrying a baby and dad lugging a toddler stopped short in front it, exchanged shocked glances to find their stroller not where they'd left it, and wheeled around to find a cast member to chew out. They saw us; Mom's eyes narrowed.... Then they noticed the 6'-2" security guard standing next to us, who stared right back at them, with a wry hint of smile on his face.
Mom and Dad immediately cast their eyes down into the stroller, where they laid the baby. Then they pushed away, turning their heads and keeping their eyes away from us.
Yeah, we're the Stroller Police. Don't mess with us.
For more of Robert's stories about working in Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, visit themeparkinsider.com/stories.
My biggest pet peeve about parents with strollers are those who are in a hurry and do their best to run you over. It's crowded, it's hot, and you wish to continue to make my legs bleed because I am unable to move out of the way or speed up becasue of the hundered others in front of me. I have had to visit first aid more times due to unfriendly stroller drivers than for any other reason.
the worse was when the guests would have the stroller moved 2 feet (just so we can get them all in a clean line) and they would panic yelling for security to come for a stolen stroller!
in reply to the other comment (even though its prolly just a joke), the best coffee is in downtown disney (ghiradelli- i prefer the iced caramel latte) doughnuts, i havent looked for them, but hollywood studios has a really nice bakery called starring rolls cafe!
When I went to the Magic Kingdom in September, we brought our daughter there for the first time. She was 26 months old at that point (she is completey different now as she approaches the age of three, coupled with the fact that she now has a four month old sister). Anyway, we went to Philharmagic show and parked her stroller in the large stroller parking lot that is off to the side of the 3D attraction. Then we walked into the show (which as we all know, is a pretty awesome spectacle and it was made all the more incredible watching my daughter's face as she experienced it for the first time).
After the show, we walked back with the post-Philharmagic goofy smiles on our faces to collect our stroller, only to realize that it had been moved. Apparently there is a stroller attendant who consolidates the stroller spaces. As strollers leave, she moves the strollers over to make room for more of them. This is something that makes perfect sense and is well appreciated in such a heavily attended park.
I scanned the sea of strollers to locate the one that had been moving my daughter around all day long. The issue was that the stroller we had is a very popular stroller in an equally popular color. A fact that was made more apparent when we saw five of the same ones in the stroller lot (yes...five of them....thank you Babies R Us). I had to go through the pockets of each one, violating so many rules of privacy just to find ours. Of course ours was the last one I went through.
So we were leaving the area to move along when I noticed money in the pocket of the stroller's back. I asked my wife, "Hey did you put this in here?" She looked at me like I was crazy for suggesting she would leave money unattended. That is when I realized, oh wait, so this stroller isn't ours either. I then also realized, oh wait, this bottle of water I left in the stroller and have been drinking wasn't mine as well, because, as I just remembered, I hadn't bought a bottle of water yet that day!!
So I ran back to the stroller parking, all the while fearing some disease that had infected me from drinking a stranger's bottle. Thoughts of H1N1 were circling my brain and I quickly imagined spending the remainder of the vacation curled up in a fetal position and cursing the name "Desani"!
"Look for the green polka dots!" my wife yelled as I walked back to the stroller lot. "Oops" I thought. "The polka dots!" Sure enough, there it was. Waiting for me to reclaim it.
I quietly parked the stranger's stroller and causually walked away with the correct one. After that I ran straight to the bathroom and gargled with the hottest water I could stand. I was okay and remain completely H1N1 free to this day.
I encountered several guests who would rent the Disney stroller, not mark it, take their stuff with them whenever they went into a ride... then just claim the first unmarked Disney stroller they found when they came out.
And if there weren't any, they'd just present their claim ticket at the nearest big merchandise location and get a replacement.
Someone had "abandoned" a stroller next to the ride I was operating (during my theme park working days). Unfortunately, child demons had not bestowed my ride with their presence so I was just bored and watching a nearby squirrel...
... who jumped into the stroller!
(awwwwwwwwwwwwww)
I saw a bushy tail swishing around inside. A minute later, the squirrel slides out dragging a chocolate chip cookie the size of my head. Mr. Squirrel digs into the cookie just as the stroller's owners return. Mr. Dad does the whole, "That cookie was three dollars!" while the squirrel hisses and Mrs. Mom is in total adoration and begins taking pictures. I go back to pretending I'm working.
The changing of the unmarked strollers is done often now if the family wants to take the train. I think its more acceptable now!
PS People would not last a minute in the NY aquairium they have stroller police all over the outside parts of the place.
You also missed a stroller type: The rent-a-heap. There were always at least a couple of strollers that pretty much disintegrated when you tried to move them. I had to go back and find a missing wheel or handlebar cover on more than one occasion when moving strollers.
Another fun job of the stroller police was moving strollers for the DHS parade. In front of Star Tours, the stroller parking lot goes across the whole area from the speeder bike to the restrooms. But during the parade, the lot has to shrink to half that area to accommodate the large crowds. We actually had an interchangeable sign that flipped over to show "stroller parking here" or "stroller parking <--" depending on the time of day. We had to move the strollers while people were still coming up to visit the attraction. People would actually look at the sign, watch us moving strollers, and STILL put theirs in the area we were clearing. Others would tell us not to move their stroller, and we'd have to tell them that unless they moved it themselves, they'd come out of the attraction to find their stroller on the wrong side of the parade route and unreachable. I was always surprised (why?) at the number of people who would shrug and go into the attraction mumbling "she'd better NOT move my stroller!" She always did!
I wonder if any of the stroller fuzz have ever been tempted to pull a Dwight Schrute and "stress test" a $1500 dollar stroller.
Also, a wheel fell off on a stroller when I was moving it. I barely moved it, so I figured it wasn't my fault. I just slid it back on and walked away.
I have had my achilles tendons rammed on numerous occasions and when I get rammed very hard I turn to the parent and let them know they had their free shot on my heels and they only get one.
Between the strollers and the electric carts driven by people who's only handicap is as a result from NOT walking (you follow me, right?) it can make for a frustrating day at the park for me. I cannot imagine what the typical cast member goes through.
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