TR: Unbelievable story about queue jumpers at Disneyland

[Neogreeneyez]

It was a frustrating, heated situation. It's impossible for you or anyone else to make a judgement call unless you were there. No offense, but Jason is a grown adult, and someone who I've known for many years and respect. He doesn't need someone 15 years younger than him to tell him how he should have handled a situation.

--Robb

 

All I did was read the story and comment on what I felt was wrong and right... is that not the purpose of a forum- to display our feelings about certain situations and or common interests? Am I wrong for displaying my opinion in the matter regardless of my age or what ever else I have? From what I read, I understood that his wife sort of provoked the situation by saying shut up... I understand people get mad. That's cool but I was just displaying my opinion about the matter. I do agree that the racist thing was dumb, but Jason's comments about the data he collected was just a little unsettling to me. But, I hope that we can all grow from this situation and find ways to tackle them in a just manner.

[robbalvey]

^ I'll say it again....

 

Do we really need yet another post with people telling what they think Jason should or shouldn't have done? Espeecially when all you're doing is repeating what's already been said?

[Rastuso]

Thanks, Robb. Sorry for the thread devolving. Just as many people will ignore the people cutting, they will also ignore information about the people cutting. That doesn't make that information go away. My decades of waiting in ride queues has made some things very clear regarding line cutters in general.

 

But as for stereotypes, I'm a living stereotype. Long haired guy in his 30s, and guess what, I AM a metalhead. But, damn near everything in Weird Al's new video is something from my life, and I'm an engineer. We're all stereotypes. There are always exceptions to stereotypes. I'm a long-haired engineer that plays Megadeth on guitar. Now THAT's busting a stereotype. But that doesn't invalidate the stereotype.

 

So, when a young latino girl quickly gets mouthy in public and has no respect for anyone, that doesn't really shatter a stereotype now, does it?

 

The verbal argument was simply me trying to get the girl to punch her own get-out-of-line-free pass. The CM failed to make that happen, which was the most disappointing thing in the whole situation. The CM should have made an example right there. Then, maybe that girl would learn being mouthy isn't always a good thing. Instead, her stereotypical behavior was reinforced even more.

 

Damn, I gotta get off Pacific time and get to bed.

 

-r

[bobafett]

I had a problem like that at SF Great Adventure that is why I won't go back there unless I get passes from my neighbor and the park is closed to the general public.It was the year Nitro opened and it was the end of the day.We had a pleasant day up until we were in line for Houdini's Great Escape. It was a bunch of young girls no older than 13to15 years in age.Pushed right past us to get to their friends. I complained to security and the ride op. They took the girls out of line. We went on the ride and when we got of security was waiting for us. The girl said that I assaulted(sp?) her while she was standing in line and they wanted to press charges against me and have me arrested. I lost it!! I said she was the one who punched me in the back to get to her friends and I pulled out my cellphone and called up a friend of mine who happenes to be a lawyer and said if you do arrest this girl without probable cause, this park will have a lawsuit on its hands so fast it make you dizzy.I had witnesses with me who said that she did hit me without justification. Well they let me go and then we left the park. I wrote a letter to management but nothing came of it.I hate kids today. I feel for you Jason. Parents need to teach their children manners. It took all my strenght not to actually punch that little B@#$% with all my might. That is why I go to DisneyWorld, Univerasal and HersheyPark, so I don't have to deal with riffraff scum of the earth that frequent SFGA!! Ireally don't know what is wrong with society today. Maybe there is something in the drinking water............

[Vekoma Fan Boy]

^^I usually point out things like that, really just for general info. You can call it racist if you want, I don't care. If I ever had an issue like this with white kids, I'd say it, but I haven't. You can say that's racist too, if you'd like.

 

Of all of the line cutting we witnessed all week, none was done by white folks. If raw data shows racial issues, do you blame the data?

 

-r

 

okay there's a couple of things wrong/right with this post and the first one...

 

1. All of the data "collected" by you should not be your perception of the entire race/age of people... This is what we call a stereotype...

 

Please... look past the race and deal with the person/people that this problem deals with... that girl=B$#%@.... latino girls... don't all cut lines... White people have cut lines before.... I promise they have....

 

2. I believe you did the right thing by telling the CM...

 

3. I also believe that your wife shouldn't have told her to shut up... Nothing good could have come from that... Did she really think the girl was going to shut up? maybe... prolly not...

Overall I just think that it was a horrible situation. Your son should have never been subjected to any of that language and activity. Sorry about your horrible experience...

 

 

Might I just point out that when you are in an argument like that, you don't really think whether they are going to respond in the way you want. You just *HAVE* to say it for some reason. And are you sure you wouldn't have done the same thing?

 

I personally believe that he did the best he could within the law. I bet you if there was no assault law, and if I were in Jason's place, I would have just WHALLOPED her right square in the mouth to shut her up. But we can't, so we come up with shut up because we were taught as a kid that "that is mean" so that is the best one can do verbally. And we all know "Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me!" yadda yadda yadda...

[Alpenguy]

The time to go to Disneyland is when it's all tourists... real tourists. When the park is full of Australians and folks who are around for several days and are in no hurry, everything is simply awesome. Guests are all relaxed, everything is super efficient since there's a lot more general understanding of how to get in and out of rides and such, and people are mostly pretty classy.

 

Summer and local school holidays...

[Perilous Chris]

I'll first start by saying that not all kids are like the ones being mentioned here. Many are fine.

 

That being said, I've noticed an escalation in attitudes from todays youth. When I was younger, I would have never thought of cutting in line, let alone talk to an adult like that. Growing up, we were taught courtesy and politeness. I think many kids (not all) these days are taught to believe that the world caters to them.

 

I do not think Jason was wrong at all.

 

One time at Buena Park Mall, I was getting a slice of pizza. This girl behind me wanted parmesan cheese. Instead of saying excuse me, she just reaches across where I am standing and gets the chain in my pizza. I felt like asking if her parents raised her in the jungle?

 

Another time, I was riding La Revolucion at KBF, and these teenagers were having a gay old time spitting while the ride was in motion. They ended up spitting on a guy who just was not in the mood. He shouted "I'm gonna beat the s**t out of you f***ing punks when the ride is over." He ended up keeping his cool, but the teenagers were in utter shock. I think they were suprised that somebody would actually call them on their s**t.

 

Kind of off topic, but I have been cutting back on my Disneyland visits a little lately. It seems anytime I go anymore, it is more of a headache than fun.

[Gnome]

For the record, I can guarantee you the main reason why the resort might not be as good as it once was is because Disney as of lately has a high turnover rate so as a result you get people my age who just don't know how to handle the situation because we've never delt with anything like it.

 

What probably happened is the CM went to tell some one and to which they got no reply so they just left hoping some one else would deal with the problem, but no one did. And it is unnacceptable. Hopefully DLR gets their staffing back on track and I'm sure problems like this will either cease to exist or become very rare.

[ginzo]

I made the mistake of going to Kennywood on a school day a few weeks back. I think I saw more line jumping in that one day than I've seen in all my previous amusement park trips combined!

 

It was the most surreal thing. You could see 5 line jumping attempts within 10 minutes. Park police did a pretty good job of pulling the jumpers out of line, but they left it at that. Why aren't they throwing people out of the park for this? I understand it's harder to do on a school day, but the park could let the schools know that they'll kick any line jumpers out.

 

I even saw a young girl argue with a uniformed police officer about why she was allowed to have her friends meet her in line! She seemed to think that not knowing the rule was just cause for breaking it. I watched her leave in a huff, which was funny because you know park police could give a crap about some kid leaving a ride line.

 

I generally don't say anything about line jumping because it's extremely hard to prove. Say you get into a shouting match, and park security shows up. Where is your proof that this person jumped line? It's your word versus theirs, and all that bad noise is far too much hassle.

 

Ratuso's Disneyland story is especially bad because the cast member could have just asked to see the idiot kid's Fast Pass. And when the kid was unable to produce her Fast Pass, she should have been ejected from the park.

 

Parks should not hestitate for one instant to eject line jumpers. People like that are obviously not going to spend a lot of money in your park, and they're going to piss off the people who do.

[hemmy]

I grow in the beard when I go to parks so I look older than 19, and usually I just tell kids get the hell back and they listen.

 

Haven't had to tell an employee....yet!

[???]

Queue jumpers are so EVIL!

My idea to avoid people sneak under you and come up before you:

Stretch your arms out to protect and avoid people getting in front of you by queue jumping!

[Dailey Enterprizes]

Que jumpers are pretty nasty, but I think Disney should handle them like Kennywood and just kick them out of the park when it happens because what's stopping them from doing it again on another ride?

 

For example, I went to Kennywood on Memorial Day weekend two years ago and I was waiting in line for The Exterminator while a bunch of kids line jumped us. Me being passive I didn't say much, but one of the Team Members noticed this and called in not only the security, but also some West Mifflin Police to handle the situation. After a lot of words were exchanged I clearly remember the one Police Officer saying, "You're Kennywood day is over!" and they were ejected from the park. I couldn't help but smile.

[Kumali-]

Hmm i know exactly what you mean !

I was in a similar situation at my local park, but they don't do fastpasses.

I'm waiting in line for Kumali and this 8 year old looking fat girl chav tried to literally walk past me in the queue, I looked at her and was astonished she went ' What the Fu## you look at ' I said ' Are you really that stupid you can't read, NO QUEUE JUMPING ' So then she tried every trick in the book , under my arm ect ect. When we got close enough i told the most responsible ride op there and she was banned from the ride. I swear she must of got past about 30 people and they didn't care?

I know what you mean that you want to hit, but you can't or else your as bad as them. Its quite disgusting that Disney don't even take action on this. I hope the take action one day.

[Juggler]

It's a national sport in Europe so those of you coming across be warned! My best moment came a few years back at Phantasialand when I was wandering down the queue line for "Mystery Castle." There's four of us all walking down together when the speedy footsteps can be heard behind so I just stepped across into the path of the footsteps and promptly clotheslined some kid. I just turned round and snarled "NO" at him at which point the rest of the runners put the brakes on. Needless to say they didn't try to get past us any more.

 

The trouble with a lot of the queue lines in Europe is that they are 8 people wide and it's impossible to stop them jumping. I also put the brakes on a couple of kids jumping past me at Efteling. The parents and the rest of the family were ahead of me and were actively encouraging the kids to "get by." That stopped at me and I politely explained to them that their kids were NOT coming past and if they wanted to be with their kids they can wait for them out of the way but they were not coming past . The father swore at me in Dutch thinking I wouldn't understand but I knew a few words and he used most of the worst ones. As I passed him in the queue (where they were now waiting) I asked him if he actually bothered to teach his kids any manners but from the language he was using I guess he probably didn't. He went to say something else but before he did I just said I understood every word he said and I didn't appreciate being called those names! He shut up pretty quick after that!

[ahecht]

Probably the best example of good line jumper handling I've ever seen was in the S:RoS queue at SFNE. A group of three kids decided to cut in about half-way through the 1 hour line. The CM who was monitoring the line at the entrance to the station saw it, but didn't do anything until the group got all the way to the front of the line, where she refused to let them into the station and directed them back down the FlashPass Entrance. Not only didn't they get ti ride, but they had to wait 30 minutes in the queue too!

[Théo the little french]

I've just read Rastuso's story and... the girl is a real bitch!! Why didn't you kick her? I know it's not good for a boy to hit a girl but in this case.... I think it should be allowed....

I don't know for you (american/canadian/.. people), what's your reaction if they see an adult hitting a teenager (for a good reason)? Are you shocked, furious again the adult or you try to understand?

In France, I think if the guy says a good reason (for example: the child said something bad...): adults will agree the man, teenagers.... a part of them will understand but the other...

[IceDragon]

Kudos to you for reporting them. I would've done the same in my case, but they were escorted away anyway.

 

Mine was fairly freaky because it happened in front of me and at Thorpe Park. It included 20-or-so chavs (chavs are people who think they're amazing and should be treated with respect, but if you want to fight them, they'll insult you and run), and a few older people.

 

Some of the group had queued up for X:WTF while the others finished something else. The queuing group were fairly near the front when the others joined, and instead of being quiet, they were whooping, swearing and generally making themselves heard which isn't uncommon. They don't ask if they could get with their friends, they just ducked under a barrier and barged people out of the way.

 

The people behind them reported them to a ride-op on the inside of the building as they were about to board, consequently stopping the ride. They started being really abrasive, swearing, insults, the lot. Even the females were swearing as much as they could. The ride-op then dispatched the train empty as this had gone on for about 2 minutes. The ride-op told them to leave and called security.

 

One of them threatened to kill the ride-op and the group behind them and bought out what looked like a blade, fortunately it was a fake retractable prank knife. The offender turned around and punched one of the group on the nose, then turned back to the op and tried attacking him. Me and loads of other people saw this and restrained him. We threw him to the ground and kneeled on his arms, legs and torso while security came. He was escorted from the park, everyone cheered and we all got a free go on X:WTF.

 

Kudos to anyone who stops queue jumpers. It's not right and they wouldn't have liked it if it were them in that situation.

[shepp]

OK, I really hate queue jumpers, but (with all due respect, Robb) everyone handles conflict in his/her own way. And those of us who've been around Jason (his posts on alt.rec-roller-coaster being one of a number of reasons I migrated over here instead) know that he's a "Screw political correctness" right-wing type fellow (and I'm sure he'd agree) who's, um, prone to combativeness, the sort of guy who's likely to take a case of potty-mouth at DLR as a sure sign of the Decline of Western Civ.

 

OK, I wasn't there, I don't know him personally, the line-jumpers were clearly in the wrong, but I'm thinkin' that in a situation like this, he'd be pretty much the type to (whether consciously or not) add fuel to the fire. There's the "OK, how am I gonna rescue as much of the day as I can?" attitude, and then there's the "How dare some teenager treat a white professional guy like me that way in front of my son?" approach.

 

But, hey, he might have been meek as Gandhi. I honestly have no idea.

 

Blowing the whistle on jumpers is always problematical to me, seeing as how a park is an enclosed environment. Do you want to provoke someone you might end up seeing again and again during the day, then never see again, simply because you're in the right? The worst queue-jumping situation I ever got into was in the unmonitored downstairs of Ghostrider's queue barn, where I was verbally threatened by a (white, 30ish, metalhead-type) guy for objecting to his girlfriend's jumping. (Damn heterosexuals and their sense of privilege - it's the Decline of Western Civ. ) Even if they got their methed-up asses thrown out of the park, I faced being jumped in the parking lot later, so I decided wimping out was the better part of valor and chose to let it slide rather than reporting them, but felt a little paranoid for my last couple of hours at the park. Ah well...

[IceDragon]

It's a national sport in Europe so those of you coming across be warned!

 

Heh, agreed. I've picked kids up and placed them behind me when they've done it right in front of me. Making a fairly big scene about it is in a way a good idea. It attracts attention to the criminal, thus warning people to be wary and it's embarrassing for them too. I laugh at some of the things people have done after a queue jumper's been caught.

[Disney Dood]

A queue jumper got really pissed at me and punched me in the arm . I would say that's nowhere close to screaming "F*** YOU" at an eight year old's dad right in front of the kid. That CM should have kicked her ass out of the park.

[robbalvey]

OK, I really hate queue jumpers, but (with all due respect, Robb) everyone handles conflict in his/her own way. And those of us who've been around Jason (his posts on alt.rec-roller-coaster being one of a number of reasons I migrated over here instead) know that he's a "Screw political correctness" right-wing type fellow (and I'm sure he'd agree) who's, um, prone to combativeness, the sort of guy who's likely to take a case of potty-mouth at DLR as a sure sign of the Decline of Western Civ.

 

OK, I wasn't there, I don't know him personally....[snip]

Shepp, those comments are really unfair. If all you know of Rastus is from what he posts on RRC, then you don't know Ratsus. I've known him personally for years. And if you're going to pass a judgement based on what you've read on an internet USENET group, well, that's just as bad as me passing judgement on all gays based on the flame wars you were involved with here a year or so ago.

 

See my point?

 

--Robb

[itsme102]

It's situations like these that makes me embarrassed to be part of the current 13-17 year old generation. All of this blatant disrespect for others and an "all about me" attitude does make me wonder what the world will come to when we're the adults of this world. It is kind of frightening.

[Théo the little french]

It's situations like these that makes me embarrassed to be part of the current 13-17 year old generation. All of this blatant disrespect for others and an "all about me" attitude does make me wonder what the world will come to when we're the adults of this world. It is kind of frightening.

 

I've the same point of view.... I think people are getting more and more childish, stupid... and if you say that (or make them understand that) people don't appreciate!

[pizza>poop]

Arguing with a 13 year old ftw.

 

PS: I finally found a sig!!!

[Rastuso]

Ahh, Shepp, you're so reliable.

 

So, since I'm a Republican, it had to be my fault that a teenage girl was yelling obscenities at me in front of a CM? I don't care what I said to her, she should have been tossed, and if I had been saying similar things I should have been tossed.

 

You immediately assume I'm lying about the situation, and then have the nerve to say I was a problem at RRC. Maybe you need to take a few deep breaths and look at yourself.

 

And your example is ridiculously uncomparable to the situation. One trip to Knott's Scary Farm my wife noticed that some Latinos who were probably gang members thought I cut in front of them as we all approached the entry to a line. They were apparently really looking at me and saying bad things, and I noticed none of it. They even were punching the curtains in the maze once we got in. Real bad dudes. I would have never said anything to them for obvious self preservation reasons. But, hey, I probably deserved it, being a Republican and all.

 

I hope and pray that Disneyland crowds have not fallen to the level of KSF crowds.

 

-r