My time at Disneyland brought many adventures, mostly on tours. As most of you know my highest profile guest was Kobe Bryant and Family and I saw them often. Although they weren't my only tours they were quite memorable. Here is one of those memories...
As I stood at the exit of Grizzly River Run I saw a man with a stern look on his face approach me. "Your guests are stuck on the ride," he said. Oh crap I thought. I just got a multi millionaire basketball player stuck on a ride. I had avoided that my whole tour career. I had never gotten anyone stuck on a ride. And here it was. My stress level went from a normal 5 to 10. I dispatched my trusty security officer to take care of Kobe and his one daughter Natalia on the ride while I went up to his wife and other daughter Gianna to explain what was going on.
As I took those steps up the exit to see Vanessa, Kobe's wife, I felt a pain shoot through my foot. I thought nothing of it being in crisis mode. Foot pain. Who cares? I have people I need to take care of! I approached Vanessa carefully not knowing how she would respond to the news her family was stuck on a ride. Luckily she was forgiving, she was a seasoned Disneyland guest. But they were getting hungry and they were tired and didn't want to sit down and eat. They wanted something to go. California Adventure was technically closed so getting something there would be a bit hard. And there was no way they would want to go back to Disneyland to eat, being that this was their last ride. I did have one option, a 5 star restaurant inside the nearby hotel, called the Napa Rose. But I didn't know if 5 star restaurants had take out.
Since everyone was busy getting Kobe off the ride it was up to me to make this happen. I walked, as fast as allowed by Disney standards, with pain shooting through my foot at every step to the Napa Rose. I walked in and asked if they did take out. They did!! I took the number for the direct line to the Napa and hurried back to Vanessa with the menu. She gave me the order two filet mignons butterflied two orders of hand mashed garlic potatoes and two orders of macaroni and cheese. As she told me this I thought "what the heck are "butterflied" filet mignons?" I mean I know what a filet mignon was but what does butterflied mean? Well I was about to find out if this was even an option. I gave the Napa a call gave they order word for word as she had said to me. The Napa seemed to understand so I was fine.
After a few minutes the multi million basketball player and daughter emerged. And they were fine. We pulled up the car, picked up the food and they were off. And that shooting pain in my foot I found out was a stress fracture. Stress from the tour is what I thought...but not likely said the doctor. I was off my feet and answering phone calls in the phone room for four weeks. So no tours for me. Stress be gone!
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