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Saturday, January 10, 2015

In the tiki tiki tiki tiki tiki room!

During his college years, Dad's parents lived in Villa Park, CA, just 5 miles from Disneyland (which meant lots of Disney trips when I was a kid!!). So on breaks from school, Dad worked the overnight shift at the Happiest Place on Earth, cleaning up and prepping the park for the next day's guests.

At some point, his duties included cleaning the Enchanted Tiki Room. He always said that the music ran all night and drove him batty. It scarred him for life, and he still won't go inside.
I recently saw this article online about all the after-hours work that goes into the park. It's really fascinating! You should read it :)

And it mentions the Tiki Room:

"The work can often be tedious and occasionally bizarre. At the Enchanted Tiki Room, a 17-minute musical show features 225 robotic birds, plants and singing tikis. Patrick Pendleton, the show's primary mechanic, has seen it more times than he can count. To make sure the characters work properly, he plays the show repeatedly, watching each closely. 'It's hard to catch everything in one show,' he said."

So Dad wasn't exaggerating! If the cleaning crew is in there when the mechanics are testing, they probably still go batty! 
 
:)

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