Tales From the Underbelly of Disneyland: No Running!

By Justin Shady Fri., Aug. 12 2011 at 1:25 PM

Categories: Dishney

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For some, Disneyland is the Happiest Place on Earth. It's a world of wonder and amazement where everyone, young and old alike, can live out the carefree abandon of their youth.

For others, eh, it's a job.

"Tales from the Underbelly of Disneyland" interviews ex-Disney employees about those nine-to-five experiences that go unseen by happy park goers. Glance at Disneyland's Underbelly after the jump.

Disney may place first when it comes to family entertainment, but when it comes to hosting a half-marathon in the park for the very first time they're bringing up the rear. Literally.

Read on to learn more about Disneyland's first year hosting The Happiest Race on Earth.

It was the first half-marathon Disneyland put on (also known as The Happiest Race on Earth), so of course they had no clue how to run it correctly from every point of view. The plans had changed numerous times over the week, and I mean they changed almost every hour--they would want something different or have different areas covered.

My job was simple: Get to my designated restroom at 6:30 AM and open it for the runners so they could make a bathroom stop before the race. Well, little did Disney know that by then the runners had already started.

Luckily, some Cast Members helped out by opening the doors of my restroom for custodial staff at 5:00 AM. So for an hour and a half, people used just that one restroom, men and women alike; the women's restroom was still closed because the female restroom custodial worker didn't start until 7:30 AM!

When I finally arrived at my restroom I had to cross through a sea of people. It was complete chaos. There was no new toilet paper or paper towels anywhere. Used paper was thrown everywhere, and the trash cans didn't even have bags in them yet. But that wasn't the worst of it. Women were using the urinals. Guys were peeing in the sink. And in a few instances, both guys and girls were using the non-bagged trash cans as toilets.

I walked over to the women's restroom and opened it up for them and suited up armed with every chemical we had and walked into the madness ready to clean. Needless to say, it was just another fantastic day at the Happiest Place on Earth.

--Anonymous ex-Custodial Cast Member

Disneyland celebrates its sixth year of the Happiest Race on Earth this Labor Day weekend, September 2-4. Let's hope they have more restrooms open for runners this time around!

Learn more about the Happiest Race on Earth here.

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