Well....it IS an animal park...

Submitted by: Disneyo Sapiens

Photo by: @JSpence

We were about to close the guest relations lobby at Animal Kingdom during the first few months after opening in 1998 when a very tired family walked in to get some information. There were three of us in the lobby. Two of us were cleaning and straightening while the third was helping the guests.

The mom and dad had a lot of questions about Disney transportation on how to get from here to there and also mapping out their transportation plans for the next day. It had been raining almost all day and they were hot, wet and as patient as someone who had been in a theme park all day could be. The kids were getting bored. They were nine or ten years old if I had to guess. 

The parents told the kids they could walk around the lobby while they spoke with us about the requested info. For those who may not know we had some pest problems around the park prior and during the first few months of operation. Everything from a huge wasp nest to rats to rabbits...we had it.

As the kids were on the floor playing they both stopped and tried to peek around the corner of the front door outside. It was dark outside and hard to see. I looked at the other guest relations host and pointed over to the kids to see what they were doing. The crept closer and closer to the front door. The parents were oblivious to what was going on. I asked the kids "What do you see out there?"

They both froze. A giant rat ran across the threshold across to the other side quickly followed by another rat running after it. The two kids looked at each other in shock and started backing up towards us. At that time a black snake shot across the entryway following the same paths of the rats.

The kids lost it. They ran up to their parents freaking out and the parents became annoyed dismissing them and their claims. They looked at us and said "uh these kids are tired. We need to get them fed and in bed." We looked at them and agreed and played it off as if we had no idea what had just happened. The kids were horrified to leave that lobby and the parents had no idea.

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