Disney Announces First Ever Bad Bus Driver Challenge

In an effort to gloss over the problem, Disney has announced that it will be holding it's first ever "Bad Bus Driver Challenge."

The challenge will pit all Disney Bus Drivers against each other.  Each driver will be judged and given points based on dozens of different criteria including - ability to induce nausea, gas peddle pumping, aggressive driving, speeding, grumpiness, sudden and unexplained breaking, and collisions. 

The drivers will will lose points if they are courteous, a defensive driver, properly dressed, refrain from offensive speech, and interact in a positive way with the guests.

"It's a real mixed bag.  We have dozens and dozens of drivers who could really run the score up.  The driver who wins will really have proven something.  It's hard to standout as being the worst when the bar is set so low," explained a Disney bus driver trainer, one of the Three Blind Mice.

Some bus drivers are complaining about the challenge and said it makes the ones who care and take their job seriously look bad.

Others are elated about the challenge. "I just can't believe it.  After all of those years of scaring and making people sick with my driving I finally feel like someone is taking notice!  For the first time in my career I'm actually happy about going to work.  I don't even need to drink on the job to cope anymore," stated one of the most notorious drivers.

The winner of the challenge will receive a plaque with their name on it, a new shiny crash helmet, and a pack of Juicy Fruit.

At the end of the day it might be best to stay off the roads in WDW until the challenge is over.

The Grumpiest Job in the World

I can think of a lot of jobs that wouldn’t be fun. Disney is full of them. Somehow most of the cast members keep smiling. This always amazed me. You might be moping up barf at the exit of Mission Space but you somehow seem to be happy.

On my last trip to the WDW I found one job that seemed to be the most miserable. I base this assumption on numerous experiences and observations. It’s a job I never thought was that bad but it must be. The job I am talking about is a WDW Bus Driver.

Throughout my last vacation a majority of the bus drivers were moody, grumpy, and seemed to be overall miserable. There were a couple of exceptions but as a whole they were shockingly bad.

The first example was the first bus we got on. The bus driver didn’t great us or even look in our direction. I didn’t think much of it until we got going. There was a kid on the bus who was cranky and being noisy. The kid was awful. I’ve dealt with and ignored much worse. I guess the bus driver hadn’t because he cranked the volume for the music through the roof. He had to be asked to turn it down. I had to bite my lip so I didn’t start laughing. I didn’t want the person driving to go postal because I was laughing at him.

Another example was a bus driver who looked like they should have been hanging out with the trolls on Maelstrom. He had a personality to match. He didn’t crank the volume on us but he was not pleasant. When my wife and I get off a bus we thank the driver. When we did this we got a grunt in response.

Another bus driver was clearly grumpy and proved it to everyone through his driving. To say he was aggressive is an understatement. For a minute I thought we got on the bus version of Lights Motors Action. He also seemed confused when it came to using a break. Instead of consistent pressure he’d pump the break. My wife didn’t get motion sickness on any ride on our last vacation but she got it on this bus.

I tried to figure out why the bus drivers would be so grumpy. I cam up with a few ideas:

1 – They’ve had the same outfits for over ten years. The uniform hasn’t changed in at least 10 years and that would be assuming the uniforms changed just before my last trip as a single guy in 99.

2 – Disney only uses medical test subjects for bus drivers. This would make sense. I think it would explain a lot of things.

3 – The bus drivers are told to do their best imitation of Grumpy. I actually think this would be a good solution. Just make the drivers dress like Grumpy. They you’d think they were acting.

4 – All the bus drivers are raging alcoholics and are actually hung over. Sadly this might be true in a few cases.

5 – Cutbacks have made the job just plain awful. Ok this is the most likely reason.

Whatever the real reason is I’m amazed at the number of grumpy bus drivers. There was one bus driver however that really stood out from the rest. I mentioned the bad but here was the one outstandingly pleasant bus driver:

On Saturday, February 27^th 2010 my wife and I ate at the California Grill. Around 10:00pm we got on the monorail and went to the TTC. Around 10:15 to 10:30 we went to the bus area. There was a bus parked there. We walked up and said we needed to go to the Boardwalk Inn. The lady driving the bus was very nice and told us to hop on. No one else showed up. She personally drove us over to the Boardwalk Inn and chatted to us the entire time. This was hours into her shift and she had a few hours to go. She also drove like a sane person. Imagine that.