“Entitled” Guest Tries to Bend Single Rider Rules, Cast Member Forced to Step In

When COVID-19 swept the world, all bets were off—remember the toilet paper shortage? Folks were forced to live in a lawless land, and the rebound from those quarantined days has been a slow roll for specific sectors of society.

The theme Park industry was hit hard by the immediate policy shifts necessary to keep Guests safe. With the Disney Park experience suspended for months before relaunching a modified take on reliable Park practices of the past, Guests have been met with some unsavory encounters.

The Parks can seem vastly different for Guests who haven’t been to Disney since before the pandemic changes, causing a disconnect between those up to speed and those getting their Disney legs back. Most notably, there are ongoing issues at Walt Disney World and Disneyland regarding line-skipping etiquette.

Guests invest serious time and money into Disney vacations, and the attractions are the highlight for many of them. Now, with competitive Genie+ reservations, Lightning Lanes, Individual Lightning Lanes, and the Virtual Queue, the cards are stacked higher for Guests waiting to board a ride vehicle. In a recent post on Reddit, a Disney Guest summarized the persistent mishaps with Single Rider Lines, and fellow fans flooded the comments to commiserate.

Spoiler Alert: You Don’t Get the Ride Vehicle to Yourself

According to a viral post by u/desert_red_head on the happiest subreddit on earth, a “scowling” Disney Guest might have misinterpreted the meaning of “Single Rider” while navigating the Single Rider queue. Check out the full post here:

Entitled Guy in the Single Rider Line
byu/desert_red_head inDisneyland

The Disney Guest detailed a tense, unnecessarily awkward encounter between himself, his sister, and two middle-aged men. All four of them were Single Riders boarding Space Mountain (Hyperspace Mountain specifically), and the two men who sat in the ride vehicles first made what could have been a fun ride experience a cringe-worthy one. Redditor u/desert_red_head added:

As the doors to the car opened, both men we were assigned to sit next to sat down in the closest seat and then put their bags in the empty seat next to them. The guy who was sitting with my sister appeared apologetic and moved over, but the guy who was sitting with me looked over at me like I had two heads. I asked him what he was doing and he replied, “I’m a single rider.” I replied, “so am I.” He was insistent that being a single rider meant he didn’t have to share the extra seat. We proceeded to go back and forth for a while until the ride attendant came over and yelled at him to move over so I could board. He then proceeded to ride the entire ride with a giant scowl on his face.

It’s uncharacteristic for a Cast Member to “yell” at anyone, so this Guest must have escalated the situation beyond what the original poster could control. While one could hope this was a one-off account of Single-Rider woes for this attraction, plenty of fellow fans like u/Millennial_Man had similar experiences:

I see this a lot in the single-rider line. People will get into the vehicle and then sit down in the first closest seat. It’s like a double whammy of no awareness of their surroundings and no common sense.

Another Redditor, u/mooochooo, added a theory that some Guests want to appear unassuming and unaware of the rules but do this intentionally:

I feel like it’s a “feign ignorance” to see if they can get away with it. “Oh! I had -no- idea!” Etc.

Contrary to the Single Rider’s belief, the individual queue doesn’t earn you a private ride vehicle, and the ride vessels are meant to be full. Cast Members are there to seat Guests with efficiency at the forefront, which means you might not get the same ride experience you want every time. It’s best to practice patience and create space for those around you to enjoy iconic attractions along with you.