Titillating Tales of Terrible Tourists, v.5: When Cameras Drop

I did it!  I completed my very first tour up here in Alaska.  It went smashingly.  I already miss my people--the 60th Anniversary crew, the honeymooners, the 35th Anniversary-ites, and the girls.  If only we could just travel together all summer!

I'll tell ya what I don't miss though...  I do not miss the unescorted groups that kept getting thrown on my coach with all of their questions, confusion, and general bad attitudes.

My first tour was an intimate affair of 18.  We laughed and didn't cry...except when we had to share our coach with random strangers.  For whatever reason, (well, okay, I know the reason.  We were only 18 people, and the coach seats over 50) other unescorted groups were tossed into our coach.  This wouldn't be a problem, except that the unescorted people kept asking me questions, and, technically, I shouldn't talk to them because they didn't pay for my services.  Alas, I'm a nice person, and I didn't want to be a jerk in front of my own guests, so I helped them out a little--not a lot.

On our last day, I thought I was home-free.  I was positive that we would be the only group on the coach.  And then, I discovered, much to my dismay, that 20 extra people were joining us.  And those 20 extra people were not nice.  They were all angry that they didn't have a tour director, so I had to give this answer, "Well, I'm sorry you're upset, but you chose a tour that is unescorted.  Mmhmm, yes, I do understand your frustration, but when you chose your tour, you opted for one that did NOT have a Tour Director.  Yes, I can see that, and I'm sorry you feel that way.  Well, the simple answer is, the people on my tour paid for a Tour Director, you did not."

And what I really wanted to say after explaining and re-explaining was:

"Because you're cheap."

But those words were never uttered.

Throughout my five-day tour, there was a group of 4 people that kept taking the front seats on the coach.  I still don't know how they did it.  Somehow they managed to stake out a spot that was closer to the coach area than me, so every time I got on board, they were already there.  Knowing that others were getting upset (since I was annoyed myself), I opted to remedy the problem by banning anyone from sitting in the front two seats.  I took one for myself, and the other was to be the "picture seat" where guests could rotate in and out every 20 minutes.  This plan would have been a good one if it weren't for those unescorted people.

One couple from the other group claimed motion sickness and insisted on sitting in the front seat.  And let me tell you, they were a piece of work.  For eight hours, I had to sit next to the unhappiest woman on Earth (or so I thought until I met Scowling Poodle-Face on my second tour).  She had a constant monologue going throughout the ride.  "When are we off this bus?  It better be soon.  That driver better drive fast.  I'm not staying on this bus until 5.  Why aren't we going faster?  Why aren't we taking a different road?  We better not go back to Denali?  I'm never going there again.  That place is horrible.  Why would anyone go there in the first place?  When are we getting off this bus?  Why are we on a bus?  Well, the train was even worse.  Why would we go on a train?  When do we eat?  Why are we stopping?" ...

While those two definitely peppered my experience, it was the couple in the back that lent the comic relief.

Our lunch break was in Wasilla (insert Sarah Palin joke here).  As we unloaded the coach, the couple from the back (who were on the unescorted tour) approached the driver and me with an issue.

"Is it possible to leave the tour early?"  The wife asked.  The driver and I looked at each other, somewhat confused.  "My husband's father is in the hospital, and we have to catch the next flight home."

"Well, I can call my supervisor and see what we can do, "replied the driver.

"We just need to get dropped off in Anchorage.  It shouldn't be that hard."

"Except that we have 36 other passengers that need to get to the ship.  We'll see what we can do."

With that, we went inside the restaurant for lunch.  Upon our return to the coach, the driver worked out a plan to make a detour and drop the couple off in Anchorage.  Everything seemed fine.  All was right with the world.  The complaining motion-sick lady was still complaining.  Once we made the announcement that we were making an unscheduled stop in Anchorage, she started demanding that we take her to Nordstrom.  My people were still delightful, and then tragedy struck.

I was standing in the aisle, chatting with one of my favorite little ladies when I looked up and saw the woman, for whom we were stopping in Anchorage, frantically waving her hands.  I rushed over to her, and she pulled me into the lavatory.

"I dropped my camera in the toilet."  She was panicking and almost in tears.

Baffled, I replied, "I'm so sorry."

"Can you get it out?"  She then thrust her arm down the toilet hole.  "I can't reach it."

"I don't think you'll be able to reach it.  Take your hand out of there."

"I haven't flushed, so it should be there.  Maybe you can reach it?"  She asked, her arm still shoulder deep in the toilet.

"It all goes into a tank.  I'm not sure how deep it is, but I'm not putting my hand in the toilet."

"But your arms may be longer than mine."

"I'm sorry.  I don't think you can retrieve it that way."

"Well, what do I do?"  She cried.

"I'll talk to the driver, but we'll have to drain the tank."

She was getting frustrated. "Can't he just pull over and do that now?"

"No, ma'am.  We can't.  We have to drain the tank at a special facility.  It's illegal and an environmental hazard to drain human waste on the side of the road (ed. despite how much you might think Wasilla is a s-hole)."

"But how am I going to get my camera back?" She shoved her arm back down the toilet.

"We will do everything we can, but there is nothing we can do right now.  How about you come back to your seat?"

She then fumbled with the sink and got frustrated when water didn't come out of the faucet.  "Why won't this work?"

Feeling really bad and a little disgusted, I replied, "There isn't any water.  We only have hand sanitizer on the coach."  As I said that, I was thinking, "And don't get near me, you probably have the Walk AND the Hep now.  Who shoves their arm down a toilet hole in the first place?"

She rubbed hand sanitizer all over her hands, then sat down next to her husband, who was shaking his head in annoyance, and started to cry hysterically.  "I don't know how it happened!  I've had things in my pockets before, and they've never fallen out!"

I sat down across from them and felt great sympathy for her  "I'm so sorry.  We will do everything we can.  We are getting you to Anchorage as fast as we can, but I make no promises about the camera.  Is there anything else I can do that might make you feel better?"

Her husband turned to me, narrowing his eyes, "You can get the camera back, that's what you can do!"

I was taken aback and wanted nothing more than to defend myself and say, "Sir, I did NOT throw your camera in the toilet on a motor coach.  In fact, I was nowhere near the toilet when the camera fell in.  I have NOTHING to do with this.  Your anger is misdirected.  I'm just trying to help here, and you're not even going to tip me...and for the record, no tip is worth risking the Hep."

Rather, I said, "We'll do what we can."

I walked over to the driver to update him on the new situation, and he gave me the same answer I gave them.  When I returned to the back of the bus, the wife decided that the camera wasn't that expensive, so it didn't matter.  Ten minutes later, I walked back to check on them and give them instructions for their departure in Anchorage.  The wife handed me her husband's business card asking me to mail the camera or even just the memory card when we found it.  She also apologized for her outburst explaining that the lost camera was the last straw.

Once we reached Anchorage, the couple exited the bus.  We retrieved their luggage, and the wife gave the driver a hug.  Part of me was surprised that I didn't get a hug, but I was also relieved.  She was unclean after all.  And, I didn't tell the driver that she shoved her arm down the toilet until three hours later, which gave me a little bit of pleasure since he did screw me over first thing in the morning by misleading my group for his own enjoyment and purposely driving away when he knew I was missing two people.

I have no idea what happened with the camera.  I passed the card onto the driver supervisor, and the story is now the stuff of legend.

Moral: Don't carry valuables into the lavatory on a coach.  And if you do, and it falls into the toilet, just walk away.