You have HOW many?

For those of you who don't know... I work at the Hale Aloha Ali'i Luau at the Polynesian Cultural Center.

This Saturday at work was CRAZY!!! To start off we had two luaus (Hale Aloha and Hale Ohana) both with full counts. There was also a Tongan Wedding Reception at the third luau (Hale Ku'ai). So far this is all good news because the PCC needs the business. All was going well as we started. We reserved 25 seats for the Super Ambassadors, 27 seats for the NCL, 43 seats for the Polish, and 61 for the Ambassadors. After we opened, everything went downhill.

One lady came in and wanted to save seats for 33 people and I said, "OK" (I'll talk more about them later). Another group came in wanting to save 29 seats and I said, "OK". Then a group of 96 high school girls came running in and started to sit on any table they could find. I tried to explain that we have a specific order to seating and they needed to follow me. They didn't want to listen and just kept on going where they wanted. Another group of high school girls came in and I ran out of seats on my side so I took them over to Jared's side (Jared is a Lead at Aloha). But he was busy seating two other groups of high school girls and they took up the rest of the seats on his side. The only seats available were the reserved seats for the Polish, the Lady with the group of 33 and the Ambassadors. During all this, we still have about 200 normal guests who are trying to get seats.

In case you lost count, there were 4 different high schools with a total of 260 girls. The 4th group of girls took the reserved seats saved for the Polish. The Lady with the group of 33 was calling her people because they haven't shown up yet. Lani (My Boss) found out that the lady and her group had tickets for Ohana...and she refused to move. Lani ended up taking 50 Aloha guests to Ohana to trade with the lady's group. And now it's 5:15 and the Polish have arrived. They start yelling that their seats were taken and wanted to steal the lady's seats. The lady (who is still waiting for her people) started yelling at the Polish that they can't. The Polish also refused to move to the other Luau. We ended up splitting the Polish and filling them in where ever we had room. As they walked past the high school group who stole their seats, the Polish tour guide yelled at them, saying "See what happens when you steal our seats!" And the lady's group finally showed up.

All this happened before the show even started.

After the front was settled...I went to the back to make sure that we had enough food for all 602 people we had packed into the Luau (not including lap children who don't pay for a ticket). I ended up playing mom to a handful of Tongan kids who were supposed to be at the wedding at Ku'ai but decided to bother us. I yelled and scolded and lost both my patience and my voice. Stupid Kids!

We also had a special request from a group of 27 that weren't going to be able to arrive until 6:30pm asking if we could stay open a little longer for them. Thank goodness that the NCL group leaves at 6:20pm and they had 27 people so all we had to do was clear their tables and re-set them for that group. Not too bad. Guess what! 6:30 came and went and they didn't show up. What a waste of my time.

To sum my day up in a word...NEVER!!!!