It is spring break for the universities and schools in southern California and Nevada.  Which means that we have now entered into the busiest time of the year for Scotty’s Castle.  Instead of 300 people taking tours every day, we have between 600 and 900 taking tours every day.  Today all my tours had another tour group ten minutes in front and ten minutes behind.  With that kind of schedule I have to stay right on time and keep moving my people along.

The people taking the tours are a different demographic than the usual.  Today I gave a tour that was all college students and a professor.  The castle tour was part of their natural history class.  I don’t think any of them made eye contact the whole tour – they were so busy taking notes!  Last week I had a Boy Scout group.  They had lots of questions and decided, at the end, that Scotty was not living out the Scout Oath.  I also had a group of 7, 8 and 9th graders – they were very well behaved and had a lot of quirky questions.

We have a lot more families with children on the tours.  Yesterday I had a tour with five little girls all under six years of age – and their parents.  Those were the only people on the tour.  I should have modified the tour more and spent time playing the organ (everyone’s tour highlight) but it didn’t occur to me until after the tour when the little girls had danced all through the organ song.

Having a tour going in every room of the castle at the same time is an interesting experience.  Most of the tour guides are very good at projecting their voices (me included).  So we close doors between the rooms and show patience toward one another and work hard to stay on schedule.  Spring break has some extra challenges.

For the most part, the people who tour the castle love the tours and are very appreciative of what we do.  As long as we guide them calmly and tell them a good story most of the guests have a great time.  If the guests have a good time then I have a great day.