ALMOST CARRIE ~ The Private Charter

Taking the Sex and the City bus tour is not unlike going to a Broadway show.  You buy your ticket in advance.  You arrive at the venue and someone shows you to your seat.  You squeeze in tight rows, knee to knee with strangers, and wait for the curtain to rise.  As a tour guide, I am ticket-taker, usher, bathroom attendant, and female ingénue.  My act is well-rehearsed; I have carefully crafted jokes and perfectly timed dramatic pauses.  I have props and physical bits, soliloquies and asides.  I dig deep into that tool-belt they were always talking about in acting school (my undergraduate degree in theatre coming, finally, in handy) and build tension and excitement with my vocal instrument.  And I always adhere to the golden rule of the stage: Experience each moment as if it were happening now and for the first time.  This is crucial for a show that has been running for seven years.

The fabulous Sutton Foster in "Anything Goes" at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre on Broadway.

In addition, however, to the Sex and the City bus tour, my company offers a more intimate way to experience Carrie’s New York: the private charter.  The private charter covers the same material as the regular tour but is designed for smaller parties, typically 4-6 customers, and takes place in a limousine.  It can be, to put it mildly, awkward.  Think of it this way: Sutton Foster is mesmerizing when singing and dancing her heart out for thousands on the stage of the Stephen Sondheim Theater. Put Sutton Foster in your living room with an audience of four and she suddenly seems a bit…over the top.

People book private charters for all sorts of reasons—birthdays, bachelorette parties, Mary Kay incentive prizes—and they are a good way for a tour guide to make extra money.  These private tours also provide fodder for some of the wackiest stories in a Sex and the City tour guide’s cannon.  Since my little foray into the Scottish Highlands, I’ve been picking up a ton of charter shifts to replenish my funds.  As a result, I’ve found myself reminiscing about some of my craziest charter experiences, and today I’ve decided open the charter vault and share with you one of my favorites.

Private charter tours are usually booked months in advance, but several years ago my company called with an odd request: Could I do a private tour for some very important people right away?  I told them I could, as long as they promised that I’d be done in time to make a 3:00 doctor’s appointment.  My office assured me that that would not be a problem, the tour would only be three hours, 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM.  I was to meet the clients at the St. Regis Hotel, which was an excellent sign; very important people who stay at the very elegant St. Regis Hotel tend to leave a very good tip.

The St. Regis Hotel: 2 East 55th Street at 5th Avenue

I arrived at the St. Regis at 10:45, and at 11:00 two men with ear pieces approached and asked if I’d been sent by On Location Tours.  When I said that indeed I had, they took me to a quiet corner of the lobby and sat me down for what they called a security briefing.  That is when I learned that my VIP client was actually a Queen, thereafter to be known only as Her Royal Highness.  When I asked what Her Royal Highness was the queen of, I was told that it was a small Middle Eastern country but any further information was strictly classified. The security staff would need copies of our intended route to give to the armed cars that would proceed and follow HRH’s limousine.  By the time the route was approved, it was already noon.

Her Royal Highness was accompanied by her four children, two girls in their late teens, and two little girls, each with their own British nanny.  The teenage daughters and the Queen all looked the same age, and I couldn’t help but exclaim, “You look way too young to be their mother!,” a compliment for an American woman, but who knows when you’re addressing a royal who may have been betrothed since birth.  HRH gave me an odd smile and then returned to her video game.  That’s right, HRH was addicted to a hand-held gaming device that she played for the next hour.  Eventually she pried her eyes away from the screen and whispered into her handler’s ear. Apparently all that gaming had made her hungry because the handler then turned to me and said, “Her Royal Highness would like a falafel sandwich.”  A falafel sandwich?  Where in hell would I get falafel fit for a Middle Eastern Queen?  In a burst of inspiration, I remembered Mamoun’s, vaguely recalling that it was somewhere near Bleecker and MacDougal.  Our little parade began to circle around and around the chaos of the Village, poorly navigating the one-way streets, while the handler got on his headset and tried to clear our detour with security.  Let me add that through all of this the only people remotely interested in Sex and the City were the two British nannies.

Mamoun's: 119 MacDougal Street between Bleecker and West 3rd

After running into Mamoun’s myself and ordering eight falafel sandwiches to go, it was 2 PM.  I was informed that HRH wanted me to take her shopping in SoHo.  I told the handler that I would get her to Spring Street but then I’d really have to run.  At 2:55, when we finally found a spot to park, the handler told me that I could retrieve my tip at the concierge’s desk.

The concierge’s desk?  My tip was at the St. Regis.  It was clear I would never make my appointment, so I spent the next hour trekking back to East 55th, rationalizing that my royalty-sized tip would surely cover the cost of my doctor’s cancellation fee.  What was reasonable for a tip from a Queen?  Two hundred?  Five hundred? A thousand?

The envelope waiting for me at the St. Regis contained thirty dollars.  I am happy to report, however, that my doctor waved her fee because the story was just that good.

When you are in SATC, you go to the Middle East. When you are SATC tour guide, the Middle East comes to you.

Emily Sproch is a writer and a “Sex and the City” tour guide.  Each Friday, she chronicles the fine line between reality and fiction in her column “Almost Carrie.”