Michael Bowen first became a Walt Disney World bus driver at 44, and later returned at 50.
Courtesy of Michael Bowen
Michael Bowen started his career in church work, which he found unfulfilling and lacking stability.
Driven by a love for Disney and a desire for change, he decided to make the move to Florida at 44.
After a hiatus due to personal reasons, he returned to his job as a Disney bus driver this year.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Michael Bowen, a 51-year-old Walt Disney World bus driver and Disney content creator behind the YouTube channel "Incognito Mouse." It has been edited for length and clarity.
Most of my adult life, I worked in the church. I went to university and Bible school to become a minister. I went into this line of work thinking it would make someone else happy, and didn't really think about what would make me happy.
At one point, I ended up working at a smaller church that could not pay a full-time salary, so to support myself, I got a part-time job as a school bus driver.
In 2017, I took a vacation to Florida and visited Disney World. I remember sitting there on the last day of my vacation, in the beautiful, warm sun, by the pool, with palm trees beside me, and dreading going back to the stormy weather in New Jersey.
I felt I had to make some kind of change, or I was going to sentence myself to a miserable life.
I realized I could work as a bus driver for Disney
I first visited Disney World in 2013. I had thought it was strange — a bunch of adults, no kids, going to Disney. Yet, even on that first trip, I thought, man, what could I do to work here? There's no Disney church.
By the second time I went in 2017, I had followed Disney a lot more and saw it wasn't just for children. Now, as a school bus driver, I thought, "Oh, they do have bus drivers, and that is a legitimate career. I could actually do that."
Michael is a huge Disney fan.
Courtesy of Michael Bowen
I love Disney, and my ex-wife did, too. As huge Disney fans, we thought, why not go live in the most magical place on Earth and work there?
In 2020, at 44, I first moved to Florida
I was living out of state when I applied to be a bus driver at Disney. It's very difficult to get into it. It took several months to get to the interview, and I needed a Florida driver's license before I could get the offer.
I moved to Florida in January of 2020. After I got my license, I was put on a waiting list until a bus driver position became available. It wasn't until February 15 that I finally got the call to start the role.
For the first time in my life, I had a really stable job with all the benefits that some smaller churches aren't necessarily able to give: paid time off, pensions, retirement, things like that.
In particular, I had health insurance for the first time in a long time, and I was really happy.
Michael driving a bus at Disney World.
Courtesy of Michael Bowen
I was convinced I was going to drive for Disney for the rest of my life and retire there. But in May 2022, I chose to leave after experiencing a difficult separation and divorce. I remember when I was leaving, I got the offboarding email, and it was the most gut-wrenching feeling that I had ever had.
I moved to Oregon, but I always wanted to move back
I decided to move to Oregon. I drove a city bus and things like that, but I wasn't happy.
During that time, I met another woman, now my wife, who was a big Disney fan like me. I rebranded my YouTube channel from church content to Disney around 2019, and started posting about being a Disney cast member in 2020. We met through the YouTube channel and decided to move to Florida together in 2025.
As before, I had to wait almost a year for a job opening at Disney. In the meantime, I worked for a different company contracted to drive the buses for Universal Studios.
Finally, in April 2026, at 50, I returned to Disney as a bus driver.
It's not seen as the most prestigious job, but I love it
For me, being a Disney bus driver is wonderful, but I feel like it's not the most prestigious job. Often, when people ride the bus, it's seen as just a way to get to the park.
However, it has its special moments. Once, there was a little boy visiting with his parents who, as he was getting on the bus, showed me two little toy buses. His mother told me he loved the buses so much and was so excited to show them to me. Little things like this just make my day, seeing people so excited.
Michael inside a Disney World bus.
Courtesy of Michael Bowen
I can enjoy all the magic of Disney and go to the park whenever I want. So it's the best of both worlds.
Walt Disney said, "It's kind of fun to do the impossible." If you'd have told me that I was going to do something like this several years ago, I would have said, " There's no way — it's not possible. I'm too old. I don't have the finances. I don't know what I would do."
But life is too short. If you are not happy or you want to do something else, you have to make it happen.
As Fortis expands its facility along the Fraser, local air pollution is expected to worsen.
Emissions from the site of a recently approved LNG expansion in Metro Vancouver are projected to exceed Canadian ambient air quality standards for nitrogen dioxide, a harmful pollutant, according to company reports.
Last month, the provincial and federal governments approved FortisBC’s plan to further expand Tilbury, its decades-old LNG facility in North Delta, helping to turn it from a domestically focused, small-scale operation into a large export-oriented facility.
The province described the newly approved expansion as a “clean energy” project.
During the commissioning phase and when the facility’s equipment is malfunctioning, nitrogen dioxide levels in parts of Richmond, Delta and Vancouver are projected to be between three and 16 times above Canada’s guidelines for maximum hourly emissions. That estimate doesn’t include the cumulative impacts of emissions from Tilbury’s other, already approved expansions at the site.
During ongoing operations, Fortis predicts the site and associated marine traffic will slightly exceed national standards for average annual nitrogen dioxide levels, indicating the potential for long-term, chronic exposure. Those exceedances are expected to extend across schools, homes and child-care centres in southern Richmond.
Those elevated annual levels are expected even after factoring in significant reductions in the project’s predicted nitrogen dioxide emissions from yet-to-be-determined mitigation efforts Fortis says it will employ. If those mitigation efforts are unsuccessful, Tilbury’s emissions could be even higher.
The company has not yet made its final investment decision to proceed with the project, and some permits are still pending, but the recent approvals signal the federal and provincial governments are willing to allow the expansion to proceed.
The Tilbury expansion “has the potential to deliver significant economic and environmental benefits for B.C., and jobs for British Columbians,” Minister of Energy and Climate Solutions Adrian Dix said in a press release announcing the project’s approval.
But Tilbury’s projected nitrogen dioxide emissions suggest potential health implications from the expanded facility.
According to Canada’s Environment Ministry, long-term nitrogen dioxide exposure can increase susceptibility to respiratory infections, increase risks of developing asthma, affect cardiovascular health, lead to reproductive issues and increase the risk of premature death.
In an emailed statement, FortisBC told the Tyee: “The Tilbury Phase 2 LNG Expansion project will be built and operated in accordance with all municipal, provincial, and federal guidelines.” It added that the project must meet regulatory requirements by various levels of government.
A provincial spokesperson said government communications staff are unable to comment during the ongoing election period.
Emissions are predicted to increase
The Tilbury facility has produced LNG on site since the 1970s, relying on the liquefied fuel’s condensed form to store enough gas near the province’s urban centre to boost the region’s energy supplies during cold snaps. It was a low-profile operation, producing a small amount of LNG per year, mostly to supply local demand.
Just over a decade ago, Fortis began moving its expansion forward in a piecemeal fashion. The company first applied to build a new, bigger storage tank and to increase its liquefaction capacity in a project it called Phase 1A. In 2024, the province also approved the company’s plan to build a marine jetty that would allow export tankers into the river for the first time. This July, the province provided a regulatory exemption to support another expansion of the site’s storage and liquefaction capacity that Fortis has dubbed Phase 1B. The newly approved Phase 2 project will further expand liquefaction at the site, increasing the facility’s total production to 3.5 million tonnes of LNG per year.
LNG facilities like Tilbury use energy-intensive compressors to turn natural gas into a liquid state. Fortis plans to power its compressors with electricity, reducing some emissions during the process. But the company didn’t decide to electrify its hot oil heater, citing uncertainty about energy supply and the cost of power connection upgrades.
In the section of its application discussing its decision to choose gas to power its oil heater, Fortis wrote that “although electrification is seen as a ‘green choice’ and may reduce public opposition to the proposed project, early analysis suggests that there may not be adequate electrical power available to support the proposed project without significant capital upgrades.”
Fortis wrote that the upgrades could compromise the project’s schedule and commercial viability.
Other new components will also produce emissions, including a ground flare stack and acid gas incinerator. Together with the hot oil heater, these parts of the project are expected to produce the bulk of the expansion’s anticipated nitrogen dioxide pollutants.
“Just because you use electric compressors doesn’t mean you have zero emissions,” said Tim Takaro, a physician and researcher with Simon Fraser University and a member of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.
Pollutants from those systems will add to an already compromised airshed, Takaro said, noting that the region has one of the highest concentrations of nitrogen dioxide in the province.
“They’re already stretched in terms of air quality,” Takaro said.
Although Fortis describes Tilbury’s ground flare as “totally enclosed,” the facility will include a 200-metre open stack surrounding a low flare, meaning its exhaust will still enter the airshed.
When added to the existing pollution in the airshed, Tilbury’s Phase 1A and 1B expansions are anticipated to push nitrogen dioxide levels in the surrounding area above the federal government’s threshold for acceptable emissions, indicating possible short-term, acute exposures.
The company’s estimated maximum nitrogen dioxide emissions during commissioning and malfunctions are predicted to significantly exceed regulatory limits beyond the project’s immediate vicinity, including areas of Richmond, Delta and Vancouver and other parts of Metro Vancouver up to 11 kilometres from the project.
These kinds of disruptions have been ongoing at Canada’s only major LNG facility, LNG Canada, leading to high rates of flaring and bursts of black smoke — a sign that uncombusted or partially combusted gas is being released into the airshed.
Those unburned pollutants are particularly dangerous because they can include volatile organic compounds such as benzene, a potent carcinogen that has no safe threshold, said Dr. Melissa Lem, a Vancouver family physician and past president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.
Fortis’s application said its production of volatile organic compounds in the airshed would be “negligible.”
According to Fortis’s application, it expects to vent unburned gas from the facility during mechanical disruptions and during commissioning, when the company expects it will not yet have its flare system installed.
When existing emissions and emissions from Tilbury’s various expansions and associated marine traffic such as LNG tankers are combined, the site is estimated to produce average annual nitrogen dioxide levels slightly exceeding national guidelines, indicating sustained long-term exposure to the pollutant near the facility.
The projections assume potential reductions from a set of mitigation measures for the Phase 2 expansion. According to Fortis, these measures “are not intended to represent final design commitments or regulatory conditions.” Fortis added that it is “exploring an emissions mitigation strategy” to meet air quality standards. The province called for an air quality management plan in its list of conditions for approving Tilbury’s application, including details on how it plans to reduce emissions and the technologies it plans to use.
Climate concerns
Besides local pollution, Lem noted that Tilbury’s forthcoming climate emissions would also have consequences for human health.
Additional emissions from Tilbury’s Phase 2 expansion and its associated upstream gas fracking activity are expected to produce about one million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, around 13 per cent of Metro Vancouver’s total target emissions by 2030.
About 800 people die prematurely every year in Vancouver due to air pollution, according to Tyee reporting from 2021. Pollution from wildfire smoke made more likely by climate change is a large part of the city’s air hazards.
“The fossil fuel industry doesn’t have to deal with patients on the frontlines when climate change drives all these harms,” Lem said. “Doctors and nurses, we are on the frontlines when wildfire smoke rolls in and people are having asthma attacks and high risk of anxiety and depression.”
Lem said the federal and provincial governments’ recent Tilbury approval is a mistake.
“If they were adhering to science, they would not be approving new fossil fuel projects like this Tilbury project,” she said.
Safety risks
The project’s location alongside the narrow, heavily trafficked Fraser River has also raised safety concerns among locals, including from Kelly Greene, the NDP’s MLA for Richmond-Steveston, a riding located just downriver from the Tilbury site. Greene, who was also the province’s minister of emergency management and climate readiness, cited her opposition to the project in a statement announcing she would not seek re-election.
“While no industrial activity is without risk, my work in emergency management taught me that low-probability events can still have profound impacts, particularly when they occur in densely populated or environmentally sensitive areas,” she wrote in a statement posted to LinkedIn.
“I remain deeply concerned about risks posed by the Tilbury LNG shipping channel and have advocated for better safety standards for a decade.”
Like Greene, Richmond Coun. Michael Wolfe worries about the safety risks from Tilbury’s riverside locale.
“It’s just a remarkably challenging environment for boats,” he told The Tyee.
The Society of International Gas Tanker and Terminal Operators advises that vessels carrying LNG avoid “long, narrow inland waterways… due to greater navigation risk.”
Alhough Tilbury’s operations are long-standing, the expansion project means international LNG carriers will enter the Fraser for the first time. Fortis’s application estimates the tankers will be about 300 metres long — roughly the size of three football fields.
Spills and explosions related to LNG production remain rare, but when they occur, their consequences can be profound. Supercooled and compressed LNG can explode when it comes into contact with water and rapidly changes from liquid to gas.
When it leaks, LNG can remain as heavier-than-air vapour that can travel long distances before it dissipates. Under certain conditions, that vapour can ignite if it contacts an ignition source, as it did at the Freeport LNG facility in Texas in 2022.
Wolfe noted that Tilbury sits adjacent to a jet fuel terminal on the other side of the river. “If one of these sites has a major event, it’s going to compromise all the other ones in the area,” he said.
“It’s absolutely crazy to think that people will do that and not care about the future generations.”
Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere rose to new record highs in 2025, locking in climate impacts that will persist for centuries to come, the United Nations has said.
In the Daily Sceptic's final exclusive extract from Chris Morrison's new book on the 'climate crisis': trying to run a modern economy on windmills is insane, but eye-watering sums from green billionaires say it isn't.
The latest climate pledges put forth by nations will cut global greenhouse gas emissions just 6% by 2035, a UN report has said, weeks before COP31 talks in Turkey.
Login
