Perks of the Disney College Program

The Disney College Program has some pretty sweet perks. Here are just seven of them:

1. Costuming- You never have to wash your uniform if you just check a new one out of costuming each day.

2. Free Admission into all of the parks- Yes, you can ride Space Mountain as much as you want, and get as much Magic in as you can stand during your College Program.

3. Free Buses to and From Work and all the Parks- The bus company was called Transtar, and sometime Transtar definitely felt like more than a curse than a blessing. Buses were supposed to come every half hour, but sometimes they would be extremely late or get into accidents, making you late for work. But hey- free transportation!

4. Guest Passes- As a CP you can get up to three people into the park six times for free! This means you can share the magic with all your friends, just like when my wonderful friends Erin and Tim came to visit.

5. Cast Previews- Before Rides first open to guests, they need some people to ride the rides to ensure the cast members are used to procedures and that everything from the queue to the ride itself works properly. Who do they use to test this you ask? Cast members. During my program the Seven Dwarves Mine Train in Magic Kingdom was just opening, and during the cast preview I rode it thirteen times in a row. THIRTEEN TIMES. Given the wait time of an hour+ that it normally has, this would take me basically an entire day to do currently.

6. Special Super Awesome Amazingly Cool Events- As a perk of working in Hollywood Studios during the twenty-fifth anniversary of the park being open all the cast members got to ride Rock 'n' Rollercoaster with the lights on. It was an eye-opening experience. (Pun definitely intended.) Along with this, to test Magicband Photo linking in Animal Kingdom we got to ride Expedition Everest and Dinosaur with the lights on. To this day I am still terrified of Everest with the lights on, since you can see the inside of the mountain, and no one should ever see that.

7. The most awesome people you will ever meet- I cannot say it enough, but the people I met on my Disney College Program were the most amazing people ever. With the patience of saints and hearts of gold, I hope to still have these friends twenty years down the road.

Gif content courtesy of the Walt Disney World Company and also the picture of costuming. Super cool that it was just floating around on the internet.

Terrifyingly Awesome Places to have a Disney event

If you have ever wished to have a wedding reception next to Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz or in the courtyard of a haunted hotel from the year 1949, then turns out you are in luck! Walt Disney World has the awesome opportunity for anyone to have a reception of any kind hosted on Disney Property in places like the Great Movie Ride or the Hollowed Tower of Terror.

For a paltry $2,000 and a food and beverage minimum of $850, you can rent out the Tower of Terror Courtyard at Disney's Hollywood Studios after park hours. For an extra $6,500 you can rent out the ride itself, plummeting into the Twilight Zone as many times as your full stomach can handle. 

Although this space only accommodates about 35-40 guests, it would be well worth it for anyone wishing to enter the Twilight Zone after hours. 

The Great Movie Ride is also a glamorous place to have a Disney reception. Starting at $8,500 this venue offers the choice between the Western scene, Gangster scene, and Wizard of Oz scene as locales for the event. Because the tables and events will be set up along the ride path it is not possible to buy out the ride during the time of the event, but why would you want to slowly glide past Dorothy when you can spend an hour or two basking in her presence? 

As any true Disney fan knows, when boarding the Great Movie Ride you will either be hijacked by a gangster or an outlaw, and depending on preference you can spend some quality time in either of these scenes, hopefully sans gunshots or burning buildings.

Last, but certainly not least, was my home for six months- the Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show Theater. While working at the show, I worked multiple special events shifts such as music awards ceremonies or show buyouts for private groups. People could pay to have a private show put on just for them and their pals, or they could use the 5,000 person stadium and have awards on the stage, or even have tables set up where cars and explosions normally fly around throughout the day. 

This transition from tires screeching, men jumping off building, and cars jumping over things to people calmly sitting at tables always felt quite strange, since I was used to seeing this every day and trying to prevent people going down into that area.

This is just a short list of possible places to have Disney events, and there are plenty more places available to host a magical party. 

All pictures courtesy of the Walt Disney World Company.

Sassy Saturday!

     No matter what job you have, you always need something to look forward to. Breaking up the monotony of working a lot of days in a row keeps a person sane. During my college program, we had Sassy Saturdays. These were amazingly wonderful days where all things sassy but classy were said.

     Of course we would never say Bye Felicia to a guest! Who do you think we are? Universal? 

    These Sassy Saturday shenanigans culminated one week with a morning track talk with one of our managers, where he proceeded to call it a "Satisfying Saturday." All of the cast members in the room yelled at once "No! SASSY SATURDAY!" We all then proceeded to die laughing for a good five minutes, because we were all defending the thing we looked forward to each week. These were the moments that made dealing with "passionate" guests bearable, and gave us something to bond over each week. 

     Sassy Saturday usually led into potlucks on all the other days of the week, and who doesn't love a good potluck? Except for maybe Yzma. 

Overall, give yourself something to look forward to, no matter how small or sassy it is. You make wonderful friends by being sassy to each other and having potlucks.

All Gif content courtesy of the Walt Disney World Company.

     

Is Disney World too Hot to Handle?

     Accidents happen all the time, and Walt Disney World is not an exception. No, there is not a magic bubble to keep you safe whatever you try to do, and when burning fireworks fall on flammable materials, it will light on fir no matter how much pixie dust is in the air.

     This explains why the Seven Dwarves Mine Train ride caught fire on November first, and you can read the CNN article about that here. Apparently wishes was just too hot to handle and caught a building outside the ride on fire. This is most definitely not the first fire to happen at Walt Disney World, or a "signal 25" as all cast members are taught to call them.

     During my college program, I literally put out a fire. No, it most definitely was not as big as the Mine Train fire, but it was big enough to cause a little bit of panic. I was outside Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt show greeting after a show one day when a guest tapped me on the shoulder and said that the bushes were smoking. Not quite understanding what was going on at first, I glanced to where they were pointing and saw a small billowing of smoke coming from a waist high planter with mulch and bushes in it. The smoking section had been recently moved to that area, so I guess someone decided it was a great idea to throw their lit cigarette on mulch. I ran over to see a tiny flame  about two inches high building in the mulch. One of the merchandise girls nearby had heard the commotion and came over to asses the situation. "I have ice! We can put that on there!" she hurriedly said as we both assessed the situation. Thinking fast, I ran over to our supply closet and grabbed a rag and two cups over water. Remember something about oil fires and them building if you put water on them (Don't ask me why this applies to a piece of mulch lit on fire by cigarette ash or why that was the first thing that cam to mind), I threw the rag on the fire and smothered it. The mulch was still smoking just like the onlookers in the nearby smoking section, so I poured the two cups of water on it, and the fire was no more. In reality, probably about five people actually knew what was going on at the time, but it was still a memory that will forever be burned in my memory.

     This was not the only fire at Disney's Hollywood Studios while I was completing my College Program there. In fact, that same week there were two other fires- both were caused by firework fallout, the same as the Mine Train fire. 

      The first fire was when a piece of fallout from the Frozen Summer fun fireworks fell on a Photopass backdrop and lit it ablaze next to the Studio Backlot Tour. One minute we see the Frozen backdrop smoking, and the next it is put out and replaced. I have never seen something like that taken care of so quickly I almost doubted it had happened in the first place. 

     The second fire, two days later, was much larger than the backdrop fire. Once again, a piece of firework fallout did not completely go out, and this time it actually lit the top of One Man's Dream on fire, the Disney Museum in Hollywood Studios, right next to the now closed Legend of Captain Jack Sparrow. This fire grew to the point of having flames atop the building before the fire department was called, and the building was quickly and calmly evacuated. No one was hurt, the building was fine, and everything reopened without most of the guests even knowing what had happened. Once again, a great example of how Disney handles accidents extremely well, and how you are probably the safest you could ever be on Disney property, even though accidents happen. 

     

     One of the scarier accidents that happened during my college program was actually an accident during the show at Lights, Motors, Action, and I happened to be in a position that show where I was right in from of the unfolding action. To fully understand what happened here is an article on thedisneyblog.com, and here is a video of the mishap during the show. 

     As you could probably guess, the back half of the red hero car was not supposed to shear off like it did. I have never heard two thousand people be as silent as they were in the two minutes after the car came to a stop. Normally the car flies over the moat in the midst of an explosion, and thank goodness the explosion did not go off.

    Even though this incident looks scary, the driver walked away from the accident, was checked out at the hospital and was totally fine, and came back to work within a week. The roll cage in the car protected him from possibly having the part of the car he was sitting in being sheared off, and kept him super safe. Accidents happen, but once again Disney had a lot of safety measures in place to make sure the driver was still safe.

     These are some of the experiences I had while on my College Program, but there are many more examples of fires or accidents at Walt Disney World, and yet most of the time everyone is completely fine. For example, there was another Lights Motors Action crash, this time involving a motorcycle, a Kilimanjaro Safaris truck fire, and a minor bus crash. In all, Disney World has accidents just like any other place, but they handle these hot situations with finesse.

Tan Lines, Fireworks, and Trading Pins

    At this point you are probably wondering what makes me qualified to write about the Disney College Program... To say it simply, I lived it for six months! I participated in the Spring Advantage program in 2014, and I worked at Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show and a temporary attraction called Wandering Oaken's Frozen Funland at Disney's Hollywood Studios. My program was a little bit different than other college program experiences, and here are a few reasons why:

1. I worked outside for six months in the Florida heat, getting some pretty rad tan lines. Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt show is a completely outdoor attraction, and working for Disney you have to wear "Disney look" socks, which cover your ankle bone. This leads to some awesome tan lines, including the lines from the longer costume shorts as you can see by the picture below.

2. Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show is closed by 5:30 each day, so I actually got evenings to hang out with friends. Most College Program kids get the late shifts wherever they work, since part time or fulltimers do not want to stay till two in the morning closing an attraction. That being said, I got to hang out a ton with my fellow cast members, and have a blast during my program playing in the parks and hanging out with the coolest people ever.

3. I also got to work some pretty awesome fireworks shifts. If you have never had the opportunity to stand around in a hard hat, safety vest, and safety goggles while holding a light wand and telling people they cannot go that way because of fireworks fallout, you should totally try it. People get pretty angry, especially when the fireworks are not supposed to start for another twenty minutes. The anxiety from these conflicts all melts away when the fireworks start, however. Being so close to the fireworks that you could feel every explosion reverberating in your chest is an amazing experience that will stick with you forever.

4. I worked in Hollywood Studios during the 25th Anniversary of the park being open. Along with being able to work in Hollywood Studios during a really fun time including fireworks, a motorcade of characters, and a ton of freebies. We received keychains, awesome tumblers, and a really cool cast member exclusive trading pin. It was a time that made me extremely proud to work for such an awesome company, especially for the anniversary of 25 years of magic.

5. Lights, Motors Action! Extreme Stunt Show is the most intense show on Disney property, and  dealing with 5,000 people twice a day gets pretty crazy. Working at a show is a pretty easy job- you mostly just stand outside and greet all day, and only do about two hours of actual work during your entire shift. Those two hours can get pretty intense, though, when you are trying to seat 5,000 people in less than thirty minutes. This involves a lot of yelling and trying to get people to slide down, frustrated people at having to climb stairs, and lots of apologies as you try to find any kind of space for people to sit to watch the show. All of this frustration goes away as people watch the show, though, because it truly is a really awesome show. The only comment I really heard afterward was always, "That was such an awesome show!"

Overall, I had a super fun program that was unique, but every person's program is going to be unique because of your work location, your role, your managers, your fellow cast members, and whatever happens to be going on in Walt Disney World at the moment. Each person makes their program their own depending on the super cool stuff they do, so apply and start your own adventure!

Disney College Program- Is It Worth It?

      As you look at all the material about the Disney College Program particulars, all the cool stuff that you could do while on the College Program, religiously follow the Facebook group to see all the cool people you could meet, and watch a ton of youtube videos to see what housing will be like, you will ask yourself, is this experience worth it? The answer, totally and completely based on my experience in the program, is yes- with a few exceptions.


1. You should totally do the program if you eat, sleep, and breathe Disney and wouldn't mind a little magic to be ruined. If you absolutely cannot bear the fact that Mickey is sometimes a very old, very tiny Asian lady, then you may not want to apply. No matter which role you are accepted into the program for, you will see characters backstage or other onstage secrets that normal guests do not see.

2. You should apply if you are looking for a great resume builder and to get great job experience. I could talk for ages about how Disney has an absolutely wonderful business model, training methods, and policies so that all guest experiences are as magical as possible. I now bring that experience to other jobs I hold, and feel like it had a great influence on me professionally.

3. You should only come on the College Program if you are prepared to work a full time job. Whilst on the college program you are guaranteed a Minimum of 30 hours, but many locations will schedule you many more hours than that. I think my maximum amount of hours in one week was 86, which was a very hard week indeed. Also, be prepared to work many many days in a row. I think I once worked seventeen days in a row without a day off. Be prepared to feel like this quite a few days:

And a little bit of this....

4. Be prepared to meet the most amazing people of your life. No, I'm serious. I met the most awesome people ever on my College Program, a ton of whom were not college program people like myself, but were regular part time or full time cast members at Walt Disney World. The people make or break your program, and for me the people were the best part of the entire experience.

5. You should absolutely participate in the College Program if you want to audition to be a character performer, but don't expect to have a shoe in for another (much cooler) job at Disney. While on the college program you can still audition to be a princess or any other character performer! If that is your dream and you just want a way to be down here to audition, then the college program is a good way to be living in the area, have a stable job, and be able to audition if you ask for the time off work from your work location.

Now, if you are looking for a marketing or animating job from Disney, then the college program may not be your best option. There are professional internships that are more focused in those sort of areas, which are very competitive to get into. The advice I have heard is that it is looked more favorably on your application for a professional internship if you have done a college program, but it is not a requirement. Generally you work in the parks on the college program and do not have much contact with corporate level employees like imagineers or animators, so this may not be the best option for your career.

In all, if you do decide to participate in the college program, your life is going to be a little bit of this:

A smidge bit of this:

And you are most definitely going to feel like this:

If you feel like the Disney College Program is perfect for you, then apply! Live your dreams! There is no downside to applying, and I hope that you get to have such a great experience as I did!

All Gif content belongs to the Walt Disney Company and all Gifs come courtesy of thatdisneyblog.tumblr.com. Sorry if there was a bit of magic ruined in this post for any readers.

The Twelve Stages of Applying to the Disney College Program

      The Disney College Program is a wonderful experience for anyone in college, no matter where you are from, what major you are, or what background you have. I learned a ton of life lessons from my program, but before I get into those, here is a summary of the stages of applying to the program. Before you can understand what it was like actually learning from the Walt Disney World Company, you need to understand the emotions leading up to this experience.

1. When you first learn that the Disney College Program exists.

2. After reading about the College Program for hours, you feel like there is no way you could be accepted to the program.

3. Your parent's reaction when you tell them you are applying for the College Program.

4. Your friends' reaction when you tell them about the College Program.

5. Your response to all the haters.

6. That feeling when you actually submit your application. 

7. Your parents when they finally realize that you are serious about working for Disney for a semester.

8. Then the agonizing wait to hear if you were accepted or not.

9. Wondering if you could have done more for your application. 

10. Then a little bit more agonizing waiting.

11. The day when that email finally arrives and you just stare at it for awhile.

.... and your friends are waiting for you to open it...

12. That joy when you find out you were accepted!

All gifs courtesy thatdisneygif.tumblr.com. All original content courtesy The Walt Disney World Company.