Welcome Back to my Blog!

Hello again, everyone! It's been too long! I am so excited to be back on this blog, because that means that I have something exciting to share!

I am INCREDIBLY happy to announce that as of September 18th, I have officially been accepted for a second Disney College Program!!!

I cannot wait to be a Cast Member again!

Red Carpet Club

Well, I thought my program was over, but I guess Disney had one more magical experience in store for me.

You see, as part of Vacation Planning, we are able to choose rewards if our sales reach certain levels. This is just a bonus, though, and our trainers make sure to stress that as long as we are focusing on helping the guest with what best fits their vacation needs, we'll be fine. So, that's what I did. I never pushed and always tried to place myself in the viewpoint of the guest. The beauty of Disney is that there's no certain way to enjoy your vacation. There are so many different options for guests, which kept my job fun and exciting. I treated every guest uniquely, and got to help them decide how they wanted to enjoy the magic.

The End of this Chapter

Having to leave Walt Disney World meant leaving my amazing job that I truly loved, and the wonderful guest interaction. It meant not living 10 minutes away from Disney and getting to have fun adventures in the parks whenever I wanted to. It meant leaving the best people that I had the pleasure of living and working with for the past 7 1/2 months. It meant saying "see ya real soon" to so many people, but not actually knowing when "soon" would be. It meant driving towards Texas, but driving farther away from my real home. It meant the end of my Disney College Program, the one thing I had been waiting and wanting to do for TEN YEARS prior.

Move Out Day

Move out day was one of the hardest things I've ever had to experience. The tears and sadness that filled our apartment was symbolic of just how close we grew.  

The day pretty much consisted of attempting to fit everything in my car, turning in my ID and key to the front desk, and then the worst part, the "see ya real soons."

Here's a glimpse of the day:

I was so glad that Cynthia, my best friend from work, came by before I left. She and I have such an amazingly similar love and appreciation for our favorite things about Disney, like the monorails, resorts, and Wishes. She always made work so much fun, and all of our trips together to the parks, too. I'm so proud of her because she is staying with Disney for a Professional Internship! Love you Cynthia, and so grateful to have a best friend like you in my life!

Patterson Court #11207

So on those rare occasions when I wasn't at work or playing in the parks, you might ask, where did I sleep?! No, not in the castle or in the resorts, but in Disney Housing!

I realized that in the craziness of Check-In, I never posted any pictures of my apartment complex! As part of the Disney College Program, there are 4 apartment complexes for CP's to live in: Patterson Court, Chatham Square, The Commons, and Vista Way. The complexes are about 7-10 minutes away from Disney property. Each complex has a variety of 1, 2, 3, and 4 bedroom apartments -- and each bedroom has either 2 or 3 people.

Prior to arrival, my roommates and I ranked our housing selections through an online submission, but we didn't find out which complex we would be living in until we checked in!

My Last Day of Work

January 3, 2015. This was my last day as a Walt Disney World Vacation Planner. This was one of the days I'd been truly dreading.

On the DCP, your last day of work is two days before your program's end date. This gives you the last two days to pack up, go to the parks, and get moved out.

The first true realization of the end of your Disney College Program is when you open up your work schedule at 12:00 AM on Saturday night the week before, and see the words that you knew were coming, but never wanted to actually appear:

End. Of. Program. My new three least favorite words.

New Year's in Disney

I thought Fourth of July was pretty busy. I thought Food and Wine Festival was very busy. I thought Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were insanely busy.

New Year's Eve was an entirely different story!

Our predicted crowd level at Epcot for New Year's Eve was incredibly high, so I knew it would be busy, but I had no idea just how many people came to Disney on New Year's Eve! I started out at Epcot that morning at 6:00 AM, helping to tape down extended queues for the booths, because the lines would definitely be going past our already extended chains! We then went over to the Ticket and Transportation Center for our HERA pilot shift which began at 8:00 AM. After only being at the TTC for about an hour, the Magic Kingdom hit it's first capacity phase close. When this happened during the pilots, we were sent to other parks.  

Happy New Year from Epcot!

Magic Kingdom Vacation Planning HERA Pilot

One of the things I loved the most about my role was all of the opportunities that I had. Near the end of my program, I had the opportunity to be involved in a Vacation Planning pilot test. One of my managers told myself and two other Epcot CPs that we were going to be part of the Magic Kingdom HERA pilot. The three of us, along with 3 CPs from Hollywood Studios, 3 CPs from Animal Kingdom, and the Magic Kingdom CPs were going to be trained on HERA -- which stands for Handheld Entitlement and Recovery Application. This is an app on the iPad which would allow us to sell tickets and redeem will calls.

I loved being able to use the iPad to walk around and help guests!

Tourist Day

My roommates Stephanie, Tess and I had been talking about dressing up like total tourists and running around Magic Kingdom, so on our last day off all together -- that's exactly what we did! We went all out with our matching shirts, Mickey ears, MagicBands, pin trading lanyards, backpacks, fanny packs, 1st visit buttons, and upside down maps! I dragged them out of bed early in the morning so we could get there at rope drop to see the park opening Welcome Show! We met characters, rode some of our favorite attractions, and just had so much fun! We offered to take pictures of families, and even witnessed a castle proposal! I had my DSLR camera with me and took tons of pictures of this couple, and then emailed the photos to them later! We had SO much fun in the kingdom and it was a perfect way to spend the day together! Here's some of my favorite pictures from our Tourist Day!

Tourist Day in the Magic Kingdom!

Winter Formal

Every year, the Disney College Program hosts a Winter Formal for all of the internship participants. This year's formal was at the beautiful convention center at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort!  The theme was In the Courtyard of Good vs. Evil.

There was a wonderful buffet dinner, dancing, and it wouldn't be a Disney party without characters!

The character meet and greets were so much fun because the Disney villains were in attendance!  I had never met some of these characters so I loved getting to see them! Mickey and Minnie were also there in their royal attire, which was absolutely adorable!

Maleficent

Graduation Day Photo Shoot

After the DCP Graduation, some of my friends and I went to Magic Kingdom to celebrate! We had our own little photo shoot in the Rose Garden, which is one of my favorite places to take pictures in the Magic Kingdom. I absolutely love how the pictures turned out and will treasure these photos forever!

DCP Graduation Day

Today was the Disney College Program Service Celebration! The graduation is hosted by the DCP events team at one of the apartment complexes, and celebrates the completion of our program! When we first arrived, we were given our certificates, photo box gift, and our graduation Mickey ears!

I earned my ears!

Christmas Day Parade Filming

Every year, I've always watched the Disney Parks Christmas Day parade on ABC, and this year, I got to be part of the filming! The filming for the parade and concerts is done over a 3 day period at the Magic Kingdom, and also in Disneyland as well. Cast Members were able to sign up for tickets to the filming.

My roommate Jordan and I at the filming!

Main Street PAC Shift

Tonight, I got to work another Parade Audience Control shift at the Magic Kingdom! This time, my shift was on a regular operating night which meant I got to wear the famous red bow tie!

The Main Street PAC Costume

The End of the Beginning

One more month.

One month from now, I'll be on the road back to Texas, yet I'll be driving farther and farther away from my home. I won't live minutes from the most magical place in the world. I'll be leaving all of the wonderful people I've met and I'll be leaving the happiest months of my life.

And as it gets closer to the end of my Disney College Program, it's extremely bittersweet. This program has been everything I'd ever dreamed of, and so much more. But I know that if I want to get back down here permanently, this program has to end. You can bet that I'll be finishing school as fast as I possibly can, because I'm already looking forward to when I can come back to Disney!

Thanksgiving Vacation

I was so excited to have my family come join me in Disney for Thanksgiving!  Between my regular days off and giving away shifts, I was able to have the entire time off which I was so glad about! Even living in Disney, I was SO looking forward to a Disney vacation with my family!

Home for the holidays!

MVMCP #2

I got to work a Parade Audience Control (PAC) shift at the Magic Kingdom! Since my shift was on a Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party night, I got to wear the special costume too!

My roommate Stephanie also worked at the party, doing a treat shift to pass out the
hot chocolate and cookies, so of course we had to take a picture in our cute costumes!!

MVMCP #1

I went to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party with some of my friends from work and we had a blast! As Vacation Planners, we all got tickets to enjoy the party. We sell the tickets at our booths, so it's nice that we are able to have some fun through product knowledge and experience the wonderful event ourselves!

Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party!

2015-2016 Global Ambassador Panel

I had the opportunity to attend a Q&A Panel presented by the newly announced 2015-2016 Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Global Ambassador Team. This team includes the ambassadors from Disneyland Resort, Walt Disney World Resort, Disneyland Paris, Tokyo Disney Resort, Hong Kong Disney Resort, Aulani, and the soon-to be opened Shanghai Disney Resort.

This is the 50th anniversary of the Ambassador program, an initiative created by Walt Disney himself, to select Cast Members that would represent Disneyland.

The panel was an incredible opportunity to meet and hear from these Cast Members, that would be traveling the world representing our company. It was awesome to hear about what is going on across the world, in our global parks industry. These Cast Members have the high honor of representing the Walt Disney Company over the next two years, and to be a small part of their training experience was amazing.

A great morning at the Global Ambassador Panel!

Exploring Guest Service

My Exploring Guest Service class was an 8 week seminar held on Wednesday mornings from 11:00-1:00! Here is a little recap of what we learned about each week!

Week 1: Introduction
We had an overview of our course and talked about the important of guest service to the entire Disney Company. We learned about guest service soft skills and how to incorporate them in our daily operations.

Week 2: Park Operations
We had managers from Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom that shared the tasks and challenges of incorporating guest service and maintaining operational excellence throughout the entire line of park operations, including Attractions, Main Entrance, Vacation Planning, Parking, Custodial, and many other operational fields.