Done-zo!

The end has finally come. No more meeting people from all around the world on a daily basis. No more going to the parks for free. No more discounts. No more organizing hundreds of pictures into albums. No more little lizards to watch out for on the sidewalks. (which are so darn cute!) No more speaking Spanish. No more crazy costumes to wear. No more gorgeous palm trees. No more having 5 roommates. No more driving around Disney property and getting paid for it. No more meeting new people daily. No more.

What did I come back to?
School, work, family, and friends.  (At least the latter isn't so bad!)

What a transition. Drove back home and stayed one night, then drove the next day to school and started working! Not exactly what I would call "magical".

So obviously being back is bittersweet. It's overwhelming to see everyone I love and getting back into the swing of things, but obviously the first question I am asked is, "How was Disney!?!?"  I anticipated this, as this is natural, however, I did not think prior to how I was going to answer this crucial question. How do I accurately portray the past 4 months without going into years of stories?  There was so much I learned and I didn't want to come off as "Oh just great! It was awesome!" as a generic response, because it deserved much more than that.

I say this for a few reasons. First of all, as mentioned in previous blogs, I had tons of opportunities not even my roommates had.  Even cast members I worked with who have been at Disney for 20+ years were asking me questions about what I saw and did. To me, that says something. To give me, a temporary worker, those jobs over people who have been there for years, said a lot to me. I still can't exactly formulate a response to how Disney was, because as everyone knows, I loved it. It was more than I imagined. Yes, some people hate it, but it's mostly because they are selling funnel cakes or are cleaning rooms and that's not their cup of tea.  Mind you, you also get a say in where you'd like to work, so that's their choice. But it's incredibly hard to explain because obviously, I was the only one who witnessed it all. It is just amazing to know that I was one of seventy thousand cast members who work for Disney that only nine did the job I did, including being in charge of packages for twenty-seven resorts.  If you look at it in that sense, now that speaks volumes!

I never would cry over seeing Mickey or the Castle. I never got sucked into the "magical" aspects as much as others did, or had 14 different Disney princess pillows on my bed. I hardly even knew who the princesses were before I got there. (and still kinda don't..) But I will say that I did fall in love with the history, guest service, and creation of Disney itself. To be able to see all that I did on a daily basis boggled my mind. The last thing I want others to think is that Disney is exclusive to kids and too "childish" for them. Because as I have seen first-hand, there's so much more than that. I would say probably 95% of career paths could be an employee under Disney, so it's not just all about princes and princesses.

Disney is the largest entertainment company in the world and also has 4 cruise ships. Just by this simple fact alone, you know Disney is doing something right to keep people coming back for more. I love the way that they treat others as individuals and they continue to remind cast members of how important that is. They continue to have training for cast members who have been there 30+ years. This is still to keep reminding them that it may just be another day at work to you, but to the kids you come into contact with, they may just remember you for the rest of their life.  Evidently, Disney isn't cheap. Some families go every year, whereas some save for 10+ years to have the opportunity to go. It's extremely easy to forget that if that's where you work every day.


I can see why having Disney on a resume is extremely eye-catching to employers simply because of the way we are treated and treat others. Of course not every cast member is perfect and Disney is still a money-making business. But overall, if local companies were to treat their customers with the same values as Disney did, I can guarantee their businesses would change drastically.


I still learned a lot from being there and it is comforting to have future job opportunities. They do have fitness internships from June-January at their gym doing fitness testing and running some classes. I'm very interested in that, although I heard the spots are extremely limited.  My roommate is also interested and going into Education. She saw that she could teach children about birds at Animal Kingdom, or take them on field trips and teach them about inertia and outer space while going on Space Mountain! Sounds like fun, aye?


So we will see where God takes me. I would love to go back to witness the "Florida winter", but also because of all the insanely large parades they have and Christmas lights! I've seen pictures of all the lights and it looks gorgeous. Just to give you an idea..




Next year would be the only time I could do a professional internship because you have to be in college when you apply.  As of now, I will be graduating next May, therefore will be completely free and open to pursue this in June. It's an added bonus that it's towards my career path and will give me more experience.


So until next time!  If I do end up going back next year (which everyone wants me to so I can get them discounts!), then I will definitely blog again.  But since my life isn't as exciting as seeing floats and parades every day, I'm not too sure this blog will be either!
Thanks to those who took an interest and read.  I know a few more people doing the internship and if any one has any questions, please don't hesitate.  There is still SO much more information and videos I have that I didn't go into details on that I would love to share.  You can e-mail me at swaner@mail.gvsu.edu for anything.


Take care and have a "magical" summer ! ;)

Behind the Scenes, Part 2

Well after being on that buddy ^^, it sure is hard to come back to reality!  And even more reality knowing I'm coming back to work my last day possibly ever working for Disney, pack, and go home to take a class.  Why does the fun have to end?!

Hopefully you all enjoyed the snip-its from the last blog of the different rides and a little bit of how they operate. The rest of this information are just random facts because I just wrote down what I wanted.  It's going to be a longer post, so bare with me if you want to know the inside scoop. I put myself in your shoes, and I think that this would be very interesting so I wanted to include a lot.

• When Disneyland opened in California, it was a mess. You would think since it's Disney it would be perfect, but this was definitely not the case. Since this was the first park ever opened, they obviously had a lot of trials-and-errors. They often called it "Black Sunday" because of how horrible the day went.  First, they were planning on an exclusive 30,000 guests coming by invite-only.  They ended up with twice as many people with over 60,000.  Because of this, they ran out of every food and drink they had since they weren't expecting this great turnout.  The rides weren't tested properly, so lots of them were breaking down.  On top of that, they planned the opening day too soon.  Incredibly too soon.  Too soon that the asphalt that they put down the night before hadn't dried and women that were walking in their heels (heels to a park?! yeah right.) left and permanently imprinted their heel-print!!! Imagine that! That would never happen nowadays, but it's funny to look back to compare.
   
• Everything is a "show" as I have mentioned in the beginning of my blogging. It's part of the show by having the train in front of the castle so that there is no possible way to see the castle before entering the park. As they describe it, you don't want to see your best act first! They also scaled down the buildings in mainstreet. Some buildings are full scale, then 2nd story is 60%, and 3rd story is 40%. This was really neat because if they would have made them all to full-scale, then the castle would have looked incredibly smaller and that would have made it look less significant. The Contemporary (resort) was also built specifically to block mainstreet. The castle was also extremely hard to build since there are different building codes for Osceola/Orange county but now WDW has their own.
   
• There is a reason for everything, which is another fact I love. The different "lands" (Adventureland, Fantasyland, etc.), are all well surrounded by their themes. For example, you would not find palm trees in Liberty Square because that just doesn't make sense. However, we were shown how landscape was intricately placed to make you really feel like you were going into another land. Every land has their "landmark" they see from afar.  Tomorrowland you see Astro Orbiter, etc. Adventureland, however, does not have one. Why? Because it's an adventure and you don't know what to expect until you get there!
• Liberty Square I had a special interest in. The Liberty Tree is the main focus. It weighs 35 tons and there are 13 lanterns on it for the 13 colonies for way back when. The building right in front of it is the Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe. The shutters on it are crooked. This is because in the olden days, they had leather straps for their shutters and because leather stretches, their shutters would be crooked! Again, you'd never notice this unless you literally looked for it and who stands around and just wanders in Magic Kingdom?
• There are also no public restrooms you will find in Liberty Square. They are in both lands surrounding it, but not actually in Liberty Square. This is because there were no public restrooms back then! Our tour guide explained that after they finished their "business", the person would take their bucket and scream "guardy-loo" out the window, which meant you are to watch out because if not their poo would go right on you! (that rhymed). In addition, the pathway right outside the window has a different colored cobblestone pathway, which is supposed to represent the person throwing away their poo! Again, you would never notice that.

• Magic Kingdom goes through 80,000 lbs of trash PER DAY.  Although, there is a misconception. I also thought that every trash can you placed something in automatically sucked it into a huge pit where all the trash goes.  This is thankfully incorrect. The trash bins are all regular trash cans--but not THIS one!!..  

Ha. Anyways, the custodial team takes all the regular bins and empties them into a special bin which then sucks it all down underneath where the "tunnel" is. (I'd post pictures of the tunnel because I know everyone is curious, but I'm pretty sure I'd get fired ASAP!)  But good thing not every trash can automatically does travels to a huge dumpster because if you drop something by accident, such as a guest's wedding ring we retrieved! (don't know how that happened), then it'd be gone forever!

• Epcot was originally supposed to be a city, not a park.
   
• They paint most buildings that are offstage or just for cast members by a paint called "Go away green".  This is because it blends in with mostly everything.  That way, since you're not supposed to see it, it'll blend in and you won't think it's not supposed to be there.
  
• The electrical parade has 8 miles of cable in length. Every 7th bulb belongs to one strand.  This way if a bulb goes out, it will be hard to notice as your eyes are attracted to the light.  If a strand goes out, you won't see an entire patch of lights out. Pretty smart!
  
  
• Pirates of the carribean we actually heard a lot more about.  It originally was supposed to be a museum, but then guests actually asked why WDW didn't have anything pirate-like.  WDW first thought that Florida had too many things that were pirate-like so they did not include anything. However, when guests continuously asked, they listened and put this ride in. It was Walt's last ride he ever got to work on before he passed.

• The most intriguing aspect about Pirates of the Carribean ride is the room of the skeletons playing chess. There are 2 lines to get into the stand-by line of Pirates. Only one side views this picture. The story behind this is pretty humorous.  Being the non-avid chess player that I am, I never paid attention to where the pieces were placed. 

                 Apparently the pirates are in a "stalemate".  This means that neither of them can make a move without losing.  They are both in a lose-lose situation.  Because pirates are so stubborn, this picture shows the stubbornness of pirates.  They played to their death since neither would make a move, leaving them as skeletons! Pretty funny, aye?




Quite a lot of information, but I know people were asking me about it, so here ya go!

Mostly one more bloggy after this, then I'm outta hereee!