Monday, November 29, 2010

Campus Representative!

My program is quickly coming to an end and I have very mixed feelings. On one hand I'm happy to go home to my family and friends (although I could do without Michigan). On the other hand I'll be sad to have to leave Disneyland, California, and all of the amazing friends I've made since I got here.

One thing that will make the departure a little easier is the fact that I was accepted as a Campus Representative! That means I will be able to keep my status with the company (including the perks) as well as be able to inject a little Disney into my boring life back in Michigan. I'm excited to share my experiences with other students, especially since I know there's a serious lack of DisneyLAND College Programers in Michigan.


Other than the awesome Campus Rep news, I also got to do a few cool things since my last post. First of all I got to tour the Disneyland Dream Suite. It was mainly used in the Year of a Million Dreams as a giveaway and it was pretty awesome. It started out as a second apartment for Walt (as I said, the first one is pretty small), but was never finished before he passed away. Eventually after housing a few other things, it was turned into a suite for a few lucky families to stay in during the Year of a Million Dreams. It had some very cool rooms that are too hard to do justice to via text. There's some pictures and videos of it on the internet, so I strongly suggest you look them up if you're interested (sadly I forgot my camera, but please enjoy the random photo Rachel took of a mirror/television).


Also (something not Disney related) I got to go to Small Gift LA! Small Gift LA was a sort of Sanrio festival celebrating their 50th anniversary. It included things like mini-golf, carnival games, and a store filled with exclusive merchandise. The one awesome thing about living so close to LA is that everything seems to happen there. I would never have opportunities like this in Michigan!

I'm doing a tour of Walt Disney Studios on Wednesday (only Disney Cast Members are allowed to do tours there), so I'll be sure to update after that (and I'll try not to forget my camera). That's all for now.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

A Very General Update

It's been way too long since my last post to try and go through the daily events that have happened to me, so instead I'll just hit the major ones.

I've gotten to do a few fun events since the last time I posted, including riding Space Mountain with the lights on, a backstage tour of Tower of Terror, and a tour of Walt's apartment.
Space Mountain isn't nearly as fun with the lights on, but I suppose it was pretty cool to see what the track looked like.
The Tower of Terror tour was pretty interesting, but really short. I get the feeling it wasn't planned very well, since our tour guides didn't really know what to talk about. I did get to walk on both of the floors that the elevator stops at though, which was pretty cool (they even played the scene out with us standing there). I also got to ride it with the lights on and realized it's much scarier that way, since you have no clue when you're going to drop.
Last but not least, Walt's apartment was another fairly cool tour. Although, I expected it to be bigger than it actually was.

As for my job, I currently have 3 locations I'm trained in within the Vacation Planning role.
The main location is the Ticket Booths, which are any of the eight booths located at the entrance to the parks. This is definitely my least favorite location as the booths are really cramped and not fun to sit in all day.
The other location I'm normally in a few times a week is Toy Story parking lot. This is definitely my favorite location, since the tickets we sell here are much simpler. We roll out carts in the morning with computers on them and try and save people from waiting in the ticket booth lines (which can get long) by selling them there tickets in the parking lot. The only difference is we only take debit/credit and don't sell any annual passes, which makes my job MUCH easier. There's also more guest interaction in this location since we also get sent out to "ambassador" by informing guests that they can purchase their tickets before they arrive at the parks.
The most recent location I've been trained in is the AP centers. There's one located in both of the parks, and essentially we take pictures for annual passes. Other than that, it's pretty much the same as the booths (although we only handle annual pass related concerns) except it's inside the parks and isn't nearly as cramped.

I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting to update on, but that's for another day since I have to get going!