Would You Like Magic with That?: Working at Walt Disney World Guest Relations

You check in for the Walt Disney World College Program (DCP) the same way your ancestors probably checked into Ellis Island. You stand in a very long line, which twists and turns through different tables with strange people sitting at them who ask you for all sorts of strange personal information. Some people are laughing joyously, while others cry hysterically. It’s an overwhelming experience, no matter how prepared you might think you are. I thought I was prepared, and even I found myself overwhelmed with emotions as I snaked around those different tables, answering questions and processing paperwork.

Back in my day, circa 2010, everything was incredibly archaic. No one could just punch my information into a computer screen and mark me as HERE. I needed to shuffle through a long, slow line as my formal introduction to the promised magic of becoming a freshly minted cast member at Walt Disney World.

Someone handed me a nametag and instructed me to write my name in big, black letters on it. I wrote ANNIE, and then I immediately smudged it. I stuck it on my shirt anyway.

The first table was to check in for the program. I needed to prove that I was, in fact, Annie Salisbury, and to do so I had to show not one, but three different forms of identification. The girl behind the desk smiled at me politely and then highlighted my name in yellow across her piece of paper. I had been highlighted. Guess that meant I had arrived.

From there, I needed to provide information about the car I would be using to not only drive around Disney World, but also park at my Disney housing complex. I handed over vehicle registration information, and I was handed back a tiny little decal that I’d have to stick on the front of my windshield. Disney wasn’t messing around with unauthorized vehicles parked in College Program housing.

Following that table, it was time to actually get a room assignment. You could go into the Disney College Program blindly and be assigned a roommate at random, or you could buddy up with someone beforehand and request to live together. Thankfully, I had connected with a girl I sort-of knew from college. We had a ton of mutual friends, though we never ran in the same social circles; but all our friends reassured us that we would get along just fine. I told this girl at the table I wanted to live with Claire. Claire hadn’t arrived at Disney World yet, so I was in charge of securing an apartment for us. One of the nicest things about the Disney College Program is that Disney provides housing, just like college.

“Are there any two-person apartments left in Patterson?” I asked the girl at this table. I had done my Disney research. I knew that Patterson was the nicest of the three apartment complexes, and that’s where I wanted to live. Claire and I had agreed that if we could get a two-person room, we’d be willing to “splurge” on the higher rent. See, just because you’re moving to Disney and working for Disney through their program, this isn’t exactly college. You have to fork over rent from your paycheck every single week to cover your housing. I know, it’s a bummer, especially since you’re making minimum wage, and they’re taking out
waaaaay
too much for rent.

That’s the first big decision for the DCP. Where do you want to live? I knew another girl who lived in a six-person at Vista Way, and she paid $97 a week for her apartment. OK, not ridiculously crazy, but take into account that her rent must be paid every week, and you might only be working 32 hours a week, at $8.75 an hour. If you think lots of people go broke working for the DCP, you’d be correct.

But, Claire and I had a little bit of savings, and we also didn’t want to deal with anyone else during our six months at Disney. We were willing to pay $130 a week to live in a two-person at Patterson. However, they were all gone. So were all the two-persons in Chatham. And so were all the four-persons in Patterson.

“Are there any four-persons left at Chatham?” I asked in a last-ditch effort. The idea of living in the run-down Vista Way flashed through my mind, and I knew I couldn’t do that. Claire couldn’t do that. If we were assigned a place at Vista, we’d probably pack up our things and go home.

“There’s a four-person with your name on it!” The girl behind the desk giggled. She highlighted something on her piece of paper, and I watched her write in my name, and then Claire’s name, in an open slot there. “You’ve already got two other roommates!”

I immediately texted Claire this news. She was still a few hours out from Orlando, and would hopefully arrive later that afternoon. She
kinda
had to arrive later that afternoon, seeing as how it was required to go through a short orientation on move-in day. Disney was going to throw everything at us in a short amount of time: first check in, then a DCP orientation, then a housing complex orientation, and then a BBQ that night.

I found my dad waiting in the check-in parking lot, and the two of us drove the short distance to Chatham. My apartment building was nestled toward the back of the property, so it sort of overlooked a small lake, which was really a retention pond, and it was actually kind of gross. Also, I’d come to learn that there were alligators swimming around inside, so the pond wasn’t just gross, it was also terrifying.

The third-floor apartment was empty when I went in, but there were signs that someone else had already been there. Like all apartments, there was a bigger room and a smaller room. This unseen roommate had already claimed the bigger room, and I cursed the heavens for letting her beat me to it. I pushed open the door to the smaller room, to find a
much
smaller room. But hey, it had two beds and it was still double the size of my last college dorm room. It couldn’t be that bad.

There was no time to unpack and get settled, though. I needed to go to this orientation. It was casual, so I could go wearing the shorts and white t-shirt I already had on. I left my dad behind in the room and set out to find a great big charter bus that would take me to Disney Casting. That’s where the magic would really begin.

If you ask me, that bus ride to Casting took at least an hour. I’d later learn that I could get to Casting in fifteen minutes flat. However, this orientation bus looped all over property for some strange reason, with some guy standing at the front of the bus who tried to hype us up. Many were still exhausted from the long trip it had taken to get to Disney World, and others were bored by his talk, since they were already on their third or fourth program. The girl sitting next to me on the bus was one of those bored participants. She must have sensed that I was a little bit excited/scared, because she leaned over and told me not to worry about anything, and that I’d be fine.

“Thanks,” I whispered, leaning back.

“Oh, but you can’t wear that nail polish,” she told me, pointing down at my hands. “That’s not Disney look.”

I examined my red-rose nail polish and wondered if I could somehow scratch it all off before I got inside Casting. I had been told time and time again through all sorts of reading material online that if I wasn’t in Disney Look, I could be dismissed from the program, no questions asked. I started to panic. Would Disney really dismiss me at hour number two of this adventure because my nail polish was a little bit too pink? There was no way I could remove it off before we got to casting. It’s not like I had bleach-blonde hair. I could hide my nails. We got off the bus, and I shoved my hands into my pockets, hoping that they could stay there for the remainder of the afternoon.

The casting building sits on the edge of Disney property — really. It’s the edge. It’s there for a reason. It’s the only Disney building you can see from the I-4 highway, because it is supposed to “bridge the gap between Disney and the real world”. Next time you’re driving down the highway, try and see if you can spot anything inside Disney. (Spoiler: you can’t.) But you can see Casting, and it’s shaped like a
bridge
to drive the point home a little bit further.

Inside, we were hurried through another long and twisting line as I hand over more documentation proving once again that I was, in fact, me. Disney had so far let me into their world, and now there was only one more thing: getting assigned a role.

I’m not here to talk about how to get that “perfect” role at Disney World — that’s a different book. But let me at least paint the picture of having said dream role in mind, and wanting it
so
much that being assigned anything else will kill you. That was me. I had my dream roles in mind: I wanted to be the driver at the Great Movie Ride, I wanted to be a Jungle Cruise skipper, or I wanted to open the door at the Haunted Mansion and coo, “Step lively, foolish mortals.” Those were my dreams.

I read online that you could actually e-mail Disney and ask to be placed in a certain role for your DCP. There was no guarantee, of course, but they’d at least note it in your file. I knew my role would be somewhere in attractions (read: the rides); I just didn’t know where. I wouldn’t know till I checked in. Over the summer, I sent this e-mail to Disney:

I apologize in advance if I’m not using the correct e-mail address for this. I have been accepted for the Fall Semester in the program for attractions and I’m so excited to start. I’ve heard from others in the program that I can submit a sort of “preference” form as to where I would like to be placed — though I know there are no guarantees. Where I’d like to be placed I’ve heard referred to as “speaking roles” at such attractions like the Jungle Cruise, Haunted Mansion, or the Great Movie Ride. I’ve had a lot of theater experience and I feel completely comfortable addressing large groups of people, especially while portraying a character.

Thank you so much, and I look forward to my arrival!

This is the response I got back:

We will note your preferred work location in your file. Please understand that this in no way guarantees that you will be placed in this location, and you must be open to working in any location within your offered line of business. A number of factors go into placing each candidate, but we do take your requests into account.

Thank you and have a magical day!

Disney College Recruiting

So, you know, I felt pretty good about myself. I felt that out of everyone entering into the DCP, how many of them had sent Disney an e-mail asking to work somewhere specific? There couldn’t be that many, right? Right?

I was in a group of about 30 new DCP cast members. We were ordered to stand in a single file line, in alphabetical order by last name. I found myself near the end of the line, of course, and watched as new CP after new CP got their new work location. It happened like this: the Disney cast member assigned to hand out work locations would walk up to you, ask you to confirm your name, and then handed you a sticker that you would place on your program file binder (oh, yeah, by the way, through all of this I was also carrying with me an obnoxious binder that was supposed to hold important Disney stuff. But it’s not really important.)