I've got to say even though the pay isn't extraordinary or anything, working in walt disney world is such a great opportunity. When you've told your friends you are going have any of them not reacted with utter excitement, amazement and slight jealousy?! No... because to say you are going there to live there is like one of those golden opportunities. I would think it's a lot of hassle for the people at Disney to have international people come work there... yet they have these fantastic programmes set up so we do get to have the experience of living and working there. I also think it's quite clear from the presentations you have to be a certain type of person to work there and if ur not cut out for it they are going to get rid of you... I'm probably a bit biased coz I'm real self motivated and don't really drink that much. People who don't go to work because of hangovers kind of annoy me. You know how much you're drinking and you know if you're working the next day so surely it's not hard to work around that? Have fun but don't take the mickey I say... pun not intended. Ben
i must say i agree with everything ben said in the last reply... I work for disney already, i have been there a year and never called in sick...i work all the hours god sends and i am at college full time as well...i went out once on a saturday night when i was in work on a sunday morning and it was a very bad idea...i had the worst hangover but i just thought its my own fault...get on with the day!! If you really want the job, you will do anything to keep your job open to you!! If you muck things up....then yer it is your own fault really!! However i do think some people have been a tad harsh on vader1...although he cannot expect mixed opinions from people if he is gonna start a thread about him being termed!!
Thanks Rach. I must say with vader1 it sounds like he was calling in because he wasn't really enjoying the food and beverage experience... not necessarily because he was hungover... but then the discussion turned into how acceptable it was to call in "sick". And people obviously do call in for hangovers... I think what I find amazing is there is so so much fantastic recreational stuff to do in Florida... why would people need to drink excessively to enjoy themselves? I often ponder this haha. I wish you the best in reapplying vader1 but I'd be surprised if they did rehire you... especially considering how competitive the cultural programme is. I'm sure you've learned from your experience and anyone who gets into a similar position will know they should insist on changing roles before doing anything too drastic. Ben
Ben, I completely agree with you! There is so much to do and see in Florida, why do people need to waste their time getting hammered every night? I can usderstand going out once in a while having a few wobbly pops but some people do it religiously and i don't get it at all. I much rather go shoot a round of golf, visit the parks, do Universal, Sea World, Kennedy Space Centre, hang out at one of the many beaches, road trip to the Keys, etc... If I want to waste money on alcohol, i can do that back home but I can't visit all those places back home....just my opinion...
Exactly what i think... You don't need to get wasted every night to have a good time... i must admit that being the only sober one isn't fun either...but every once in a while a few drinks...theres no problem there...although you are meant to be 21!! Haha. Good luck getting back in vader1...i was talking to my best friend who used to work there in 2003 and he said he has never seen anybody rehired...the jobs are in such high demand that they are more likely to give new people a chance!! But i wish you all the best...and maybe you will be there again soon...?!! As for everybody else...good luck...all i can say is that a lot of people can learn a lot from this thread!! Rach x
Yeah I agree with you both! I think that's why I'm most excited about going. There is a huge problem with drinking in the UK... not just amongst young people... old people as well. I think it's largely to do with the lack of recreational stuff. As you said Jboucha... it's cool having a few bevs not and again... special occasions and all that... but the most common interest in the UK has got to be "going for a drink" and I find it well boring and depressing. It's going to be nice to go somewhere with plenty of things to do and where you can find the excitement without having to be drunk!
Exactly! I know when I first started visiting this forum (waaaaay back in 2005) it was really quite nasty and people were saying how you wouldn't make friends if you didn't drink (seriously, it put me off and I was contemplating not going, but then I saw the light haha!) You're not there to get drunk and you're not there for a holiday. You're there to make the most out of your experience and Disney takes that very seriously! Think how hard it is for a company like Disney to make magic all day everyday! They need people who are dedicated to their jobs and put their work role first! I must say though, I'm glad this forum has changed for better. Ooooh it used to be viscious. http://www.wdwip.com/smf/index.php?topic=3313.0 i.e. this one...makes me laugh so much now, but it was about drinking!
Wow that would have been like injustice to Disney if u didn't go Louisa haha! By the sounds of it there should be plenty of people out there who think like me which is very cool. I guess it depends on your experiences in life. Because I've been to university, the independence side won't be new for me. I remember in my first year at uni I was like 'Woah... I can come in at 4AM drunk if I want... or... score! I can shower after 8PM without getting moaned at!'. It was pretty wikid. But then most people I knew including myself quickly got the partying out of their system in the first year. I guess people are more likely to go a bit mad over there if they haven't had that living away experience? The people who can have fun without being off their faces... I think we've got mad skills haha! To be fair I rarely even drink fizzy drinks... a can of coke is enough to make me go a bit mental haha.
Woah Louisa...some of these guys were really rude!!!!! Disney should check this site to see what's going on and anyone being nasty should be crossed off the list!!!! Haha. Well done for the things you said to them though!!! I'm reading through the whole thread and im just like OMG!!!! Keep the site friendly guys...i don't think i would want to be part of those sorts of goings on on here!!!! Keep smiling everyone...Disney is AMAZING!!! Rach x
I must admit, I was fueling it a tad, but people were being so rude and just simply being nasty to my friends! Thankfully it was locked, and I have read worse threads, but I can't stand the fact that people were being put off going to WDW because of what they had read on here. I also got the drinking thing out of the way in my first year of uni (not that I was a big drinker, I just hate the feeling of being drunk and having no control over myself!) and to be honest, a can of cherry coke will do exactly the same thing alcohol does to me. Haha they used to be some fun cruises when I had drunk a bottle before my shift (and you can blame the only vending machine in the jungle break room for that). Happy people make a happy forum. Let's keep it that way! If you've had a bad experience fair enough, explain what happened or why you didn't like it, but don't make out that it will be the same for everyone. You only have to look at the number of CM's who post on here to know that some of them must be having a good time! A for the record, I looooooove writing long posts...makes me feel important LOL
Well! I think its silly you get a point for calling in sick, there are some of us who really do get ill - especially when Disney make you work countless days with no day off! Oh wait, my day off being my day at UCF! I have just checked my record card and I have numerous half points, all from my first day of work - when our trainer was taking care of it all! So another thing I have to sort out. There's lots of things Disney didnt tell us before we came out, a lot of it is sugar coated and if I have to go to one more class to learn how to smile at guests I will shoot myself, because when I went to MK for the few hours I had free, no one smiled at me!! I love living here and the friends Ive made, dont get me wrong its very fun - just dont expect lots of fun and games all the time!!
Yea Becky I totally agree! Not to say it isn't great living out here but there are crap points...........like when all your shifts are night ones ending at between 11pm and 2am so you never see your friends! hows that for disney magic. or how you get the crappest training to the point that your trainer never shows up to train you so you get stuck doing random stuff you're not meant to. or maybe how you work for two weeks without even meeting your manager who's meant to be sorting the above out for you. Any by the way guys..............you're gonna need those drinks when you're working 35 hours a week and taking home $88 in your paycheck. fun times
See! THIS is exactly what I'm talking about! Not everyone is going to be finishing between 11pm and 2pm (I'll have you know sometimes I finished work at 5.45am...and still had time for my friends). Both my trainers were fantastic....I owe everything I learnt to them. No, the presentations don't tell you everything. That's why you have to do research! I certainly don't tell prospective applicants that everything is great and Disney is perfect, but hello! Welcome to the real world. Your Disney experience is what you make it. And if applicants choose to spend their time moaning about every single thing they don't like, then no, they are unlikely to have as much of a great time as everyone else. There were tonnes of things that bugged me, but there are thousands of other CP's, CR's and ICP's in exactly the same position. I must admit getting points for calling in is a tad...well stupid, but if they didn't have this is place, people would take it for granted and then you'd be forced to work even more hours because people were constantly going off sick. And no, it's not all fun and games, it's work, and when you signed that application form, that's what you were signing yourself up for. Rant over...it's off the airport for me :| where I get to be shouted at by passengers...try working there and see which you prefer! I'd take long hours making magic anyday!
I must say I lurked at this website a few years before actually joining and I often got the impression a lot of people (not everyone) thought they were applying for a year where they could doss around as if they were on holiday and soak up the sun... which is explicitly not the case. Sure you get to experience the Floridian lifestyle but at the end of the day what you have applied for is a job. I've seen a lot of people whine about the money over the years too... even my own father was surprised at the money. But my response to that is... what do you expect from such low skilled positions? It's pretty much equivalent to working in a retail store where you wouldn't expect anything but minimum wage right? It really confuses me when people conclude they should get paid more when if u worked sumwhere similar - you're going to be getting similar wages (and probably without the exciting atmosphere of Disney World). At my interview the girl I was with asked Kim what she liked about working for Disney and she said she liked it so much because when you do something good you get recognised for it. I see that for working for Disney in the UK after just one week and that's what makes the experience so good for me - your hard work doesn't go un-noticed. I've never worked anywhere before where I felt so appreciated. And most places I've worked at before has always had a large amount of b i t ch in, people whinging about their lives... and I often found people weren't particularly welcomed into the team... I don't know if this is the case working at Disney World but I would doubt it. Everyone was wonderful at Disney Store and it seems global across the company. If you think you can go to Disney to earn ridiculous amounts of money on one of these programmes you haven't thought about everything properly. Most people realise they are going for the experience... not only to make great friends all over the world but to have the experience of living and working in a foreign country. Not only will this benefit your personal development much more than you can imagine but it will make you more employable in the future than you realise. But remember you do have the opportunity to build a career with the company if you want to and if not... it's not like it's a job forever... just one moment in your life! Ben
I've got to add that at both my interviews for Disney Store and Disney Cruise Line they were particularly verbal about how hard the team works. My manager at Disney Store made a point of saying 'working for Disney isn't a doss. People think it's going to be fun all the time and it's real easy, but of all retail chains Disney is probably the most hardest because their standards for guest experience is so high'. And the guy at my Disney Cruise Line interview said similar things. Explained it was a long working week and while sometimes you're going to have fun creating that magic for kids, other times you might be expected to clean the area for the children or sit at a desk registering the children as they come in. He even specifically asked how I thought I would handle a 70 hour working week. I felt it was made clear to me I wasn't letting myself in for something particularly easy or exotic. These expectations date right back to Walt Disney himself though and which is why the company are built on such high expectations. It can be applied right across the company. If you did a little research on 'Snow White' you'd learn the company struggled a lot to have that film ready for its release date and the animators had to work long hours, often in unsanitary conditions... and all for creating entertainment for others.
Disney store isn't exactly the same as actually working over here, I hope you realise! To be honest, my local disney store is a heap of shit!
Yeah of course it isn't. There wouldn't be much point in going if it wasn't going to be any different :-\ I was just pointing out the same principles run throughout the company whatever it is you are doing & if you don't *get* them you might find it hard to be passionate about working there.
