Ever since checking in at Disney's Port Orleans Riverside hotel at Walt Disney World about 10 years ago, when meeting a girl at the check-in counter who also happened to be from the Netherlands, I knew there was a possibility to somehow work at WDW. Even before deciding on Attractions Theme Parks Management as college major, the idea of working at Disney has always been in the back of my head.
About a month and a half ago, the application for Disney finally started. The program is called the Academic Exchange Program and therefore I will also follow some classes about once per week. The program is set up by JummyJobs and linked to Central Michigan University in order to be able to arrange a student visa etcetera.
Filling in many forms online, deciding on my preference of roles were part of the application. In the beginning of October, someone from YummyJobs, the English company which functions as an intermediary, came to NHTV to give a presentation and to conduct an introductory interview with groups of 4. More and more paperwork followed and then the date of the interview with Disney Recruiting was finally there: the first of November. This interview was held via a program similar to Skype and many different questions were being asked: past work experiences, why working for Disney, role preferences and so on. Beforehand I actually wasn’t very nervous for the interview, however while being at school, and having the interview as the very last one of the group, I slowly became a bit nervous. During the interview, which was actually not scary and even relaxing in some way, I luckily became less nervous. After concluding the interview, I left school with a pretty good feeling. Of course, you never know and we were told we wouldn’t hear anything until end of the week or the start of next week. I very much expected to hear from Disney Recruiting the week after, so I was very surprised when they already had sent out the acceptance emails Thursday night, a little over two days after the interview. When waking up Friday morning at 8.30 am I already noticed something in the WhatsApp Disney group with classmates, so I decided to check my email and there it said:
Congratulations!
At this point I did not know my roles yet, in the list we had to fill in prior to the interview I had:
High interest: Front Desk, Concierge and Vacation
Moderate Interest: Role rotation (Quick Service Food and Beverage, Attractions and/or Merchandise) + Role rotation (Quick Service Food and Beverage and Full Service Food and Beverage)
Low interest: Character performer, Costuming and Lifeguard
In the days before the interview with Disney Recruiting I realized that it doesn’t really matter what role you get, as I knew the role to get most likely was Role Rotation. Food and Beverage was a role I would’ve liked not to do, but I would've accepted the offer anyway.
So when clicking the link for role rotation I discovered I had Role Rotation: Merchandise and Attractions! I’m very happy with these roles and also glad to have higher chance of getting a role in one of the parks. The location of the role you do not find out any earlier than the first few days in Orlando. Attractions roles can be placed in the theme parks, water parks or the Disney Springs area and could range from working at an actual ride to parade audience control and main entrance operations and so on. Merchandise roles can vary from stocking to cash register to stroller rental and so on.
As in park preference, I would really not know which park to pick. I think all parks have something amazing that the other parks don’t have. If EPCOT’s World Showcase would’ve had a Netherlands Section, than I would’ve definitely applied to work there, but that would’ve been for the Cultural Representative Program which I unfortunately cannot participate in because there is no Netherlands pavilion in EPCOT. I love EPCOT’s Soarin and TestTrack, Hollywood Studios’ Tower of Terror and Rock ‘n Roller Coaster, Animal Kingdom’s Expedition Everest and Magic Kingdoms Splash Mountain, so its very difficult to have preference. And since I have no influence at all in this, I’m up for the surprise! Usually when you work at one park for role 1, they keep you in the same park for role 2, because you of course have already a lot of knowledge of the park. Apparently with Merchandise it is also possible to pick up extra shifts at other locations, so hopefully I will be able to do that a couple of times to also experience other locations!
After finding out that I had been accepted, I accepted the offer and now the time has come to arrange everything from flights to visa and more! The program dates are from January 23rd until July 6th 2017 and I will likely depart to Orlando a few days earlier. That will be something for the next update….
