First Day Flying Solo

So today was my first day "flying solo." It was pretty uneventful, as they have trained us very well.

I suppose I should inform the audience what exactly it is that I do as I believe I have neglected to do so in prior posts. SO, my official title is Conservation Education Presenter, AKA Education Presenter or just Presenter... depends on how lazy the person talking is (I usually say Education Presenter, so that only makes me half lazy). Our job is to staff the six Kids' Discovery Clubs (KDCs) throughout the park. At each KDC there is a different "task" a child has to complete that has a certain conservation message associated with it. We also act as animal "interpreters" and teach guests about some of the animals around the park. My favorite activity is actually something we do in the morning. Each team member either has a bug, a prop, or an animal position and try to slow the guests down when first arriving. This is called awakenings, to try and open guests eyes to all the the natural wonder there is to see at DAK. We do not get through to everyone as some are just in the mad rush to get to Everest, but I will let you in on a little secret. Everest's wait first thing in the morning is never long... neither is the mountain going anywhere. So, if you visit DAK and are first in line in the morning, please stop and take a moment to look around at all of the beauty there is to see at Disney's Animal Kingdom.

So today there was a group of boys... all brothers and of various ages. The youngest was probably around 8 or so and the oldest had to be around 15 or 16. The oldest was obviously too old for the KDCs, but he was still doing the activities with his younger brothers, and they all seemed to be enjoying themselves. This really touched me because the day before there was a similar situation. Only this time the oldest brother was "too cool" to do the activities, so the younger brothers who were starting to do the activities were suddenly uninterested after their older brother did not want to do them. I just thought it was very honerable for the other older brother to actually participate with his brothers, and have a good time doing it.

I think I am also becoming acclimated to the climate here in Florida, which is not a good thing. Today the high was 62, and I was FREEZING! If I was back home and the high was 62 I would be in a t-shirt and shorts and ready to hit the beach... today I was bundled up with a heavy coat, and wishing I had a hat and some gloves. Very sad indeed.

Other than that I am looking forward to seeing my aunt and uncle down there in the next few days... I just hope they remember I am down here! It is supposed to rain all week with the exception of Wednesday... so at least they will get one sunny day.

Hope everyone has a Magical Week! :-)

Wishes

Tonight we went to the Magic Kingdom to see Wishes. This was my first Disney fireworks display (actually seeing the fireworks in the park). It was a very good display, and the best choreographed fireworks display I have seen in my life! I would recomend anyone who is coming to Walt Disney World to come and see it... it is worth the crowds to see the display against the castle.

This Work is HARD!

I do realize it has been a while since my last post... but to be honest I have not had too much time to post anything new. I have been going to bed around 9pm... and for those of you who know my sleep schedule this is at least 5 hours earlier then I went to sleep back home. So the only time I have found I can post anything is during my day off... which I have today off! :-) (and yes I did sleep in this morning...which was heaven).

So... I am not sure where I left off, so I will just ramble about a few things:

I am almost finished with training. The classroom training was finished on Monday, and then we had two days of group shadowing with a core team leader. We now have two days of pair work days, and then on Sunday I will be set off on my own. The training program was pretty daunting, but I think it did prepare me well. I am learning the ins and outs of the park, but I am still a little unsure of where the smoking sections are, so that is something I need to work on (among other things).

One day this past week (I think Monday) we had our group team builder. We all rode Everest together, went to dinner at McDonnald's, and then played some mini-golf. And speaking of McDonnald's... none of the McDonnalds on Disney property have a dollar menu... not cool. The guy who worked there just looked at me like I had two heads when I tried to order a McChicken. But overall it was a fun night. I am starting to make some friends with the people in my program.

Now that I am in the park I am having a lot more fun. Having the guest interactions is really a rewarding experience. The hard part is trying to communicate with the guests who don't speak any English, which seems like half the people in the park. We were told that the average presenter will talk to about 250,000 people during the course of a six month period. I can't fathom talking to that many people, but I have already talked to 1,000 people or close to it. Not all of them are in depth conversations, but some are. I met a lot of people from Maryland, and some from Frederick. It is cool to talk to those people and share stories. One of them was an older couple who grew up in Mount Airy, and we were talking about how Mount Airy has changes so much since they were kids.

I am also getting my walk on. In a two day period I have walked 10.2 miles... which is about the average. DAK is so huge, and we have to walk from one end of the park to another several times a day, which is very tiring. When I get home I just want to sleep, and it is very hard to get out of bed in the morning (harder that it normally is for me). We have been told that we will adjust to it, which I am hoping will be soon.

To answer last weeks trivia question there are about 103,000 leaves on the Tree of Life (minus a few from the hurricanes).

This weeks Trivia Question... How many plant species are at Disney's Animal Kingdom, and how many individual plants are at the park?

Hope all is going well up north. I do get homesick on my days off. I miss most of the people at the firehouse, and of course my parents and family. Hope to see everyone in March!

Have a Magical Week!

Goats May Not be as Stupid as One Once Thought

Well, this concludes my first week of training. I surmise the best way to start this off is that I have only been here for 9 days, and it seems like I have been here for months. I am not sure why, and it's not a bad thing, just hard to believe I have only been here for nine days. Since the last post we have been working on some different trainings. We went over the Kid's Discovery Clubs (KDCs) and how to operate them, as that will be one of my major roles. We also did "interpretation" training, which I am still not 100% sure of the point of doing that. Several times we also got to go on some of the major attractions so that we could know what the experience was like, so we could properly inform our guests of how the attraction is. I think it was more to break up the day, but that was their rationale behind having us ride some of the rides. The only thing better than riding rides at Disney is having Disney pay you to ride the rides.

There is still a lot of back stage stuff I need to get used to... as if it was not hard enough to navigate through the on stage areas, I have to learn to navigate through the back stage areas as well, and there is no map for that. It is also neat getting to see the animal handlers work with the animals, which brings me to the title of this post. We were walking back from lunch the other day, and the goat handler was working with the goats. She could call the goats by their names and they would come over to her. When she said "speak" they would bleat.... it was quite amazing. For those of you who thought goats were stupid, including myself, this goes to show you even goats can be trained well. I just wish I could have trained my sheep to do this for the shows... I would have won grand champion for showmanship for sure!

The other side of being backstage is a little awkward, and that is seeing the characters backstage. I do not think I can talk about it too much, but I will say it is "different," to say the least. It is really neat though, on a side note, they that cell towers around the park, and Disney has camouflaged them to look like trees. I had to take a tripple check to make sure it was a cell tower or not. I don't think you can even notice it from the park, but maybe you could from the Lodge, if you were looking hard enough.

I have also developed a new project. For those of you who do not know Disney has the Disney World Wide Conservation Fund. Through this fund Disney has donated millions to different conservation efforts. Guests can donate money to the conservation fund, and receive a button at various locations throughout Disney World. My goal is to collect them all. The only one I am going to have trouble getting is the Disney Cruise Line one, because one can't simply walk onto the ship. The second one to get would be Disney's Vera Beach resort, which is about an hour and a half away, but this is more feasible than the Disney Cruise Line one.

I visited Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge yesterday to get the button from there, and to see the lodge. It is a very impressive resort to say the least. All of the theaming is just impressive. Unfourtunatly, they were sold out of the buttons, but I did find safari Pooh... which was exciting. Even more exciting was being able to use my Disney Discount for 50% off.

I think that about wraps the week up. If I think of anything else I will add it. I have Saturday and Sunday off this week, which is very nice. My regular days off, however, will be Wednesday and Thursday, starting in February.

Disney Fun Fact:
How many leaves are on the Tree of Life in Disney's Animal Kingdom? ....Stay tuned for the answer.

Bad News Bears... or SPIDERS that is!

Today began my seven day training for the Conservation Education Presenter Team. There are twenty of us total... which is a lot more than I had originally thought. The goal of this training is to get us acquainted with the policies and procedures of everything having to do with DAK operations, as well as within the Animal Programs itself. This was a very long training (8 hours) but it went by really fast. I also learned some very bad news... Disney has over TEN different species of spiders and tarantulas, all of which I will have to present to the guests... I do not have a choice :-( ... I really do not know how I am going to do it. Besides that the conservation education team will provide conservation messages to over one million guests within the six month time... that is a lot of people, but it is good the we have the ability to provide conservation messages to do many people, and apparently people actually go home and do some of the actions to make the earth a better place for wildlife and wild places.

I also learned a little more about the numbers, as far as employees go... Disney cooperation employs over 115,000 people world wide. Of those 115,000 people about 60,000 (after the "staffing reductions") work solely at Walt Disney World Resort... which includes all four parks, Down Town Disney, and all of the Disney Resort Hotels... which is apparently the only company world wide to employ so many people in a single location. Part of the Disney guest experience is because of the large number of cast members Disney does employ in their parks.

Other than that I learned over the past few days that people in Florida do NOT know how to drive.... there is no such thing as defensive driving down here... whether they are residents or not, as soon and you cross the boarder something much trigger to become a bad driver. And no one (for the most part) obeys the speed limit... and that is included on both sides of the spectrum. There are those who go incredibly too fast, and those who just poke along... enjoying the scenery I surmise. I, of course, obey all traffic laws, which makes me a target it seems for getting the toot of the angry horn blown at me... and of course the one finger salute.... I surmise there is still a learning curve for me down here. :-/

But I will continue my training none the less, and continue how to convey conservation messages and provide the Disney level of customer service.

DAKlimation

Today was my DAKlimation... or the orientation to Disney's Animal Kingdom (DAK) as a whole. This was for all new interns who would be working at DAK. So the majority of the day was spent touring the park, both on stage and off... on stage refers to any areas where there could be guests. Off stage is any "back stage" areas where there are no guests present. I do not know if this is true for all of the parks, but there really was a lot of thought put into DAK... with every little detail. For instance, if you have been to Walt Disney World and have visited the four parks there is something associated with each park. For Magic Kingdom it is Cinderella's castle, EPCOT is Spaceship Earth (the ball), Hollywood Studios is "the hat," and Animal Kingdom is the tree of life. When you walk into Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and EPCOT those structures are the first things you see. If you notice, when one walks into Animal Kingdom the first thing he or she sees is "the oasis" which is more of a jungle looking thing, not the tree of life. This is because imagineers wanted people to take their own adventure while visiting Animal Kingdom, so the oasis represents wild places. Also, when DAK first opened there were no signs to point people in the right direction of where they may want to go... this was also because of the philosophy of people taking their own adventures. Well, this didn't work out, and imagineers had to develop signs to place throughout the park because people were just roving in circles.

DAK is also the largest park of the four, Magic Kingdom could actually fit inside the savanna area... which is pretty cool. We also got to take a somewhat backstage tour of the safari ride, and get the inside scoop of how the keep the animals in the guests views, and no it's not just feeding logs.... Also the Safari ride has the largest hidden Mickey found in any Disney park in the world (so look for it the next time you are there).

The backstage area for DAK is also pretty huge. They have to house all of the animal enclosures, and facilities back stage, but there is also a lot of open area. DAK does not have any tunnels, so cast members actually ride bikes from place to place to get around more quickly.

We concluded the day with Safety in Motion... which is a course on how to properly lift things, and to keep your arms in the "green zone." They conducted this study at Disney Land, and found that work related injuries were reduced by 70% after cast members went through the training, so it is no mandatory for all cast members to go through every year. We also learned about the Disney basics of customer service... which everyone at camp training will have the pleasure of learning about during my training session ;-)

Overall it was a productive day. I get the day off tomorrow because it is a holiday, and they do not want to pay us for the holiday to do training, so I get the day off. The following day will begin my Conservation Education Presenter training.

Disney Traditions

The first official day of any cast member begins with his or her traditions class. During this class one learns about the past, present, and future of the Disney Company.

It was actually an interesting class. I learned a lot of Disney history that I did not know before. For instance, the first animated character Walt created was Oswald the rabbit. The company he was working for (now Universal) told Walt that they were taking Oswald and all but one of his staff, and he needed to leave. On the train ride home Walt created Steamboat Willie. Do you know what Walt wanted to call Mickey before his wife vetoed it?

There are lots of other interesting Disney facts. We also got to take a tour of Magic Kingdom (MK) and go through the utilidors (the underground tunnels). It was pretty neat... reminded me of a walkway a stadium would have. They also have several carts for EMS stored underground (they use LP 12's in anyone was wondering). There are four words every cast member must go by and in that order: Safety, Courtesy, Show, and Efficiency. Safety (or Safe-D as it's called) is always the number one priority, and there are a ton of safety measures in place that the guests do not realize.

After traditions we were supposed to get an hour lunch before more training, but that didn't happen. So we completed 2 hours of computer training, and then got our costumes. Tomorrow I will have my Declamation, which is the tour of Animal Kingdom (DAK) as a whole. Disney's training is three fold: The company as a whole, the park at which you will be working, and then the individual program you will be doing.

Here are some Pictures of the Apartment

First Day

So I started out the day very nervous to say the least. I arrive fifteen minutes prior to when I am supposed to arrive, because they always say "early is to be on time..." But when I arrived I was just told to "stage" in an adjacent parking lot. No biggie really. The first day consisted mostly of standing around in lines... which believe it or not Disney has the whole line thing down to a science ;-)

The apartment is nice. All of the Professional Interns are placed in Patterson Court, which is the newest of the four Disney apartment complexes. I will try and post pictures later (When I get around to it). My five roommates seem really cool... they are all very different of one another, but for the most part the first impressions are good...

I did not sleep at all Wednesday night, so I think I will retire early tonight. I have the day off tomorrow, which will consist of a trip to WalMart, and trying to locate the Disney University. Saturday will consist of my "traditions" class, and my first offical work day as a Disney Cast Member!

The Start

Many people have asked me to keep them posted on my internship, so I thought the best way to do that was to start a blog... this is my first attempt at "blogging" so forgive me if I seem like an amateur at this.

I guess the best place to start is the drive down here... I honestly was not that bad, once it was over. While actually sitting in the car it seemed like it would never end. The worst was driving through South Carolina. Once I entered a new state I stopped for gas (even if I did not need it)... the exception being Florida. It was helpful talking to Margie every now and then, and also not to constantly be looking at the "miles left" and "time left" meters on the GPS... as tempting as it was. I did notice the states that had the most police patrols were Virginia and Georgia... Georgia even beat Viriginia... but I don't know if that is due to the time (it was roughly 7-8am when I was traveling through Georgia).

I arrived in Orlando in just over 12.5 hours (and no I never exceeded 9 mph over the posted speed limit). The hotel is nice... there is hardly anyone here, however. I ate dinner by myself both night (and when I say by myself I mean I was the only one in the restaurant). At least I do not have to worry about the neighbors making all kinds of noise. :-)

The first night I tried to find my appartment complex so I would know where I would be going on Thursday. So I set off (it was about 1am) in search of the apartment complex. I looked at the maps before I left and thought the hotel I choose was next door... well apparently I cannot read a map well. So I drive toward where I think the apartment should be... I end up on one of Florida's toll road (apparently there are toll roads all over this place)... long story short, I pay about $5 in tolls and make it back to the hotel. I decide I am hungry and order a Pizza. It sounded like a good idea at the time. I would save some money and eat the pizza for dinner and lunch the following day as well. So it is now 2:30am and the pizza arrives, and I have to go pick it up outside. As soon as the delivery guy arrives a Florida Highway Patrolman pulls up beside him. I had no idea what was going on. I figured he was probably speeding or something. The officer asked me if I got a flier from under my door (and I did) so I said yes. The then began questioning the delivery guy... and I was just standing there... I didn't know if I could go or not. He then said I could go... and he was asking the guy for his license and asking him if he knew it was illegal to put fliers under hotel room doors. It was not worth it... it was literally the worst pizza I have ever had in my life! Such a disappointment.

I later looked up where the road the apartment complex was with the help of Google maps (and if you're wondering why I just didn't put the address of the apartment complex in my GPS and had to Google it, the reason would be because Disney never provided the address of the apartment complex... would have been nice if they did!) I find the road the apartment is off of... and apparently the hotel is off of FL 536 and the apartment is off of 535... I didn't notice the difference when booking. I did locate the apartment tonight, and the Sheraton is right next door... so I should have stayed there, and it would have been cheaper too... Oh well... Life lesson... the little details make a big difference, and don't order food from a flier that was slipped under your hotel room door. :-)

So, today is my first day working for Disney. I get to meet my roommate(s) and see the place where I will be living for the next six months.

I will try and keep this updated as interesting things happen... if they happen.

Have a Magical Day!