Disney Disney Disney Part 4

Here is the last part of my Disney blog.

As my program was nearing end, I was trying to cram everything into the last month and a half I was there. I spent majority of my holidays, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Years apart from my family. I even spent my birthday at Disney.

While I couldn't spend the holidays with my immediate family, I spent them with my Disney family. When I first left, I never imagined that people I was only going to spend six months with would become my family. They really made a huge impact on my life. We had a huge Christmas Even dinner and party and it was great to spend so much time with such amazing people.

I spent a lot of time at the Polynesian beach at the Polynesian resort during my nights when I would get off work late with my friends. Towards the end of my program, Disney had a graduation for all of its college program interns. It was said that by half of my program, half of the people in the program either left because they self-termed or got termed from the company. Those numbers surprised me. Below are images from my Disney "Graduation" 

After this day I had finally earned my "ears". 

My days in Florida wrapped up and I was soon headed on a plane back home and headed back to college. The last night I clocked out, the computer screen read like it had any other night, thank you for helping create the magic with an image of mickey mouse on the screen. The entire plane ride home I cried because I didn't want to have to say goodbye to Disney, my friends that I had made or my roommates. It all happened so fast and I never would have thought leaving would have had that effect on me. I wanted to stay there forever... but I knew that I had an education back home to return to and a family and friends who were home missing me. 

Before I left, I was afraid that being down there would change me and change who I was. In fact it had, but the changes that had occurred, made me who I am today. I learned so much through this experience. I learned that change can be good. You never know what you can do until you take the chance. I learned what it was like to live on my own and away from my friends and family. I spent six months creating myself and finding out who I was or what I was. I really enjoyed Disney, the upbeat life, the craziness and hectic environment that I encountered while I was there. I had fun on my days off, I worked hard on the days I worked, and I grew as a person during the entire experience. 

It's almost been a year now since I left Ohio to Florida for my program. I do not think about Disney as much as I did when I first got back (in a snow storm I must remind you). However, I think about it quite often and I'll pull out old pictures and smile at all the wonderful memories I had created. There is not enough words I can use to describe how incredible and amazing this experience was. I would never go back in time and change anything that had happened. I never saw myself pursuing a career with Disney until my College Program. My next goal is to score a Professional Internship with Disney and move my way up to work full time there with something relating to Communication or English. 

I would tell you what my favorite memory of my college program was, but I cannot narrow it down while I was there. All of them were incredible. I'll never forget the first time I saw the Disney castle. It was truly incredible. 

I would say that I'm crazy that I have incredible amount of Disney post depression but by the reactions from others, I decided that I am not. All of my roommates and friends feel the same way. Also, I am posting this link about Disney post depression from one of my favorite vloggers. I attached a link below: 

Disney Post Depression Vlog

That is the end of my Disney adventure blog... I think highly of Disney, despite some of the downfalls and cons about it. The Disney College has by far been the best adventure of my life and there is not a day that I don't wish I was working for Disney! Hopefully this blog will encourage you to take chances, do what you want to do and maybe even become interested in the Disney College Program. 

All of the images used in this blog are my own personal images. 

Disney Disney Disney Part 3

After I had checked in and unpacked, I had spent some time to make new friends and get to know my roommates. I had five other roommates. My actual roommate who I shared a room with was named Taylor and she was from Idaho. Two of my roommates, Shelby and Jess were from different parts of Texas. My other roommate Sierra was from Arizona and my last roommate Brennan was from Missouri. I was the only one out of my roommates who didn't have to adjust to the new time schedule. It was quite the adjustment living with people who lived on the other side of the country. I had never been to the west before, so it was nice having friends from all over. Unlike a lot of housing complexes, my roommates and I mostly got along and it was a great time! Yeah there were times were we butted heads, some of us cleaned more than others, some of us were home more than others and we all had our differences. The best part of this was that none of us got termed and we all lived together until the very end of our program.
Here is a photo of my roommate Taylor, my friend Victoria and I at our very first time at Magic Kingdom.

Unlike my roommates I had never been to Disney before. It was a wake up call for me. When my roommates were all talking about Wishes, Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, some of the rides, the foods, and everything else that wrapped up with Disney I was like what the hell are they talking about. After awhile I learned all of that lingo and what they had talked about. I was not used to a place being so incredibly busy with thousands of people there everyday.

Disney has their own type of language. I learned that MK was Magic Kingdom.
After working for Disney, I learned that EPCOT was not only a park. It meant that Every Paycheck Comes On  Thursday.
CP means College Program
Guest means a customer at Disney
Cast Member is one who works for Disney.
Disney's motto is based upon four keys: Safety, Courtesy, Efficiency and Show
I'll never forget their over dramatized saying: SAFE-D begins with ME
ER is an early release
DAK is Animal Kingdom

One of my favorite things ever was that Thursday's Chic Fila had buy one get one free. It was almost heaven to me.

There is so much I can go on about Disney and working for Disney. For my reader's sake, I will limit to what I talk about. I'll never forget riding their awful Disney College Program buses. The buses were always late, they were always freezing cold and they were never reliable. One time after a late shift, a man ran out in front of the bus and wouldn't move and kept yelling at our bus driver to let him on. It was the scariest thing probably in my entire life, except for going down Disney's Blizzard Beach water park slide Summit's Plummet.

It wasn't long at Disney before I became accustomed to the sunny, warm weather, the lizards that acted like squirrels, the CP buses, going to the parks for free, making new friends, working at the park, dealing with guests who did not speak English, and much more. On my days off when I wasn't catching up with my family, I would go to the parks and spend my time meeting characters, eating Mickey Bars, and pretty much everything related to Disney. My life revolved around Disney for six months.


It did not take me long to make friends that were from all over the states. Some of my greatest friends came from New Jersey, Maryland, Las Vegas, Indiana, Michigan, and Nebraska. I had only worked with one person from Ohio. Surprisingly, I had met someone at Disney that was from every state. I even became great friends with a girl who was from New Zealand. There would be times at work where I would try to mimic her accent and she had even let me try pineapple lumps (which were delicious by the way). If I learned anything, I learned that everything to a New Zealander is pretty much a biscuit. Jangles were flip flops, biscuits were cookies, a boot was a car trunk, and there was so much more. In order for her to have a siri on her iPhone, she had to have Australian Siri because American Siri did not understand her.

Pretty much everyone that I worked with was the people I became friends with.

While I was in Disney, I visited every Disney resort, went to every park multiple times, saw NASA shoot off of a rocket at Cape Canaveral, went to multiple beaches, went to Sea World, and that is only the extent of it. I attended my first concert which was All Time Low and A Day To Remember with my friend Jordan.  My sister came and visited me while I was there as well. I got to watch all of the Disney shows, Wishes, Fantasmic, Illuminations, I got to see New Years Even Fireworks. There was so much I got to do while I was there.

Disney was beyond beautiful. They put so much effort into their fireworks and the night time showings. One of my favorite things at Disney was meeting the characters and having them sign my character book! Yes I did buy the princess one and have most of the characters sign my book!

 Rapunzel was my all time favorite Disney character and I was estatic meeting her for the first time. After being at Disney for so long, you almost fell under its spell. It really is the Happiest Place On Earth.

In relation to Disney, I posted a video that I had found on YouTube from one of my favorite Disney night shows; Celebrate the Magic. Celebrate the Magic is awesome in so many ways. I used to watch it every night I was in Magic Kingdom. Celebrate the Magic normally occurs before and after Wishes!

Celebrate the Magic

Disney Disney Disney Part 2

As summer progressed and days quickly flew by, I was becoming incredibly nervous. Over the span of the summer, I took summer online classes to make up for the credits I was going to miss in the fall, I had found my Disney roommates on the Facebook group page, I had signed my life away to like an 80 page Disney housing contract... and there was much more paperwork to fill out and sign. I had an extensive packing list and a list of things I wanted to buy for the next big adventure. It was quite nerve wrecking as the days rolled around and quickly I realized I was leaving in a week. Only 1 week, 7 days, 168 hours, 10,080 minutes, and 604,800 seconds... okay you get the point! But the countdown was freaking me out. Not only was I nervous and scared to leave my family and friends, I was incredibly skepticle in how I was going to shove six months worth of crap into two suitcases.

So I finished up my last week of work and spent as much time with my family friends as I possibly could. My family even threw my a going away party and my sister surprised me with a cake(the one pictured below). It was so sentimental and I cried quite a bit leaving my family.

Ignore the chunk missing out of it, my niece had gotten a hold of the cake.

Before I knew it, I was hugging my dad at the airport goodbye. I had already checked in for my flight and handed over my two pink suitcases. 

See that is my dad and I right there!

It was incredibly hard to say goodbye to my dad considering I am the biggest daddy's girl out there and he is my best friend. I cried when I left and I remember him giving me another hug and told me that it was going to hurt leaving now but when I was there I was going to have the best time of my life. And boy my dad was right. 

August 11th, I flew out of Dayton and flew into Atlanta, Georgia. From Atlanta I then flew into Orlando and met four out of my five roommates that night. The next day I had to get up early and go to my check-in. Literally the check-in process took forever. Not only was it hot and sticky, but the line was massive. However the best part was that I was not alone and most of the people checking in like me were all new to this. They felt the same odd feeling about spending the next six months with strangers, living in a strange place. Like me, all of them left something back home too. 

While I was at check-in, I filled out a million pages of paperwork and picked up my apartment keys. In addition, I found out where I was working and what I was doing. I worked at the Sassagola Floatworks Quick Service place at Port Orleans French Quarter Resort. Not only did I get to take orders, sometimes serve food, I got to deal with hospitality jobs there and I got to pick up Parade control shifts at the parks. I was really excited to work at a resort because the main reason it was not at the parks, not as busy and it was not as hot. Although it was not the best job in the world, nor the greatest one to brag about, I really enjoyed it and I would do it all over again. (I'll get back to the job in my later blog posts).

Below is an image of the welcome sign at the check-in place for the College Program. 

It was a difficult transition at first. When walking into my housing complex, Chatham it felt all unreal.

I lived in a 3 bedroom apartment... the apartment was really big for six people. It had three bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, a dining room, three bathrooms, and a kitchen. Outside of my apartment, there was a pool, tennis courts, fitness center, and many other nice things and recreational things to do. No wonder why I was paying $100 a week. My actual roommate  Taylor and I got along great.  It didn't feel real until the first couple of nights staying there. I was incredibly nervous about the classes that I had to take before I could start working. I was worried I was going to be homesick and not make any friends. Those beds at the Disney housing were worse then the beds here at Defiance, so I had some sleepless nights too. Despite all of the uneasiness at the beginning, it really turned into be the best time of my life. 

If anyone has any questions about check in or wants to see what it is like and has any questions, I have posted a link below to another vlog about check in for the Disney college program. It explains a lot what happens and how it works. 

Disney College Program Check In

Disney Disney Disney

Disney, Disney, Disney... What do you think of when you hear the word Disney? Over dramatized, animated children's movies? Hot Sticky Orlando, Florida? Over-priced theme parks with crying children? Or do you think of Magic Kingdom? Mickey Mouse? Walt Disney himself? Everyone has their own personal view and experience with Walt Disney, whether it is good or bad.

Honestly my opinion of Disney didn't start really until I applied for the Disney College Program. You know the program where college students go off and work/intern for ridiculous long hours, expensive housing, and little or no pay and can have the crappiest jobs ever?

Am I really this negative about Disney? I am not. I actually found all of these negative comments from all the internet when I was doing some research about this college program. I'm not quite for sure how I had even heard about this program, but I decided to apply anyways for shits and giggles. I was not expecting to get accepted in, I had hear so many reviews about 50,000+people apply and only 3,000-5,000 people get accepted.

I remember it clear to this day... On February 22nd, I had my over the phone interview was at 9:15 am. When my phone rang, I quickly answered it and the lady interviewing me was so nice and so peppy. She almost seemed to eager to have this interview. With my resume pulled up, we went over it and she asked me some questions like what roles did I want, why did I want to do my program, have I ever been to Disney, have I ever lived with roommates before and she asked about me and my personality and my traits. It was a really nervous interview, but I felt incredibly confident afterwards. However, I did not feel so confident after reading everyone else's comments on the online Facebook group exclaiming they had the same type of phone interview. Everyday I would check the Facebook group just to see what people had gotten and what they were going to be doing and if they had gotten accepted. People were getting acceptance emails left and right while I was beginning to wait impatiently for a month! An entire month I would religiously check my email, waiting for the denial email because I was almost certain I was not getting accepted, especially after being pended twice.

Being pended for the application process is not a bad thing, it just means that they are still looking into your application or they have 50,000 to go through so they will take sometime to look through yours. One day before lacrosse practice, I had this feeling to check my email. Although I was not expecting it, the email from Disney College Program said congratulations Kailin (I still have this email saved in my yahoo mail). At that moment, I felt like a million bucks. I had no idea that I would get accepted, yet feel so excited about being accepted.

After that victorious moment, I paused and realized what was I going to do about my fall classes, my friends, my family, my boyfriend, and most importantly my school? I only had 10 days to make up my mind and decide what I was going to do. After quickly throwing up suggestions, I made a pros and cons list in what to do. I even went as far as throwing a coin in the air to pick what to do. While throwing it up in the air, I knew already what I wanted it to land on before it even hit the ground. I knew that I was going to Disney World for six months and my mind had been made when I threw the coin in the air.

I accepted the offer and even counted down til the days I left for Disney. It was around 180-something days when I had been accepted and I counted down everyday until the moment I left.

Little did I know it was going to become the BEST magical, adventure of my life.

Anyone who reads this and has questions about the College Program, here is a great video to refer too. Kelsie was one of the biggest inspirations and motivators for me to do the college program. Here is a link below about the college program and what it is about.

Disney College Program FAQ's