seeing a thread about disney land reminded me how much of a scam the disney college program is. the whole premise is that you take a semester off of school to do an internship at walt disney world and you learn job skills related to your major. bussiness, hr, management, or theather, art and so on. they tell you they will give you a "role" as a "cast member" working in orlando. the truth is that you will be given an entry level job working a ride, attraction, tour guides, gift shop, food stand or restaurant, resort for $6.25 (i've heard this has gone up to like $6.50)an hour (i'll get to how pay is a scam later).

work a ride, you count how many people get on a ride all day and make sure they are tall enough,

attraction like the magic of disney animation, you get to repeat the same act with mushu from milan 50 times a day every day that you work. sounds like so much fun.

tour guide, you get to tell people where to park their car, enjoy the heat stroke.

gift shop, work a cash register, stock shelves and arrange stuffed animals for presentation purposes. like you can get this kind of experience anywhere else?

food stand, great practice for your career at mcdonalds

restaurant, i worked at a restaurant because i have all my life and could see my future in one. i also figured i'd make more than 6.25 an hour because restaurants are where the tips are at, but college program or cp's are not allowed to be in any tipped role and have to refuse tips, if the guest insists, then you have to tell the manager who will probably let you keep it, but if you get caught accepting a tip without trying to refuse, your in trouble.

resort hospitality, you either work the front desk, or you get to clean up hotel rooms. my friend and fellow cp tried house keeping,and they are wicked, they yell at you until you cry because everything in the room as to be super perfect and are super ****. oh yes, a college internship to become a better housekeeper?

custodial arts, you get to emptry trash cans (they teach you how to) sweep, pick up, clean, and use the sawdust on the protein spills. what fun. my roommate was one of these, the best part is that you can take naps hiding in storage closets.

costumes, you don't make or alter or do anything with costumes, you get to dry clean uniforms (they call all uniforms costumes) and take inventory, yippee!

characters, very very very few people can be a character because of the extremely strict measurements required to wear each costume (mickey, goofy, minni and so on), even fewer can be a a face character like belle, snow white, mulan, aladdin and so on.

they call all these menial minimum wage jobs that anybody with a pulse can do a college internship. the reason why they lure college students to do it is to keep a steady stream of cast members who speak english. also, cp are exempt from benefits that the unionized (there are 22 different disney unions) cast members get.

managers intentionally screw cp's. reguler disney cast members get holiday pay which is double their hourly wage when they work on a national holiday like 4th of july (i worked EVERY DAMN HOLIDAY LAST YEAR from forth of july to new years day) cp's only get regular $6.25 an hour. if you are scheduled to work too full shifts within 8 hours of eachother, you get double pay, but managers will tell you to come in later than 8 hours even if you are scheduled to come because then when you clock in outside the 8 hour window, you get say 6.25 an hour for a 7 hour shift, instead of 12.50 an hour working an 8 hour shift. why do they do this? they like to come in under budget for their hourly employees.

you have to live at one of two appartment complexes that feel like institutions. you either live in vista way, which is old, run down, has old appliences and rats, or chatham square, which is newer and nicer somewhat. they charge you rent between 70 and 90 dollars a week depending on how many other cp's would live in your appartment and take it right out of your paycheck (more about that later). take my advice, fewer is better because the only thing the bigger appartments have is more bedrooms, the kitchen stays the same, trying to share fridge with 7 other guys is alot harder than sharging with 3 other guys, just my advice. there is a third place called "the commons" but that is for international students.

the appartment complex is run by price management, and they are friggan ****'s. they not even allow people to sit loiter outside their appartment and talk, play a game of frisbee, or ball or anything. to get in, you have to sign in all your guests who are not cp's, you can only sign in 3 at a time. guests must leave before 1 am, and cannot come back in until 7 am. if they catch you violating this, you will be terminated on the spot and have to leave in 24 hours. if they catch you with alcohol or any other other than tobacco, you are terminated on the spot. there are laundry rooms near every building, it costs 1 dollar to wash a load of cloths, and 1 dollar to dry a load of cloth.

now pay attention because here is the big freakin scam! vista way was donated to walt disney world for the college program, it was a formerly part of a milatary base, coke-cola (btw, all coke sold in the park costs disney world nothing, coke provides it to them for free just for the exposure) donated chatham square to disney also.
then the government subsidizes college program students pay because it is educational, then disney takes rent out of our paychecks for use to live in their appartments. literally, they make money off our salary...

now listen, i was not a disney freak, i was taken by the idea of doing an internship in sunny florida instead of cold frostburg. and the only reason why i could afford to do a whole 6 months was because my parents helped support me. your paychecks will be nothing, i looked at my friends paycheck, she worked 80 hours and only made $500 that week. my usual paycheck had between 35 and 40 hours a week, and was usually about 130 a week. now you have to live on that by yourself. disney does not feed you or anything, they make you sign a waiver making sure you understand you are on your own. so you gotta pay for food, if you have a car payment and insurance, that too. they provide full bus service to anywhere in the parks so you can save gas, but your going to lose so much time leaving like over an hour before your shift starts so that you can make the bus schedule.

you will not make an easy living there, you will be either overworked and miserable, or underworked and have no money, it depends on the needs of your location. oh yeah, you can't have a second job down there, they will terminate you.

my roommate LOVED disney. literally posters everywhere, millions of dvd's and his room was like a gift shop it had so much disney garbage in it. he went through the regular program to be eligible for the advanced internship and get a full time job at disney, which is very competitive. he got it, worked there a few months but literally got fed up with how miserable his managers made him and all the bs. i keep in touch with him, it was really sad to watch how miserable he was giving up on working at disney world because of how much he loved disney and how he just couldn't take it anymore.

even if you love disney, it doesn't mean that your co-workers or managers will, to them it might just be a job and they will kill your disney spirit. also, if you get terminated from disney college program, you are black listed from everything disney owns, abc, espn and so on, and trust me, they own alot.

now i'm not disgruntled, i finished my program and have disney rehire status, but i'm am so angry about what a complete lie it is. i loved orlando, and i did make friends, but my job sucked, and living in chatham or vista is like living in a prison camp with no freedom. also, if you get in trouble for partying too much off clock, and somebody reports it to disney, they can fire you for poor representation of the company. some dick at a chickafila near vista yelled at us for casually cursing amounst eachother while eating our lunch, he knew we were cp's because we had just used the free sandwich coupons disney gave us upon arriving that day.

if you have more questions, i'll try to answer them.

 

Wow, ammazing how Disney even screws college students over. I always see them on campus giving out info on their internship, thought i'd b a cool idea, but didnt really know what kind of jobs they really would give you. Well, its not liek i was gonna take a semster off school to go there anywayz.

 

disney also owns miramax and from what i heard they also have a XXX studio but they tend to keep that on the down low

 

Post this on the MySpace Cast Member group dogg...

 

And yes, Disney does own Miramax. Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, Sin City... all Disney.

 

heh if they want to make a dirty film they just send it to another subsidiary of theirs

 

for anyone who actually cares what draxcaliber wrote is true only if you want it to be. Every CP entering the program comes with the idea that it will be some amazing party all day long at disney, or that they will get the cool jobs like playing indiana jones or being the head chef in the kitchen.
but reality is that you just started out and are getting oriented. any company that relies on cast members who dont have experience in what there doing and have not been trained fully will fail.

BUT there is room you too move up. Show that you care in your work ethic and maturity and the leaders will move you up to bigger and better projects. I worked main street operations amd this involves ticket taking and Parade Control. Managers realized that i work hard and am dedicated and made me the coordinator of wristbanding. most people think this would be boring but it is a big responsibility and managing the workers is a fun job.

I enjoy doing this even though it is nothing near what i want to do for a living. I want to be a lighting technician at big theatres. I have met managers and coordinators in charge of this at disney and have been given many job offers i am considering.

as for the apartments, Vista is a war zone, and Chatam is a retirment community. But for 70$ a week try finding an apartment that close to Disney with full amenitys and a fully furneshed living space.

You will be overworked. every day hundreds of thousands of guest go through the park gates every day. And your job is to knock the socks off each one and raise the bar on the level of expectation that they have. BUT the bottom line is it is what you make of it. It can be the worst 6.25 an hour you ever made, Or an opportunity to better yourself and help get to the career you want even if its not with disney.




I am not a disney freak either. I barely know character names and i run parades 3 times a day, but i believe in the college program alot. Feel free to pm me with any questions you may have

 

i didn't have such a horrible time, i have lots of great memories and experiences while i was down there. (i'm not sure what happened, but in md i bat 0 witht he ladies, but in florida i was suddenly batting 1000, must be a certain mile marker of i95 where i suddenly become irrisistable to the women.

anyway, i just wanted to throw out my experiences because david horvath, the disney guy that came to my school sold me a huge pack of lies and when i saw a disney post, i just had to unload some baggage. i am not a party type guy, i don't drink, smoke or do any illegal substances, i looked at the disney program as a resume builder and a nice change of scenery from cold as hell frostburg to warm and sunny orlando.

ofcourse everybody, your experiences will vary, but when you go listen to their presentation keep what i have told you in mind.

 

like any recruiter they lie about everything dont listen to the recruiters ask one of the CP's themselves.

It must be a MD thing with the women maybe its our accent or lack of one.