The morning of departure/traveling

It is currently 8:42 am Eastern Standard time and i am at the airport! This morning i was a wreck! I have been saying im so excited im so excited and how it hasn't hit me yet that i am actually leaving. Well guess what?, it just hit me when i had to say goodbye to my puppy Mickey, my brother mark and his girlfriend kelly. My parents are coming with me. My mom and I are flying, while my dad is currently arriving in florida as we speak because he drove my car from south jersey to florida! He left saturday night/sunday morning at 3am, drove until 9pm and was in Georgia. He woke up at 5:30am the same time my mom and I did and will be arriving in orlando today. We are so happy to meet him there!

I must say i did wait until the last minute to say goodbye to everyone. With me i like to go out have a good time and just be with my friends, so the past weeks thats what i did. These times of going out, i made sure that my friends and i did not mention me going away or i would most likely cry like a baby. I had made an event on facebook to have all my friends go out the saturday of my last full week home, that way the next week i could save for my goodbyes and getting all my last minute things together. The last night i had made my rounds to my closest friend danielle and marissa and her boyfriend. I thought they deserved an individual goodbye considering every other time was with a group of people. I honestly did not cry but was very sad and i am crying about it today.This involved things such as, packing for the few days that i will be before my actual check-in date, having doctor check up, dentist appointment and hair appointment. I would very much recommend getting there 2 or 3 days earlier so you can get settled and are not rushing the day of check-in to get situated. If you are traveling alone there is a holiday inn right across from Vista Way (the place of check-in). Luckily I am a vacation club member and we are staying at Disney's Old Key West Resort.

We had picked an early flight because the lines of TSA are very small and we will get there around 12pm (2 hour flight) We are meeting my dad at the resort so me and my mother are taking the magical express from the Orlando International Airport. We are flying southwest and this is one airline that i would love to get out there. Not only do they have great deals, they allow you to have 2 bags fly for free 50lbs limit and as much carry-on as you want. Usually a rolling bag and like a backpack. They do not charge you for carry-ons like some airlines are doing at the moment. 

The morning of departure i would say have all your luggage pack that you are bringing the car packed the night before, and your carry-on bag loaded or loading before leaving for the airport

Make sure when you get ready you have waterproof mascara and no eye liner as your goodbyes will lead you to cry.

Welp my flight is arriving and i have to pack everything to travel. Safe traveling everyone :)

Disney Classes

OKay so while I am going to be in Disney I thought it would be a great idea to take Disney classes considering i am majoring in hospitality and disney is a top performer in guest servicing.

The two classes that i have signed up for are Disney's Advanced Studies in Hospitality and Disney Exploration Series of guest servicing. Now my community college had no idea how to apply these to credits, so in order for me to graduate i had to do an internship worth 3 credits. So the disney college program is going to be my 3 credits. When i was meeting with my advisor i basically showed her the classes syllabi to let her see that i will be rotating through different areas of hospitality. Now because of this i have to collect signatures from each of my professors along with my manager on duty to sumbit for a grade via e-mail to my major advisor. 

Disney classes are cheap and run anywhere from $10-$30. Hospitality one was i believe $20 and the Exploration one was free. The same card that you used to pay your fees at the beginning with be the same card that this gets charged to. Remember print all of your transactions out!

After you have completed your course i do know you get a certificate of some sort and are able to plug that into your resume! Great, right? YES! cheap classes given by Disney and able to apply to your resume. 

About the week prior to your arrival, (which is where i am at not) you will get an e-mail linking to a website that you have to go to register for an online profile for your disney professors to contact you. This e-mail will come to you through the e-mail that you signed up for through disney. Once here you will be able to update your profile and have access to other classmates as well as your professor. In addition, your professor will introduce themselves and you can visit their profile to get a better understanding of who they are as a person. 

I am eager to start my classes and will update you more once i start the classes! only 4 more days til check-in :)

Dashboard

This is what the dashboard looks like, mine is finished but as you see starting from top left is where all the emails that were sent to you are, along with a link in case you may have deleted the email in your email account or never have received them. Following clockwise is your pending invatation. This will allow you to see and pick our arrival date and departure date invitation. Going down, once you picked your arrival date, you will see that listed along with it saying vista way. Vista way is a place to live, but it also holds in your check-in area. This will not be where youre living it will just say that because that is where check in is!

Roomate matching and Apartment areas

The roomate matching system will not be up until about 3 weeks or so until your check-in date. If you are one to be spontaneous and not want to find out who your roomates are, then that is for you. If you want to be organized and determine how many people you want to live with, then get connected on the group pages on facebook. 

While finding your roomates you need to know how many other people you would like to live with. You can have up to 8 people in an apartment. That will be a four bedroom, 3 bathroom apartment.
There are 3 different apartment complexes, Vista Way, Chatham Square and Patterson Court. Vista is the oldest and where the parties are always at. Chatham is the 2nd oldest moderate party area. Patterson is the newest no parties. Each apartment complex has wellness and non-wellness apartments. Another term for under 21 or over 21. You must live with either all under 21 or all above 21. They must also have the same check-in date as you. 

Apartments range any where from have 2 persons to 8 persons with up to 3 bathrooms i believe. Each apartment complex can accommodate your needs just pick where you want to live. You are not able to pick it and tell them until you are down there, so if you do pick your roomies before you go give yourself options. Also with options comes a captain during check in you will need to have a designated person from your room to say all your roomies names and place you would like to live and they can proceed to place you in your apartment. Havent been to check in yet, that is in 10 days to be prepared to hear how that goes :)

After being accepted

After being accepted you feel like a million bucks! When you are given the accepted e-mail there will be a link for you to follow to accept you invitation to be apart of the Disney College Program. Once you have accepted your offer another e-mail will come through with a link to show you your role, the amount in which you will be paid, along with a description of the program, the term in which you will go and some guidelines you will have to follow. In this packet will be your candidate id along with an area that you will pay for the program assesment fees. I believe this fee was a total of $300 non refundable. Please make sure you are able to go. Make sure you print everything out, every e-mail and every transaction that you are making. 

After your payment has been made, up to a day later will come an e-mail that you will have to pick your arrival date. This arrival date will be able to be picked from your dashboard, which is located on the disney college prgram website that you will have to create a username and password. DO NOT FORGET IT! The program dates will have a start and finished date attached, just pick when you would like to arrive. The earlier the better, not only to get down there first just so you can choose where you want to live and be able to be placed there with open availability. 

Once you have a picked your program dates you will get an e-mail that confirms it and then the countdown begins until you leave. During this time i would recommend going on facebook and becoming a part of different college program groups and interact with everyone. You are most likely going to be finding your roomates here. I was off of facebook from the time i took my interview til about the 3rd day after finding out. After i got my facebook back i joined a few groups and found my roomies.

Get connected and interact and start making friends with newbies and alumni!

Application Process/ Interview Process

Hey guys. So in a few days I will be apart of the Disney College Program family. 9 days to go to be exact. Yes i am very anxious and have been since i found out.

Many people are wondering how the process begins. Well first off go to the disney college program website (www.disneycollegeprogram.com) and start exploring on all the different things that the program has to offer. Once you think that you interested and that this might be something for you to do then go ahead and apply. Now when applying there are a few different terms or times that you can go. Either spring spring advantage fall or fall advantage. Now what advantage means is more like 7 months rather than 4 or 5. There are different times when you can apply to the term that you want to do and on the website they will tell you when you can apply. I had applied about a year ago and didn't get in and i was so mad because i thought i have done really well. Well, that was my fault for not picking more than one role. But i certainly did learnt he second time around considering i got it :)

During the application process you have to go to one area where it will ask you your interest in specific roles that they have. Roles are are the disney term for job positions. The roles have a scrool down menu where you have the choice to pick from low, high, moderate and no interest. I suggest that you pick an answer for everything even if it is no interest. That way the disney representative can have a few options to pick from and know what they need to ask during your interview process. Now the interview process in unlike any other. Not just the normal fill out and application, have a meeting and boom you're done. The application process works as filling in your information picking some roles that you want to partake in. Then comes the web-based interview. In this web based interview also called gallup is a interview to basically know more about you. This interview is of course online but has no interaction with any one but yourself. It will ask you a series of questions and you have to pick where on the scale does it best describe you. Yes, it is timed so make sure when you do this interview you are able to alone and no distractions. After the web-based interview there is a little time barrier from when you are done taking it to finding out if they want to give you the phone interview. This time barrier can last from waiting 10 mins to 2 hours. Very impatient i was and mine was 45 mins. Once someone has looked over your web-based interview they will then email you with a number to call to participate in a phone interview. Once you call you then are to pick a time that will best suit you for the interview. My advice would be to do it on your day off from work or school so you can prepare yourself. Yes i said prepare yourself. Practice makes perfect. When i was thinking of a time i wanted something early so it was fresh and no one, or a few people were in front of me. I am a person who likes to sleep in but this was one great decision i had made. 

During the phone interview it is very nerve racking. They say to be ready a half hour before and after your schedule time. Well of course i was ready an hour before. If theres one thing i learned from my mom that i would pass onto you would be, please speak slowly and clearly. Disney is a genuine company and focuses on guest servicing. One thing that i've learned from my major is that guest servicing is a top priority and you need to stop, listen, speak clearly and slowly so the guest can understand. In this case your guest is the disney representative. During the phone interview they go over the basics such as your information, work information. And yes they will ask you about past experiences in your job. (if you had one) Then comes the scenarios. What i mean by scenarios is that your interview might ask you a question like we'll take mine for example, " if you are working on building a shelf and stocking the shelf and a guest comes over and asks for your help, what do you do?" That would be an example of the scenario.

After the interview is closed they will ask you if you have any questions. YES YES YES ask one or two questions like what can i gain from this or what classes would you recommend taking? They love when you ask questions and they want to know you were paying attention. Along with paying attention comes remembering the disney representatives name. This shows that you were paying attention and took the time to listen to their name.

When the phone interview is done they will tell you that you will have to wait about 3 weeks until you find out. This is false. Some people can hear in two days and some people will not hear until 3 months later. Patience is key. Do not email them if you haven't heard just be patient.

The disney college recruiting team e-mails everything. They will e-mail you when you have an interview and when you got accepted and other information after you were accepted. I found out about a week and a half from my phone interview date early in the morning. Some can come realy late and some can come early so always check your e-mail and make it an e-mail that you check often. If you have an iphone like me and linked your e-mail to the messages on your phone, use that e-mail.

That is the application.interview process good luck!