Working at Disneyland Paris - Day 2 - Traditions and Orientation - 17th December 2011

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The second day was an early start - 8.30am if I remember correctly and it was meant to be the day of Traditions where we learned about The Walt Disney Company and its values and then Orientation would be the day after. Well, as we only had a two-and-a-bit-week contract they weren't going to use two days for this, so Traditions was shortened to a single video of about 5 minutes about the parks, and then we did most of the Orientation day.

This included learning about our Cast Member discounts (which included 30% off Disney merch until Dec 21st), Jessica 2 (the discounted item shop - old or damaged items), how to use our locker (a PITA the first time few times you use it), day to day life and some more. Then we did a backstage tour of the park and an onstage tour as well, got our IDs and nametags (a VERY EXCITING MOMENT) and then were left to do whatever we wanted.

We were told that it was forbidden to take photos backstage so the photo on the left is the one and only you'll be getting as I took it before and it doesn't ruin any of the Disney magic.

As it was still early - around 5.30PM and we could get into the parks, that's exactly what we did. Me, Eilidh and Andrew (a.k.a Disney93, friend we met yesterday - also from the photomagique forum) went to the park and with just 5 hours, I've got to say we did quite a lot - we started off with Big Thunder Mountain, then did Phantom Manor, Pirates of the Caribbean and caught the end of Fantillusion and danced along. Then we did Buzz Lightyear: Laser Blast, Space Moutain:Mission 2 (sans Andrew, he doesn't do loops), Star Tours, Pinocchio, Snow White and then the Gallerie du Chateau and la Taniere du Dragon. The longest we queued for anything was 15 minutes. We then went off to eat in Imaginations backstage and we were off home, or so we thought. Well we missed the bus.

So then it was time to go to Sequoia Lodge to see where Eilidh works at breakfast, we went to the Earl of Sandwich and used our 30% discount, got a pillow for me at the Disney store which was about 14 euros instead of 20 and then went home. The buses are nowhere near regular enough - in the morning they are every 20-30 minutes, every 10-20 mins throughout the day and at night they are only about once an hour. At least Disney is paying for 75% of my Navigo (bus and RER and metro) pass.

Tomorrow...training starts.

Day 3

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