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Showing posts from December, 2013

Cast Member Spotlight - Marie-Pier Ouellet (Fantasyland Attractions)

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Cast Member Spotlight - Marie-Pier Ouellet (Fantasyland Attractions) Name : Marie-Pier Ouellet Home Town : Québec City, province of Québec, Canada Hire Status : Ex-CM/ ICP (International College Program) Role : Attractions Hostess Work Location : Peter Pan's Flight and "it's a small world", Fantasyland, Magic Kingdom What was your training like?  I was shown all the safety procedures about my rides and how to open and close them. I had books to read and exams to pass. I also got to ride a few attractions. What did your day to day job consist of?  My job was to ensure the Guests' safety. I was responsible for making sure they respected the rules and requirements and I had to stop the ride if something was not up to standard. I had to load Guests on the attractions and unload them. I had to help Guests with disabilities and make sure they could ride safely. I also had to greet the Guests in the attractions and answer any questions they had about my rid

Cast Member Spotlight - Charlotte Jameson-McAuley (Blizzard Beach Lifeguard)

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Cast Member Spotlight - Charlotte Jameson-McAuley (Blizzard Beach Lifeguard) Name : Charlotte Jameson-McAuley Home Town : Huddersfield Hire Status : Ex-CM / ICP Role : Deep Water Lifeguard Work Location : Blizzard Beach water park What did your training consisting of?  Traditions and 'recreational training', then a Lifeguard test including a swimming test and eye test, then 3 days of lifeguard training, then physical and theory exam. Then finally it was location training for 3 days at Blizzard Beach. What did your day to day job consist of?  Guarding deep and shallow water at Blizzard Beach. Rescues were quite regular. Maintaining a 10/20 (meaning that you would constantly scan the water so that you would spot a guest in danger within 10 seconds, and rescue them in 20.) What did you enjoy most about your job?   The adrenaline of performing rescues. No day was the same! What was the worst thing about your job?  VATS (visual awareness training) - co-ordinat

Cast Member Spotlight - Rachel Lambert (Magic Kingdom Attractions)

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Cast Member Spotlight - Rachel Lambert (Magic Kingdom Attractions) Name : Rachel Lambert Home town : Manchester, UK Hire Status : Ex-CM ICP (International College Program) Role : Attractions Work Location : Buzz Complex - Tomorrowland Attractions (Magic Kingdom) What did your training consisting of?  My training consisted of a few different aspects, I had to attend Traditions as everyone does to learn about the company, then I had to attend Once Upon a Time... Is Now! which is the orientation for Magic Kingdom itself, then I had a day called For Our Guests, which included some online lessons and a tour of Tomorrowland. I then had 6 days of training on the attractions I would be working on, learning about each of the roles on each attraction, safety procedures, emergency procedures and general attraction information. I spent 3 days learning about Buzz Lightyear Spaceranger Spin, 1 day at Monsters Inc Laugh Floor and 1 day at Carousel of Progress, and then a recap day at all

Cast Member Spotlight - Ali Lamberski (Magic Kingdom Merchandise and Attractions)

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Cast Member Spotlight - Ali Lamberski (Magic Kingdom Merchandise and Attractions) Cast Member Spotlight is where we interview an ex- or current Cast Member about their job to find out what it's really like to work at the Disney theme parks. Name : Ali Lamberski Home Town : Virginia Beach, Virginia Hire Status : Ex-CP (College Program) and current cast member at the Disney store! Role : Merchandise and attractions Work Location : Formally Big Top Souvenirs and Fantasyland Attractions (Magic Kingdom) What did your Merchandise and Attractions training consisting of? My merchandise training took 2 weeks as part of it was learning to make food. My attractions training took a week and a half because my trainer called in [ill] on a day so we had to reschedule and I was stuck doing strollers for 3 days instead. What did your day to day job consist of?  (Attractions) My day to day job was pretty easy. I'd start around 3pm and most times I would pull [be assigned] the car

Web of Links - Week 13

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It's time for the weekly round-up of some the most interesting and thought provoking articles, videos and websites I saw this week.

Celebration, Florida - Photo Trip Report

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One day in Summer 2013 I took a day off work at Walt Disney World to go and explore the small town of Celebration in Florida. The town was developed in association by The Walt Disney Company  with the aim of being something almost akin to the EPCOT Walt Disney wanted to created - a perfect looking community where things were up to scratch so much they could have the Disney label on them. My friend Adrienne had a car so drove me and Courtney to Celebration to see what all the fuss was about. The town was only developed in the 90s and so has drawn much of its inspiration from the theme parks. The houses were big and glamorous... The place does, however, have an almost "Truman show" quality to it where everything is too perfect and starts to look fake. The extent Disney went to creating a perfect looking place is felt. According to Wikipedia : "Homes and condominiums are constructed along streets, with garages and garbage pickup done in narrow but paved