You’ve been waiting months for this moment. It's the day when you pick up your life and move to The Happiest Place on Earth. You’re feeling a million different emotions, but excitement is overriding all of them. You can’t wait to start your job and work for one of the most highly-accredited companies in the world. You check in, you get into your apartment, you say goodbye to your family, and then you sit in your living room with the random people who you decided to live with in the Disney-sponsored housing and wonder, “Now what?”
You go to Traditions and learn what it means to work for The Walt Disney Company. They low-key brainwash you, but you love every second of it. You cry when they show the history of the company. When Walt Disney comes on the screen, you think that there’s no greater feeling than this. You’re thinking, “I can’t believe I did it. I’m really here. Out of thousands of applicants, I was chosen to do this.” You’ve never been so grateful in your life. You’ve never been more proud of yourself.
The night after Traditions, you and your roommates go to the Magic Kingdom and watch "Wishes" for the first time as a cast member. The goosebumps that you get almost bring you to tears. It's the feeling that this is going to be your home for the next six months. You’re standing there with a bunch of strangers, but you know that these people are going to be your best friends for the next six months.
You finally start your job after weeks of training. You’re nervous at first, but, eventually, it becomes second nature. The job gets hard at times, but there’s no greater feeling than seeing a smile on a child’s face when you give them a sticker or give them a high-five with a Mickey hand. You know that you’re creating that magic and you’re helping to make this place that you love so much the Happiest Place on Earth.
Your coworkers become your second family. You spend every waking moment with them. You complain and laugh about work together. However, no matter how much you complain, you actually love your job and what you get to do every day. After work, you go to Epcot and walk around the World Showcase. Sometimes, you go to Hollywood Studios and watch Fantasmic. Sometimes, you go to the Magic Kingdom to ride Splash Mountain at night, when it’s a five-minute wait while Wishes is going off in front of you. However, my personal favorite is when you wait until everyone leaves the Animal Kingdom and ride Expedition Everest five or six times right before the park closes.
You get through the holidays together without your family, but it’s OK because you have your Disney family with you on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year. You go to the parks when it hits capacity and wonder why you ever went in the first place. You go to the Osborne Lights and are amazed by how beautiful they are and how you could just spend hours on the Streets of America watching them.
On your days off, you explore Florida and go to the parks (like you don’t spend enough time there). You go to Cocoa Beach and Clearwater Beach. You go to Celebration and see the corporate offices, hoping that, one day, that’ll be your workplace. You go to Universal Studios and are amazed the first time that you step into Diagon Alley in Harry Potter world. You go to Wawa, Bahama Breeze for happy hour, and Ale House for the Zinger Mountain Melt. Let’s not forget going grocery shopping at Walmart at 12:00 a.m. It’s always a zoo, no matter what time you go. Walmarts in Orlando are like no other Walmarts in the country. The best part, though, is the liquor store that is attached to the Walmart and how good the prices are there.
As month after month ticks by, you realize that your time at Disney is coming to an end. Some that are lucky enough extend their time. All that you know is that life is never going to be just like this ever again. All of these people are never going to be in the same place at the same time again. You try not to think about it, but, as the holidays come to an end and your friends start talking about packing, you know that it’s real and inevitable.
On your last day at work, it’s not really work at all. You take tons and tons of pictures, knowing that you probably won’t see half of these people ever again. You say goodbye to each coworker as they leave work, holding back tears. If you’re like me, you bawl your eyes out when you say goodbye to the person who trained you because they saw you grow into your job and helped you get there. You have a special bond with that person. You take a full group picture with all of the college program participants at your location, whether they’re staying or leaving Florida. When that’s over, you realize that it’s actually over and you have to leave in a couple of days. Tears are rolling down your face as you hug each person who you came to know so well and say goodbye.
On your last day, you go to the Magic Kingdom and watch "Dream Along with Mickey" one last time. You ride your favorite rides one last time. You sing along with "Move It! Shake It! Dance & Play It! Street Party" and act like you hate it, but you secretly love every second of it. You watch the Main Street Electrical Parade one last time and sing along with the most annoying music ever to come to Disney property. You watch "Celebrate the Magic," my personal favorite, and cry your eyes out while holding all of the people who you got so close with throughout your time at Disney. Then, when "Wishes" starts and Tinkerbell flies down into Tomorrowland, you really lose it. You can’t believe that this perfect life that you’ve been living for the past six months is over and it’ll never be like this again.
When you say goodbye to your roommates and coworkers, you feel empty inside. It feels unreal that you won’t see these people for a long time, if ever, again. You turn in your IDs, keys, drive away from your apartment complex that you’ve come to have a love/hate relationship with, and you don’t know how to feel.
Once you get home, you’re happy to see your friends and family, but Disney seems like a distant dream. It's like the past six months didn’t happen at all. You can’t explain that, while you’re happy to be home, you wish that you could go back. It’s weird not hearing fireworks outside your window every night, finding lizards crawling everywhere, and seeing turkeys walking across the road to your complex when you wake up to go to work in the morning.
Everyone goes back to their normal lives, but some stay and you continue to live at Disney through their eyes on their social media accounts. You miss it so much and are already planning a time when you can go back and visit. You start another job, go back to school, and it still feels unreal that you worked for Disney for six months.
I met my best friends during my time at Disney. I was able to network and take classes that would help me further my career. I learned how to break out of my shell and talk to so many different people from all over the world. I learned that The Walt Disney Company is actually what’s it’s all cracked up to be and they care about their employees like no other company that I’ve ever seen. I learned more about myself in six months than I have in the past 21 years of my life.
The Disney College Program was everything that I wanted it to be and so much more.
