I’m officially a Disneyland Custodian!

Today was our last day of training! It’s a bitter sweet feeling. It wasn’t as exciting as the other days but at least it wasn’t boring. We learned all about bio-hazard stuff and what to do if we have to clean up blood and other contaminated things.

After we were done in our lass room training we learned how to do trash in Toon Town. Let’s just say trash isn’t my favorite. It gets messy, smelly, and you’re directly in the sun without moving around too much. There’s so much to pay attention to with trash. There are 3 different kinds of trash duties (trash with bags, without bags, and recycling) plus taking it all to the back and compacting it.

Right after we got done with our first 2 trash cans we spotted our first code v and had to clean it up. It was pretty gross but at least we got to do it together on training instead of by ourselves for the first time tomorrow!

Obviously we don’t get as much guest interaction but we do get a little here and there. Mostly people ask for a map, directions, or the parade time. Today I answered 2 questions wrong, oops. #imstillnew One person asked what time the second parade was and even though I got that right, I told them the wrong direction the parade was headed in so I chased them back down to tell them the correct information since I felt bad haha. Another kid asked if there was a height requirement for Roger Rabbit and I said that there actually wasn’t a height requirement for anything in Toon Town. For some reason at that moment I got Toon Town and Fantasy land mixed up. There is no height requirement in fantasy land but in Toon Town at the Gadgets Go Coaster there is a height requirement. At least he was mainly asking about Roger Rabbit which has no height requirement.

Tomorrow is my first day of being on the job “by myself.” I mean there will be plenty of custodians to ask questions if I have one but for the most part I’ll be by myself. I hope I do okay without a trainer to shadow me!

You can find me in Adventure/Frontier land tomorrow doing trash. Our trainers said that for new cast members leads usually go easy on you your first couple of shifts so they might have me doing something else, which I will gladly take!! Either way tomorrow is the start of a new chapter for me being out on my own and learning new things myself. I can’t wait to bring a smile to Adventure/Frontier land and create some happiness!

 

“If you want it Magical, keep it clean”- Walt Disney

“When I started on Disneyland, my wife used to say, ‘But why do you want to build an amusement park? They’re so dirty.’ I told her that was just the point – mine wouldn’t be.” – Walt Disney

Walt Disney himself (everyone’s a custodian at Disneyland)

Today was our 3rd day of training and it was even more magical! We got more time on stage then in the class room, score!!

We started out learning how to sweep so we went down Main Street to clean pre-parade. When we were done we stayed behind stage until the parade went by and then followed it all the way to Small World. I even got some guest interaction just by sweeping believe it or not. 

After lunch we got to learn how to sweep the attraction lines (queues). So we went to Fantasy land to learn which was closed for the fire works so that was nice so we could learn without feeling awkward of embarrassed of not knowing exactly what to do. Usually you would sweep while people are in line (whether you follow the line or go against it).

Once we were done, we learned how to do post-fireworks clean up on main street. While waiting for them to end we got an awesome view of them right next to Pixie Hollow and we literately just stood there and watched them (unlike yesterday when we were walking and couldn’t even hear the music).

All in all, training keeps getting better and better. Honestly I’m sad that tomorrow is my last day of training! I hope to see my fellow DCP custodians around often (since we’ll be working by ourselves a lot). Even though my back hurts, my arms ache from sweeping, and my feet are blistery from new shoes, I wouldn’t trade it for any other job!

Nobody does it better

“I want to have a place that’s as clean as anything could ever be, and all the people in it are first-class citizens, and treated like guests.” -Walt Disney

Today was 2nd day of training! We learned even more then we did yesterday and I hope I retain all this information for when I start my first shift by my self of Sunday. After we read a couple chapters of training online, we took a test and went over it in the class room. We talked more about stuff in the classrooms but when that was over we finally got to do the fun stuff!

When we went on our lunch break we got there at prime parade viewing time (from backstage of course). I’m not going to lie, it didn’t necessarily ruin he magic for me, but it was a little disheartening when I saw the dancers just start walking away rather then dancing all the way to costuming haha. I still felt like a 5 year old watching the parade though and pointed out each character; it was really cool to see the characters get off the floats and get out of costume! I mean how many people can say they’ve seen that?

After lunch we finally got to do my favorite part of training, ON STAGE! So we got to tour all of back stage this time (unlike traditions and operations where we toured a little here and a little there). Well we obviously didn’t see other roles break locations and that kind of stuff but each land has a “locker” which is like a custodian closet so we got to see where they all were.

We even got to have a quick tour of Haunted Mansion (even though it’s closed right now to decorate for Nightmare Before Xmas). We got to go down stairs where HM attractions go and we learned about how we would walk in the attraction with the lights on if we had to go clean up a code v (vomit) or ashes of a loved one that someone scattered (which apparently happens like 2 times a month!!). Honestly, as gross as it is, it’s awesome to be able to have that privilege of being able to see each attraction with the lights on. We got to smell the chemicals we use to clean up code v’s or code u’s (urine) or code h’s (human/horse feces) and it smells like Fruit Loops! So at least the stuff you spray smells yummy and it kinda cancels out the bad smell haha!

We got to see the back stage of Indiana Jones (a huge building btw) and all of fantasy land, which was so cute since all the little attraction cars and boats are adorable. Oh and we got to watch the fire works while we were clocked-in, how awesome is that?!

We also learned today that depending on our location (land) we’ll get a diffrent break/lunch room every day! I love that I can be in all the lands all in one week! You’re so free; you’re never confined to a work location for the whole week!!

Custodial is seriously sounding better and better the more I learn about it. I can’t wait to have more on the job training! 

“Keep the place as clean as you can keep it. Keep it friendly, you know. Make it a real fun place to be. I think they’re convinced and I think they’ll hang on after… as you say… well… after Disney.” -Walt Disney

Custodial 101

Today was our first day of on the job training! It was not really glamorous and we didn’t walk around the park as much as the last 2 days of work, but we had fun!

As soon as we all got there we met our trainers, learned how to clock in, got our (free) shoes, got lockers, got our costumes, and got a quick tour of our custodial building back stage. After all of that, we were in our classroom for most of the shift just learning basic custodial things. We didn’t learn how to clean anything but it kind of felt more like custodial 101. Today was our guest interaction training 🙂 (my favorite part about my role).

We learned that there are day time custodians (me) and night time custodians (when the park is closed). Day custodians “maintain the magic” and night custodians “restore the magic.” I just love that they say that because it really is true! It’s amazing how awesome this role is, and yet it is so over looked! My trainer was right today when she said that this is a really humbling role for that reason!

 
They had these Custodial Mickeys all over the place in my building, it was so cute! I love it because it really is an important job and that’s one thing Walt wanted the most for his theme park; to keep it clean! I’m glad I can maintain the cleanliness and help make it magical for the guests!

Custodians use to be referred to as “Ninjas” as they would clean quickly and then disappear (go backstage)! Obviously this isn’t true anymore since you see custodians in white (to stick out to guests, but also blend in with any land). Custodians also have the most guest interaction in the park so we don’t want to be known as ninjas. We need to make sure we’re available to our guests as their go-to information booth. It also amazed me to hear that there are 400 custodians in the park! I had no idea there would be that much!

After our class room training we got to actually take the things that we learned and apply them out in the park on Main Street. Before we went out though we got our “goodies” for our satchel haha. We got some gloves, scrapers, paper towels, a water spray bottle, a flash light, maps, and buttons. We also got to put a lanyard around our neck for pin trading and we carried a claw pick-up tool around with us for trash. As if we don’t stand out enough with white on, there were about 15 of us so we walked onto main street right by the train station as we got a lot of stares (wondering what we were doing as a group). One man spotted us right away, a dedicated pin trader, and was ecstatic from the “jack pot” he found hahah! After we had a quick talk from our trainer we got to do our first pin trading with him and afterwards he said we “made is night no matter what happens” so he asked for a group picture which made me feel good (even though he didn’t want any pins from my lanyard lol).

We started walking some more and stopped right in front of City Hall where tons of pin traders bombarded us with pin trading. It was so much fun and I was so happy to actually practice guest interaction. I even played with a baby a little bit and told people to have a “magical night”. I FINALLY got to use the things I’ve been learning about the last couple days and it was wonderful. Once we started walking down to the end of Main Street I started picking up some trash and right before we went backstage I got to interact with a little girl by getting down on knee level to ask if she saw Snow White today (she was dressed as Snow White).

I forgot to put this in my last post, but I just found out that since California is in a drought, custodians wouldn’t be able to perform water art until May (after I’m gone), so that made me sad.

Although we were only on stage for about a half hour, tonight was definitely a magical night and a fun beginning to my new dream. I was really happy with how today turned out and it was exciting to meet all my DCP DLR custodian family! There were more then I thought! I know this will be an awesome role and I’m looking to some more training tomorrow (even though I’m exhausted). I can’t wait to see not only what else this role has to offer, but what else I’m capable of! I can’t wait to make those magical memories and experiences!

 
My custodial costume!

Playing in the Park

Tonight (3 nights after traditions) we got to use our Cast Member IDs to get into the park for the first time (for free!). I could get use to that! We could have gotten in right after Traditions, but my roommates and I wanted to go together and our roommate, Kayla, had a set-back which pushed her Traditions to today (Tuesday).

The first thing we did was get our mickey ears embroidered!

Then we headed down Main street USA to take our unofficial cast member pictures in front of the castle with our ears and name tags!

We realized none of us had been in the parks since Alice in Wonderland opened back up so we went on that attraction right away to see the changes that have been made. While in line Kayla told us she’s never seen Mickey and the Magical Map (Katie’s favorite thing ever), so we went on over as soon as we got off Alice in Wonderland. 

After the show ended we went over to Tomorrow land to go on Matterhorn, Space Mountain, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Astro Blasters.

   

Christine and Kayla have to get up early tomorrow morning and Katie was exhausted so they all left to go home, but Silvina and I decided to stay for an hour longer.

 

So in that time we rode Pirates, found the restaurant that she’ll be working in, ate a corn dog from the red corn dog truck, went in side the baby care center (since we’ve never seen it), and stopped at the (old) casting door!

This was only the first of many adventures and I’m so glad I got to experience my first time in the park as a cast member with my roommates!

My training will be this week (4 straight days and then I’m on my own) so I’m praying that it will go well and that I’ll love it as much as I have hoped I would. 

 

Traditions and Operations

Traditions is the first day of actual work, but it’s just a class where you watch videos and learn things about the company. You also get to tour around the parks “on stage” and “off stage.” Disney actually paid me to watch awesome exclusive videos and take an exclusive tour?! I mean, that’s something I would pay Disney for!

  
I got to dress in my first business casual outfit for work!

Just some quick lingo that I learned: We say “stage” because we are an entertainment company and we put on a show. We also say “role” instead of job because we all have a role in the show. And our clothing is our costumes rather then our uniforms.

Along with this lingo, we also found out why Disney does the things they do, how Disney does those things, and where Disney does those things! It was so cool to see “behind the magic” and (for example) where they set off the fireworks.

Before we went on our tour we got a very special gift, we were the first Disney College Program to receive Classic Mickey Ears (at Traditions)! When we got back from our tour we got our name tags and IDs which just makes it that much more official.

Here’s my name tag and ears from Traditions.

After Traditions we decided to go to “Company D” for the first time to buy some discounted Disney merchandise. Company D is a store off Disneyland property for Cast members that sells marked down park items, anywhere from clothing to food.

Here’s my ears, name tag, ID, Cast Member magnet, Traditions Magnet, mickey figurine (for answering a question in traditions) and Cast Exclusive Vinylmation “VoluntEAR” (even though I haven’t been a voluntEAR yet haha).

Operations was two days after Traditions for me and, my goodness, was it a tough act to follow! It was quite boring compared to Traditions and I’m not going to lie, I felt like falling asleep during some of it (that being said, I didn’t have any coffee that morning!). There was a lot of information shoved into one day (on how to do your role and what it means to be a good cast member). We also broke into smaller groups and toured the park again but this time it was a little bit more specific. We got to see all the roles in “Park Operations” (since I’m custodial) and talk to the leaders and managers of those areas. It was actually really nice to hear from the higher up people specifically about their role and how they got there.

After having gone to all these classes, I’ve gotten a better grasp of what it means to be a Cast Member and I couldn’t be more greatful! That being said, I’m excited and ready to start my training this week! For those wondering, I did indeed get Disneyland (not California Adventure) for my custodial role 🙂

2nd day in the DCP

After spending our first night in our new home we had to wake up bright and early the next morning for orientation. The orientation was pretty much just meeting the program directors and being welcomed/introduced to the program. I definitely left very grateful to be one of the very select few chosen for this Disneyland College Program (a very small percent of people who apply get accepted). Although they said numbers and gave statistics I honestly can’t remember but I know I gasped at the sound of percentage. It makes me feel so blessed to be apart of this program and I’m proud of my determination to get in!

It went from 8:30 to 10:30am and this was the first time we got to go “back stage.” Needless to say, it was very VIP feeling as we got to see things that not everyone gets to see. After orientation we wanted to go to lunch, but since it was still early we had to “waste” a little time so we shopped around for a while.

When we were done, Kayla and Silvina suggested we went over to Buffalo Wild Wings (their favorite place) since they had 70 cent wings on Thursday. So we ate over there and then headed back to the apartment for a Program Success Session which was a 3 hour session teaching us how to be successful in different aspects of our program. It was actually really informative and helpful so I’m definitely glad I went. For going to all 6 session, we got to be placed in a drawing to win something at the Welcome Party that night.

By the time it ended we had 1 hour until the Welcome party started, so we went back to our rooms and got ready. We headed down stairs to the entrance of our apartment and we saw balloon decorations, food, a photo booth, a DJ, and prizes to be won.

We took this picture right before we headed down to the party.
Behind us you can see the key hooks Silvina made for each of us!

I caught myself saying to Silvina, “A few days ago at check-in…” and I realized right after that it was only yesterday that we checked in and moved in. The time had been flying by sooo quickly and we had been so busy that it feels like we were already there for a few days!

Each of us won something at the party!

I won a kitchen utensil pot for doing ‘the best Michael Jackson move’

Katie brought home a box of pizza

Kayla won the Program Success Session prize which lets her have priority registration for any event she wants

Silvina won a gift certificate to a Mexican restaurant for answering who sings some Spanish song  

Christine won a rice cooker by finding another Southern California college person (wearing school shirts) and running up to the DJ

Our photo booth pictures!

It was by far the best party I’ve been to in a while and that was all thanks to not only the program (putting it all together), but my awesome roommates who made it what it was.

You would think our night was over by then but nope, we decided to go grocery shopping (3 different stores) when we got back up to our room. So we got back late but at least we got all our food for the next two weeks and got it out of the way.

I was so glad that I had the next day off after these BUSY last two days!

Stay tuned for my Traditions (first day of work) blog!

Check-in/Move-in Day

                                                            Wednesday August 20th, 2014 10:00 am check-in

“Now’s when my life begins!” -Rapunzel

Wow, check-in/move-in day was a lot more work then I had anticipated. It was fun in the beginning when you start meeting everyone and you get to see your roommates, apartment, and everything else, but then you actually have to work. Like moving everything out of your jam-packed car, into the down stairs garage, up the elevator, to your room. Oh, and did I mention it’s super hot in the garage and everyone is trying to use the elevators all at once. And on top of it all I wasn’t feeling so good to begin with.

My new home!

Standing in line

All my stuff from my car that I moved up to my apartment

Present time!! We all got each other roommate gifts 🙂 These are the paintings I made for our living room!!

By the time we finally got all my things up to the apartment, my roommates and I had to attend a welcome meeting. It was well past lunch time at this point but after the meeting we headed over to get Good Food right across the street. No, that’s actually the name of the food court haha, but it definitely lived up to it’s name. After lunch we all felt happier, more energized, and ready to get back to work so we headed back up to our apartment on the second floor.

Kayla (my bedroom mate) and I rearrange our bedroom furniture and then started unpacking. Next thing we know it’s already going on 6pm and I had to go take my mom to the airport to catch a flight back home. Kayla was kind enough to come along to help me figure out the LA roads as I’ve never driven in California before. After I said my “see you later” to my mom, Kayla and I meet up with our other roommates at the store to do some much needed apartment shopping!

Here’s us with our giant basket of groceries at Target

After our shopping trip we stopped at In-N-Out for our first dinner together and then went back home so we could get to bed for our early start the next morning.

Gosh it was a long day, but sleeping my Rapunzel bed that night really made it feel like home 🙂

Moving to Anaheim, California

After waiting five and a half months after being accepted, I’m finally moving!

I started packing about a month before check-in day and made sure I got everything on my 3 page packing list all the way up until the very last second before leaving. A few days earlier I had a Disney going away party to say “see ya later” to my friends.

I said my good-byes to my brother and doggies and then it was off to California in my car! My mom took off the whole week off so she could come help me move 🙂

My car was jam-packed!

My new home (for 4 1/2 months)

The drive took about 6 hours; not too bad compared to others. When we got here we were so exhausted we went straight to bed. The next day (today) we slept in and went to breakfast at Denny’s and then headed over to Downtown Disney. My mom and I decided to see a movie (we were the only ones in the theater lol) and walked around the shops. I even ran into 4 other girls in the Disney College Program since alot of people got to Anaheim the day before as well.

In Downtown Disney!

Tomorrow is the day! I’ve been waiting for this my whole life and I couldn’t be more excited, nervous, and anxious. The anticipation has been killing me and I could feel it today! The feeling is like the first day at a new school, this is the beginning of my dream. It’s going to be the first page of my new chapter and it still hasn’t fully hit me yet.

Thank goodness I have already meet my roomies and we’re already best friends or I think I might just throw up tomorrow. It’s also really helped to have talked to other CPs on Facebook and have even meet a couple of AZ CP’s in person this summer.

                                           
My roomie Katie and I in Disneyland in May

My roomie Silvina and I at my work when she was visiting her mom in AZ

My check in time is 10 am so I’m going to try to get some sleep (but I’ll probably be like that little boy in that Disney commercial who says, “I’m too excited to sleep!” and this time tomorrow I’ll be sleeping in my new apartment!

Stay tuned for my Check-in and Move-in blog that I will hopefully posting soon if I’m not too busy this week.