For many of my fellow classmates your journey started in August or in the beginning of September, but for me my journey began on May 27th, as I was accepted for the Fall Advantage 2014 program. Today I am celebrating my 4 months anniversary or as I am calling it my Half-versary. I am extremely happy and proud of myself of how much I was able to accomplish in the time period I have been here. Just like many of you this was my first time leaving home, traveling by myself to another state I’ve never been to, live on my own, being independent, and of course my first time ever to visit Walt Disney World. I was scared to take this big step but I’m glad I didn’t let fear take over me. This experience for me overall has been the best experience I have ever had; I don’t think I have enough words to describe it other than being magical.
As I started my Disney journey I was originally in AM housekeeping but later as I was getting ready for training I was told I was being moved to PM housekeeping which I would work a closing shift rather than a morning shift. As I started my training in PM housekeeping it is a bit different than AM. Yes we do clean rooms, such as checkouts and late services but the main purpose for us to clean rooms at night is as a guest recovery. For example if the guest isn’t happy with the room and found an error in the bathroom we get a call to re-clean the bathroom and the guest is happy, this role is called Rooms Cleaner where per night we get up to 7 rooms. Another role PM housekeeping does is called a Runner. As Runners we are the people that delivers towels and other amenities that the guest requested. There are days where we are very busy and get up to 50 plus calls or less depending on the occupancy. As well we pick up any trash left by the guest door, walk around our buildings that we are assigned to, and be attentive with our surroundings and guests. The next role is called a Breaker, the Breaker is assigned to two rooms to clean and starting at 7:15pm we start breaking the Runners and take their calls while they are on break. Another big responsibility we have as a Breaker is driving a small pargo car to take our runners to their buildings, we have to make sure we parked the pargo in the correct parking area, gas, and clean. Following that I recently have finished my training in Dispatch. In Dispatch we monitor the Runners calls making sure they went through and that they have completed the calls. We also put in calls that guest have requested or work orders to engineer such as the light bulb is out in the building or the guest’s blow dryer isn’t working. As a dispatcher we get to talk to guests, front desk, and guest services. Some systems I get to work on while being a Dispatch is Maximo, where it is a messaging system sending out work orders and requesting work orders and Lilo, is a property control system.
I have come a long way since my first day of training in PM housekeeping and I am glad I was put into this role because I have learned so much more other than cleaning rooms. I have learned that there is so much more to housekeeping than I thought there was. Our main focus for our job is guest recovery and each day we make sure we accomplish that as a team.
As I read the posts of other students just starting their journey I feel your post will provide inspiration. Inspiration because you have accomplished a lot. During this internship students need to look and learn and listen and ask in order to gain the full potential of what Disney offers. Keep learning and keep being curious.