WDW College Program

Spring is finally here and in my resort as it was expected we have been very busy. I did not know that here in Florida Spring and Summer time rains everyday, but even though we have this crazy weather all parks and resorts are always full. Although we have had a busy Spring break, this week hasn’t been that bad for. Luckily my leader always look after me, for example, this past Monday she didn’t give me a lot of rooms to clean because she wanted me to help her in her office. I am so thankful that my leader consider me to learn and do different tasks at my work location.

Because Monday was such a productive day full of new experience, I will explain exactly how Monday was. My day at work starts at 8:00AM every morning so last Monday was not the exception, when I got in the office to get my board, the board is the work plan for the day where it tells you how many checkouts and occupied rooms you will have to do for the day. Normally in a normal day every Housekeeper has to clean eighteen rooms, but when she gave me my board she told me “I only gave you fourteen rooms to do and no checkouts, because you will help me close the building at the end of the shift” and then the last words that she tells me was “Made me proud Marilyn” at that moment I felt that she was giving me a lot of responsibility. Right away I left to do my task to finish early so I can be by her office on time as she asked me to. When I got in the office she gave me a complete building to close, I had to make sure that all the housekeepers completed their boards and if not they had to explain me why they weren’t unable to clean that room. Before doing all of that, Lucy my leader explain to me how the system called Lilo works and because I’m really good in technology it wasn’t hard for me to learn. At 3:30PM all the housekeepers start to arrive to give me their boards, there was one time that I was really busy and had to multitask like a real manager does, but at the end I believe I did a great job.

When I finished checking out all the housekeepers, my leader told me “Thanks Marilyn you did such an amazing job, you are really smart”. I was really proud of myself and I couldn’t resist to ask her why she is considering me to help her and to learn management tasks. She told me that she is doing all of that because she sees in me a lot of potential in this industry.

I am sure that all I’m learning here will help me to grow professionally and personally in the future.

like Walt would say “If you can dream it you can do it” -Disney World.

Spring season is here and the rain has started. This past week work has been a little slow for spring break. As a vacation planner we have meetings every morning before our shift starts, we get to know the park hours, forecast and any updates on attractions closed for refurbishment. We were expecting a closure phase for Magic Kingdom but it never happened. When they close Magic Kingdom, vacation planners are not allowed to sell a 1-day ticket for MK, instead we collect vouchers that they are supposed to get at the auto plaza when they try to get in Magic Kingdom’s parking lot. After we collect the vouchers we give them a ticket valid to any of the other 3 parks and then they can go to Magic Kingdom after 5 pm. Luckily, this closure has not happened yet. And it may not happened now until May which is when I leave, however it was good to know what to expect just in case Magic Kingdom reaches capacity.

With spring season coming we also had the Flower and Garden International Festival at Epcot. It is really cool. There are sculptures of different Disney characters made of plants and flowers. Also, they have outdoor kitchens located in the world showcase, my favorite is La Isla Fresca which is in the Mexico Pavilion but it’s a Caribbean snack spot. Also, they have a concert series in the American Gardens Theater, I had the chance to see The Village People live this past weekend.

This past week has been fun and full of discoveries. I was trained as a runner. this is another job that is performed as part of the front desk. They receive and deliver packages for guests and they also make sure that they help meet all of the guests requests, including but not limited to the purchase of merchandise, merchandise exchange, room inspection, etc. I was very excited and I got to explore the resort and get more familiar with the property outside of the front desk area. I was very excited and I loved it. After training there is a possibility that I might be scheduled as a runner at some point at least once during a week. I would really love to be given the change to be a runner again since It is very challenging and it keeps you busy, and you still get to interact with the guests.

Also at front desk this week, we had a very busy week, a lot of people checked in including groups or high school teams that had training at ESPN wide world of sports, schools from all over the country were checking in and also many people on spring break. We were so busy, we just kept checking people in, one after the other. We barely had time to look around us for a minute. I found this to be pretty challenging yet the more practice I get, the more efficient I become.

This week I was luckily still at Epcot out door vending and was actually being cross trained so I have the skills to work in the world showcase. So far what I am certified for right now is Future World but with this new training I have a lot more locations at which they can place me. During my initial training I did get to visit the locations within the world showcase but never actually got to partake in the daily function.

During my training I was with another College Progam member and friend also named Amanda. I was very happy to be training with her because we both know how each other works and learns by now so it made the day go by a lot smoother. On this day of training we were placed at Refreshment Port which is a very demanding location. In this kisoc they sell chicken nuggets and french fries, soft serve ice cream in a cup an a waffle cone, crounuts ( crossiant doughnuts ), soft non alcoholic beverages and one Lynchy spiked lemonade.

The part that really makes this place so demanding is the chicken nuggets and fries. We typically cook them to order because the hold time for both items are so short we do not want to just run through the product. So when we get a lot of orders we need someone contsisntaly on the friers to make sure we get out all of the orders.

I would have to say my absolute favorite thing about training is that we get to try all the food for free. So on my lunch we were able to take an order of nuggets and fries as well as a crounu, which were delicious. This allows us to really give our own perspective when a guests comes and asks about any of the products on our menu.

I still have one more day left of training along with my assessment, but after that I will be fully trained to work in the entire Epcot park for out door vending.

When faced with a real emergency you really hope that you can come out on top of the situation and hopefully do what is needed of you. It is only when you are really in the situation that you will know how you are going to react. During the Flower and Garden Festival this month, mainly because it is Easter, they had a special egg hunt of the guests. When participating in this egg hunt you are to travel around the entire park in search of these giant Disney styles eggs. Once you have found all of them they reward you with your own souvenir Disney egg. Everyone was very excited about this egg hunt, especially since their was a free prize involved.

I was back working at Epcot this week so I was able to see all the children happy to have found all the Easter eggs. I was working at one of the busiest carts in the park, “ice cream 2”. It is so busy because it is one of the first food carts you see when entering. It was just a random moment in the day when my line was fairly short. I am helping out my customers as needed when a lady runs up to me saying a baby a choking. I look over and see the entire family in a panic. At this point I did not even know what to do myself as I need the crowd forming around the family. Luckily I see a man step in and take the child and starts doing the appropriate CPR that is supposed to be performed on a child of that age. Come to find out the baby had stuck almost the whole Disney Easter Egg in his mouth and half of it was lodged in his throat. Thankfull the man was able to get it out.

When in training they tell you about situations like this one occurring but you don’t every really expect it to happen right in front of you. As said many times their number one priority is safety so in emergent situations we can do what has to be done. I can fully admit I was not personally prepared for a real situation like this. When seeing what was happening I felt myself freeze then went to a fellow coworker to see what to do next. It was defiantly heart racing but now I know I need to get myself more prepared for real life crisis’s like this one.

This week has been a very special week for all the College Program (PC) housekeepers because after all these weeks of work we were finally recognized for our hard work. Last Wednesday our leaders prepared a potluck for lunch, we got together and spent two hours eating and sharing our experiences. During those two hours each and every leader went to the front and told us about their experience and how they started working and moving up in Disney. Each story was very motivated and special, why special and motivated?, because all of the started from the bottom and some of them were a college program as I am today. That makes me see that anything in this world can be possible, also I had the change to meet more CPs from other cities and from another country. Since now everything is about networking, I think it was very important that we all had the change to meet up and network.

I also was so excited because I tried different dishes that I had never tried before.  One of the dishes that I tried was from Haiti, Even though Haiti and my country  The Dominican Republic is one land and only one line is separating them, I have never had the opportunity to share they culture and traditions. When I was eating that dish which is their tradition dish that represent who they are, I noticed that it is very similar to our traditional dish too. The way the cook it is very similar to ours, it’s incredible to see how these two country even though they don’t get alone still share the same roots that we all have which are from African and Spanish from Spain. Today I am so glad that I tried that dish because now I know more about their culture and I definitely will try more dishes from Haiti.

There are practical little things in housekeeping that only a housekeeper can understand. These past weeks I have learned different tasks about the housekeeping department. For example, one of the things that I learned to do is special touches in occupied rooms. Before I did not understand  what that meant but now that I have been doing it for couple weeks already, I really understand the meaning for our guests. A special touch in an occupied room is the little extra time a housekeeper takes to make the room look special for the guest so they can feel very special when they come back from their long day outside of the hotel. After we clean the room we look for any special or significant thing that the guest may have in the room, we usually use it to decorate the room and make it look like their getting back to their home and not to a hotel room.

These special touches as we called it have made me learn the importance of making our guests comfortable in our hotel rooms. the reason why we do this is because we want them to come back for their next vacation. We want them to think about our hotel as the best destination to stay because we make them feel like home. here are some photos about some special touches that I have done. And I want to share that I really enjoy doing that, I could say that that’s my favorite part out of all I do in housekeeping.

This week I wanted to talk about my experience as a front desk cashier at Pop Century Resort. The more I get to do my job the more I love it, although it can be very overwhelming at times. I’ve learn to do many types of transactions during a check in and assist guests who are experiencing different situations. I am becoming better and my problem-solving skills are improving.

Front desk staff have different jobs to perform. Some work in the back office, others are cashiers, concierge, and runners. College program participants are crossed trained in two positions at a time. Depending on their role. Some go on to become concierge after becoming cashiers if that’s their originally designated role. Others, are trained as cashiers as well as runners and perform the role of cashier and runners depending on what role is scheduled for the day. Soon I will be trained as well but I will talk more about it after I start my training. I am very excited and I look forward to it. I think it is very fun and it allows us to be more flexible and learn more in depth about how the front desk operates.  While we are the face of the company whenever a guest checks in, we are also working very hard back stage to make sure that everything is efficiently set for the guests to have the best experience.

This week in class we have been making progress in our group project. We decided to make a website about our value resort instead of writing a paper. We will be using  wix.com because it is free and also very helpful for new starters. We have so far the name and the theme of our resort, the quality standard, vision and mission statement, a SWOT analysis, market analysis, line of businesses and their specific positions. Putting all of this together will create a successful business.

At work I had a training class called Product Knowledge, it’s a specific class for Vacation Planners to learn more about the parks, not just the four theme parks but also the water parks and other fun options Disney offers such as Golf courses and Arcade games like Disney Quest. It was a very fun class because we were not only sitting in a classroom looking at videos, but we got to explore Magic Kingdom on an amazing 3 hour walking tour. We also got the opportunity to ride some of the attractions such as The Haunted Mansion which is one of the oldest attractions here in Disney. Another classic is the Jungle Cruise, which they also have it at Disneyland. I also learned that Pirates of the Caribbean was a ride before a movie.

In Magic Kingdom we have a land called Liberty Square which is themed after Colonial America and there is a replica of the Liberty bell because 50 replicas were ordered to make to give to all of the states however Pennsylvania already had the original one so it was given to Disney World for commemorating the colonial era. That makes Florida the only state that holds two replicas of the Liberty bell. I also learned that Animal Kingdom is the biggest park, they don’t have as many attractions as Magic Kingdom but just the Kilimanjaro safari is as big as Magic Kingdom.

Product Knowledge class helped me a lot to gain more knowledge about the parks so that I can tell guests what to expect at each park and not just Animal Kingdom. That could also help me to get better at ticket sales because I can explain it better to the guests specially about other options such as water park, fun and more.

Kilimanjaro Safari

Liberty Square