One Year at Disney World

In 2019 I moved to Disney World as a part of the Disney College Program. This was my second time doing the program and this time I came down with the intention to stay for a full year. My role was Attractions. I moved down to Orlando in late January. For the first 8 months of my program, I lived in Chatham housing in, let's just say, not the most ideal living situation. I had two bedrooms with six girls, meaning we had bunk beds in both rooms. This honestly was awful and I think began what eventually lead to a terrible and disrespectful roommate situation, but that is a story for another post.

Anyways I quickly found out I would be working at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad! I also got trained on the parade route in Frontierland as that's where the parade steps off. In the spring I didn't work the parade route all that often, I was mainly at my coaster. During the fall when Halloween parties and Christmas parties I was working the parade route nearly every day! My work location was amazing and so much fun. I got spoiled rotten on the Frontier.

I met a lot of friends when I was living at Disney. Often I know full-time and part-time cast members tend to stay away from befriending CPs, mainly because they know we are leaving. But because I was there for such a long time I was really lucky to get close with a lot of my coworkers. We weren't that big of a location and I personally knew every single one of my coworkers and had hung out with a lot of them outside of work. When I worked as a Merch cast member on my first program there were a lot of older cast members that I worked with so I didn't get as close with them. In attractions, most of us were in our twenties so we all hung out and got very close. We went out for food and drinks after work all the time.

I got a lot luckier on my program then most people do. I had amazing friends and an amazing work location that so many people were jealous of. I loved to go to work, and I loved to hang around my coworkers who eventually became some of closest friends. Yes, there was drama here and there, as there is with all groups of young people. It is what it is and eventually, you just learn to deal with it. And yes there were long and late hours and really miserable times but overall I wouldn't trade my experience for anything else. I maybe would trade for slightly more laid back roommates 😂, but that is it. I loved my CP.