Expect the Unexpected

Moving to Florida to work for Disney, I had a lot of expectations. I had a lot of expectations about what types of friends I would have. I had a lot of expectations about where I would be living. I had a lot of expectations about what it would be like working for the happiest place on earth. I had a lot of expectations about what I would be doing in my spare time. And needless to say, what it’s like living down here is not what I expected. So I thought I would make a blog post about what I expected coming down here and what it's actually like living and working in Florida.

You will miss home, but maybe not in the way you expect to - Don’t get me wrong, I miss home a lot. I miss my parents, my brother, my extended family. I miss Matt and his family. I miss my besties Christina, Wynter, Veronica, Reagan, and Daintree. I miss my work colleagues and my students. I miss having my own apartment, I miss having a big bed, I miss my cat, I miss having a car. But I don't miss it as much as I thought I would. I love my life here and it’s very busy, which keeps me from dwelling on how much I miss home. I frequently have said that I think my family and friends back home probably miss me more than I miss them because it’s like I have a whole new life here. It’s not as hard to be the one leaving compared to being the one left behind. What makes being away from home so hard is knowing that your family and friends miss you a whole lot.

Adjusting to life in America will make you miss Canada in weird ways - One of the weirdest adjustments I have found that I had to make when moving to America is using pennies again. No rounding up or down here and my wallet is now filled with those useless little coins. Also the money they use here is so boring, all the same colour and so you actually have to look at the bills when paying with cash. I really miss the colourful money we have in Canada. I also really miss some restaurants we had in Canada that we don't have here, like Boston Pizza or Swiss Chalet. I miss the food products I was so familiar with in the grocery stores, like President's Choice Southern Style Chicken Fingers (most of the chicken fingers here in the States are made with RIB MEAT and that just freaks me out). I miss the familiarity of toiletry products I used in Canada (Spectrojel face wash and Dristan). As many people know about me, I am a creature of habit, so adjusting to these little things in America was actually quite difficult and to be honest I am still trying to get used to it.

You don’t really get paid for the first month you are here - At Disney we get paid weekly, but paychecks don’t really start coming in until the 3rd or 4th week you are here. The first week you are here, you will probably only actually work one or two shifts. You don't get paid for any of the housing meetings you are required to go to, and your first paid day will be Traditions. Because you aren’t really getting paid the first week, housing doesn't take rent off the first paycheck you get. But that means the second paycheck you get, housing takes 2 weeks of rent off, which ends up being most of your paycheck (depending on how many hours you work). therefore your first full paycheck won’t be until your third pay week which ends up being the fourth week you are here. I definitely recommend coming here with some savings to help you through the first month. I came down here with $1000 put aside specifically for moving expenses, with more savings set aside for emergencies and also to help pay off students loans and all that other fun adult stuff. I went through half of that $1000 the first two days I was here paying for groceries and apartment essentials. I definitely suggest coming down here with a decent amount of savings so that you don’t feel trapped by money and can enjoy all that Orlando/Disney has to offer.

Work hours can be inconsistent - Depending on where you work, you may be getting a lot of hours or you may be working minimal hours. Merch and attractions often work 40-50 hour weeks because they have less staff. In food & bev right now, I am lucky to get more than 35 hours (minimum number of hours is 32.5). In food & bev we also often are not able to pick up extra hours because they don't want us going into overtime, whereas merch and attraction hand out overtime like it's candy.

Work is work is work - Coming down here, I honestly thought work would be all rainbows and sunshine and everyone would love each other because we are working in the Happiest Place on Earth. But I have since realized that work is work and it’s just like any other job I have had. Yes making magic at work can be really special and I love that aspect of my job, but at the end of the day, it's the perks of this program and the friendships that I have made that make this experience really truly worth it.

(Food & Bev specific) Not everyone who works at Le Cellier becomes a server - Becoming a server at Le Cellier is a process. First you have to understand that serving at Disney is hard work. There is a reputation to uphold and it can be very stressful. Some people can’t handle this stress, or don’t want to, and make a choice at the beginning of their program not to become a server. If you do decide to become a server though, there is a process put in place that is designed to challenge you and test you to ensure that you are able to uphold the service standards. The first step of the process to become a server is an oral spiel test of the menu and also the Disney restaurant standards. If you pass this test, then you are put on a list to go into service training. Service training begins with two weeks of food running, then one week of serving before you are tested again. This second test involves serving your managers and a Disney trainer. The weeks leading up to your final test can be excruciatingly stressful. If you fail, you can redo your assessment only once more. If you fail a second time, you are back to working podium and popcorn for the remainder of your program. There is also another option for those who don’t become servers which is becoming an assignor, which means assigning parties to tables in the restaurant. So before coming into food & bev, you should really consider what your goal of your program is in terms of your job and then challenge yourself to reach those goals. There are lots of resources available that will help you to succeed but ultimately it comes down to how much hard work and effort you put into this program.

There will be drama - I’m not really going to get much into this one, but to be honest this is really something that I just hadn’t imagined when I pictured my life working for Disney. But just as I said how work is work, as with any place where you put a bunch of 20somethings together, there is going to be drama.

Working with your friends can be weird - When we arrived at Disney, Eileen and I quickly became friends with the other arrivals from Canada and we all spent a lot of time together that first week. Then the next week we went into working together and that was a weird adjustment because everyone has different work styles and work ethic. You begin to see people in a different way and it can be hard to deal with because on one hand you are friends but on the other hand you might not agree with how they work. After a few weeks you adjust and learn to balance your work relationships and your friendship, but it can take some time to really become comfortable with it.

The busses provided to us to take to work kinda suck - To be honest, I haven’t had too much of an issue with the busses that take us to work. Most of the time they get me to work by the time the schedule says it will. Only once or twice did I have a real issue with being later than anticipated because of a mechanical issue on the bus. However be forewarned that it can take quite a while to get certain places. I am lucky that since I live in Vista, most of the busses I take regularly go straight from my apartment to wherever I am going. The problem most of the time is getting back home, because my apartment is then the last stop. For example, to go to work (Epcot) from my apartment, it takes about 10min, but to go from work to my home, it is a 40min bus ride. Usually whenever the busses work to my advantage I will use them but if it's going to be an extra long trip, I often take an uber. Going to Magic Kingdom, we take a 10min bus ride to the Polynesian hotel then monorail over to MK, but going home we usually walk over to the Contemporary hotel and uber home from there (the bus ride home from the MK area is over an hour ickk). Uber, by the way, is going to become your new best friend. A uber ride home from work costs approx $6-8, which in my opinion is way better than a 40min bus ride home after a long day at work, especially if you can fare split with two or three people.

Expect the worst when it comes to your apartment - As I have mentioned in previous posts, my apartment in Vista Way is not exactly the nicest. To be honest, before I came down here I truly set my expectations high. I did not want to live in a Vista. When housing asked us to indicate living preferences, Vista was choices 11 and 12, only before any options with bunk beds. I thought for sure Eileen and I would get a commons apartment (yay free laundry). Our hearts were broken when we got choice number 12. Then we thought, maybe it won't be so bad, we’ll get a renovated one and at least there are no bunkbeds and we’ll get the bedroom with the bathroom. PRANKS. PRANKS 2016. We walked into our apartment to find a partially renovated apartment (and the partial renovations they did are not nice ones), and to discover someone had already taken the room with the bathroom. Duh duh duhhhhhhh. Heartbreak again. To be honest, we have truly tried to make the best of it but once you see the nice apartments in Patterson and Commons, you can never forget how horrible your apartment really is. So just, don’t make the mistake I did by setting your expectations too high because the heartbreak is truly painful lol.

Living with roommates from all over the world can be an eye-opener - In my apartment, I live with two other Canadians, one girl from the UK, one girl from China and one girl from Italy. For the most part, I have been blessed when it comes to roommates. Although I wouldn’t exactly call us all besties, we all get along and live together relatively well. However, there are definitely some cultural differences that we’ve had to have discussions about. For example, in Italy and many other European countries, they don’t use air conditioning. When we first moved to Florida we had 30C+ weather everyday so it was HOT. I literally couldn't bear to live if the AC in my apartment was anything less than 21C. Occasionally however, someone would turn the AC up so it was much warmer in our apartment (still happens to this day). Most of the time I just turn it back up or let it warm up a bit before turning the AC back on. I my opinion it’s easier to put more clothes/blankets on to warm up than it is to take them off to cool down. Also in China and Italy apparently they don’t use shower curtains? The first few days, after they took showers I noticed the bathroom floor was flooded because they had been putting the liner outside of the tub. Luckily this was an easy fix of just explaining why we use the shower liner and haven’t had any issues since.

Not everyone comes down here because they love Disney - I came down to Orlando to work here because I love Disney. And that is true for most of my friends. However there are some people who came down here who really don’t care for Disney that much. Where I go to the parks at least once a week on my time off, some people who work here have never even seen Wishes. Some people came down here to make money (in food & bev specifically), whereas others want experience in the tourism business and Disney looks good on a resume. Some people simply came down here because they heard the parties were a good time. I hadn't really thought about this before I came down here and basically just thought everyone would love Disney as much as I did. But to be honest, as long as you have your reasons for coming to Orlando and Disney, and as long as you are honest with yourself about those reasons, then it truly is your program to make for your own and no one can judge you for that.

The perks of this program are truly magical - This is probably the one thing that I expected that actually has met and exceeded my expectations. As I mentioned in my previous point, I came on this program because I love Disney. I love the parks, I love everything the company represents, I love the history of it. To this day, I still leave work after every shift and think to myself “wow I can’t believe I work here”. There is something truly magical about walking the world showcase promenade after your shift while Illuminations are going on in the background. It's the little things that truly make me feel lucky and special to work here. Like who can say after work they just paid a quick visit to the Magic Kingdom to see fireworks before going home to bed? I can, and that's what I call blessed.