Disneyland vs. Disney World CP

[knicho27]

Hey everyone, I've seen a lot of people who are going to Disney World for Spring 2011 CP program, but not a whole lot of people going to Disneyland! I'm HOPEFULLY going to Disneyland next semester, and was wondering who all was going too! Is it honestly harder to get into Disneyland than Disney World? How many people usually get accepted for Disneyland? I'm doing the web based interview this week, and really scared that I won't pass...

 

[Ashulee]

I've heard that Disney World accepts 3x as many people as Disneyland. I don't know how true this is, but I can tell you that within 6 days of interviewing for Disneyland, I already had a rejection letter in my hand. [I applied for all roles, and the interview went great.]


Good luck to you, though!

 

[squish86]

also my recruiter told me that you have to pay for your first few months rent in advance... they dont take it out of checks from day one like orlando...

 

[StaceyDarling!]

Well Disneyland is a MUCH smaller program then WDW. DL only has one complex, and up until 2 years ago they didn't have one at all. You take public transit, not partnered private buses. Although you just don't pay for the public transit. DL accepts about 500 CP's where as WDW accepts nearly 2500 CP's and then have 4 apartment complexes, including international! It's just a much larger program over here on the east coast. DL's program is still growing! Thats why it's harder. But I would love to try it one year. And yes, you have to pay about $849 upfront, before beginning your program. Thats an assesment fee, security depsoit and 4 weeks (first months) rent up front!

 

[Savvy]

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Disneyland doesn't offer housing. You have to have your own accomodations whereas Disney World provides apartments for you and transportation via public busses.

 

[StaceyDarling!]

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Disneyland doesn't offer housing. You have to have your own accomodations whereas Disney World provides apartments for you and transportation via public busses.

Nope! haha. Disneyland now provides housing! (started 2 years ago) I learned about it at my campus presentation. It's a partnership with a apartment complex near the parks. Thats why you have to pay so much money before hand. And I believe CP/CS's aren't the only ones who live in the complex.

 

[Savvy]

Nope! haha. Disneyland now provides housing! (started 2 years ago) I learned about it at my campus presentation. It's a partnership with a apartment complex near the parks. Thats why you have to pay so much money before hand. And I believe CP/CS's aren't the only ones who live in the complex.

Haha okay thanks! I was looking at their website earlier today for Disneyland, and it didn't even have any information on housing, so I assumed they didn't offer it!

 

[StaceyDarling!]

Haha okay thanks! I was looking at their website earlier today for Disneyland, and it didn't even have any information on housing, so I assumed they didn't offer it!

If is on the site! So keep an eye out for it! It also shows pictures of the housing and gives other important information! I'd love to do the DL CP. If I could come up with 900 dollars by Jan! hahaha.

 

[Savvy]

Wow, $900? Hahaha. I'd much rather do the DW program because I live in Florida and it's close haha.

Is the 900 for housing fees? ha.

 

[StaceyDarling!]

No, no! haha. For WDW the only thing you have to pay to accept is $100 and thats a program fee and every penny of that goes to pay for activites for CPer's to do!

DL you have to pay 849 up front because you pay first months rent, a program fee and a security depsoit! lol.

 

[TomSteffler]

Things that would have been nice to know BEFORE applying for Disneyland...

 

[BigDreamer]

My sister is in the DL CP right now and she likes it. She's in a 2 bedroom, 5 person apartment. She's in the 3 person room, and shares a bunkbed with her friend. I'm not sure if you can do this with the DW program, but I know that with her she was able to pay all of her rent up front for the program, and so she doesn't have any rent taken out of her paycheck. However, if you choose to pay everything first, you can pay with a credit card before hand on the internet, or you can pay with a cashier's check, rather than charge it to a credit card, and she had to turn in the check on the day she checked in. The benefit though is that it was like 20% off the rent, so she saved some money there.
Like it was mentioned before, you have to take the city buses to work, and like most buses they can be really unpredictable when it comes to arriving on time, so she tries to take early buses. Sometimes she gets to work an hour before her shift, and sometimes she's just on time. Also, the point system is different than DW, which we didn't know. So when she wanted to call out sick one day, my mom and I were telling her how many points she would get based on what we had read for DW, and she was saying, "nooo, that's not what they told me." She works Merch in Disney California Adventure and works in a ton of different stores. She has like 4 different costumes, which can be fun since you can only check out 3 costumes at a time.

 

[Savvy]

Does anyone know if you can pay rent ahead of time at WDW too? That would be awesome :]

 

[teamlouise]

Hello!

I'm on the DLR college program right now, so I thought I'd add my two cents...

It is a little harder to get into the Disneyland program -- we're a much smaller resort so our program is smaller. I've been told there are a little over 400 people here for Fall 2010.

The web interview is the same for both programs though, so your chances of passing it aren't affected by how many people they take.


Here's a post I wrote about housing, in case you're curious.

Good luck! The Disneyland program is really fun! It's definitely a different experience than WDW and the extra up-front cost of housing is totally worth the California perks for a lot of us!

 

[bobwords]

squish86 - is that actually true

 

[squish86]

well they do eventually take rent out of the checks i believe but you have to pay like 900 dollars up front like one person said on here ... because the apartments are through someone else not just disney...

 

[Cesilie]

I was a DLR CPer this last august (left tho).

You pay $849 upfront for a deposit, fee, and rent for the first FOUR weeks. Make sure you keep track of that becuase when you get your first paycheck, they automatically take out of your bank account the NEXT day. NOT out of your paycheck. It caused a few of us to be way over-drawn with our banks... they take out $134 a week for rent.

Be sure to save up a lot of $ beforehand. Its expsenive to live in that area and I came home broke. Depending on your role and park (dca vs. dlr) you can get less hours. I had maybe 12 hrs a week at a whopping $8. Which is what I was making here at home (actually I make more here) and I didn't have to pay the expsneive rent prices or food prices to go shopping.

Bus transportation isn't bad, it was better than having to park at PK2 and walking 3 blocks at 3am to get home. Tehre are a lot of hobos and a nightclub on the corner so there's always creepers around and secuirity is no where to be seen except the week of 9/11 when 2 secuirity guards were stabbed (one stabbed to death) at the nightclub and we had bomb threats at PK1 and our underneath garage for the plaza.


There aren't too many people accepted into dlr... there is only one complex with 58 rooms (since one rm 300 is the housing office and one's the "gym") that have bugs. fair warning on those.

If you do head to the DCP find housing OUTSIDE of the program housing. I would have still been there if I didn't do their housing. Miguel is a HUGLY rude manager and doesn't really care for helping anyone. He's very into finding excuses as to why he can't or won't do things and everything is YOUR fault.


The CP was okay, but it was more hassle and more expensive than I could even afford. There were weeks I couldn't afford my rent to them because I had only gotten 8 hrs that week, which obviously didn't cover rent.


Not to mention everything I hear about the WDW cp is 100xs better than the DLR one.


I hate to sound like such a downer, but I'd love to share my horrid experience with you guys so you're sorta aware of whats gonna go on. I have a blog (http://thoughtsofanunderagethinker.tumblr.com/) that throughout the wedding and tons of pictures I have blogs of postings I did while I was there to explain everything. you can check it out if you like

 

[CursedCarolers]

I did the DLR CP and I graduated in August and I absolutely loved it.

I had originally applied to WDW and didn't get accepted but I did get accepted to DLR. So, I don't know about it being tougher to get into... A lot of people who were accepted were rather strange and some of them incompetent. Many got let go within the first 3 months.

The person above found the area shady and expensive...I kinda thought the opposite. Maybe it's different coming from Brooklyn... But I thought the neighborhood was really nice and pretty and everything was about the same price, if not cheaper than here in NYC. It's all about money management. If you're responsible, you'll make enough.

I worked at DCA, notorious for getting less hours...but again...I was fine. My job required that I stay two hours after park closing or come in two hours before park opening so I never really got shafted unless it was a dead day and they let us go early. But that was usually optional. And even if you start out thinking you're never gonna leave early given the option... Give yourself a month or two... You'll be begging to go home and get some sleep somedays.

The 800 dollar fee is rough. But It's really only a 100 dollar fee. You get your security deposit back at the end, obviously. and paying the first months rent ahead of time really frees you up in the first few weeks for buying necessary items with your paychecks.

Miguel gets a bad rap but he's not that bad. Just don't rely on him. If you need something, yeah you gotta pester the hell out of the people in the office but remember that they're dealing with 300 other people so you're not always at the top of their list. Aside from a few issues where they were a bit unorganized, I never had an issue.

The Disneyland CP is largely dependent on what you make of it. You have LOTS of opportunities to network and meet people but you gotta put forth a little extra effort when you come home from work...which is gonna be tough. They work you hard.

I was not without my issues but they kind of sorted themselves out after 3 months. Which may sound like a lot if you're doing a 5 month program...but I did the 8 month one. So I really had some of the best times of my life in the last 5 months.

If anyone has questions feel free to ask. Sorry if I don't answer but I don't really check these boards often. That being said, seeing as it's finals time, I'll be doing plenty of procrastinating and dreaming about being back in SoCal weather. So who knows...maybe I'll be drawn back here. haha.

 

[Lokity]

Does Disneyland have the same sessions/seasons as WDW? Fall/Fall Advantage, etc? I couldn't find anything on the office DCP site.

 

[ishbit92]

Part of me wants to do the Disneyland CP because it's A LOT closer (I'm in Alaska) and I've been to DL a lot (I'm going again in May!) so I already know the park pretty well, however, I've only been to WDW once like 7 years ago and I think this would be a really good opportunity for me to go down there again. Price wise, I think it'd be the same-ish to get down to Florida as the $800 dollar fee that you have to pay for the DL one because I'm going to have to spend a fortune on airfare to get to the WDWCP.