5 months in the Most Magical Place on Earth...my College Program TR

[spiroff.natasha]

That is too fun that you can check out other costumes! Is the green one from the Haunted Mansion?

Yes! ​

 

[tinawv]

Love, love, love reading about your experience in the CM Program. I am encouraging my son to read your report hoping he might get intereted in the program. Can't wait to read more.

 

[sherylcin]

Now that is what I call a nice perk!!

 

[francis6306]

YAY!!! An update!

I LOVE that you checked out other costumes! That's awesome! I would totally do that myself and I would be picking a FGIT as well! That would be my "dream" position in Disney. Of course, in my dreams, I get little girls with untangled hair, no tender-headed and HAPPY princesses to be!

 

[spiroff.natasha]

Love, love, love reading about your experience in the CM Program. I am encouraging my son to read your report hoping he might get intereted in the program. Can't wait to read more.

Glad to have you here! How old is your son?​

Now that is what I call a nice perk!!

Ohhh yea, we had lots of fun in the costuming department!​

​

YAY!!! An update!

I LOVE that you checked out other costumes! That's awesome! I would totally do that myself and I would be picking a FGIT as well! That would be my "dream" position in Disney. Of course, in my dreams, I get little girls with untangled hair, no tender-headed and HAPPY princesses to be!

love it! That would definitely be a great job right? The FGIT costume was so cute...I miss it! HAHA​

 

[spiroff.natasha]

Like I mentioned before, I took two courses while participating in the Disney College Program: Advanced Studies in Hospitality Management and Exploring Guest Service at the Walt Disney World Resort.

At the beginning of my program registration was open at the clubhouse at Vista Way for a few weeks after our program started. (Now, you register online before you arrive).

One afternoon Katie, Lisa, Belle and I went to Vista to sign up for some classes. I don't think that Katie ended up signing up for anything and I don't remember what Belle signed up for but I do know that Lisa and I were signed up for the same classes!

Our AHM class was on Monday mornings...8AM-12PM....talk about a long class!

EGS was on Tuesdays from 11AM- 1PM

Now, I LOVED our EGS class. Each week we had a guest speaker from a different area of operations at the WDW resort. It was super interesting to hear all the stories and hear all the crazy stories. One of my favorite guest service stories we heard took place in the parking lot of Magic Kingdom...

While doing their routine patrols, the security guard noticed that a car had been stripped of all 4 tires Of course, the guest didn't arrive at WDW with no tires on their car...so it had to have happened while they were in the park. The guards first contacted the car care center to see if they had tires that matched this particular vehicle. They did....but only 3. So, a mass message went out to all leaders at the WDW resort to find a match for this car. Surely, SOMEONE had to have the same make and model right? They eventually found someone, got all 4 tires onto the guests car, and then stationed someone there all day/night to wait for the guets to return. They had to explain the situation, and then, of course, presented the guests with a voucher to get 4 new tires put on their car.

Such a crazy story! Could you imagine being that guest?! HAHA

Now, our AHM class was a different story...

I really didn't enjoy this class, and either did Lisa. It wasn't the material necessarily, it mainly had to do with the instructor. Of course, I would never name names and I'm not here to bash on any part of the CP so I wont go into detail about this. But what I will do is show you pictures that we took on my computer while in said class....

The first one

From the day we wore the BBB costumes!

While it does look like we had a little too much fun {is that possible?!}...we did get our Mousters Degrees!

​

 

[Kelliroo3]

It's so interesting to hear all of this about the CP. I never knew you could take classes! How fun. And, I love that you got to wear costumes to class. Very cute.

 

[jenseib]

That is so funny. I hope you did learn a little bit at least.

 

[francis6306]

Well, at least you learned how to take fun pictures!

I wish I could do the college program! If I had known anything about this when I was in college, I probably would have done it!

and 8-12????? That is CRAZY!!!! At least it was only once a week, right?

 

[spiroff.natasha]

If you remember from my post about the kitchen sink, we were supposed to see Fantasmic that night…but we were wayyy too full to even think about braving the crowds and sitting through the show.

A few weeks later, we finally got the chance to see it! I had been dying to watch the show for a while since it is one of my favorites and unfortunately, almost every night that I had off from work, the show wasn’t scheduled.

The day started with pedicures (Annie and I got pedicures, Lisa just kept us company!) and then we headed to Hollywood Studios. In an effort to get things crossed off of our “let’s do every attraction while on the CP” list, we started off our day at the Lights!Motors!Action! show. I think that this show is awesome but I am basically having a heart attack the whole time.

We walked around DHS for a while, saying hi to one of Annie’s roomies and taking fun pictures.

{this isn't Annie's roomie obviously...it's our best friend Walt!}

After that we headed to the Indiana Jones stunt show and I was picked to be one of the actors. It was pretty entertaining. At one point, I was supposed to be “arguing” with another volunteer over the pile of rugs and while we were “arguing” she straight up pushed me! HAHA I was not expecting that.

We eventually met up with one of Annie’s roommates, Keri, and Sam from CRT! We took a couple of group pictures then headed over to get ice cream before the show started. We had really good seats and the show did not disappoint. I looove it!

{again, not Annie's roomie...}

{there she is!}

Before heading home for the night, we had to get a ride in on TOT since the line wasn’t very long. Lisa stayed back for this one since it really is not her favorite ride

It was a really great day with the ladies!​

 

[spiroff.natasha]

It's so interesting to hear all of this about the CP. I never knew you could take classes! How fun. And, I love that you got to wear costumes to class. Very cute.

Wearing the costumes to class was definitely fun and kept it interesting! The DCP is big on "Living, Learning and Earning" and there are tons of different classes that they offer! You are limited to two during each session but if I was on the longer program I could have taken a total of 4 ​

That is so funny. I hope you did learn a little bit at least.

We definitely did! Some of the most interesting guest speakers were the two gentlemen who are in charge for all merchandise at DTD...it was awesome to hear some behind the scenes info about how purchasing works and we got to see a sneak peek of the new offerings there! Did you know there is an entire warehouse backstage full of JUST classis mickey ears?!
​

Well, at least you learned how to take fun pictures!

I wish I could do the college program! If I had known anything about this when I was in college, I probably would have done it!

and 8-12????? That is CRAZY!!!! At least it was only once a week, right?

Yes, having it only once a week was soooo relieving! It was especially long because we almost always had fun plans afterwards since we were off so we were always counting down until the real fun started ​

 

[francis6306]

HOW can someone not like TOT?!?!? I just do not understand that!!!!! I LOVE TOT.

 

[jpgpmpcp]

I have never ever read through an entire thread...until tonight Love your trip report and will have to keep reading it!

 

[spiroff.natasha]

HOW can someone not like TOT?!?!? I just do not understand that!!!!! I LOVE TOT.

I love it too!! SO much fun. Lisa is just crazy (hiiii Lisa ) She will learn to love it ​

I have never ever read through an entire thread...until tonight Love your trip report and will have to keep reading it!

You are so sweet! I love to hear that people are enjoying it
​

 

[spiroff.natasha]

If you haven’t figured it out already, Lisa and I spent a lot of our time off at the parks. In our seemingly never-ending quest to get all attractions done while on our CP, we headed off to MK after our class to check off some of the attractions that we always seemed to skip.

First on the list, Tom Sawyer Island. I actually think TSI is pretty cool, but I hardly ever go over because it’s so dang time consuming. Once we were over there, we had some fun exploring and took a bunch of pictures…

{helllloooooo awkward self-timer}

After that, we decided to test out the new queue and ending for one of our favorites, Haunted Mansion!

And if you aren’t sick of seeing pictures of me and Lisa yet…here we are checking out the castle suite lobby from the “princess elevator” that leads to CRT!

That night we met up with some friends at Giordanos for deeeelicoius pizza....so good!​

 

[francis6306]

​

(I hope I cropped the right picture!)

It kinda looks like you have a halo on!!

(YAY! It was the right one!)

 

[spiroff.natasha]

(I hope I cropped the right picture!)

It kinda looks like you have a halo on!!

(YAY! It was the right one!)

HAHA it does! I'm just so angelic ​

 

[Kelliroo3]

It looks like you had so much fun! So nice to see. Thanks for sharing.

I have only been to TSI twice, but I'd love to explore there more. You're right though: it is time consuming! You could easily spend hours there.

 

[TinkerbellinNY6]

Loving the updates! It is making me even more excited for my CP!!! I was wondering what you would suggest to wear traditions. I am trying how dressy I should be (if that makes sense)lol

 

[sherylcin]

So cool that you spent so much time in the parks........and why not!! So much to see and do. Did you achieve your goal of riding/seeing everything there? I'd sure like to give that a try! It's really great that you and Lisa hit it off so well and had so much fun together. It's always so much better to share great experiences with a great friend!

Did Disney offer the classes for free or did you have to pay for them? That's a pretty wonderful opportunity either way (even if one wasn't up to par).