Anyone else here have kids working at Epcot?

[Teresa Pitman]

I read over some of the info and I have some questions for you former reps and moms of people doing this now or have done it-any info is very much appreciated as my ds has always wanted to do this and is 15 right now so I am looking to the future...

What is the approx percentage of their pay going to housing-50%? 70%? 40%? I guess I am wondering how much ends up in pocket after a typical week-is it enough to buy grocieries etc?

Are they given passes for the parks or can they come and go at their leisure on free time or not at all? I see the one time fee is $154 for activities but does that cover the stuff they do together as a group in the housing area or parks too?

What happens if you hate it and want to leave-are you contractually obliged to fulfill the year?

I will have to check with my sons about the percentage of pay for housing. I know that in the beginning, things were fairly tight. They did have enough to get by on (buying groceries, etc.0 but that was it. Once they started serving in the restaurant and were getting tips, though, they were making a pretty good amount of money and both came home with money in the bank.

They get free admission to the parks and free parking at the parks. I am not sure what the activities fee covers so I will ask them. They do have quite a few fun group activities.

They also used to get what they called "maingating" passes. I understand this has changed, though, so perhaps someone else knows the new system. It used to be that each person could bring up to three additional people into the park for a day for free with them, up to 12 times a year. It was a calendar year, so if you started in August, you could maingate 12 times between August and December, and then 12 more times between January and July.

You can also get deep discounts on rooms you book for friends and family. I believe this is unlimited. If the CM stays in the room with the guests, the discount is even more.

If you want to leave, you can leave. This does happen with a few people every year, you are not forced to stay. You will have a short period of time to get back into Canada once the contract is cancelled.

I will say that for my boys, the biggest challenges were roommates. You are matched up with roommates and they deliberately mix up people from different countries. This is sometimes good - they now have friends from around the world - but sometimes very difficult, as different cultures don't always agree on how to live. They each had at least one very challenging roommate! But as you get to know people, you can request to be with someone you like and that helps.

It really was a very positive experience for them, though. They both feel they learned a lot about customer service and working with all kinds of people.

TP

 

[dsneygirl]

When I started I worked at the BeaverTails stand (who remembers that?) and after rent I had enough for food, movies, some shopping etc, nothing crazy and no savings. But it really didn't matter, my housing was covered, they transported me to work so if my balance was $1 on payday it didn't really matter. I wasn't in it to save money.

Once I started serving it was totally different. You could easily clear $100+ a night, I am sure now they are closer to $200 at Le Cellier. With tips you could travel, eat out all the time and I still brought home thousands of dollars. My DH had enough cash to buy a car outright. Lots of people we knew just saved their tips and when their contract was up traveled for months (Europe, Australia etc).

If you assigned to Merch you will always make minimum wage. So enough to live on and have some fun, probably nothing to come home with.

Roommates are a double edged sword. I was lucky I had awesome ones. My french roommate and I are still close.

 

[alohamom]

Thanks for your answers! I am assuming if you have restaurant serving experience you may have a better chance of getting the serving job-my son is pumped and thinking ahead to a couple of years from now!