DAKlimation and Training Day 1

For the past two days, I've been training at my job site. I had DAKlimation yesterday, which was basically just an orientation to working at Animal Kingdom. We took a tour of the park for about 2 hours, had a classroom session for about 1 1/2 hours, and then had our lunch break. The park tour was cool because I got to learn a lot of new fun facts! The class session was also somewhat interesting; we learned about the new Fastpass plus system, about how the animals are cared for, and all about spreading the park's message, which is conservation. This is the perfect location for me because I am a Conservation Biology major, so I'm thrilled to be working in Animal Kingdom! After the classroom portion, we received our training schedules for the remainder of the week, which for me meant finding out my work location!!! I'll be working at (drumroll please)...... FINDING NEMO, THE MUSICAL!! I'm super excited about that because I love the show, and think that learning behind the scenes ins and outs will be really interesting.

After lunch, my whole group headed over to costuming, where we got our costumes for our roles. Honestly, I was super excited for costuming, and it ended up being completely stressful and overwhelming. None of the sizes fit like they should, and the building is so huge that it's hard to find everything you need. I was really glad to get out of there with 5 brown plaid shirts, 5 sage green pants, 1 brown belt, and some other super cute (note the sarcasm) accessories. In actuality, my costume is actually pretty tame compared to some of the others. It's just a general costume that goes with the natural/animal/conservation theme of the park. And, the best part about my costume is that I get to wear hiking boots! I don't know why, but I was so happy to go out and buy boots instead of boring black shoes to go with my costume!

Today, I had my first day of on the job training. I was so nervous that I ended up getting there an hour early and sitting in my car waiting! I met my trainer, Wendy, in the main entrance break room, we clocked in, and my day began! I worked from 10:00 to 18:30 (yes, Disney uses military time - aka 6:30) with a 30 minute lunch break and two 15 minute breaks. To be completely honest, I was really shocked with how training went. I was expecting everything to be happy and magical and "Disney", and when it wasn't, it took some adjustment on my part! I ended up really enjoying my day though, once I adjusted to the fact that I was now on the Cast Member side of Disney, not the guest side. I met a lot of people that I will be working with, watched the show, read a chapter of the operations manual, did some online tutorials, and then went into some on the job training at different locations around the theater. It was a bit stressful, because I had to wear a headset so I could communicate with everyone else, which made it hard to focus on the guests while I was hearing a bunch of talking in my one ear. It's definitely something I will have to adjust to!

Overall, these past two days of training have gone really well. The one thing I will say is that both days went completely differently than I had expected. My advice to any incoming CP's or people thinking about applying is to keep an open mind and know that not everything will go completely as planned. The Cast Member side of things is completely different than the Guest side! 

Keep looking for an update on the rest of my training this week. Also, come visit me at The Theater in the Wild for Finding Nemo, The Musical! I would love to see you there (: