While talking with my managers last week, they offered me a professional internship position in management at Disney's MGM Studios. The internship would entail the responsibilities of what the current managers are doing such as coordinating cast members, opening and closing, and financially mantaining the merchandise locations. A professional internship is an internship that is higher than a college program internship that puts both feet in the door of having a career with Disney. Although the management position would be great, I would ideally like to do some kind of journalism internship. Perhaps maybe one for ESPN or a local newspaper. I'm even going to look further into getting some kind of professional journalism internship through Disney.
This week's Disney's Exploration Series in Guest Service was on park operations. Even though I will not be receiving any credit for this class, I'm really enjoying this series because we are receiving all the backstage information that Disney does from the top executives in the company. This week's session was conducted by Stockton Toler, Park Operations Manager at the Magic Kingdom. This year, Disney is conducting a special promotional year called the Year of a Million Dreams. Disney has hired a special team known as the Dream Team consisting of seventeen members that go to certain parks each day and award prizes at random to guests. Prizes consist of a lanyard with the Year of a Million Dreams pins all the way up to a 4 night cruise on the Disney Cruise Line. The Dream Team awards randomally for instance picking seat number 86 in the 3:00 Lion King Show. But what happens if there isn't anybody in seat number 86 for the 3:00 show? Toler explained that the prize is then marked as failure to reward and goes back into the pool to be awarded at a later time. At the end of class, Toler showed a video of a certain Year of a Million Dreams prize that was awarded. A family of four was waiting in line at the Magic Kingdom for it to open. They were selected at random to walk into the park before it was open down a red carpet placed on Main Street. When they got to the middle of the street, they were instructed to stop and turn around and wave. The greeter got on the loudspeaker and welcomed the family to the Magic Kingdom. Once he was done, every single cast member and character would popped out of the stores and shops lining Main Street and greeted them. It was quite the sight to see as each member of the family's jaw dropped and did not close until the end of the video. It's certain things like this that make me excited to go to work each day and makes me even more excited to report them. Certain things like this have taught me that we can present customer service in a fun way too. We are definitely making their day yet doing it in a fun way for everyone. That's the Disney Difference. There is a publication that Disney puts out called the Main Street Diary which is an internal publication for cast members to read about certain events such as Year of a Million Dreams happenings for the week. I think it would be interesting to see if I could possible report on one of those events for the publication.
Here is a website that explains the Year of a Million Dreams prizes and details.
http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/disneyparks/en_US/index?name=YOMDLowBandPage
My friends from Rowan visited this past week for their spring break so I didn't have the chance to work as much, but it certainly was interesting and exciting to tell them everything I've learned so far about Disney. For example, as discussed prior, the Mickey pole seen on the top of Crossroads at MGM Studios, is a lightning rod. They had no idea. It was also very interesting to see their reactions to the information I told them. They were so surprised at all the Disney secrets that they had never known when they previously visited the parks.
Fun Disney Fact: The Contemporary Resort is the largest A-framed building in the world (as seen in picture above.)
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