Amber Earns Her Ears: My Secret Walt Disney World Cast Member Diary
Read Amber Earns Her Ears: My Secret Walt Disney World Cast Member Diary Online
Authors: Amber Sewell
Tags: #disney, #disney world, #disney college program, #magic kingdom, #epcot, #orlando
My Secret Walt Disney World Cast Member Diary
Amber Michelle Sewell
Foreword by Lee Cockerell
Retired Executive Vice President
Walt Disney World Resort
Theme Park Press
© 2013 Amber Michelle Sewell
All rights reserved. This book, or any portion thereof, may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is neither authorized nor sponsored nor endorsed by the Disney Company or any of its subsidiaries. It is an unofficial and unauthorized book and not a Disney product. The mention of names and places associated with the Disney Company are not intended in any way to infringe on existing copyrights or registered trademarks of the Disney Company but are used in context for educational purposes.
The Publisher and Author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting, or alleged to result, directly or indirectly from the use of the information contained herein.
Editor: Bob McLain
Cover Design: Camille Rejenne Pavon
Layout: Artisanal Text
Publisher: Theme Park Press
Address queries to
[email protected]
If you have a Disney story to tell, Theme Park Press would like to help you tell it. We offer generous compensation and the most author-friendly terms in the business. See how we can put you in print:
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Part One: My First Semester at Walt Disney World
2. Amber Sweats Her Interviews
5. Amber Drives to Disney World
7. Amber Learns the Disney Way
9. Amber Opens Her Electric Umbrella
10. Amber Bonds Over French Fries
12. Amber Deals with Disney Stress
13. Amber Colors Eggs at Chatham
14. Amber Learns Where Things Go
16. Amber Recalls Cast-off Cast Members
18. Amber Does the Cupid Shuffle
Part Two: My Second Semester at Walt Disney World
21. Amber Goes Through the Motions
22. Amber Gives Guests Some Magic
24. Amber Auditions for Her Close-up
26. Amber Deals with Disney Discontent
27. Amber Rumbles with Her Roomies
29. Amber Exposes Disney Merch
30. Amber Gets a Thank You Card
33. Amber Joins the Bus People
34. Amber Feels Sympathetic Vibrations
35. Amber Hooks Up with Her Parents
I PARTICULARLY ENJOYED READING
Amber Earns Her Ears
, as the Disney College Program touched me personally even before I joined Disney in 1990 to open the Euro Disney project in Paris.
Back in 1989, I was the General Manager of a Marriott Hotel, and my son Daniel was in his second year at Boston University. He called me asking for ideas on what summer job he should pursue to gain some experience in and exposure to a different industry. He had already worked at the Boston Copley Marriott as a waiter in the sports bar, and had done an internship at a Boston brokerage firm.
I suggested he try to get a job at Disney through the Disney College Program. I had heard lots of good things about this program and had, in fact, instructed my management team at Marriott to hire any applicant who had Disney experience. I was never disappointed in hiring someone who was Disney trained.
My son Daniel called me two weeks after he started the College Program and said, “Dad I have bad news for you. Disney is better than Marriott.” I said, “Why are they better?” He replied, “The training is fabulous.” A year later I was recruited by Disney. I tell people that my son got me the job.
Amber Sewell has done a great job of painting a fun and informative picture of what it is like to work and live at Disney as a young college student.
Her descriptions of her many experiences and escapades brought back fond and not-so-fond memories of similar stories I had heard from my son and from many of the thousands of young people who have participated in this program.
I suggest anyone looking for a once-in-a-lifetime experience consider the Disney College Program. I assure you that, like Amber, you will never be the same. Learning from the best will help you be the best, and will give you a lifelong edge. As one college professor told me a few years ago, “Lee, we sent you an introvert and you sent us back an extrovert.”
The real value of doing the Disney College Program is that when you apply for a job after graduation, or even years later, the employer interviewing you will only want to talk about your Disney experience and how you can help their organization achieve service excellence like Disney does.
If you can't participate in the Disney College Program, I suggest you read
Amber Earns Her Ears
to gain a unique understanding of how the right experience can bring you lots of fun, frustration, and knowledge which will serve you well as you navigate your career. It sure worked out for my son, who is now the Vice President of Disney's Hollywood Studios. He has been with Disney for 20 years, and it all began when he earned his ears.
Lee Cockerell
Executive Vice President (Retired and Inspired)
Walt Disney World Resort
April 2013
Author of:
Creating Magic: 10 Common Sense Leadership Strategies from a Life at Disney
The Customer Rules: The 39 Essential Rules for Delivering Sensational Service
I MET AMBER SEWELL in the modern sense: online.
Back in 2011, I ran a mega-site called Disney Dispatch. I had a few dozen weekly columnists, including Disney Legends like Rolly Crump, and I began to notice in my Google Analytics reports that one particular column was doing better than most of the other columns. In fact, it sometimes drew more traffic than Rolly Crump! Who wrote it?
Amber Sewell, of course.
I had pitched Amber the idea of a weekly column about her Disney CareerStart and Disney College Program adventures called Amber Earns Her Ears. I figured it would interest other College Program participants. But Amber threw herself heart and soul into the column, and her weekly “diary from Disney” drew faithful flocks of readers young and old.
Well before Amber finished the College Program, I sold Disney Dispatch, and most of the columnists left the site. Amber stuck around for a bit, but then she drifted off as well. Her diary? Unfinished.
About a year later, I got back in touch with Amber to ask whether she’d like to revise and expand her old Disney Dispatch columns, and write new material (lots of it!) to pick up from where she left off.
I told her we’d turn it into a book.
If you’re not familiar with Disney CareerStart or the Disney College Program, don’t worry: you’ll learn about them right along with Amber.
I ought to mention that Disney discontinued CareerStart a couple of years ago. CareerStart and the College Program (which is still active and enrolls thousands of participants every year) are mostly identical, except that you could apply for CareerStart while still in high school. Once enrolled, however, participants in both programs take on the same Cast Member roles and duties.
In the first part of the book, Amber chronicles her semester in CareerStart, and then in the second part, she covers her semester in the College Program.
Want to follow in Amber’s footsteps? If you’re a college student, and if you’d like to spend your next semester in a theme park instead of in a classroom, maybe you can:
http://disneycollegeprogram.com
.
Enough with the preliminaries. Let’s get to work — for Disney.
Bob McLain
Theme Park Press
April 2013
My First Semester at Walt Disney World
ON FEBRUARY 5, 2010, I pulled out of my driveway at two in the morning, my sister in the seat beside me and my parents in the car ahead. My car (affectionately known as Dinosaur) was packed to the brim with bedding, boxes, lamps, and clothes. There was an air of anticipation and new beginnings despite the early hour — the fresh breath of a new adventure.
When I reached the end of our little Tennessee back road, about to turn onto the highway for the 655-mile journey to Orlando, I set my iPod to my Disney playlist and selected “Go the Distance” from
Hercules
:
I have often dreamed,
Of a far off place,
Where a great warm welcome,
Will be waiting for me.
As young Hercules sang of finding the place where he belonged, my odometer rolled through the miles toward a far-off place of my own.
Rewind.
Since I was an infant, Disney and I have had an incredibly strong relationship. I spent countless hours in front of the television, the monotonous click of the VHS player a soothing background to whatever Disney movie captured my interest at the time. I slept with my stuffed, purring Nala and my family of Aristocats. I sang along with Ariel and Meg, and dressed up as Esmeralda for Halloween. Then, in 1998, my family took our first vacation to Walt Disney World.
We were hooked.
That first taste of Disney magic was enough to ignite, well, an addiction. No matter how many trips we took (and there have been many — our current total is over fifty), the magic never diminished; there was always more to explore, more Hidden Mickeys to find.
So my next, natural step, once I became old enough, of course, was to look for an opportunity to work there.
And that's where this story starts.
Amber Chases CareerStart
MY CHANCE TO WORK at Walt Disney World, to become part of the magic not just as a guest but as a Cast Member, came in December 2008.
I had wandered into the college section of a popular online Disney fan forum. At first, I assumed it was just a place where college-aged individuals discussed Disney, but then I saw that most of the discussions were about something called the Disney College Program. Unfortunately, after some digging, I soon realized that this amazing experience was beyond my reach as a junior in high school.
Then I found a link to the Disney CareerStart Program.
I dug more. I learned all I could about CareerStart. I was eligible! Well, almost. I had to graduate from high school first. So I arranged to graduate a semester early, and filled out my CareerStart application. Now all I had to do was wait until September, the earliest I’d be able to send it in.
The Disney CareerStart Program
was
(past tense because Disney has discontinued it) much like the Disney College Program: a six-month internship with the Walt Disney Company either at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, or at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.
By participating in CareerStart, I’d be able to move to Florida and live in Orlando, just minutes away from Disney property. (Disney owned the property where I’d be living, but it was outside the actual gates of Disney, in an area known as Little Lake Bryan.) I could work for them and get my foot in the door of the company that had had such a major impact on my life. All before I even set foot in college! It was perfect.
Through the official CareerStart website and the unofficial Disney fan forums, I learned more about the program. The more I learned, the more excited I became. (From here on, pretty much everything I write about CareerStart applies to the College Program as well.)
For six months, I could work at Walt Disney World in one of many different roles. I could be a hostess in the Haunted Mansion, scowling at guests as they clambered into their Doom Buggies. I could be responsible for cleaning up Fantasyland as I interacted with guests and helped them find their way in the mass of people who flock daily to Magic Kingdom. I could serve milkshakes at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in front of the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, sell children their first set of Mickey ears, or sit atop one of the high chairs by the sand-filled pool at the Beach Club, keeping an eye on people hurtling down the slide (okay, I couldn’t do that last one as I can’t swim, but it might be an option for you).