CRP prep

At work the other day, we had to write our three goals for 2015. I said: save up, learn Spanish, get abs!!! So they are my three aims over the next 8 weeks to keep me going. I also have a whats-app group with the girls on my date and its getting me even more excited as they seem like so much fun!

1. Money: In terms of saving I still am getting a good pay cheque each month so its really just trying not to spend as if I decide I want something I just buy it, no self control! I just really want to be able to buy whatever I want out there (to a certain extent) and to be able to travel America, so I need to stop myself and think about being in America. I hope to have enough money to get through the first 3/4 months until I have hopefully passed my service test and will be making some decent dollar!
2. Spanish: I really want to be able to understand a little Spanish (un poquito!) for guests in the park and Spanish-speaking friends I make there. I am using an awesome app called Mind Snacks that gets you to learn Spanish through playing fun little mini games and I have already learnt numbers, colours, days, months, seasons, and some phrases! I am getting a bit stuck as its on pronouns at the moment, but I need to keep going, and hopefully my clever cousins will help me practice!
3. Fitness: For quite a while now I have half-heartedly followed a fitness guide in an attempt to tone up but it has only been since I bought a new version on Jan 1st (marketing at its finest!) that I have been really making a decent attempt. The guide-LDN Muscle- comes with food guidelines that teach you how to count macros and tells you how much you should eat for your body type and weight. Then it has a 4-week cycle of workouts- 5 weights sessions a week plus 1-2 cardio in theory. I love the workouts but I only have time in the evenings and then feel like I don’t have a life if I do all 5 so I haven’t fit them all in yet but I wish I could! I usually do between 2 and 4 of the sessions and maybe 1 cardio. Then I enjoy the food and stick to it reasonably unless I am sad about something- I am definitely an emotional eater its bad! I think if I stuck to it 100% it would give amazing results so I really do want to give it a decent go before I am thrown into the land of funnel cakes and corn dog nuggets! I am currently doing gymnastics once a week (which is such a laugh!) and in a few weeks I’m going to do one last pole dance course, alongside the gym so hope to be in decent shape come April, and have an “after” pic to go with the “before” one on my wall! The consequences of my health kick has been a slight obsession with all things Nike and getting new gym wear and trainers! Especially following fitness peeps on Insta has made me lust after so many pairs of trainers I now have 6, but am stopping myself as I know they will be so much cheaper in America (YAY). Currently on my lust-list:

I have also been very prepared (read: bored) and written up a preliminary packing list, a to-do list (e.g. visa, photocopy paper work and leave with mum, cancel gym membership…things that I don’t want to forget), and of course, the mighty BUCKET LIST! It’s around 5 times the length of my ICP bucket list and includes lots of things I can only do on the college program, but also things in the parks that I want to do (but could also do as a guest) and lots of things around visiting other parts of America. So its probably a bit ambitious but we shall see. The most important things are those I cant do as a guest as this is most likely my last time as a CP! Of course, the things that will really matter will be: get a great tan, run around the park with friends and have staycations, buy tons of VS and Abercrombie, Apple and Nike stuff, and go to Cedar Point theme park!

The most recently added item on my list is to attend the 60th Anniversary stuff at Disneyland Cali! We get in free and (I think) get discount on the hotels so hopefully this will happen; the specials shows and parades look cool, not to mention the special 60th Pins (I’m such a pin freak! and hope to go to a pin trading event with my lovely friend Lesley from Canada who joins me out there in July).

So to summarize: make money, learn Spanish, get abs… that’s how I am attempting to pass the time ’til I go, and making geeky lists of course! I also have bought a few more Disney books I’d like to read once I leave work.

Two month countdown

So, suddenly there’s only two months to go until I leave for A WHOLE YEAR, I swear it was only just the hundred day mark! Its going really quickly, and I’ve handed in my notice at work now so everyone knows- no more secrets! Only 4 weeks left of 9-5 office work, then about 4 more weeks left to prepare myself eek!

The only important thing I really have left to do is get my Visa now. We haven’t had our paperwork yet but the group going out 3 weeks before us got theirs about 4 week ago now so we should get ours soon. One of the girls saw Colin Firth at the embassy; fingers crossed for a celebrity sighting! I didn’t see any last time when I went for my ICP but my sister saw Wayne Rooney being rejected when she went, ha!

I have kept a record of my expenses for the program so far. You definitely do need a bit of cash to be able to participate in the program as there’s lots of bits to pay for before you go, and you’ll definitely want a good amount of spending money for the first few weeks.

Flights		£411.44
CRB		£60.00
Program Assessment fee		£97.50	($154.50)
Visa appointment & passport postage		£150.00	($190 +£30)
Med insurance		£468.00	(£456 with 20%disc +£12 waiver)
		£1,186.94

So the first thing I did when I found out my date was to book a flight. I tried to be patient but waited about 2 days in the end! I found a great deal on a Virgin flight to Orlando Intl. I booked it though Yummy Travel which uses STA so under-26s get a great deal, and while I was at it I booked my medical insurance with them too and got 20% discount because I bought the flight and insurance together. Then we had the CRB check soon after, and a request to pay the Program Assessment Fee (which pays for housing events etc whilst we are there). So that was all ages ago and the final thing left to pay for is the visa! I already have the suitcase I think I will use, and (most) of the clothes I want to take…. so now I am just trying to save up every last penny I can!

Even miracles take a little (A LOT) of time….

 

OK so remember how I said at the end of my last post back in April that its hard when you don’t know where you will be in 6 months time?? Well it turned out that the answer was in the exact same place; stuck in a no-mans land on the dreaded Disney “wait list”, working at a job I wasn’t passionate about and still living at home in the social wilderness of the Suffolk countryside, saving my money (well mostly…) and hoping for something exciting to come along.
Well, that’s not totally true… to be exact, 6 months on, September 26th (4 months ago today- may have gotten a little behind in blogging) I found myself landing in the beautiful city of Belfast with a sunny Friday off from work with one of my favourite girls- my Disney roomie- going to visit another of my lovely Disney friends, Hannah.

Having never been to Ireland before, the excitement of a day off work, a brand new country to explore and the holiday feeling that comes from a trip to the airport, for once the Disney application was the last thing on my mind.

I had spent the best part of 2014 noticing when it was 2pm (the beginning of the Floridian work day) and developing an uncanny knack of looking at my clock at 22.00 exactly (the end of the work day- and the time that the majority of job offer emails had been sent out to our group so far) so on this lovely lazy Friday afternoon I wasn’t bothering to check my emails.

Hannah, Jules and I sat down in a cute little place to have Afternoon Tea with some yummy Irish cakes, fruity tea and Panini’s. We ordered, and whilst we were waiting I heard my phone go off, and it was an email. Since it was not the evening, I was blasé about opening it and then I saw this….. anddddd cue my heart stopping for a good few secondsAnd then as the words eventually came into focus from a Disney blur, the “OMG OMG OMG OMG” began… luckily everyone else in the small café had left so we had the place to ourselves for me to jump around and scream in. The surprise element of the email wasn’t over yet; in order to find out your role (I’d said I was happy with either) and your start date (could be anything from three weeks time to six months away!) you had to log in. I am usually pretty on top of my passwords and usernames, especially the important ones, so of course I couldn’t log in and Jules had to reset my password for me as my hands were shaking too much! Drama or what?!

Anyways..I could ramble on and on but the long and short of it is, I GOT A DATE!! FINALLY! I am going April 7th 2015 and will be working in Food & Beverage at the good ol’ Rose & Crown, UK, Epcot. And Belfast was an amazingly good weekend of movies, Dominos, drinking, dancing and far too many Fifteens (a yummy yum Irish tray bake).

I feel like this….

Waiting…

I still need to do a post about the F2F interview… however for now it’s all about the waiting as usual!

So it has now been two weeks, and judging by previous years its seems people heard back all in one go sometime between 3 and 6 weeks after… so it came as a big shock when on Friday, at 10pm, in the middle of a Backstreet Boys concert at the o2 I checked my phone to see ‘CHECK YOUR EMAILS!!’ messages from my friends! It seems that Disney has sent out about 6 offers for August and September dates! 5/6 interviewed in Ireland and 3/6 needed to go in September in order for the program to be their placement year. So that makes sense, but its seems weird they would pick one person from the London ones! I guess they are doing it in date waves rather than in a block, so I am definitely going to be an emotional wreck by the time this is all over!! People are guessing the next lot might hear next Friday, and I’ll be in Paris then, so that’ll be interesting…

People are also saying they think no one will get no’s, but I’m sure there were 50 candidates at F2F and probably half that many places so I think there will definitely be some no’s, and a lot of waitlisted people!

All we can do is wait now, which is hard thing to do when you want to plan your life out and you don’t know where you will be in 6 months time.

Pre-Screen Results

We were told we’d find out by the end of next week on the Friday of our pre-screens, and it felt like a very long wait by the time it was only Monday! I hoped the girls I’d met would get through but everything about my interview hadn’t gone great in my opinion so I was set for a no! I had all these good answers and wasn’t asked most of the questions, then didn’t use my good answers for the ones that were asked, I just babbled!

Anyway, Tuesday flew by as I was at work, then at 5.30 on the train home I got an email from Disney themselves telling me I had a week to upload my passport and other docs onto the DoC (Disney Onboarding Control) site. I assumed it was automated since I had had to apply on the Disney official website (as well as the YJ site) in the run-up to pre-screens. Even so, it was a bit cruel since I was expecting a rejection that night as Yummy had told someone from the group we’d hear ‘shortly’.

When I’d driven home, I checked my phone to see emails had been sent out (argh!) and one of the lovely ICP girls had already gotten a no! Other people on the group had been sent the Disney email, then received a yes from Yummy (!!) so even though I wasn’t sure, this gave me the confidence to open my email, I GOT A FINAL INTERVIEW!!!!! I AM GOING BACK TO DISNEY HQ BABY!

Pretty exciting stuff! My friend Emilie has got one too yay so hopefully we will meet up beforehand! We can’t book anything until we book our interview times once we receive an email from Disney later in the week…then it will feel more real! Best pancake day ever!! I had a few pancakes with lemon and sugar so I was super hyper!!

I can’t believe it really, I have gotten through to the last hurdle, only one more stage and then it could be real! I could be out there again by the end of 2014 eek!!

People have asked me what specifically I did in my interview to have gotten through. Now I have no idea since I didn’t think it went that well. However I got on really well with James and although I was nervous before, I felt more comfortable once we were in our little room! I tried my best to be smiley constantly, appear friendly and listen to the others, and not to butt-in but I probably did a bit! I also tried to have memorable/unique answers such as my interesting fact…(I took my Disney yeti from Expedition Everest to Everest Base Camp), my item (the Magna Carta), and my character answer, and I always try to win a prize at the quiz and get noticed! However I think people thought it was important to talk about culture and hometown and I’m not sure I did that much! So it could have been my overall attitude rather than my answers that they looked at, or maybe I stood out with a few answers, or they might have gone back to our paperwork and used that to decide too! I really don’t know! I did put a lot of effort into my CV and Cover Letter etc, but I am not sure if they look at that past the initial stage or not. My only advice is try your best to give good answers, but focus more on remaining smiley, happy, friendly and showing Disney Company enthusiasm as it shows you are the right person for the job.

As usual people have started discussing numbers, it looks like about 25 of us are in the FB group for final f2f interviews, so I’m guessing maybe 30 or 40 were invited back but we’ll see on the day! No idea how many jobs there are for each role either….

So I have 18 days to start some blog research for possible questions! Also keeping my fingers crossed for Sue again, she was lovely!

Timeline

23rd January 2014- Yummy announces on FB that ‘Spring’ applications will open tomorrow!

24th January- 9 am applications open

29th January- Submitted my application

19th February- 23.59 applications close

21st February- 17.24 email invitation to pre-screen interview

28th February- 2pm Pre-screen interview

4th March- 17.50 email invitation to face-to-face interview

22nd March- Face-to-face interview at Disney HQ

4th April- First 6 offers given for Aug and Sept dates!

23rd May- First Waitlist email!

22nd June/22nd July/21st August/20th September- Monthly Waitlist emails

26th September- CONGRATULATIONS email!

7th April 2015- My start date!

Pre Screens

So after all my worrying I did get invited to Pre Screens woo!

Applications closed on Wednesday 19th, and knowing interviews were on the Friday 28th Feb (only ONE days worth!) I was hoping we’d hear Thursday but it wasn’t until Friday around 5 or so that people begun hearing. I had been checking emails at work but had seen nothing all day. I stayed late at work, well, 5.40(!), and after my manager left I checked my emails one last time before heading out of the office and saw a Yummy email in my junk! My phone ran out of data so I couldn’t check it ’til I got home at 6.45 an hour later argh. I got home and saw that the majority of people on the FB group had got nos! Mine also looked automated so I assumed it was a no because you’d usually get a Yummy team member emailing you! It took me ages to dare look at it as even though I assumed I’d get one, I wasn’t ready for a no! I looked, and it was a yes!!

Luckily I’d booked Friday off just incase, and I had the 2pm slot so I booked trains and began to prepare my item that represents my hometown! We had a FB event for 2pm people so we could all meet up beforehand and I spent the weekend and my evenings deciding what to wear and thinking of answers to possible questions eek! I also brought a (very cool) little teapot necklace from Accessorize to wear!

Outfit I wore, but with a smart blazer!

So anyway, Friday came around and I headed off to London. I left feeling prepared and as the day went on I felt less and less ready for this! It felt like a much bigger deal than the ICP as there are fewer places, more applicants etc. I’d estimate about 48 people in the 2pm round so probably 100 or so over the day from maybe 1,000 who applied… I also think a lot of my summer ICP group had applied, like maybe 20, and I think only 4 of us got an interview!

Anyway, I met people in Starbucks at Waterloo and it was nice, I was sat in the ‘E’ corner, there was Emma, Elysia, me and then Emilie and possibly another Emily… all the girls were lovely! Anyway soon enough it was time to head to Brasserie Blanc where I had my pre screens before for the ICP. We had the usual presentation with a lot of videos, and they did the quiz, where I answered ‘When did Epcot open’, and won a Crème Egg (woo!). Other questions they asked were ‘when did WDW open’, ‘how many bricks in Cinderella’s castle’, and ‘name all the Epcot pavilions in clockwise order’! Then they gave out interview times and I had 5pm (last slot of the day!) with James in his ‘Flynn Rider’ group, and was not with anyone I’d met so far.

They also told us it was for dates beginning in Sept ’14 to early ’15…and that F2Fs would be on 22nd March, a Saturday. Eight of us girls went to Wagamamas for some food as we’d all been too nervous to eat in the morning! We had to rush so the 4pm-ers could get back and then we sat in the entrance of the restaurant for another hour and a few others joined us, but most seemed to be Louise’s group! In the end my group was only a small group of 5! We just had James where as I think Louise had another girl (Michele?) interviewing with her. This meant James had to write down stuff on our Yummy ‘passports’ at the same time as listening to us so he was a bit distracted and it was the end of a long day… he didn’t ask half the questions I expected, including ‘describe your hometown’ or ‘why is culture sharing important’ or another culture related question. Our group was kind of awkward and quiet and ended up answering in a circle mostly since there was only 5 of us. It wasn’t a great lovely chatty conversation like I felt my ICP had been. Also, one girl, I don’t know why she was there! Before interviews she asked people if SeaWorld was Disney, and in the interviews she brought a picture of The Beatles printed out and screwed up and said “because they are cool”. I’m not sure she really knew anything about the program really! One of the other girls was really cool and had climbed Kili, and when I mentioned Everest it was like yeah cool we’re on the same wavelength so I hope she gets in! She isn’t on the FB group though so I won’t know! There was one guy in the group and four girls, and I was the only one who’d been before. James and I spoke about both working Fantasmic which was cool. SO JEALOUS he got to work Rock N Roller coaster though!

So anyway an hour or so went by and I could tell James wanted it to end and was kind of rushing us, he even said ‘situational situations’ haha. So I didn’t feel like I said half of what I wanted and when I did talk I just blabbered on and didn’t say anything good at all, and I wanted to talk so much I think I interrupted people a bit…basically I think I did awfully!! He also said at the end “You’ve done well to get this far… don’t be disheartened if you don’t get through, there’s extremely limited places for the face to face round”… and that we’d hear by next week which could be a whole 7 days of waiting for a probable no… 😦

So now I am having a duvet day and feeling sorry for myself. I did meet a few lovely girls though so it wasn’t a totally wasted day!

These are the questions I did get asked…

• Introduce the person next to you (I went with the guy and he got my fact wrong, lame!)
• Why Disney and WDW?
• What previous experience can you bring to the role?
• What brand do you admire and why? (M&S!)
• How your employer would describe you (Smiley, hardworking, passionate)
• Tell us about your item (I took the Magna Carta and thought it was unique/interesting but they all looked bored, so at least I’ll be remembered.. ‘hey remember that girl who bored everyone to death!?’ haha)
• Sell James things from the menu- other groups picked an item each and talked about it, we just had James say things and all responded…he asked about Fish and Chips, then Yorkshire puddings, then why is curry on the menu, then trifle (and I don’t think I said anything good tbh)
• Then it was the ‘situational situations’… haha…..A family wants to sit out for fireworks but no tables, family waiting for ages for a table, messy roommate, and “aircon wars” (LOL) …now I don’t think I answered these well either since once one person spoke there wasn’t much more to say…
• Finally it was the character question (I liked my answer!)

Then there was a chance to ask him questions (when would we hear, what was your fav part of your ICP)

and that was that!

It was a very fun day getting to meet everyone, and I think its important to try and talk to everyone that you can since you never know what might happen! Let the nervous waiting commence once again….

Once Upon a Dream…

…In summer 2010 during a visit to stay with a University friend in California, we were house-hopping, and since I love to read before I sleep I happened to come across ‘Mouse Tales’, a “behind the ears look at Disneyland”… safe to say I didn’t get much sleep that night and once home I read more behind-the-scenes Disney books, and then came across the brilliantly named Yummy Jobs and Disney International Programs after a bit of web searching. I emailed the team but was too late for the summer ’11 intake.

When it came time to find a summer job for third year, I knew where I was applying! This was Autumn 2011 and would be my first Yummy application. I got a phone interview for the ICP but after barely 5 minutes chatting with YJ I didn’t make enough of an impression and that was that. Since the CRP applications opened after I had been rejected, I hastily edited a few sentences of my application assuming if I got through the CV stage once I would get through this one too and improve on my phone interview, but it turns out the CRP is far more competitive with Yummy telling me they had 3000 (!!) applicants that session.

So when Autumn 2012 came around I was ready to reapply for the ICP with two rejections under my belt. This time, luck was on my side as the application process was hugely revamped with phone interviews being scrapped and group interview “pre-screens” replacing them. I applied with my sister and we both got invited for the final interview but she had to work on her dissertation and wasn’t that bothered, which is a shame as it would have been fun to have her out there!

Long story short, I had the summer of my dreams in 2013 working in Operations in Magic Kingdom and Hollywood studios, knowing all the while I had a ‘proper’ job set up for the real world when I was home and trying to fit in as much as I could as I wouldn’t be back.

HOWEVER… it seems that the job wasn’t what I had imagined and since I need to do some soul searching in terms of my career choices and essentially start over with job applications anyway, what harm could another year in Fantasyland do? A lot of my friends and family feel that I have ‘done Disney’ but there is still so much I want to do there, many friends I’d love to see again, and make more along the way. Of course there will always be the question of what will I do once I am home… but not for another year =)

So I have now applied for the CRP…I think it is now or never as I am already 24. It is extremely competitive and unlikely I will even get past the CV stage, but I have time to kill whilst I wait, and due to the nature of the program, it is all I can think about! So I am writing this little page as a way to get things off my mind and will probably never publish it.

Right, only 17 days til applications close… I must go to the gym….therefore I am off to watch Carrie Diaries with a huge hot chocolate!

-xx-