I'm not going to lie - I've wanted to work at a Disney theme park for years. Probably when I started high school around 8/9th grade I became a little obsessed with Disney theme parks. I'd look up pictures of the parks, study their maps and of course look at pictures of the characters. Yes, I wanted to be a Disney Princess at Disneyland, that's as far as my dreams got in high school and all I talked about in Art class. I'm sure my small class can remember me talking about it, no doubt got sick of it, but it wasn't like I cared.
Towards the end of high school I kind of realised that working at a Disney theme park full stop was not going to happen, let alone being a Disneyland princess (I doubt they'd want an Australian speaking Belle or something). So when school ended I had no idea what to do with my life. Literally a few days before we had to submit our final preferences for Universities I sat down at a friend’s house and searched through pages and pages of numerous degrees wondering what I was going to do. I always wanted to work on films, partly thanks to dad who's in the industry, but I have to have an artistic talent, so that was a dead end. Anyway, frustrated I decided on Event Management. It sounded interesting enough and it'd keep me busy for the next 3 years. Plus the fact I'd spoken to a few ladies working on a TV show whilst I was on work experience and they said they had to take a Bachelor of Business in Event Management to get where they were now.
Fast-forward to my second semester, second year at Uni and I receive an email from the department who send out job opportunities for our industry. Usually I ignore these, but one caught my eye: Disney International Program. Still being the obsessed Disney fan that I still was/am I opened the email. And it said that there were interviews and a presentation down at the Gold Coast. So when that date came I dragged along a friend from work and we went to the presentation - because I honestly had no idea what it was about, therefore did not go for the interview afterwards. That was September 2010. Months past and I kept thinking about the presentation, about how great the opportunity was and that I was stupid for not going for an interview. Why? Because, one of the possible jobs that you could potentially have was: Character Performer. Yes, I know it didn’t mean Princesses/Face Characters, but I’d be ecstatic to be a Head/Fur Character – it’s a Disney character, I wouldn’t be upset.
January this year I had made my decision. I was going to apply. I emailed the Uni asking if Disney would be coming back this year, but they had no idea as of yet. So I went online to the Disney International Program website and applied. I spoke to STB for a while and filled out all the required forms and decided to wait for the interview process in May instead of doing a Skype interview. The interview came and went, the following weeks dragged. I wanted to see if I was in. The first week of June was my ‘judgement’ day, and I received an acceptance email to be a part of the Walt Disney World International Program. I cried, then tried to calm myself to tell mum, then cried again. I was extremely happy. As I said, it’s been a dream of mine for YEARS.
January 7, 2012 is the day I start. I received the positions of Character Performer and Operations. The two I wanted the most (especially Character Performer!) and I will have auditions for whether I can portray a character well enough for Disney (which will be challenging, but I am up for a challenge!) or not, then what character I will be ‘friends’ with. I think I’ll be disappointed if I get over there and I’m not character material, seeing as it’d be so close in my reach, my only opportunity really, but I know that if that disappointment occurs, I’m sure to forget it quickly. After all I’ll be working at the Happiest Place on Earth :)
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