You Gotta Have a Good Back Story

So It's been a while since I updated and I realised I had already half-written this post a while ago, so I thought I’d take advantage of the chance to finish and post it.  A while ago I posted my ‘About Me’ blurb type thingy, but I thought it would also be nice to talk about my history with Disney, and how I came to apply for the DICP.

Being one of the lucky kids to be born in the 80's, I grew up during the 'Disney Renaissance', so my childhood was littered with animated classics like The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast.  I was also obsessed with a show we have here in Australia called ‘Saturday Disney’, which goes for about two hours really early on a Saturday morning and at the time showed Disney cartoons like Duck Tails, Talespin, Darkwing Duck, Gummi Bears, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh… And the list just goes on and on!  I watched that show well into adulthood, but the cartoons aren’t as good as they used to be anymore. 

When I was very young, friends of our family went to America and on their return gave us a souvenir book from Disneyland.  I remember poring over that book and dreaming about one day going to the Happiest place on Earth.  I was also a super-avid reader and loved The Baby-sitter's Club series, and became rather obsessed with their very first 'super special' novel, a story about the club's vacation which involved a cruise followed by a trip to Walt Disney World.  After that I was hooked on the dream of getting to Disney one day, by whatever means necessary!

My first trip was to Disneyland when I was 16 years old as part of a 3-week cultural exchange program.  I worked for nearly 2 years in my after school job at Pizza Hut with an awful boss to pay for that trip, and it was worth every late night, grumpy manager and the weeks it took me to get the smell of garlic out of my pores!  I only got one day in the park (this was pre-California Adventure) but I knew that my Disney dreams were not going to be satisfied that easily!  I returned to Disneyland 4 and a half years later with my family and that trip was the catalyst for the change of my dream. Although it took a while for my new dream to grow, over the next 5 years I became more and more sure of something: I wanted to be a part of a Disney park - I wanted to be a Cast Member.

Around the time I finished my teaching degree at University, I looked into the possibility of working at Disneyland and even emailed someone at the company.  The response was a simple “Yes we hire international cast members as long as they are eligible to work in the United States.”  Since that didn’t include me, and no further information was offered, I will admit that I gave it up as a silly dream and started a teaching career which eventually led to returning to school to study Costuming.  The idea of one day returning to Disney didn’t die though, and I often browsed Disney sites and even went to the travel agent for information booklets so I could fantasise about my dream trip to Disney.

Fast forward to New Year’s Eve 2013.  I had been invited out to watch fireworks at the beach with some friends, but I was tired and didn’t feel like fighting the crowds, so I opted to stay home, have some chocolate and watch the NYE programming on the telly.  I found myself online, browsing ideas for jobs at the end of my studies, because I had decided I wanted to go overseas.  I was looking into cruise ships when I remembered that Disney had a cruise line, so I looked into that a bit more, watching YouTube videos until I stumbled across a video by a guy called Adande or ‘Swoozie’ about his time working as a Cast Member at Walt Disney World.  The videos were hilarious and in a few he mentioned the Disney College Program, which sparked my curiosity. 

A little bit of detective work later and I found myself at the Disney International Programs website.  Nervously I began clicking through the tabs that linked to the various programs, hoping against hope that there might be a program for people from Australia.  Typically it was the very last tab that I tried that was entitled “Cultural Exchange Program” and under that tab were the most beautiful words in the world: “Australia/New Zealand.”

Thus began my obsession with this program.

A quick read of the eligibility list told me I was able to apply, and I quickly devoured all the official information about the program.  Then I began the search for other blogs and vlogs that could tell me more about the program and let me tell you – there is so much information out there I’m surprised it hasn’t caused the internet to implode or something!  The hardest part was knowing I was going to have to wait several months before I could apply, but eventually in late April, applications opened.  However my excitement was short lived when I realised there would be more waiting involved…so here I am today – just waiting.