The Secret Life of a Disney Cast Member

So here I am on week two of my Disney Internship. I know some of you are probably interested to know just what its like to be a part of the Disney College Program, and all the things that it entails. Now of course I cant tell you any of the secrets, or show you any pictures of “backstage” but I can give you a quick view of a day in the life of a Disney Cast Member. So here it is my first official blog post, and a picture diary of a typical day here in Florida.

My day starts off normally at 12 pm when I wake up (I will do a sort of apartment tour post after I have a day off to clean it up a little). I shower and get ready and all that fun stuff and then head out to make the bus at 1:22. The bus takes me to the ticket and transportation center where I can either take the B bus, which is sometimes luckily already there, or take the monorail, which I do if the bus isn’t there yet.

I get to the contemporary Resort usually about 2, an hour before my shift. I either waste a half hour eating at the contempo café, the coffee place in the lobby, or just sit outside in the sun watching the parasailers and jet skiers.

A turkey blt with some home made fries from the Contempo cafe.
It is absolutely delicious!

My view when I sit outside and wait to go in to work. 

By 2:30 I go inside and get my “costume”. At Disney they have costuming places where you can drop off your dirty outfit and pick up a nice clean and ironed one. I can clock in about 15 minutes before my shift and then I head up to Chef Micky’s. 

When I get upstairs I check out the board to see what job i’m going to be doing that day. Everyone rotates to different things. For the most part I have been runner 3, but for the past three days I have been promoted to runner 1. Now I will let you know now that working in a kitchen isn’t as glamorous as it looks on the food network. My job as runner three consists of the following: my before service prep which is to set up the signs for the buffet, get the croutons, cheese, ad bacon bits ready, put out all the fruit, and stack the plates. During service I go out and make sure the buffet table is clean at all times, sweep the surrounding area, and re stack the plates when they get low. I told you its not glamorous. As runner one my prep is to heat up the bread pudding from the downstairs bakery, and cut all the bread and will the pans with the bread and the cornbread. It is a lot less prep then runner 3. During service I have to run the food to the line whenever it starts to get empty. So far those have been my two jobs here at Chef Micky’s. I get two breaks one at either 5 or 5:30, and one at either 8:30 or 9:30, each a half-hour long. After we clean its 11:30 and the end of our shift. I get changed, drop of my dirty chef uniform, clock out and make my way to the monorail. The monorail takes me to the ticket and transportation center where I wait for the bus to bring me home. The bus ride is normally a half hour. I usually get home by 12:45/1 am. Sometimes ill get lucky and someone from work will give me a ride home. By the time I get home I either force myself to cook something for dinner, usually my first and only meal of the day, or just go to sleep.

I usually work five days a week with two days off either consecutive or non-consecutive. This week I was originally supposed to have Tuesday and Thursday off, but chef told me I would have to come to work on Tuesday. I will be working 7 days straight with one day off which means I will be making overtime, which is good for my paycheck seeing as how they took out double rent from the first paycheck, but I will tell you more about that in my apartment tour/housing post.

There is a glare, but this is the Chef Micky's entrance.

So there it is, a view into the world of Casey, Disney Cast Member, a culinary student, and sometimes janitor.

The guy who does all the cookin, my boss Micky