Wednesday, May 21, 2014

The Final Tour

Howdy!

I am very proud to say that I have no successfully completed my Disney College Program! I actually finally just made it back to the wonderfully College Station, Tx. These last few weeks were very busy, but I learned a lot. It really made me thankful that I was given the opportunity to go work for Disney for a semester! By far the highlight of my internship was what I was given the opportunity to do on my final day. I got a to attend a tour of Disney's Floral and Gift Department. Although I can not share much from my tour, nor was I able to take pictures, I will do my best to describe what I wonderful experience it was!

I was given the opportunity to go on this tour after talking to one of my managers and expressing my interest in the subject. From there, he set up the tour for seven Disney's Pop Century front desk cast members to take a tour. It was about an hour tour, lead by one of the event planners, named Rose. She was fantastic and took us all over the rather large building. We were shown where the floral arrangements for all of Disney are made. This includes flowers for the resorts, parks, sent from guests to guests as well as florals for special events. Rose explained that they they do an average of 1,100 events a year. Everything seemed larger than life. I have never seen so many vases, tools, and ribbons. They had three rather large walk-in coolers to house flowers and fruits. I was like a kid in a candy store, my eyes were huge! Rose explained about the custom designs they make, as well as how they organize their floral area. She also explained that within each floral design they create, they put a tiny "hidden Mickey" somewhere in the design for the recipient to find. From the floral department, we moved over to the gift section. Here, was a room just as large, with a numerous amount of baskets, balloons, ribbons, and goodies. The number of customized Disney ribbons alone they had was astounding. Between the floral and gift area, I would estimate that they had approximately a little over two dozen employees. Rose briefly explained to us about how they can customize rooms to a certain celebration at a Disney Resort. She showed us room sets for couples who were just married, engaged, people celebrating birthdays and holidays. It was obvious that Disney had thought out every last detail.

The second portion of the tour was of the event design, audio visual, photography, digital graphics, and customization departments. Each office that we passed was decorated to the inhabitants desire. It was amazing to see what such creative people designed for their own space! We were able to see photographers at work editing photos, graphic designers creating logos for upcoming clients of Disney, and event planners transforming basic ballrooms into winter wonderlands. The pictures that were hung on the walls of the event planners were events unlike I have ever seen. Rose said that they consistently create custom fabrics, logos and even products for clients who have their events at Disney. It was honestly like a dream, I would of gladly of taken any position offered to me in that building! It truly was an amazing experience, and it really ended me on the highest note possible with Disney.

As my time came to a close at work, it really struck me how lucky I was to be working there. I learned so much about customer service, floral, events, and even business. I was able to apply things I learned in classrooms in College Station to real life situations. I made contacts and networked with people who will could potentially help me in my long term goals and success. Was it tough at times? Yes. Did I work long hours? Yes. Was it worth it? Absolutely.

Unfortunately, I was not able to attend my Disney College Program Graduation ceremony because I was working. However, I still earned my tasseled ears and my Certificate of Completion!

Heres a picture:



Have A Magical Day,
Alexa