the Disney College Program was my canon event

I genuinely think the Disney College Program was one of those experiences I was always going to have, like there was no avoiding it, the universe had already clocked me as a girl who needed to move into Flamingo Crossings, wear a costume to work, develop a strangely intense attachment to people I had known for six weeks, cry backstage somewhere, and have at least three friendship catastrophes before learning anything useful about myself. And honestly, that is exactly what happened.

The DCP is such a weird little bubble because you move in and suddenly everybody is new, everybody is trying to make friends immediately, everybody is working weird hours, everybody has access to the parks, and somehow within like four business days you have a friend group, enemies, a situationship, a favorite break room, and at least one person you have decided is going to be in your life forever. It is basically freshman year of college if freshman year had character performers walking past you backstage and you were constantly asking somebody if they wanted to go to EPCOT after work.

my first program was basically social warfare

My first program was where I learned that living with people you barely know can either become one of the best experiences of your life or turn into a full psychological experiment. I had a roommate who, from literally day one, made it very clear that she needed access to my life, my friends, my plans, my everything, and at first I think I was too nice about it because I was trying to make the whole roommate thing work and I wanted everybody to get along.

Eventually she became so involved in my friend group that somehow I ended up being pushed out of my own group, which is still one of those things I think about now and go wait… how the hell did that even happen. Like imagine introducing somebody to your friends and then somehow becoming the guest star in your own life. Insane.

And I am not even saying this in a dramatic “everybody betrayed me” way because obviously there were layers to it and we were all young and living in this weird little DCP social pressure cooker, but she is still, to this day, one of the worst people I have ever had to deal with, and I say that with several years of hindsight and absolutely no desire to revisit the situation. That whole experience taught me way earlier than I wanted to learn it that proximity does not equal friendship, and just because somebody is around all the time does not mean they actually have good intentions.

round two somehow started with drama before anyone even moved in

My second program was supposed to be my redemption season, new program, new people, new job, new energy, we were doing it again but BETTER, and somehow the friend group went south before move-in day. I am not naming names because some people truly do not deserve the SEO boost, but there was one person in particular who I immediately got weird vibes from, and I was basically the only one saying hey maybe this person is not exactly giving good energy.

And apparently I was right, but unfortunately being right did not help me at the time because he managed to turn basically my entire friend group against me, which was so wild because I was sitting there like wow, okay, apparently I have been voted off the island before the program has even started. And yes, I will say it, I saw through the evil twink intentions. There. I said it.

The whole thing genuinely ruined the beginning of my second program because I moved in already feeling like I had lost the friend group I thought I was going to have, and when you are doing the DCP, your friend group becomes everything so quickly because everybody is away from home and working weird schedules and trying to build a life from scratch. So starting out already feeling excluded was awful, but flash forward to now, I did get my friends back by the way, so there is that. Life has receipts.

and then I met people who actually made the whole thing worth it

The funny part is that losing one version of the program made room for a completely different one. Once I stopped trying to force the original friend group thing, I started meeting people who actually became some of the best people I have ever known, and that is the part of the DCP that I will always defend.

You meet people in the weirdest circumstances and then suddenly they are woven into your actual adult life. I literally live with one of them now, shoutout Nick, and that is so insane to me when I really think about it because there was a point where we were just random people existing in the same Disney bubble and now he is part of my real life outside of Disney.

That is the kind of thing the DCP does really well, it takes strangers and throws them into these intense little shared experiences, late shifts, park days, roommate drama, break room gossip, crying in parking lots, random 1 a.m. McDonald’s runs, and somehow some of those people stick.

slinky was its own universe

My second program I worked at Slinky Dog Dash, and honestly that job deserves its own separate blog entry because working attractions is one of those things that makes absolutely no sense unless you have done it. There is something very specific about putting on a Disney costume, clocking in, walking into your attraction, and suddenly being responsible for hundreds of people having a magical day while you are internally running on caffeine and three hours of sleep.

Slinky gave me some of the best people I have ever worked with, and I had such a strong support system there, which mattered a lot because I was also dealing with a genuinely awful situation with someone I worked with, and there were days where just knowing I might have to interact with that person made clocking in feel miserable.

That kind of thing can ruin a workplace so fast because suddenly you are looking at the schedule and doing advanced emotional math, who is working, where are they, what rotation am I on, can I avoid this person, amazing. But the reason it did not completely destroy the experience is because I had people around me who made me feel supported and safe, and honestly that taught me something too.

A good workplace is rarely just the job. It is the people who make the bad shifts survivable, the person who notices you are off, the coworker who makes you laugh when you are having the worst day, the person you can stand backstage with for five minutes and suddenly feel normal again. That mattered way more than I realized at the time.

there were also men, unfortunately

The DCP is also a terrible place to have bad taste in men because everyone is young, everybody is living in the same place, everyone has weird schedules, and suddenly some guy you met three days ago is acting like you two have survived war together because you both closed a park. I fell into some very weird traps, like retrospectively I look back at some of the people I entertained and I genuinely want to shake younger me by the shoulders.

Girl. Stand up.

But I also think that is part of your early twenties. Sometimes you need to date or talk to someone absolutely bizarre so future-you can develop standards. Character building, unfortunately.

Flamingo Crossings was basically a social experiment

Living at Flamingo was weird in itself because it is not a normal apartment complex, it is like if Disney built a tiny college town specifically designed for everybody to know everybody’s business. You would go downstairs and see someone from work, you would go to the pool and see somebody you had drama with, you would walk into the elevator looking tragic and suddenly there is someone you met at a party two weeks ago. There was no escape.

And because everybody was on different schedules, there was always somebody awake. Somebody was getting home from work, somebody was leaving for a 5 a.m. shift, somebody was getting ready for a park day, somebody was crying over a man, somebody was having roommate drama, somebody was making pasta at midnight. It was chaotic, but it was also kind of perfect for that age.

the free park days were actually everything

And then there were the days where Disney was just… fun. That is the part I miss the most sometimes, getting off work and randomly deciding to go to a park, meeting your friends in EPCOT for no reason, going on one ride and leaving, watching fireworks because you could, walking around Hollywood Studios on a random Tuesday like it was your neighborhood.

There is something so ridiculous about being able to say “do you want to go to Magic Kingdom after work” like you are asking someone if they want to stop at Publix, and because we had access to it all the time, the parks became less of a vacation destination and more like the backdrop to our lives.

That is such a strange privilege when I think about it now. Some of my best memories from that time are not even big events, they are random nights, random rides, random photos, random conversations sitting somewhere in a park.

and yes, there was crying backstage

Obviously there was crying backstage, because you cannot do a DCP without crying backstage at least once, that should honestly be in the program requirements. There is something very humbling about being dressed in a themed costume, surrounded by Disney music, and having an emotional crisis somewhere guests cannot see you.

Maybe it is friendship drama, maybe it is work, maybe you are homesick, maybe you are exhausted, maybe a man has done something stupid, maybe all five things happened before lunch, and then five minutes later you wipe your face and go back onstage. Very normal, very magical.

I think the DCP changed how I understand my twenties

When I look back on both programs now, I do not think about them as perfect experiences because they absolutely were not. There was drama, there were horrible roommates, there were friendships that exploded, there were people I should have never trusted, there were men who should have never gotten my phone number, there were work situations that made me dread clocking in, and there were moments where I wanted to leave.

But there were also friendships that became real life friendships, people who changed me, park days I will remember forever, coworkers who made horrible days funny, and nights where I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. And I think that is why I call it my canon event, because I genuinely do not think I would be the same person without it.

The DCP taught me that I can move somewhere and build a life, that friendships can end and I will survive, that sometimes the person everyone loves is still an asshole, that being excluded does not mean you are unlikable, that work can be miserable and still give you people you love, that I need boundaries, and that some people are meant to be temporary while some people somehow follow you home.

Mostly, I think it taught me that your twenties are not supposed to be clean. They are messy and dramatic and full of people you swear will be in your life forever who disappear six months later, and random people you barely noticed at first who somehow become family.

The Disney College Program was absolutely chaotic, deeply unserious, occasionally traumatic, incredibly fun, and somehow one of the most important things I ever did. Would I relive every part of it? Absolutely not. Would I still do it all over again? Unfortunately, yeah.

xoxo,

your fav magic maker

sunday girl

aka. Lis from University of Central Florida

aka aka Andy’s Fav Toy In The Backyard