What is it like to work for Disney currently? (Jacksonville: coupons, day care)

[muggums]

I can only seem to find posts from people who used to work there. I'm wondering what the most common vacancies are, starting pay, if they provide daycare, etc....

I have a four year degree in criminology and have experience with deliquents, courts, etc... not sure if they could hire me for anything relating to that, but I woild take another job for reasonable pay, daytime scheduling, and the pure fun of being at Disney.

[hgebel]

I've worked full-time for Disney since 2007, I'm currently a front desk cashier at the Contemporary. I am assuming you are looking for a full-time position. Starting pay for most hourly jobs will be between $7.45 and $8.50. Starting pay for resort housekeepers (which I know they are hiring full-time) is $8.25. I'm not sure what else they are hiring full-time right now. Medical benefits are fantastic now, but I don't know what they will be like with the new union contract (our current union contract expires on 2 October). I would imagine the options will probably stay the same but I wouldn't be surprised if payroll deductions went way up.

I can't really say much about salaried positions, maybe someone else can elaborate on them.

Hourly jobs web site: Walt Disney World Career Opportunities
Salaried and professional jobs website: The Walt Disney Company and Affiliated Companies - Careers

-Harry

[muggums]

Do hourly and salary employees get benefits at the parks also?

[annaegel]

I have a friend who works part-time for Disney (front desk at one of the resorts). They have cut back her hours drastically within the last year. Her pay is about $7.75ish. After working there for 3 years, she got a raise of .10! You have to work a certain amount of hours per month to qualify for those benefits. I think it is something like 2 or 3 days per month. She gets to go into the parks any time, no restrictions. Does not qualify your family to get like an employee. She gets passes for 11 days, that allows her to get 3 people in per day. After you work many years, you get more days and sometimes coupons to allow additional people in. She also gets discounts on sit down food service and discount of store items. Christmas, they get a bigger discount on store items. She also gets discounts on hotel stays, for herself.

I don't know about the babysitting. My gut feel is no babysitting services for employees. Disney is a cheap company to work for.

For hourly salary, you are better off working at Publix, unless you like and would use the benefits.

[JustinsMama]

As much as I love Disney, I would rather work at a higher paying job and just pay for annual passes...

[andygump5]

JustinsMama,

I agree with you on that...

Plus I love Disney and would be afraid that working there would lose some
of the "magic" for me

[hgebel]

Originally Posted by muggums

Do hourly and salary employees get benefits at the parks also?

All cast members get unlimited admission to the parks for themselves.

Full-time hourly cast members get a blue Main Entrance Pass that lets them get 3 guest into the park 12 times a year. On your 15th anniversary you get a silver Main Entrance Pass that lets you get 3 guests in an unlimited number of times during the year. You also get two free passes during the summer and two during the winter (total of 4 per year) to give to friends or family members. You also get a card in October that gives you an extra Main Entrance admission for three people that is only good until February.

Salaried cast members get a silver Main Entrance Pass from day one.

Regular part-time hourly cast members get a blue Main Entrance Pass that is the same as the one for full-time hourly cast members. I don't know if they get summer and winter passes.

Seasonal part-time cast members get a blue Main Entrance Pass that is good for 6 times instead of 12. It isn't mailed until they have actually worked during the year. I don't know if they get summer and winter passes.

The park admission benefits can be duplicated for at most a few thousand dollars a year (much less if you don't have people to get into the park), so the are unlikely to make up for the amount you will lose working for Disney versus a higher paying job. DO NOT WORK FOR DISNEY FOR PARK ADMISSION.

I love working for Disney, if you don't love working at Disney do not work here. There isn't any way to know if you will like it until you work here. You have to love working with people (including very difficult people) and you have to be able to handle the disconnect between Disney the idea and Disney the company. I have worked for big companies my whole life, and while I have found that they treat their people way better than DuPont (currently that is, working for Dupont in the past was much better) and Valero, they are still a large corporation and have all of normal problems of working for a large corporation. And while the benefits are comparable (in fact, better) than most big companies, the pay is less (certainly far less than DuPont and Valero).

-Harry

[hgebel]

Originally Posted by annaegel

I have a friend who works part-time for Disney (front desk at one of the resorts). They have cut back her hours drastically within the last year. Her pay is about $7.75ish. After working there for 3 years, she got a raise of .10! You have to work a certain amount of hours per month to qualify for those benefits. I think it is something like 2 or 3 days per month. She gets to go into the parks any time, no restrictions. Does not qualify your family to get like an employee. She gets passes for 11 days, that allows her to get 3 people in per day. After you work many years, you get more days and sometimes coupons to allow additional people in. She also gets discounts on sit down food service and discount of store items. Christmas, they get a bigger discount on store items. She also gets discounts on hotel stays, for herself.

I don't know about the babysitting. My gut feel is no babysitting services for employees. Disney is a cheap company to work for.

For hourly salary, you are better off working at Publix, unless you like and would use the benefits.

They have relatively good day care benefits, my sister used their daycare when she was a housekeeper at the Contemporary before her husband got a job in Jacksonville. The hours that the day care is available (6am - 11pm 365 days a year) are longer than most private day care services. There is a waiting list for the day care, you can't just get into it the day you start your job. Disney gives you a scholarship based on your family income and the number of children you have in daycare. They have a special low rate back-up care service ($5 per day if you make less than $11/hour) you can use 15 days per year. They have a summer service for school-age kids, don't know anything about it.

Full-time and regular part-time front desk are in the union and start at $8.75, they recieve automatic 4.5% per year raise the first week of October. Seasonal part-time isn't in the union and gets whatever pay and raises the company wants to give (not much).

Publix is a great company to work for. They are also employee owned, as a general rule employee owned companies provide a good work environment and are very stable financially. There have been several spectacular exceptions to this rule (usually they structured their ESOP in a non-standard way, I'm thinking of an airline startup whose name I can't remember) but from everything I've heard Publix fits the standard.

-Harry

PS YMCA runs the cast member day care center.

[hgebel]

Originally Posted by andygump5

JustinsMama,

I agree with you on that...

Plus I love Disney and would be afraid that working there would lose some
of the "magic" for me

This is one of those things that is different per person. For a lot of people the magic is enhanced by not knowing what goes on back stage, for many others the opposite is true.

The biggest reason for cast members to lose the magic isn't from seeing how things are done backstage, it's from bad experiences with the company itself. Or occasionally spectacularly bad experiences with a specific guest, but usually your fellow cast members (and the much more usual good guests) provide a lot of support for bad guest experiences. Fellow cast members (and leaders if you are lucky about your department) and guests make most of the magic that you experience as a cast member.

-Harry

[mongoslade223]

Originally Posted by hgebel

This is one of those things that is different per person. For a lot of people the magic is enhanced by not knowing what goes on back stage, for many others the opposite is true.

The biggest reason for cast members to lose the magic isn't from seeing how things are done backstage, it's from bad experiences with the company itself. Or occasionally spectacularly bad experiences with a specific guest, but usually your fellow cast members (and the much more usual good guests) provide a lot of support for bad guest experiences. Fellow cast members (and leaders if you are lucky about your department) and guests make most of the magic that you experience as a cast member.

-Harry

My time as a cast member did not in any way spoil the "magic" for me; it actually enhanced it. I enjoyed being "behind the mouse" and seeing things that the guests do not get to see. I must have driven my sweeper truck through almost every corner of that property, and had fun conversations with other cast members from different countries ( I worked backstage @ Epcot). It was an experience that I would not trade for anything in the "World"