Ema Earns Her Ears: My Secret Walt Disney World Cast Member Diary (Earning Your Ears Book 2) (10 page)

As I stood in the open doorway, I saw the same car that had just driven past. It was now coming back the other way, slowly. He’s got to be looking for my house, I thought. Just then, my phone rang with a Chester area code. It was the taxi driver. Hurrah!

At this time of the morning, my usually energetic, bubbly self hasn’t fully emerged, and I don’t like talking to people so early in the day. But the driver had obviously been awake for hours, and he wanted to talk. He was telling me stories from his past fares, in particular the one about the university students who’d dropped their takeaway pizza on the dirty sidewalk but picked it up and put it back in the box before they climbed into his cab.

I think he realized I wasn’t listening to his stories, and so he decided to engage me in conversation, instead. Luckily, we were almost at the train station by then. He asked me if I was a nurse going on placement, because there would be “no other sane reason for you to be awake and dolled up this early.” I tried my hardest to be polite, but I didn’t have the energy for anything more than: “I have a job interview.” He wasn’t satisfied. “Oh, well it must be a really important company to you to have you awake at this hour.” I get it, it’s early, I do have a clock, but I kindly replied with, “Yes, it is kind of a dream of mine.” And then we were pulling up at the train station. I gave him money for the fare and he wished me a sincere “good luck, go get your dream.” I smiled and said “thank you” as genuinely as I could muster.

Once inside the station, I quickly I found Leah and we boarded the train for Liverpool, arriving on time at John Moores University where we sat through more presentations and more PowerPoints. This time, however, it was different, because the presentations were delivered by Disney recruiters, whose accents made me miss America even more.

They started off with introductions all around and then collected our paperwork, which included:

• Two photocopies of the main passport page
  
• Actual passport
  
• Birth certificate
  
• Proof of home address
  
• CV
  
• Proof of student status
  
• Completed university accreditation letter (you are given the template in the email, which your university lecturer must complete and sign)
  
• Completed role checklist
  
• Chosen date period for the program
  

The recruiters then gave me my time slot for the interview and made sure that none of the information on my form had changed. They also asked how I would like my name spelled on my nametag. My name is officially “Emma”, but I prefer “Ema”. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that Emma is a common name and during my teen-aged rebellion phase I decided that I wanted to be more unique, and so dropped an “m”. I wasn’t bold enough to change my name completely. In school, I wasn’t a cool kid, or in with the popular crowd, so I needed to do something subtle, something that would go unnoticed by all but my closest friends, who would think it cool. Or at least that’s what I tell people when they ask about the missing “m”. As long as your nickname is Disney-appropriate, they’re happy to put it on your nametag in place of your given name.

In addition, the recruiter asked me what location I wanted on my name tag. You can specify your place of birth, where you live now, where your parents live, where you went to university, anything reasonable, really. I chose the name of a bigger town about 20 minutes from where I live, since few enough Brits know the name of my little town, and so it’s highly doubtful that any Americans would have heard of it. I don’t even live exactly in that little town. I should have asked them to put “In the middle of fields, England” on my nametag, which is more accurate, but Disney doesn’t appreciate that kind of humor.

I walked into the interview room to be greeted by Jane, a small woman with an American accent. She made me feel at ease right away, but I still couldn’t shake the premonition that this year wouldn’t be as lucky for me as last year, especially since I had ticked only one role (performer) on my application. If I couldn’t have that role, I decided, then I didn’t want the program.

I sat down on a chair facing a desk with a pile of documents from other interviewees on one side and my documents spread out in front of Jane. She had spent 5 minutes going through them before inviting me into the room. First impressions are crucial, and Jane’s first impression of me was that ridiculous application with all the cultural happy-talk I had written. She wasted no time getting right to it: “You have only ticked one box?”

I felt my heart sink. “Yes, I know it makes me come across completely inflexible, but I really want this role, and I hope that it shows my determination and passion for the Entertainment department.” She reminded me that PhotoPass and attendant are also Entertainment roles, so why was I fixated on performer?

I could have rambled on for hours and hours about my love for Disney and performing and how it would be a dream come true to be a performer at Walt Disney World. But I didn’t. I kept my answers short and to the point, and tried not to come off as insincere.

Jane gave no clue as to whether my answers were what she wanted to hear. Before I knew it, the interview was over, and I was out the door.

Two weeks later. I had turned off Facebook group notifications as I was having heart palpitations whenever my phone buzzed thinking that it would be from someone who had gotten their acceptance, and then someone else, and then someone else, but never me.

Fortunately, I was plenty pre-occupied with reading for my dissertation and getting ready to leave university for home. I had a week away from school. My dad had offered to come pick me up so I wouldn’t have to lug thirty research books, a laptop, and a suitcase full of clothes onto the train. As soon as I arrived back home, I set up my laptop and got busy printing articles, highlighting, researching, printing more articles, and forgetting about Disney.

After hours of this, I decided to take a break and automatically went to Facebook. I’d turned off my group notifications, but I was still getting comments in my feed. And there they were: people bragging about their acceptances to the college program.

I dropped my phone and went straight to my laptop to check my emails. It would have been quicker to use my phone, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. I squinted my eyes at the screen, afraid to see whatever was—or more importantly, was not—there. But still I saw it, amid my four new emails: Disney!

I had gotten an email, but lacked the courage to open it. I stared at it. I’d already told my family, my friends, and my boyfriend how well the interview had gone, and they probably assumed that my acceptance was a given. What would I tell them if it there wasn’t an acceptance?

I opened the email and saw red—literally. The text was in red. Nothing good is ever printed in red ink, and so I immediately thought the worst. Then I saw it:

CONGRATULATIONS!

You have been offered a place on Disney’s J-1 Cultural Exchange Program.

Your role in the show will be Character Performer.

Red. My new favorite color.

In March, I received my Disney information pack. I needed to ring the embassy straight away if I wanted to get my first choice of a visa appointment time.

I went through the same procedure as the year before, arranging all my necessary paperwork on the floor in front of me. I dialed the embassy and told the lovely woman who answered that phone number that I needed a visa for Disney’s college program, which I’d also done the year before. Since I was applying for the same category of visa within the span of 12 months, I didn’t have to physically go to the embassy if I didn’t want to, which as I live at the other end of the country, was definitely music to my ears. I still had to pay their fees and fill out their forms, but at least I wouldn’t have to pay for a train and sit for hours in their waiting room for them to see me.

The next day, March 26, I rang the courier to have my stuff collected. They said they’d stop by anywhere from 6am to 8pm the following day. This meant I had to get up super early, and as I was in the house alone, I soon got super bored. I had to sit near the front door so I wouldn’t miss their knock. At 9:35am, a woman arrived in a normal-looking car and announced herself as from the courier service. I was kind of skeptical handing over sensitive documents to a random woman in a regular car when I was expecting a courier van and a representative in uniform. However, she showed me an envelope with the courier logo printed on the side, and I had to take the receipt for the courier service out of my pile of documents and put everything else inside the envelope. She sealed it in front of me and asked me to sign for it, and off she went.

On April 18, 2013, Disney released a post online that sent the ICP Facebook group crazy. Disney was changing our living experience on the program. Before now, we had been allocated housing and had no say in who we wanted to live with. However, American participants could select their roommates and housing complex preference. Disney had seen how successful it had been with the American participants, and so decided to offer the same perk to international participants.

I knew right away that I wanted to be Amy’s roommate; I just didn’t know if she wanted to be mine. It was 3 days after the news had come out, and I was thinking of a way to bring the roommate idea up with her. It was as nerve-wracking as asking someone out on a date. After discussing our preferences for housing complexes and the benefits of living at Vista with all the shops right on your doorstep, it seemed that we were in agreement on housing. The conversation continued:

Amy: Are you gonna request to live with someone who you met last year?

Ema: Well, all my friends who are going back are over 21, and two of them arrive on the 3rd, but they all want to live in an over-21 apartment, so I don’t know what to do.

Amy: Aww, well, we could always request to be together?

Ema: Yes!! I would love that.

Amy: Getting excited again now!

The pre-registration started in May 2013, and all we knew was that we would receive an email 10 days before our arrival date and could then fill in our pre-registration. It wasn’t until May 29 when the first wave of emails were sent out. Amy got hers first, and mine closely followed. The first thing Amy said was: “Right, how do we do it?”

We each set up an account in DORMS. This part took
forever
. I fell at the first hurdle. We got two emails, one with the instructions and the link to follow to start the process and the other with a temporary password that we could use until we reset it during registration. I swear that resetting my password was the world’s most difficult struggle, much tougher than deciding what to eat for lunch some days. So many rules and restrictions! Rule number 1: Your password can’t contain words from the dictionary. WHAT?! Am I just supposed to throw a load of letters together and hope I remember it. The next problem was that, as far as I’m aware, proper names aren’t in the dictionary. But, according to the registration form, proper names
are
in the dictionary, and so you can’t have those, either. I snuck around the system by taking a few letters from my first name and my last and then added a load of numbers on the end. I wrote my newly created password down in a bunch of different place so I wouldn’t lose it and get locked out of my account.

Finally, we both made it to the section which would require us to link our applications so we could room together. Amy inputted my roommate number, and then I had to wait until the system let me accept her invitation. It was a bit like accepting a friend request on Facebook. After a few minutes of waiting, it came through, I accepted it, and that was that. Amy was never going to be able to escape me now, unless Disney put me in a box somewhere for the mutual good.

After spending 9 hours trapped on a plane, being very indecisive about what movies to watch, and actually making a decision to turn
Les Miserables
off and watch season 2 of
Hannah Montana
instead, it was safe to say I was exhausted and my brain was no longer functioning. I had been awake 14 hours, and it was only 3:20pm. I didn’t start traveling the day before, so how was it still so early in the day? Time difference. This was a major problem for everyone aboard that plane. We had got on our 9-hour flight at 11 o clock this morning, and it was the middle of the day when we landed. It confused me last year, and it confused me just as much this year.

I just wanted to sleep, but I knew if I did, then I’d be worse off, and my body’s clock even more out of joint. Amy and I decided that this time we wouldn’t do the dreaded food shop at Walmart, which is what everyone does when they first arrive, but instead we’d get just enough supplies for the next few days at the nearby Walgreens and then hit Walmart later, when it wouldn’t be so packed with College Program kids stocking up on the stuff they thought they’d need (but which they often didn’t need).

First, though, we had to collect our housing paperwork and find out where we’d be staying. Last year, I didn’t know what to expect, and so had no reason to get nervous; this year, the pressure was on. Amy and I wanted to be in the same apartment. Whether Disney wanted that, too, was something we’d soon learn.

Even though I was over 21 on this program, and eligible to stay in an apartment with others my age and not worry about Disney terming us for alcohol, I decided not to do that. Few of my friends back home understood my decision, but I hadn’t come here to drink and to watch my roommates drink. This was my chance, probably my once-in-a-lifetime chance, to be a performer at Disney World, and I wasn’t going to blow it. Many of the people I met last year had no interest in working for the company, and they acted like it—adding alcohol to that attitude would only make it worse. I didn’t want to share a room with a girl who brought back a new guy every night or who slugged from a bottle of gin every chance she got. Being in a wellness apartment took away the gin, at least, and besides, Amy wasn’t over 21 and wouldn’t be able to stay in an alcohol-friendly apartment.