The Disney Look Part 1: When You Get There

We are often told that we only have one chance to make a first impression. When you arrive to your DCP Check-In, it is important to make sure you are presentable and meeting Disney Look guidelines.

Do they expect you to go through all of the lines in professional dress? No. But, they do expect you to already meet some basic guidelines. A lot of interns are sent back to the airport for not following basic Disney Look guidelines, please make sure you are not one of them! Read on after the jump!

Let's Go Bring Back Summer!

Hello everyone!

Clearly, it's been a while since I've made a post! I was in the middle of my last trimester so things were getting a bit hectic. But...I graduated from college!

I decorated my cap with Disney of course. For my non-Whovians, the 2 things in the middle are Sonic Screwdrivers. They help the Doctor do what he needs to do and get where he needs to go so what better way to illustrate my college journey! When I was in my seat I was texting my mom and dad to see where they were sitting and I knew I was in trouble when my mom texted me to look for Mickey. She said it was either a graduating Mickey balloon or flowers. Of course, they made the right choice!

So I'm home for the summer. I'm back baking for my bakery up here til the end of August and then fly down to Disney in September! I will be posting a lot more on here now that my days are mostly 7-3:30 and blogging will be easier.

I already have some topics picked but what do YOU guys want to read about? You can respond to the comments in this post or any post with your questions and I will try and answer them as best as I can!

Hallo!

HACCP and Why You Need to Know It

Any culinary school student has heard those letters before. Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points, what we call HACCP for short, are the safety guidelines that we must follow in the kitchen. It regulates everything for us including our sanitizer numbers, to how long we have to cool pastry cream or how we stock a fridge. Hint, never store your dairy or meats on top.

When you step foot in a kitchen, sure it's important to know your knife cuts or how to make a mousse, but what is just as important is to know you HACCP. This is true for not only Disney, but any kitchen that you work in.

Part of the reason why the Disney Culinary Program recruits from culinary schools is because they know that we learn these things. Before you even apply, you have to be ServSafe certified. They know they can teach you how to cook, but you should already know your food safety and sanitation.

So, why do I feel this is so important to make a post about? I work as a Campus Rep for the DCP and get to help with proctoring the HACCP tests before you take your interviews. I also get to hear direct feedback from the recruiters on what are people's strengths and weaknesses. And the major weakness is not knowing HACCP.

The tests only have one answer for each question, there's no other answers but the right one. Sure we have seen a lot of good tests get handed in, but we've also seen some pretty scary ones. We've seen tests where people think that milk is held at 0F or that you cook beef to 185F. We've een conversion factor questions left blank and a bunch of other scary answers that you can only imagine.

I know what it's like to get into lab and want to jump right into baking. Who cares about sanitation when there's cakes to be made right? But the sanitation is part of that recipe, it is just as important as picking cake flour rather than hi gluten flour. You may think that your chefs/teachers are saying this stuff just because they have to, but I cannot stress enough how much you need to know this stuff. You will walk into a bakery and need to scale a recipe down, you will need to convert something from pounds to grams, you will need to know your conversions. You will walk into a kitchen and you will need to know to put raw beef on the bottom shelf, you will need to know what temperatures to cook a certain cut of meat and you will most definitely need to know proper sanitation procedures to prevent cross contamination.

I'm a senior in my last trimester of culinary school. I've gone through 20 baking and pastry labs and a full course in ServSafe. I know my HACCP information because I've taken the time to study it. I do the Disney HACCP test just for fun to see if I've still got it and I do. Yet a fellow senior baking and pastry person had to ask me this past week how to scale down a recipe and how many pounds are in a quart. You almost have to ask yourself if you are going to the same school.

Disney can mold you into the cook they want you to be, but they expect you to already know your sanitation. We hear directly from the recruiters that one of the things they look for is basic stuff like conversions, temperatures, and sanitation. Not only does Disney look for it, but I guarantee you that every kitchen you will ever work in looks for it too. Working in a kitchen is more than just whipping things up or doing cuts with your french knife, it's having the skills to work in that kitchen and the knowledge of how to work in the kitchen safe and clean.

Start studying!

Congratulations? Now what?

You've sent in your application, gone through a nerve wracking interview and now think every *ding* on your phone is the arrival of that all too important you've been waiting for. It can be junk mail or....it can be an acceptance email from the DCP!

And yes, this is what you will do. You will scream and jump up and down. And then you'll start crying. You'll compose yourself and then start calling your family and all of a sudden, you're crying again. And you keep rereading the email making sure it does say your name and that is is in fact followed by a congratulations. At least that's how it went for me anyway....

So, what do you do next?

You will continue reading in that email that you have 10 days to accept your offer. Keep in mind it is not 10 days since YOU read the email, it's 10 days from the time ticker on the email, this is why it is important to check your email everyday.

At the bottom of the email there will be a link directing you to a page where you can review your offer letter. It will contain your role and your pay rate. It will also go over again information about housing and its fees (which I talk about next) and the Disney Look guidelines. When you accept your offer, you accept those guidelines so make sure you read everything through. Don't show up to your check in with gauges in your ears, a crazy haircut or hair color because they will send you back home immediately.

After you accept your offer, you will receive another email with a link directing you to pay your deposit. BOTH the acceptance of your offer and payment of your housing fees need to be done within the 10 days to completely accept you offer.

You will notice that the fee is $300. This fee gets broken up into 2 divisions as follows:

Rent: $200 will be going towards your first few weeks of rent. When you get down for your program you will notice your first week or two isn't loaded with a lot of hours. But you are in Disney housing for those first few weeks and still have to pay rent. This $200 goes towards you first rent payments so depending on your weekly rent fee, it can cover the first 2 weeks an some of the third. This is REALLY helpful. In your first few weeks you will be doing a big initial grocery shop, possibly buying bedding and bath linens, and any odds and ends you find that you need as you get settled in. Knowing that the money you will be earning in those first few week directly comes to you and not rent gives you enough of a start.

Events: $100 will go toward DCP Housing. Housing is always throwing great housing events and trips, check out the Housing Events tag right here on my blog for a quick preview of what you can expect! Movie nights include free popcorn and drinks, grocery bingo gives out free groceries as a prize, and housing events always include the DJ, free food, and really awesome character meet and greets. One of the housing events is your DCP graduation where you get your certificate and free Mickey ears. There's also a chance your program will fall in the time frame of Starlit Splash where they rent out Typhoon Lagoon just for CPs, or the CP formal. These are all FREE. I don't know about you, but I like free. I can't tell you how many things I have accumulated over my programs. I have my Mickey ears, 2 memory boxes, a DCP poster, DCP speakers, a free t-shirt, a lot of free food, and great memories with friends! You definitely get your moneys worth and then some!

After that, you will get another email with a link directing you the onboarding website. This is where you can review all you need to know about Disney Look, what to pack, I9 document information, and anything else you can think of as you start getting ready for your program.

After this, you are pretty much on your own. It's up to you to figure out how you are going to get down for your program which can include getting a hotel and purchasing train or plane tickets, that is all up to you and on your budget. Approximately 10 days-2 weeks before your arrival date you will get an email regarding selecting your apartment and filling out the last bit of paperwork.

Know that when you accept your offer to be a member of the Disney College Program, you are an accepting a great life experience. You get the magic and entertainment of Disney at your fingertips, the chance to work in a worldwide cherished company with a team filled with wonderful talent and leaders, and the chance to make new friends who you will make memories with to remember well long after your program is over. Yes it does come with a price but believe me, the experience itself is priceless!

Have you gotten your acceptance email? Congratulations! Leave your role and program dates in the comments!

Career Fair: Then & Now

Fall 2010, my first ever trimester here at Johnson & Wales. I was in academics, things were just getting started for me. I was 18, had just graduated high school a few months earlier and was still running on some leftover pixie dust from my Disney vacation from back in July where being a baker in Disney was just starting to creep into my mind.

It all seems so long ago. Even from that point, I'm a different person. But, I still get sunburn, that's never going to change!

I had seen flyers about the Disney presentation on campus. I had just started school, I didn't need to start looking for my sophomore internship yet but I wanted to go. I wanted to learn about the program, I wanted to be surrounded by something Disney.

I sat in the chairs. I watched Chef Pauli, a man I didn't know yet, give the presentation on apartments I never lived in, talk about a job I've never experienced, talk about a program I had never been a part of. I saw Campus Reps, faces that were new but would evolve into familiar faces, talk about their experience. They were just like me, students at this school who needed to do an internship. I was asking the questions, I was dreaming of wow, what and opportunity this would be. Those people up there are so lucky.

I want to do this.

Now, it's 2014. My last trimester at Johnson & Wales. I'm 22 and I'm closer to my college graduation in May than I am my high school graduation all those years ago. And I've done not one, but two Disney Culinary Programs as a Pastry Cook II.

And that's what this blog has mostly been about, my experience in Florida on the DCP. But my journey has also been continuing up here in RI since the end of my first program. For the past 2 years, I have been a Disney Campus Rep. We serve as a connection between Disney and JWU, we are here to educate others about the program, answer questions, host information sessions, and recruit applicants for when Chef Pauli and the Disney crew come to our school for our 2 career fairs every year. It's not a paid job but we are still employed by Disney, we still get the perks, we're still Cast Members. The magic follows us from Florida back to school.

My last career fair and DCP presentation was this past Thursday. Do you know where I was? I was up there, talking about my past experience. I was answering questions and representing Disney.  I was up there with people who were strangers to me at one point and now where friends. I was up there with Chef Pauli who once gave me the most intimidating job interview and now he's helping to shape my career.

I had a really tough time coming back from my first program. and I'm still having a tough time. The months of July-November were when it was easiest to make it through because I was back in Disney. There have been days where I have not wanted to get out of bed. Where I literally do sleep the day away because I don't want to face it. But I always got out of bed for rep work, I was always excited to help with interviews when one might have seen it as boring. I don't like talking in front of people but I love talking about Disney and sharing what I know about it with others.

Being a rep was a key element about my last 2 years at JWU. I encourage DCP alumni, no matter where you go to school, to look into it. It's been a fun and magical journey working for Disney and I'm glad the pixie dust has been able to follow me wherever I go.

If you have any questions on what it's like to be, or become a Campus Rep, please leave them in the comments bellow!

Hello There, Remembe Me?

Happy New Year everyone!

Yeah, that's how long it has been since I have made a post on here and I feel really bad about that. My second trimester was my last set of baking labs for school and with my work study I ended up being out from about 7-7 and that the last thing my fingers wanted to do was type.

But this past week the recruiter from the Culinary Program has been at my school so as a Rep I have been busy recruiting and giving out information and doing presentations. and I thought you know, why not give this blog a shot again? My other blog is way too cluttered with other things for anyone to find anything on it so at least with this blogger, it's just my Disney journey.

Which, is starting again! On September 8th I will be checking in to my 3rd Disney Culinary Program and will be going back to the Epcot Bakery to bake for the Food & Wine Festival!

As of right now, my dates are 9/8-1/2 but I do plan on extending and if full-time becomes available, finding my own place and permanently residing in Florida.

I'll be returning to Walt Disney World which is all too familiar to me but this will still be a major life adjustment. I have never been away from my family for Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year's. I have never completely moved away from my family as far as Florida. I will be apartment hunting, car shopping (mind you I haven't driven in nearly 3 years) and going from the CP life to the CM life.

But I'm excited. This is where I'm meant to be, I know it. and I am so thankful to have a job and boss who is so understanding back home that if for some reason I have to leave and come back, I have something to return to. My family says they may even move to Florida in time.

So that's where I'm at right now. Graduating in May, working throughout the summer, starting a CP in September and after that, I have no idea!

Housing Events

I've previously written about the housing events Woody's Round Up and Oktoberfest, and DCP graduation, but there are a lot during your program that you can attend. They run pretty regularly and have different themes each time. Often times they will have free food, music, and characters. When you pay your $300 deposit for the program, $100 of that goes towards the housing events and it really is worth it to go. It's great times with friends and it's all exclusive to CPs. Take a look at some of the other housing events I've been to over the course of my CP and check out the housing tab for more!

Galaxy Blowout 

 Uh-oh!

 Darth Goofy and Jedi Donald came out!

The theme of the party was Star Wars so who better to show up!

Thanksgiving Diversity Event

 Photo booth with hats!

 "Thanksgiving Dinner" I say this with quotation marks because I am an American and I know what a real Thanksgiving dinner is, and this wasn't it! Still good though!

 Mickey and Minnie dressed in their colonial wear for the first time in 30 years!

There were also other events that I was not able to attend such as a Monster's University kick off in September and a themed bingo nights throughout the program. All are good fun and provide lots of special photo opportunities and memories with friends!

DCP Graduation #2

Back in October I had my 2nd DCP graduation. It was weird, I felt like I was just STARTING my FIRST program, not finishing my second one. People say time goes by when you're having fun and I feel like this program went by in the blink of an eye. I left for Disney in shorts and flip flops because it was July and it was hot and I was going from 4th of July fireworks to Disney fireworks. and then next thing you know, I'm heading on a plane home in jeans and a sweatshirt because it's November and cold back home.

Disney hosts a graduation for you before your program ends. There's free food, music, and prizes. You receive a free gift, a free pair of graduation Mickey ears, and you get the chance to celebrate your graduation with not only your friends, but Disney characters!

Most of the housing events are held at Chatham Square field because it's nice and open. We were there during an experimental phase where I guess they wanted to test out using it at the Vista Way welcome pavilion. It wasn't as much fun because characters had to change instead of all being out at the same time and there wasn't as much room. It was still fun though, nothing could damper your DCP graduation!

 The Epcot crew and our friends Pluto and Goofy

 Pluto and Goofy have moves!

The boss and Minnie Mouse <3

 Take your pictures in front of a castle backdrop, you can even pose with your country's flag if you're international.

 The best degree you can get!

After graduation, a lot of people go to get their ears engraved. My first program it was free but for the $7, it's worth it. It's just nice to have and makes your ears that much more special. My first pair of ears has my name on it but since I was paying for this one, I went all out and got a different color.

 Another hat to add to the collection!

There's a little hidden gem in WDW, the casting door. A great place for a photo with your new ears!

I was fortunate to have the day off for graduation. Make sure you request the day off as soon as you get the email about it so that way you have a better chance of getting picked to go. It's something I would list on my DCP Don't Miss List (I don't really have one,but if I did, it would be on it!) It's just something really special and something only done for CPs. Go celebrate all your hard work!

Working Party of the Senses

One of the highlights of this program was that I got the opportunity to work with my sous chef for her Party of the Senses. The party is held on select nights during the festival and the cheapest ticket is $145 with the more expensive seats quickly selling out well in advance. I would never afford to be able to get in as a guest so to experience it as a Cast Member was really cool!

We did some prep work in our home kitchen before the party started, just getting the materials and stuff together. We had to make sure our jackets and stuff were clean and then we headed to the PEO kitchen to start getting everything together!

Most of the work for the party is done backstage and it was really cool to see how it was put together. If you were to go past the doors from party to backstage you would see a really long hallway with small fold up tables and refrigerators lining either side. Each chef and their team were assigned a table where you could plate your dishes. For example, my chef's dessert was plated out back and we would put the finished plates on trays and take them out to the party. My chef's dessert was a Banana Cake with Coconut Mousse with Milk Chocolate Caramel Ganache and a Cojit Sauce. It was DELICIOUS

 Backstage we would put the chocolate and macaroon on top of the cake and we sauced on stage

 Guests had it as the best dessert of the night!

We got to go into the room early so we could see the presentation of the chefs. Seeing all the decorations and the atmosphere was really cool! and it hadn't even started!

 Looks like a chef party!

 My sous chef is the first girl from the right

 Chef Keegan Freaking Gerhard of Food Network Challenge was there! Majorly fangirled

 Chefs of the night

Don't break anything!

 Party of the Senses 2013

My sous-chef had her own table for the night. She would stand outside of it to tell the guests about it and we would stand behind it saucing the dishes and making sure the table was full. She also made a chocolate centerpiece for it. It was cool to go from seeing my chef with paper templates trying to build it to seeing the finished piece on display!

Very official!

My chef's chocolate showpiece

Colored sugar

The table, pre desserts of course!

Me and my sous-chef

The whole gang!

I had a really great time working the party. I was missing plating desserts since that was one of my shifts at the Polynesian so it was a nice change. This was in the middle of the festival so it was nice to work with a mousse that wasn't pistachio or top something that wasn't hazelnut cheesecake. We rotated between plating out back and saucing up front and while I was up front I go to see some of the performers from La Nouba, the specially made Cirque Du Solei show in Downtown Disney. The whole atmosphere was just really awesome. Seeing guests come up to our table to take a dessert and then coming back a few minutes later to tell my chef how delicious it was was really neat.

When the party was nearing an end, we were allowed to take our nametags off and eat around the party. I'm a really picky eater so I wasn't loading up plates of stuff (except for the Kerrygold cheese, give it here!) but I definitely hit up all the desserts! What really was the kicker, I got to meet Chef Keegan Gerhard! He was the MC for Food Network Challenge back in the day. When I first started getting into baking, I would watch Food Network as soon as I came home from school and pretty much go all night. FNC was one of my favorites so to see someone go from my tv screen to right in front of me was really cool! He was busy of course but I mentioned to him how I had been a fan of his for a while and that it was a pleasure to finally meet him. He was so nice and humble and really appreciated me being a fan and noted that I was meeting him as a baker for Epcot which was pretty cool! He was a really great guy to meet, and his dessert was delicious!

 Contemporary's chocolate showpiece

 Dessert from the Contemporary

 Chef Keegan Gerhard busy at work!

 Chef Keegan Gerhard's crumble dessert

Strawberry Dessert