This is more of an emotional reaction instead of useful information pertaining towards signing up for Disney Courses. Hope you enjoy! 🙂
The Hours Before Sign-ups
So I’m up and course sign ups are not for another 2 hours. My Disney Dorms Password is working. I only plan on taking one course at Disney. My preference is: The Engineering PD Seminar, Disney Leadership, or the hard to get into Disney Heritage course. The first two courses can be applied to my major and oriented for my career goals. While Disney Heritage on the other hand is the course to take for fun. It is a four week long course about the history of Disney. I don’t think I would take any of the other courses because they are so far fetched from my major and focused for Hospitality, Communications, and Marketing majors.
Immediately Before Sign-ups Open and the following Chaos
So 5 minutes before sign-ups DORMS goes down. For the next hour it was a battle of on the site off the site to get classes. At first they were all open. Then they were all closed. Then they were open again. No joke that was just the first 35 minutes. Then me and my two lovely room mates get the elusive Disney Heritage in out carts only to be kicked out of the system again (it crashed everyone was out). At this point I’m terrified for my chances of getting in the Engineering Seminar. I finally get to the Professional Development Seminars page and my heart drops it is wait-list only. After another 20 minutes on and off the site I make it to my cart and pay. Some how both the wait-listed Engineering Seminar is there and the Heritage class with my roomies. I get the confirmation email and breathe a sigh of relief sign-ups for classes is done.
After Sign-ups
I check Facebook to see if anyone else is in the major specific seminars. A kind person responds that wait-list is the only option since they verify our majors before enrolling us in the courses. So this means I am technically in the Engineering Professional Development Class! However until I get the confirmation I’m going to keep saying wait-listed.
Now about the Heritage course. Normally it closes 5 minutes after sign-ups start. The combination of my roomies wanting to take it and it still being open inspired me to sign up. Also once I explained to my Disney-nerd mom what the Disney Heritage Course is she was like OMG Disney History 101 don’t you dare drop it. So plans changed and I guess I’m taking two classes.
Advice for Future Participants
- Don’t blame your computer for bad programming
- Check your dorms password regularly. Many people were locked out and couldn’t sign up for classes at all.
- Talk with your roomies and friends about taking a class together.
- You might not get in the courses you want.
- Don’t schedule work during signups or the 2 hours after wards
- Read the email about how to sign up (or read the facebook pages)
- Don’t freak out once the site calms down you can log back on and double check that your classes went through.
- Some courses have a fee between 15 and 30 dollars so be on the look out for that.
Well that was my experience for Disney Course Registrations. I’ve heard it is always like this. If you’ve taken the Heritage, Engineering PD Seminar, or any Disney courses on a Program let me know how they went. Until next time!
Keep Moving Forward.-Walt Disney
Packing is probably my least favorite thing about moving anywhere. The thought process of Will I need this? or Oh I can use this for this one random thing. Then there are lists at basically every store for how to make your dorm look cool. I have moved in and out of dorms the past four years without a car. Very rarely do those store lists actually help or do you actually use that poncho that was cool ten years ago.
Finding room mates online can be fun and having the support before the program can make the transition easier. However beware Disney varies how many people they allow you to link with between 0 and 7 room mates. So the GooseSquad (my roommate’s group name) is going to be having two different nest.
Following finding room mates talk about which apartments your group wants to live in and have a ranking ready prior to the email. Some things to consider include location of the washer and dryer, proximity to housing events, availability of buses, price (it is about a $20 difference between the most expensive and cheapest apartments) and if any have gained a negative reputation during the first arrival dates.
In 25 Days I have check-in for my Disney College Program. I am so excited to be working in merchandise for this amazing company. I can’t believe I have found the 5 most perfect girls to move-in with. Disney provides housing for both their Florida and California programs. The housing for Florida requires approximately 10 hours of work to cover the cost each week. My room mates and I ranked the housing options as a group. I’m not really that worried because all the rooms in the vlogs look essentially the same. Also there are hit and miss rooms in every complex so no reason to worry. My friend who is a program alum said her apartment was perfect besides being exactly between two bus stops so she drove to work most days. While another acquaintance said her apartment was very close to a stop and used the buses almost everyday without any major incidents.
So I’m not planning to bring/buy a car at this time. I might lease one if my location has hours where I would need one but since I won’t find out till I move-in no reason to incur the expense now. Another reason for this decision is that I have fallen asleep while driving before and never want that to happen again (I was lucky I only hit the neighbor’s trash can…). Also I despise parking and have been late before while driving in circles looking for an easier spot to park in.
Our roles are: 1 in attractions, 1 in monorail, 2 in QSFB, and 2 in merchandise. So among our group we have a good mix of the roles and most likely won’t be at the same locations. Even if Disney only lets us request one or two other people to live with I am excited to have found such an awesome squad to be friends with during my program. #GooseSquad
enginerd does disney 