Vanessa Valenzuela

At the Incredible Hulk Coaster our main responsibilities include monitoring and ensuring the safety of guests, creating and maintaining an immersive atmosphere and constantly cleaning and monitoring the surrounding area. Some of our most guest facing roles include express/standby greeters, whom answer questions and provide helpful information pertaining to our attraction and surrounding park areas. Our height requirement is the tallest of our parks at 54” so we are often performing height checks and navigating situations in which a guest is not tall enough to experience the attraction. Other positions include grouping which is responsible for filling the ride vehicle of 8 rows each seating 4 volunteers from 4 different lines of guest including standby/express/single riders/front row line and doing so while following the appropriate ratios. Another group of positions include load and unload front/mid/back whose responsibilities are checking restraints and ensuring volunteers are experiencing the attraction in a safe and comfortable way. Lastly we have metal detection positions which are safety critical in ensuring every guest is properly scanned through our metal detectors. If a guest sets the detector off we then direct them to be quickly yet thoroughly wanded following procedure to locate the prohibited item and educate the guest on where the item should be left as they ride. Lastly as a control booth operator our main focus is the safety of the guests. We use a passive camera system to observe multiple points of the ride for guest safety and in the event of an evacuation to relay information to authorities including ride vehicle location, guests with disabilities, and guests with medical equipment who may be stuck. We dispatch every train using dual heat sensor pads and in the event of a ride stop are in charge of pressing the station stop or e-stop to halt ride motion and record the reason for the delay, the length, and call tech base and command center to keep them up to date. We also utilize a headset to contact platform team members as well as a PA system and an audio interface to relay information such as ride delays, ride re-openings, safety spiels, etc. to guests throughout the queue. Lastly we are in charge of keeping track of the queue wait time, empty seats, and delays in dispatches and at the top of the hour calling the informations recorded into command base.

My second college program was at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Frontierland GFT (parade guest flow) in Magic Kingdom. Safety was our top priority and ensuring the safety of the guests through constant monitoring and problem solving is something that I find enjoyable. My duties included staying present and attentive constantly in my safety critical positions by constantly monitoring guest safety and experience whilst simultaneously doing everything I can to ensure each guest is having a comfortable and enjoyable experience. Some examples include ensuring guests are behind marked areas on the floor during operation and entertainment, following all safety directions while on the ride in tower, ensuring everyone riding meets the height and various other requirements and children specifically meet the supervised child guidelines.

As a part of the Disney College Program over the course of 7 months I worked in 3 parks with three very different roles. I started out in Epcot working the festival booths which required assembling drinks and ice cream as ordered as well as working with culinary to make sure modifications for preferences and allergies are correctly made. In this job the roles rotated between register, expo, filler and breaker regularly. At Magic Kingdom I worked at a quick service location which is more restaurant style. In this role we assembled dishes, drinks, bussed tables, took out trash and took orders. This role was more team oriented as the environment was constantly fast-paced yet smooth flowing with everyone helping each other out whilst staying on top of their given task. At my last location in Animal Kingdom I worked in outdoor vending. In this role I usually worked solo with a drink cart and an ice cream cart. I communicated with base regularly updating them on my sales and if I needed anything restocked. When there was downtime in this role I would carry out stocker duties by delivering and restocking anything a cart/stand was running low on.

I was hired as a cashier and my responsibilities included greeting customers as they entered, explaining the menu in detail when they had questions or concerns, contacting the wok cooks when an allergy/cross contamination concern was mentioned, and checking out orders on the POS. My responsibilities also included taking calls for pick up orders and imputing them into our POS system, using our tablets to input delivery service orders and making sure they were fulfilled in a timely manner, and stocking/cleaning the dining area. As I stated with the company I was also trained on expo work which included boxing and bagging all the orders after using our order screen to ensure everything was prepared properly and placing all proper utensils, sauces, etc. into the bag. I was also later trained on server work which included running food to tables in our dinning area after ensuring everything in the order was correctly prepared and handling any customer questions/concerns that were brought up about the food/experience. When I was on dish I would stay back of house preparing and portioning the meats, veggies, and sauces for the day as well as constantly running the dish machine and fully cleaning any dishes dropped off at my station in a timely manner. The last spot I was trained at was shareables which included the use of a fryer and a boil station. I would receive tickets and carry out each order which would include boiling and frying our sides and shareables. I was also in charge of keeping a fresh batch of rice and if we started running low to prepare a new full batch. During closing I would usually only have about 2-4 staff close so my main responsibilities were the dining room. I would sweep and mop the floors, cleans the restrooms, change the trash, restock the dining room station as needed, clean the tea and soda machines and carry out any last minute orders. If we had any catering orders put in I would also stay a bit later stage the items needed for catering and pre-label everything needed to prepare the order in the morning including pans for meats and sides, bowls for soups, bags for beverages, utensils and sauces ordered, specifically labeling anything that had a special request or allergy and ensuring the openers were set up for success in completing the order in a timely manner.