Typically we hear about all the fantastic things about working for Disney. After all, it’s the most magical place on Earth, right?
Well, it turns out that like everything and every place in the world, even Disney isn’t perfect – there are secrets behind closed doors, and some of them aren’t the least bit magical.
16. At least it’s not a secret.
“You are being watched everywhere.”
—u/GoingApeCostume
15. I…have no words.
“It’s pretty common for guests to dump ashes of their loved ones on the Haunted Mansion ride.
They do it because ‘There are 999 ghosts, and there’s always room for 1,000!'”
—anduril379
14. No one wants Giardia as a souvenir.
“The water in the Pirates ride is not filtered, so we tell you to keep your hands out of the water for multiple reasons: so you can keep your limbs, and because you could get an infection.”
—u/pirate_for_life
13. The show must go on.
“Used to work at Splash Mountain and one time, the ceiling collapsed on the logs with guests in it.
They just put a tarp over the hole and kept running the ride.
I never rode it again after that.”
—anduril379
12. I don’t think that’s legal.
“If you worked at the diners or food service places where someone was at a register that you walked past to order/charge your food, you didn’t get to drink anything or go to the bathroom for your full 8 or 10-hour shift.
That’s when I lost all respect for them.”
—u/BiryaniBabe
11. Pretty much the same everywhere.
“When I worked at Disneyland, I learned from my fellow cast members a very important unofficial rule. We called it the three Ds. Don’t Do Disney. Or sometimes ‘Don’t Date Disney.’
As in, don’t sleep with your fellow cast members. It pretty much always ends badly. The drama backstage is both hilarious and exhausting.
It’s also a well known fact that if your managers find out you’re dating someone from your area, they will move one of you. I even remember someone having to move to a completely different department, so that they weren’t working close to their significant other.
And yet, Disney loves to tell stories about how cast members met at the parks and fell in love. Such hypocrites.”
—zintk
10. Cats gotta cat.
“Disneyland has resident cats that live on the property.
At night they hunt rodents, helping control the rodent population.
Who’s the main mascot of Disneyland? Mickey Mouse.
They are literally sanctioning the hunting and ki**ing of Mickey’s family.”
—u/ragingduck
9. I kind of love this.
“If anybody says, ‘Have a magical day,’ they mean you were a gigantic asshole and hated dealing with you.
We call it the ‘Disney F**k You’.”
—u/fishmom5
8. A whole dollar.
“I worked at Kilimanjaro Safaris in Animal Kingdom. A little secret: we got paid a dollar more than all other attractions because we not only spiel, but drive 35+ guests in a truck on an uncontrolled trial.
If we wanted to, we could’ve driven right out into the river where the crocs are and told you all to ‘run.’
Hence the extra dollar an hour to keep us from doing something so crazy.”
—u/RecoverFar801
7. That’s assault, my friend.
“I remember when I worked at Disney World — an old man grabbed me and KISSED ME ON MY LIPS.
You best believe no one cared, and I was scared, creeped out, and disgusted.
I also was 20 and moved from Europe to Florida all by myself just to work for Disney.”
—wcss1994
6. And yet you never hear about it.
“People fall off of things. A lot. Roofs, rides, etc. There are varying outcomes.”
—u/JzaMaxwell
5. Their reputation is everything.
“A person close to me was s*xually harassed continuously (in the Some submissions contain mentions of s*xual harassmentlate 90s) at a Disney venue.
The response was to put them in a closed room with the accused and told them to work it out or quit to avoid ‘tarnishing their reputation.'”
—alanhawk2002
4. Lifelong trauma.
“I was on the TTC Resort Platform working the night of the Monorail crash. It will be 13 years this July, and I still wake up screaming from time to time.
There is no amount of therapy that will or can erase that memory from my mind.”
—u/driver_dylan
3. I didn’t expect this would be a problem.
“I think the worst part about character harassment is that Disney does not prosecute the guests, at least when I was there.
When I was working in the 2000s, there was someone whose wrist was broken by a drunk guest who grabbed and twisted it really badly.
They refused to prosecute, and I think she may have ended up with permanent nerve damage in her wrist, which really sucked because she was also a gymnast.”
—u/jon98gn
2. No tattoos allowed.
“Disneyland’s first interview papers included a blank outline of a person to indicate where you have tattoos.
If you want to change positions internally, it’s referenced to indicate how said tattoos could be revealed, based on what your new uniform would be.”
—u/case_sensitive
1. I guess rules are rules.
“I was only a lifeguard at a pool, but I had to maintain the ‘Disney look.’
Before I started a shift, I was given a razor and asked to shave because of stubble/5 o’clock shadow.”
—u/thenineteenthhole
Yeah, I wish these surprised me but honestly, they really don’t.
What about you? Do you have any firsthand experience with Disney? Tell us the secrets you know down in the comments!
