1 hour ago, Santa07 said:

I'm younger than most uni students (I'm still 16 for a few months), so probably best to wait till I'm 18.

1 minute ago, Santa07 said:

Nothing really stopping me from getting a job, other than the difficulty involved in finding one and that the work load for engineering doesn't leave much space for other things.

1

Holy crap. Engineering at 16. That is intense. 

Doing such a full-on course while holding employment is possible. You just have to look in the right places. A 3-hour shift after Uni every night can go a long way in terms of balancing work and studies.

1 hour ago, JacobSibbald said:

Is there anything stopping you from getting a job? Once you have completed your first year you are eligible to participate in the Disney International Program/J1 Cultural exchange in which you work for Walt Disney World for approximately 5-12 months. This is an alternative that pays you money and allows you to explore some of the best theme parks in the US, in fact I have my interview for the program on Monday

1

Wow! Congrats on the interview! I've attended quite a few sessions and done a lot of research about attending, and it looks like a wonderful experience. It's definitely something I would like to try at one point.

One of my cousins got through to the final round of interviews for the Disney International Program thingy a few weeks back. I don't think she's heard about whether she's got it yet.

I did read a while back that one of the things Disney look out for in the interviews is willingness to work with other people, not compete with them. To work together to solve problems.

21 minutes ago, Zanstabar said:

Holy crap. Engineering at 16. That is intense. 

You summed it up. Intense is the right word.

It's only software engineering though, so it's on the lighter side of engineering (less calculus and weird stuff  )

Bloody hell !!  It is Doogie Howser !!

This is all rumours and highly unlikely. Seems a lot of the radio stations in Melbourne and other media websites have gotten people talking about it. Major click bait. I don't see Disney opening here for a long time

2 hours ago, djmcbell said:

One of my cousins got through to the final round of interviews for the Disney International Program thingy a few weeks back. I don't think she's heard about whether she's got it yet.

I did read a while back that one of the things Disney look out for in the interviews is willingness to work with other people, not compete with them. To work together to solve problems.

Thanks for the tip! Acceptances are released early may, tell her that if she hasn't received a no longer in consideration email she's incredibly likely to have gotten the job as they are released approx. 3 days after interviews.

And thanks Zanstabar  I've known about it for quite a while and was considering postponing it until the end of my degree but I thought I should do it (or at least apply to do it) whilst I'm still excited about it haha

Edited April 12, 20169 yr by JacobSibbald

In Melbourne at the moment. There's a thing called Galactic Circus which is billed as an indoor theme park. Basically, it's a laser tag, bowling and arcade zone. Yeah, I think the Docklands area would be a really bad place for a theme park. There's no room and it probably wouldn't suit the tone of the area. Still think the Werribee idea would have been good.

The suggestion of Docklands being suitable for a Disney park is laughable at best. There is nowhere near enough room to begin with in the area. Given the area is ironically docks and wharves for shipping whoever thought the idea of Disney going there clearly has rocks in their head.

The Disney International Program is well worth doing (I'm in Orlando now), it's a lot of fun and crazy hours if you end up in Magic Kingdom.  But the number of friends you make is crazy and it's really one of those once in a life time opportunities. My tip is don't book a flight home (or book a flexible ticket) I decided to extend my program and it cost a fortune to change the ticket dates. Conversely a lot people get home sick, or its not what they expected and leave early.

After working here and seeing the scale of the Disney Parks its easy to easy how the current model of Disney parks just wouldn't work in Australia. My idea has been that rather than do a DisneyLand in Australia they could do a scaled down Disney's 'Australian' Adventure style park as an alternative or even a Disney Water Park. But for the foreseeable future Disney is pretty clearly focused on Shanghai and not Australia.

17 hours ago, iwerks said:

In Melbourne at the moment. There's a thing called Galactic Circus which is billed as an indoor theme park. Basically, it's a laser tag, bowling and arcade zone. Yeah, I think the Docklands area would be a really bad place for a theme park. There's no room and it probably wouldn't suit the tone of the area. Still think the Werribee idea would have been good.

Go play 'dingo anus minigolf'

http://www.glowgolf.com.au/

On 12/04/2016 at 1:36 PM, JacobSibbald said:

Thanks for the tip! Acceptances are released early may, tell her that if she hasn't received a no longer in consideration email she's incredibly likely to have gotten the job as they are released approx. 3 days after interviews.

Alas, she didn't get it. Seems Disney have a new system - as opposed to emailing candidates, they have a site which the candidates log onto and see their progress. So rather than letting people know if they haven't got the jobs only a few days after interviews, they just wait until the end and release them in one big batch.

19 hours ago, djmcbell said:

Alas, she didn't get it. Seems Disney have a new system - as opposed to emailing candidates, they have a site which the candidates log onto and see their progress. So rather than letting people know if they haven't got the jobs only a few days after interviews, they just wait until the end and release them in one big batch.

She didn't get accepted? The system works in a way that every time they update your 'dashboard' on their website, an email is automatically sent to you. They've always released acceptances in one big batch, with no longer in considerations released a couple of days after each respective interview. Currently, only New Zealand has been accepted, Australian acceptances will be released within the next fortnight.

On 23/04/2016 at 7:53 AM, JacobSibbald said:

She didn't get accepted? The system works in a way that every time they update your 'dashboard' on their website, an email is automatically sent to you. They've always released acceptances in one big batch, with no longer in considerations released a couple of days after each respective interview. Currently, only New Zealand has been accepted, Australian acceptances will be released within the next fortnight.

I think the exact words were "not progressing with at this time" (this is UK btw). Her final interview was about a month or so ago, and this just came through last week.

On 11 April 2016 at 7:01 AM, AlexB said:

I visited my first when I was 14. My second didn't come until I was 27. I then revisited the first park when I was 31, and the second park again when I was 33, both with my wife for her first experience of both parks.

The tricky decision for us now has been to determine which park first? what age? what order? Do we want him to experience California first - Walt's only completed park? Or Orlando, being one neither of us have been to, but certainly the biggest and most costly trip? or Hong Kong, a place that is special for us? Shanghai, being brand new? Tokyo, being reasonably close, and one of my wife's favourite countries she's always wanted to visit? Or Paris... because... well... if it's going to be our goal to do all of them we'll have to do Paris at some stage...

I recently read that A lot of the Paris attractions are currently closed (being refurbished). Thunder Mountain, Star Tours won't open until 2017 (25th anniversary) and there's a bucketload of other closures on their website.  I think some stage is a good idea.

I still really enjoyed Disneyland Paris when I went back in 2014. There were some closures back then (Captain EO I think, Indiana Jones, Crush's Coaster, and Ratatouille wasn't open by that point) but it was good as it was closer to us than Florida, and I would definitely say Pirates and Big Thunder Mountain were better. Plus I like how you can discover new bits in the park that are out of the way (like the caves around Adventure Isle, the walk-through Aladdin thing, and the dragon under the castle).

But yeah, they're doing loads of renovations for a good while now. DLP Guide has loads of info, and if you look around on Theme Park Review you'll find loads of info and some pics of the "Frontier Land" area being refurbished.

21 hours ago, djmcbell said:

I think the exact words were "not progressing with at this time" (this is UK btw). Her final interview was about a month or so ago, and this just came through last week.

UK! They have a completely different program

Big Thunder Mountain at DLP is down all year. So is the Mark Twain. Basically anything that operated on the river. They're reworking the final drop of Big Thunder and that is located underneath the water level, so construction is going to be tricky for them.

My pick for best ride there is Big Thunder, followed by Crush's Coaster over at Studios.

Big Thunder only just came out of a lengthy refurbishment in 2013 - it is unlikely to be doing so again.

A quick google shows no listing for Big Thunder on the various closure schedules, some of which reaches 2017

https://disneyland.disney.go.com/calendars/day/
https://touringplans.com/disneyland-resort/closures
https://www.undercovertourist.com/blog/disneyland-refurbishments-closings/
http://ocattractions.net/closures/
 

Are you sure you aren't referring to BIG THUNDER RANCH which is an entirely separate attraction \ venue to Big Thunder Mountain? BTR is closed permanently as the land will be taken over by Star Wars Land.

Where did you get your information regarding reworking the drop below water level?

Late mail - THIS site shows BTMRR as down for scheduled maintenance, from April 11 to April 14 2016 - and it's the only one to list the coaster as down at any stage this year.

Big Thunder In PDL is down for a lengthy refurb & won't open till 2017. I'm guessing that is what ads086 was speaking about.

He did say DLP.. 

My concern in regards to Big Thunder Ranch now closed, will the barbecue ever return? It was my favourite place to eat 

I doubt the barbecue will return at that location, but they can always open one up elsewhere.

 

BTR will never return. I believe it's already been bulldozed.

No I realise that but I am just hoping it makes a return somewhere. It was very popular with guests and IMO pretty good value for money.

 

2 hours ago, mickey_079 said:

pretty good value for money.

Given their current moneygrabs, anything that was good value for money will probably never see the light of day again.

It's a shame really. That was the only food outlet that really stood out to me to this day from my 2011 trip.