A Whole New World

Disney: The place where dreams really do come true.

This is how Walt Disney wanted his parks to be known when he founded Disneyland in 1955. In 1971, five years after his brother’s death, Roy Disney carried on Walt’s legacy and created Disney World, whose parades, rides, and princesses attract an estimated 25 million per year.

Emma Hartwig ‘18 is more allured to visit the park than the average tourist. For 12 years, Hartwig’s mom worked as an entertainer, a human resources manager, and a clerk for a variety of hotels, while her Dad also worked as an entertainer and hotel clerk, as well as a sales manager. Still at Disney, her aunt is going on 19 years as an interviewer for part-time interns, and her uncle has been a manager at Hollywood Studios for the past 20 years.

As a result, Hartwig has been to Disney World “too many times to count.”

“My first haircut was at Disney World,” she recalled. “They have a little barber shop there. My Dad used to get his haircut there all the time.”

As child, Hartwig would go to the parks often, before the family moved from Orlando in 2005.

“[We would] come in for one ride, eat dinner, and leave because we got in for free,” she said.

But even the pros make rookie mistakes, as Hartwig helped verify when her family lost her three-year-old sister at Epcot.

“[She] wandered off and got lost, and we had no idea where she was,” Hartwig said. “We were searching all over, and finally we found her with some strange lady.”

Learning the ropes of the park, Hartwig soon understood the secrets to how it operates.

“Disney World is actually built on the second story of the earth. So when you’re walking, you’re not actually walking on the ground,” she explained. “You never see a bunch of cast members walking around the park, going from one side of the park to the other. To keep the magic, Disney cast members go down through these doors underground.”

However, even the knowledge of all of the tricks Disney managers have up their sleeves doesn’t take the magic of Disney away from a little girl.

“I remember that one time I was getting ready to ride the carousel in Magic Kingdom, and I saw Mary Poppins was riding it,” Hartwig recounts. “It was my turn to ride. And Mary Poppins comes over to me and she says something like, ‘Oh hello dear. Would you mind if I rode the carousel with you?’. And I was thinking, ‘Do I mind?’” Hartwig said. “I got to ride with her and it was one of the best times.”

And it is with a collection of these “best times” in mind that Hartwig plans on attending the Disney College Program, and living in Orlando for six months.

“There are different things you can do. Usually you take classes with Disney and work a job down there,” she explained. “Like my mom was a clerk in an Epcot store and my dad worked as a bell hop boy in a hotel. I don’t think I’m ever going to work there,but I definitely want to go on the Disney College Program.”

After experiencing all the different rides, shows, parades and shops, Hartwig said that her favorite thing to do in the park was to go on the fast zipping roller coaster Expedition Everest in Animal Kingdom because of its “fun surprise” at the end.

Already an ace at tackling the mayhem that goes hand in hand with Disney’s magic, Hartwig’s word of advice to any Disney first-timer is to “plan ahead.”

“You can’t just go in. You will be really overwhelmed,” she warned. “You’ll have a lot more fun if you plan ahead. If you don’t plan you’ll miss out on a lot of fun stuff.”