Magic Kingdom Watercraft Transportation

May 2025 - Present

Currently, I am a Disney College Program participant working as a Cast Member on the cruisers and ferry boats that travel across the Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake to the Magic Kingdom or surrounding resorts. I operate as a deck hand; tying up the boats while transporting thousands of guests a day to their destinations, providing a tidy, safe cruise while simultaneously engaging with guests to ensure a pleasant and memorable experience. I also assist with guest crowd flow during Magic Kingdom’s opening and closing periods, ushering guests to board the boats in a safe and effective manner while answering questions based on the guest’s needs.

I traveled to northern Italy to work with Leitner on designing new ropeway stations that transport people in gondolas for ski resorts and travel destinations across the world.

During the first half of my internship, I was working along side the proposal development team, specifically with the station layout. A client would request a ropeway system based on Leitner’s various station and gondola products and the team would develop what the system may look like based on the location’s topography. Utilizing AutoCAD, I would take the client’s requests, the location topography, and the calculated ropeway cable support locations to provide detailed 2D drawings of the station layout. This would include the placement of loading stations, gondola storage units, operation rooms, or any paths leading to the stations like ramps or elevators. The drawings indicated the where excavation would need to be preformed of each station structure and ropeway cable support towers, and would be sent to the client for review and approval.

The second half of my internship had me working with the mechanical design team, where I would help to develop a new brake system for Leitner’s next generation ropeway stations. I was provided the research Leitner had already preformed with eddy current brakes and an existing ropeway station gondola track to design a mounting solution in Siemens NX for the new brake system. In the end, I made several protypes for the mounting device that included different orientations, frames, and materials based on a catalog of readily available parts to be reviewed for selection and manufacturing.

As apart of the Disney College Program, I was positioned as a Cast Member at Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance; a trackless dark ride at Hollywood Studios set in the Star Wars universe that puts guest in the middle of a battle between the Resistance and the First Order. I was trained as a member of the Resistance which involved inspecting vehicles and ride paths during opening and closing, greeting guests as they enter the attraction, preforming safety spiels to guests, as well as ensuring guest safety before dispatching the ride while still preforming the role of a Resistance member. While the attraction was relatively new and suffered from frequent downtimes, I would inform guests of the issue without divulging too much details, provided information about other experiences for guests to enjoy, and assisted with any reservation issues or other guest questions effectively.