Day 3 - Monday, May 23 - Part 6: The Disney Institute!!!!
A big thanks to Stephanie for filling us in on her afternoon and evening went with the kids. Funny…. Some of what she shared was news to me too. Haha!
My last update left off with us getting settled into our room, and then me getting ready to head down to the Boardwalk Inn's Conference Center. Registration was from 2:00 PM to 2:30 PM. So I left the room at about 2pm (with a few butterflies in my stomach) to head down to the class….
A few notes before I get going about the Disney Institute. #1. They discouraged us from taking photos of course content and any backstage stuff. So, unfortunately my course-related updates won't have a lot of photos. #2. As I said before, I'm sort of shy in new groups of people, so I felt awkward taking too many photos of stuff that your average "student" wouldn't. (And your average student didn't really take any photos at all.) So I didn't get as many photos of the food and other random stuff.
So yeah, my family wished me luck and off I went. Our hotel room turned out to be sort of behind the Conference Center area, and I looked for a shortcut, but never found one. So the routine was to walk down to the main lobby, head out towards the WDW transportation busses, and instead of making a right to the bus stop, make a left to the conference center.
Long walk, but gosh, the weather was amazing all week long and it was always a pleasant walk to class. Beautiful landscaping too!
The conference facility was absolutely beautiful. I think I have some more/better photos from later in the trip, but I'll start off with this one for now.
Our "classroom" was down this hall, and then to the left. I walked up to the room, signed in, and there were about 8 or 10 tables scattered across the space. Each table had about six chairs. (There were 50 people registered.) I wasn't sure where to sit, but I had made a conscious effort to go up front. My instinct is to sit in the back where I'd go unnoticed. But this training was going to be epic… why sit all the way in the back where you have less of a chance of interacting with the facilitators? (I was assured by Lee that these particular facilitators would be top notch.) So yeah, I went all the way up front!
Each spot at the tables had a training manual, water bottle, backpack (not shown but it had a cool Disney Institute logo embroidered on it), a luggage tag for the backpack, and then various pens, sticky notes, highlighters, etc. Cool!
I was first to arrive at my table, but eventually the table filled up. I sat with three people who worked for an NFL football team, two people from a mega church, and a guy from a large investment firm. (They specifically encouraged us not to share much about the other companies unless we had their permission. You know, privacy and all.) At 2:30 PM, the facilitators came up front to break the ice and get the ball rolling.
The agenda for the rest of the day was:
Training class from 2:30 PM to 6:00 PM.
Networking Reception (dinner) from 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM.
Desert Party at Epcot Illuminations from 8:00 PM to 10 PM.
I'll start with a quick summary, and then touch on what we covered on this first day.
So yeah, the course was on Leadership Excellence. At the highest level, we covered:
Day 1 - why leadership (beyond just management) in an organization is important. Discussed the traits of good leaders, etc.
On Day 2, we covered how leaders intentionally inspire and establish values and vision in their organization.
On Day 3, we covered how leaders operationalize (implement and train) their values and vision.
And on Day 4, we covered how leaders sustain their vision (protect them from decay.)
The first day was learning about leadership in general. Traits of good leaders. How leaders purposefully establish values and vision for their organization. Etc. Time was balanced between Keynote presentations, breakout sessions, and general discussion. I originally had a lot more details here, but decided to cut it short. #1. Hoping not to bore you. #2. Hoping not to cross any lines with Disney by sharing too many details. Before I knew it, the first 4 hours were in the books. Wow, that was fast!
We had a short break, and then the networking reception started. This was in an indoor/outdoor area on the other side of the conference center. On one side of the room, they had a burger "slider" bar. A person was frying up small hamburger patties, and then they had slider buns and all the fixings. On the other side of the room, they had two stations. One was a mac and cheese bar, where they filled up a champagne glass with noodles/cheese and then you topped it yourself with stuff like, bacon, prosciutto, cheese, onions, bread crumbs, etc. The other side was a baked potato bar with essentially the same concept. And they served wine/beer too.
(This is one of those points in the TR where I wished that I had grabbed some photos.)
At first, I was sort of bummed (being shy and all) because all the inside tables were taken, and I didn't want to just grab a chair and slide it up to people already situated. Then I realized that nobody had gone outside yet. Which worked out great for me, because I grabbed a spot outside and then let the people come to me. LOL. And after I had a drink or two in me, I loosened up a bit anyway. I ended up chatting quite a bit with a large group, and especially with two really fun people. One worked with an insurance company in Wisconsin and the other was a lobbyist in DC for an automobile company. (Fascinating stories by the way!!!) Before we knew it, it was 8pm and time to head over to the bus for Epcot.
We ended up doing all of our transportation during the week in
Disney Cruise Line buses. They are much more comfortable than the standard WDW buses. Nice!
It was interesting, because we were headed over to the area between England and France in the World Showcase, but the bus drove us back through behind test track. We actually drove underneath the track…. Just after a couple of the cars drove by. Pretty cool to see them from that perspective! And then we drove behind all the buildings starting from Mexico, past France, and then back behind England. It sort of felt like we were driving behind a grocery store or shopping center. You know lots of loading docks and stuff. Some areas were actually themed a little, but most were pretty industrial looking. We drove past a storage lot for all the Food & Wine Festival kiosks, that was pretty cool. Overall, the area wasn't really what I imagined. But it was fun to see!!!! I was trying not to be rude to the person sitting next to me, but I totally tuned them out as I was trying to soak everything in.
Eventually, they dropped us off behind England and we came "on stage" over by the restrooms and the red phone booths.
We pretty much immediately started walking towards our reception area.
It started getting dark fairly quickly, so I didn't get many photos of the reception area, but we were right next to the bridge by England, by the waterfront. I must say, it felt pretty special getting the VIP treatment!
There were lots of desserts and beverages. Way more than necessary for the size of our group. But welcomed none the less!
Sorry for the blurry iPhone photos, it was hard getting good pictures in the low light.
A little while later, the fireworks started.
I've seen Illuminations many times through the years, and to be honest, it's not one of my favorites. But this time was quite fun, as I sat in front of one of the facilitators. (One has been with Disney for 42 years and the other for 33.) They are both Disney fans too, and Illuminations is one their favorites. One of the facilitators sort of acted as a narrator for us, explaining the story behind each of the three "movements". It made the experience much more fun than just sitting there watching!!! You could feel their passion when telling the story too. They were genuinely into it!
Oh, and interesting to see these photos and compare them to the perspective that Stephanie and Pickle had. How fun!
So yeah, a fantastic fireworks experience and a great ending to a pretty amazing day!!! Instead of taking the bus back to the resort, I decided to walk back with a couple of my new friends. It was fun sharing stories and experiences them.
When I got back to the room, Stephanie and Pickle were still watching the HS fireworks. So took a few minutes to get settled in. When then they arrived, we all shared our stories for a few minutes before heading to bed.
The plan for tomorrow was: Stephanie and the kids would have a full day at Epcot with extra magic hours from 9:00PM to 11:00PM. I would have training class from 7:30 AM to 6:30 PM, and then we'd meet up in Epcot to finish the evening together. With that in mind, we all headed off to la la land. Goodnight moon!
I usually just lurk. 
