A cast member at Disneyland.
A cast member (or CM) is a Disney employee that works at Disney Parks or at the Disney Store. Cast members have various jobs, such as watching over security (telling people the safety rules of rides and attractions, for example), tending to rides and attractions, and playing Disney characters. The term comes from Walt Disney himself, when he was using theatrical terms for park operations. Guest Tommy Des Brisay even befriended two cast members, who allowed him to go into the Car Barn before the Celebrate A Dreams Come True Parade was going to start.[1]
Most cast members have lanyards for Disney Pin Trading, but depending on the color of the lanyard they will only trade to certain ages.
Many cast members are identifiable by their iconic name tags with their homeland of which they originated on them depending on their theme and decor.
Some cast members are part of a college intern program that lets them work in Walt Disney World for a season and go back to school in the other seasons.
Like employees at the Chick-fil-A and the Chuck E. Cheese's restaurant chains and other facilities, cast members are trained to be as positive and as nice as possible, to both the young and young at heart. Any negativity and/or mistreatment of any kind (such as swearing, yelling, punching, slaps in the face, etc.) by cast members to guests is not tolerated, and usually results in termination if repeat offenses take place.[2][3]
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- WDW has more than 3,000 different paid cast member positions. Positions can be anything from topiary artists to character peerformers to cosmetologists.
- At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, 32,000 cast members were furloughed and terminated.[4] The number of cast members working at Walt Disney World as a result was knocked down to 38,000. On September 17, 2021, 32 more cast members started a protest against Disney for the company's vaccine mandate. [5] More of them [citation needed] walked off the job in response to the Parental Rights in Education, (known by critics as "Don’t Say Gay",) Act, which was already signed into law by Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis and the state Legislature which resulted in many of its privileges taken away, including the Reedy Creek Improvement District.[6] The current number of cast members working at Walt Disney World is now 37,988 or less. About 7,000 more cast members are expected to be terminated from employment. [7] This leaves 30,988 left.