Keeping guests safe and secure is a cast member’s number one priority. The most important of those keys – before Courtesy, Show, and Efficiency – is Safety. “SafeD Begins With Me”įor Disney Parks cast members, The Four Keys (now Five, more on that next) are a blueprint for how you should go about your workday, whether making magic for guests or interacting with fellow cast members. At Disney World, Disneyland, and other Disney parks, those concerns largely fade away. And for a community that’s used to dealing with discrimination on the daily, that is incredibly powerful. From the moment you step through the gate, you leave the outside world behind. The Disney magic that so many have come to love is meant for everyone, regardless of what you look like or who you love.ĭisney theme parks are intended and engineered to be an escape from reality. Is Disney World LGBT+ Friendly?Įmphatically yes! On Disneyland’s opening day way back in 1955, Walt Disney commemorated the event with the following words: “To all who come to this happy place: Welcome.” All being the operative word.
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So, with Pride Month just around the corner, what better way to celebrate than with a healthy helping of rainbows and pixie dust? Here’s everything you can look forward to for Gay Days at Disney. From the freedom to just be yourself at the place Where Dreams Come True to Disney characters like Ursula and Gaston who have become gay icons, magic happens when Disney and the LGBT+ community unite. When asked how he became a volunteer, he first joked: ‘I threw pixie dust in people’s eyes and took over.Way before the teeming Red-Shirt-wearing masses began descending upon the Disney Parks for Gay Days, queer people have long had a love affair with Disney. I spoke to Nima, a volunteer of Gay Days who has been attending the event for five years. We laughed about the consequences of food dyes, our favorite attractions, and more. Still, I immediately noticed the way cast members (aka people who work for Disney) greeted all the red shirts (the uniform of being a Gay Day participant) with smiles and exuberance.Īs for the Gay Days attendees themselves, I felt very welcomed by them as we all instantly became friends and bonded over Disney rainbow cake. It’s a single day, rather than a weekend, and only hundreds of people show up instead of 30,000. Saturday was only the Mini Gay Days event.
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They offer hotel discounts to Gay Days guests and help block off the area in front of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle for a group photo.
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While it’s an unofficial event and not sponsored by Disney, Shapiro said the park has come to embrace it more.
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Now, the big event in October, which runs Friday-Sunday, brings tens of thousands of guests donning red shirts. Gay Days is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.Įddie Shapiro, author of Queens in the Kingdom: The Ultimate Gay and Lesbian Guide to the Disney Theme Parks, and a leader of this event, told me he’s amazed at the growth.Īs the website states, the first event in 1998 attracted 2,500 people. This only became more apparent when I attended my very first Gay Days event at the resort on Saturday (3 March). It’s always felt safe, inclusive, and like a rainbow-tinted fairy tale land. It’s not an exaggeration that Disneyland truly is the Happiest Place on Earth for me. My parents took me for the first time when I was a mere 18 months old.Īfter college, I worked at Walt Disney World in the Disney College Program for a year. As a native Californian, Disneyland has been an intrinsic part of my life for all 26 years.