Belle | Image: Disney
The article linked within features an account of a woman who played Belle at Disney World in Orlando. She described her perspective on the benefits and downsides of her job. While she enjoyed the admiration that playing a popular princess at the theme park brought, other aspects of her employment weren't as pleasant. She writes,
"We couldn't spend too much time playing with the kids though, because we had to greet 172 guests per hour. Disney decided that was the magic number. An attendant would have a clicker to count the number of people we met, and if we went under, we would get a reprimand. If you get four reprimands, you get fired. It sucked to have a really sweet kid that's waited in line for three hours come up all excited and have to say, 'OK, let's hurry and take our photo' and shove them out the door. When they left the room where we greeted kids at Toontown, they went straight into a massive princess store. I think Disney felt like, 'Well, we want them out of the room and into the princess store to buy some stuff.'"
There are ups and downs with every job, and this is just one woman's account. But due to the high visibility of the job, it's interesting to hear about the real days in the life of Belle. Read her story in its entirety here.
The "pretty fantastic" perks sound HORRID... 40% off the insanely marked-up merchandise and in-park food? Yikes. And it's astonishing to hear how bad the pay is, even with all the demands, and how profitable the parks are.
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