Vote of the Week: What is Your Theme Park Dream Job?

By Robert Niles: Have you ever dreamed about working in a theme park? Many of us here on Theme Park Insider have worked in the parks, as the site's name suggests. (I even wrote a book about my experiences working at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom.) But many theme park fans who've only visited harbor dreams about one day quitting their job up north (or wherever) to stay and make going to the park their full-time job instead.

Theme parks offer a wide variety of jobs — from waiters and servers and store cashiers to ride attendants to monorail drivers to musical and character performers to just about every "back of house" job you can imagine. Work in auto-repair shop? You could get a job maintaining fleet and ride vehicles for a theme park. Do accounting? Yeah, theme parks need to keep track of their money, too. Work in health care? Theme parks not only have first-aid stations for guests, some of them now even operate health clinics for their employees, too. Heck, several former senior Disney Imagineers have talked about all the former defense industry workers that Disney hired to help design attractions after the big layoffs among defense contractors in the Los Angeles area after the end of the Cold War.

How about being a theme park violinist?

Ultimately, though, it's the pay that keeps many theme park fans from chasing their dreams. Few front-line, in-park jobs pay more than $10 per hour. Plenty of back of house employees earn enough to make a career, but in-park attraction, cashier, server, and entertainment positions typically see high turnover rates, as employees/cast members/team members either move on to school, other careers, or better-paying jobs elsewhere in the company.

Still, wouldn't some of these jobs be fun? Some people do find ways to be able to afford to stay in low-paying jobs. When I worked at Disney World, I saw many positions held by retirees who relied on their pensions for their livelihood and came out to work in the parks just for the joy and satisfaction of it. I even encountered a few younger employees who never seemed to be short of cash, despite their job's low pay. Former lottery winner? Trust-fund baby? Graduate of the Walter White School of Supplementary Income? I never knew.

So let's set aside financial concerns for a moment to ask... if you didn't have to worry about money and could work any job in a theme park, what would that job be?

To make this our Vote of the Week, we'll offer the choice of five categories:

• Attractions: Including ride operators, show ushers, audience crowd control workers, and tour guides


• Entertainment: Including show performers, musicians, face characters, and the people inside the cartoon character suits


• Food or Merchandise: Including bartenders, waiters, and boutique hosts, as well as those ubiquitous cashiers and cart workers


• Transportation: The people who drive the monorails, trains, buses, trams, and boats that get you around and between the parks


• Back of House: Everyone else whom you do not see, including the office and maintenance workers, promotions and publicity people, and ride designers.

Let's put it to a vote! Please pick the category that includes your particular dream job.

In the comments, tell us the specifics of your theme park dream job. Or, if you do work or have worked in a theme park, tell us about that experience.

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