SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment hires IT exec away from Walt Disney World

How good is Disney's IT? Well, we were visiting with family last month, and we took their tickets with us (at DAK) to stop by EPCOT and grab a FP for later on in the evening - Soarin' always possessing a brutal line. Well, when I popped our tickets in, out come FPs. Then I dropped their 2 tickets in, and out comes "this is not a valid FP, this ticket was not used to enter this park today". May not seem like much, but it shows a level of integration that most would love to have...admissions and queue management being tied in like that. I was somewhat impressed, albeit disappointed as well, LOL.

The amusing thing is a lot of Disney's IT is contracted.

There are a few in the higher echelons that are true Disney Employees, but the bulk of their services (especially at resort level) are contracted..

On flip side.. SWP&E s are true employees. Least right now anyways..

Boy, how I wish I was one of those contractors... :)

Not really.. I interviewed once for them with the hopes of being imported into Disney.. The pay is crappy for IT and the hours suck.. Unless you can persevere through those elements in hopes of being drawn into the fold, it wasnt worth it, thus I turned the job down..

The real fun is to make it into true Disney.. That involves who you know or years of doing other stuff to be moved in.

We had an IT mishap happen at the MK a few years ago. It was our final day/night at WDW and someone back at Old Key West accidentally checked us out sometime during the day. We discovered this when our "key to the kingdom" card was unable to purchase some Christmas ornaments. Turns out it was deactivated, we would later find out around 10 am that day. Disney being Disney had our new keys waiting for us at the Liberty Tree Tavern (we had a reservation so they knew we would be there) and we payed for the gifts using a normal charge card.

Over lunch we came to the realization that we had used our cards after 10am that day, to get fastpasses. We figured it was worth a shot to see if we were each holding two cards capable of getting FPs the rest of the day, and turns out we were. We never waited in a normal line the rest of the day, which as it was July 3rd lasted until 1 am. Thats how I managed to log over 40 rides at the MK in one day, and that coupled with the 4th of July Firework show that night was an amazing way to end a vacation.