It's weird and wonderful...
It's a weird mix between the real world and college while at the same time not even close to either. For some, it's their first time away from home, first time in apartment style living or even first time having roommates. Not to mention some of our first time fending for ourselves financially. So there are a lot of potential firsts for everyone going down for the DCP and they all require their own adjusting.
Once you arrive, get settled, start working, see how you get along with your roommates, etc. you will begin to get into some sort of routine. Your workplace will determine this, cause your life will revolve around your work schedule. I benefited from having a consistent work schedule throughout my entire program, always 5 days, always 40 hours, it only changed when I requested and had approved days off. Other than that, I know I would start working at 1, 2 or 3:30PM, my paychecks would almost always be the same amount each week and I learned how to work with that for essential purchases each week and that also determined what my diet would look like.
Coming from someone who cooks, I always made the dinners I'd take to work. I saved money that way not purchasing it from Port's food court and ate much healthier. On either one of my days off, or if the first day of my work week was a 3:30 start, I'd wake up to do my grocery shopping EARLY to get it outta the way and then cook all my meals for work. So everyday I could just take a Tupperware container from the fridge, throw it in my bag and be good to go.
Other than that meal though, I ate junk throughout a lot of my program because, well, I could. 8 hours a day I'd be standing outside walking around hauling bags, and if I wasn't doing that, I was walking miles around the parks. Not to mention the heat, making me sweat and burn even more calories, so if there was ever an acceptable time to eat poorly, it's the DCP. Lunch before work or before heading to the parks was usually either Ramen or mac n cheese, both cheap and easy. So when it came to food I spent as little as possible each week so I had money leftover for fun things.
The mornings I'd meal prep I'd also try to do laundry and multitask. I'd want to do all the "life essential" tasks in one shot each week so I had the rest of the time to utilize having fun at the parks.
Once all that was outta the way, mornings were either hit the parks before work or spend a few hours on the couch with my roommates. Now, having a car made the parks before work much easier, I won't lie. I'd be able to get there early, be there for 2 or 3 hours and have time to come back shower and eat lunch before work, rather than buying lunch at the parks. If I woke up later, it never hurt to just watch TV and relax, sometimes you need it.
Days off though? I won't lie, any days I didn't have plans to go to the parks with someone I was either frustrated or disappointed because I hated wasting my days off in my apartment. But if I had to go alone, I'd go alone and make the most of it and occasionally/hopefully meet someone there. Planning can be a pain in the butt, since everyone has such different schedules and work at different places I often found myself exhausting friend after friend to see if anyone's schedule matched up with mine. Especially when the holidays started and I was the only one still getting 40 hours a week and others were getting extra hours. My best advice, never be afraid to ask anyone to do something with, I asked people I only knew for a day or two to do the parks with and those were some of the most fun I had. My first night I went with my neighbor to MK who I'd only known for 4 days, was one of the best nights I had.
When you are at the parks, be cautious of your spending. It's easy to get carried away buying merchandise and with such a small weekly budget it's easy to run out of money. It's why I always ate before I went to the parks and ate WHAT I ate. Ramen, mac n cheese or any other carb loaded lunch kept me full and going for a long time, so I never really considered buying food while I was out and if I did, I knew I was budgeting properly to be able to do so. It's also why I can't stress enough saving before you arrive, it makes your life much more flexible financially. So even though you are budgeting and monitoring your spending, every now and then you know you can splurge and know you have a safety net of savings to fall back on.
And that is pretty much the basics of the DCP lifestyle, at least for me. Parks, work, errands, cooking and laundry...a lot of parks and work though. Money management is going to be a key for enjoyment though, I cannot stress that one enough as you can probably tell. I was never in a situation to tell someone I can't do something because of money, which was a nice luxury to have.
The parks of course get the royal treatment and imagining the crew of people that decorate each of the parks overnight is mind blowing. One day Magic Kingdom is full of Mickey Pumpkins, the next it's full of wreaths and lights. Each park gets its own massive Christmas tree decorated in theme with the park. The Dapper Dans and Main Street performers' outfits change from their fall colors to Christmas colors and start jamming out with Christmas songs. Best of all the castle goes from getting just the spotlights at night to drowning I'm Christmas lights, it's incredible when you see it for the first time, and seeing it for 2 months on repeat...it's just amazing and hard to imagine it without them. Let us not forgot the merchandise, you'll be swimming in it. Christmas essentially pukes all over Disney property and it was wonderful, I personally loved every second of it and as long as you aren't the grinch, you will too!!
