Saturday, March 10, 2012

New WDW CPs: Housing

Considering the Disney College Program? One of the first things they tell you is that the program includes Living, Learning, and Earning. This post is going to focus on the Living portion. When I applied, the Disney College Program website had a pretty limited amount of information about the different complexes. And when I searched for information on different apartment complexes, there were a few posts, but not a lot. So hopefully this post will give some people the information they need. :)

There are four complexes for interns in Florida: The Commons, Vista Way, Chatham, and Patterson. The Commons is just for people on the Cultural Representative Program(and not all CRPs live in The Commons, either), so that won't be on the list of complexes for you to choose from if you're doing a CP or ICP. So here's the rundown on the other three.

Vista Way: I did not live in this complex during my program. I also know some people who moved out of Vista, but I also know some people who moved into Vista. Jokingly referred to as "Vista Lay," Vista is generally considered the party complex. It's the oldest complex, and it does show it. The apartments are cheaper than the other complexes, and Vista is close to restaurants and a Walgreens- the other three complexes are about a mile away from the nearest businesses. Most of the housing offices and resources are located at Vista Way. The bus office is also located at Vista, and the bus drivers often take their breaks at Vista... or leave the other stops early so they can spend a little extra time at Vista. The bus stop for Vista is actually located behind security, and some of my CP friends had trouble when they took a bus over to Vista, left Vista to go to a restaurant, and came back when it was too late to either get into the complex without someone signing them in(or too late to get in at all).

Chatham Square: This is where I lived for most of my program. If you're a student at any of the LDS schools, you'll automatically be placed in Chatham. The rent is higher than at Vista, but the apartments are newer. They also tend to be pretty roomy, although the layouts do vary. Chatham is generally called the "quiet" complex, but all the housing events actually happen at Chatham field. This was right next to my apartment complex, so it was pretty convenient for me to be able to grab some of the free food on my way from the bus stop to my apartment. The bus stop for Chatham is right outside Security.

Patterson Court: This is where I lived for the last few weeks of my program. The rent here is the highest, but a lot of people feel that it's worth it, since it's the newest and the apartments are nice. And they are, compared to the other complexes. There's also lots of palm trees at this complex... not that big of a deal, but I associate palm trees with Disney, so that was cool for me. In my experience, Patterson was just as quiet as Chatham. The annoying thing about Patterson is that it shares a bus stop with Chatham, so it takes longer to get to the bus stop. Also, all of the apartments at Patterson have this distinctive... smell. It's not exactly a bad smell, but it's definitely there. I have no idea what it is. Oh, and my apartment was smaller than my Chatham one. And the security guards seemed more laid-back at Patterson, which was weird, because they all work at all of the complexes. But other than that, I really felt that they're about the same in terms of general lack-of-crappiness and lack-of-noisy neighbors.

1 comment:

  1. Question: did you have LDS neighbors? Is it for-sure that all LDS kids (going to a church school, obviously) get put in the same complex...? I go to BYU-I and, while I haven't been accepted yet, I'm hopeful about going next spring. I just am worried about the housing situation since my only experience away from home was at a church school...

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