When people think about Disneyland Paris they often think about the rides, the shows, the characters. What people seldom think about though is the cast members – the folks who keep the parks, shops and hotels running to allow people to have a magical visit! In this blog we’re sharing everything you need to know about identifying and interacting with these folks on your next DLP visit.

What are cast members?

Cast members are Disney’s terms for their staff – so every employee you interact with is a cast member.

You might be wondering why they’re called cast members and not staff, or team members. This goes back to the original Disneyland, which Walt Disney wanted to be like the ultimate show, so he used show terminology. On stage is any area of the park that the guests can visit, back stage are the areas not for the public, and cast members for the staff that make the ‘show’ alive. Actually, Main Street USA is really designed to be the opening and closing credits of your Disney park day – setting the scene and sharing the names of people who make the show alive (hence the names you can see in some of the shop windows).

Disney’s cast members aren’t just staff, they’re helping to create a magical performance for every guest that walks through the doors of the parks.

What types of Cast Members are there?

For a massive enterprise like Disneyland Paris, with thousands of guests every day, there are a huge number of cast members needed to keep things up and running!

Most guests will interact with the cast members who appear ‘on stage’ only. These include:

• Guest relations – these are the folks that will be running the guest services locations and the entrance gates, as well as helping to organise crowd flow at parades and show times and running the guided and VIP tours.
• Attraction attendants – the folks that oversee, load, unload and direct people for the rides and shows. Attraction attendants also oversee attraction safety so it’s a bit more involved than people think!
• Character attendants and ‘friends’ – whenever a character has a meet and greet in a park they’re typically accompanied by at least one character attendant. They help oversee the characters needs, keep meet and greets running smoothly, and can even act as an interpreter between the non-voice characters and the guests! They’re also often asked to act as impromptu photographers too. There are also folks who are extremely close to the characters that are known as the character’s ‘friend’ – these folks are essential to bringing these well known Disney faces alive for the guests.
• Food and Beverage – The folks taking orders and preparing food in the quick service restaurants, and also the servers and chefs in the table service restaurants.
• Retail – Hey those souvenirs aren’t going to sell themselves! As well as manning tills retail staff can help keep shelves filled, manage stock and answer queries.
• Custodial – the folks who keep the parks clean.
• Hotel staff – Of course hotels have retail and food and beverage staff inside. They’ll also have folks to man the reception and concierge, housekeeping, luggage room attendants and more.
• Security – As well as manning the security scanning points to get into the parks and Disney Village, security staff are stationed around the parks so they can respond as needed.
• Parking attendants – oversee the car parks (unsurprisingly).
• Performers – Those smiling faces in the parades and shows are all well trained performers bringing stories to life!

And that’s just a glimpse! If you’re unlucky and need medical help you might also encounter the nurses in first aid and medical responders on site. And naturally behind the scenes there’s a swarm of managers, maintenance, designers and more keeping the parks up and running.

How do I recognise a cast member?

Cast members typically all have a uniform to wear – but that uniform will vary depending where they work and the type of work they’re doing. What all the cast members have in common are the distinctive oval name badges.

It’s worth knowing what these look like not only so you can find yourself a cast member if need be, but it’s also good to teach little ones just in case they get separated from you in a crowd. Cast members are well trained to deal with ‘lost parents’ and your best bet to getting reunited with Junior is to teach them to approach a cast member if ever in need.

Some cast member badges might have little flags on to indicate the languages they speak, and gold additions to the badges indicate they’ve been working at Disneyland Paris for a certain amount of time.

Do all cast members speak English?

The predominant language in Disneyland Paris is of course French (hey, it is in France after all). But it was always expected that there would be a diverse European audience attending the parks. So ‘customer facing’ cast members are required to speak at least two European languages. One has to be French, the other can be another language but is very often English.

The reason for this is that many schools in Europe teach English, even if it’s not that country’s first language! Even for cast members that don’t speak fluent English we’ve found they often understand basics like ‘I would like…’, ‘can you tell me…’ etc. If they don’t speak English very well or are having trouble understanding your accent (this happens to me a bit!) then they’ll be able to get a cast member who will!

Despite this it’s polite to try and learn a bit of French when visiting, even if it’s just ‘hello’, ‘goodbye’, ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. It’s appreciated by a lot of cast members! It’s also worth learning the French for the number of people in your group too, although I always hold up the number of fingers when asked as well just to cover all bases. (A lot of the ride loading areas are loud).

Sometimes cast members that are in the ‘on stage’ areas may still not speak a lot of English if they’re not considered to be in a customer facing role – the one I hear this about the most are the housekeeping staff in the hotels. If you have a housekeeping request you’re probably better off ringing or heading to reception as the staff there should be able to help you rather than accosting a random housekeeping cast member – they may not understand what you’re saying.

And a request – if you have a cast member who is struggling to understand you PLEASE do not just shout English at them slowly in the expectation that will make them understand. It won’t and it looks incredibly rude!

Is it true cast members have a particular look and attitude they need to stick to?

In the Disney Parks in the USA the ‘Disney look’ is something that’s quite well known. Although it’s been relaxed a bit recently cast members still have quite strict rules of hair colour and style, piercings, make up, facial hair, tattoos and more. And of course they’re expected to smile all the time. But that’s not the case in Disneyland Paris!

Disney was planning on implementing the ‘Disney look’ to an extent in the French parks, but they were threatened with legal action as it was believed to be against French equality laws! So Disney relaxed the rules. Of course all cast members are expected to treat guests with courtesy and to wear their uniform properly. But otherwise you’ll see a really diverse range of hair colours, lots of tattoos, interesting make up and more! Some folks seem to dislike this. Personally I quite like it – it’s nice that the cast members get to show a bit of personality.

The thing that seems to confuse the most people though is that the Disneyland Paris cast members don’t have to smile all the time, unlike their USA counterparts. Are there are a lot of smiley cast members in the parks? Absolutely. But they’re also entitled to not smile. If you do see a cast member looking a bit more down or serious, please don’t tell them to smile – it’s not helpful and you don’t know what’s caused them to look serious in the first place. I always just try to give the cast members a smile instead – sometimes it’s returned, sometimes it’s not, but I hope it helped brighten someone’s day at least!

The other thing I’ve heard is people complaining about the Disneyland Paris cast members can be quite curt. Some yes, and they’re allowed to be. But I think a lot of this is because for many cast members English is not their first language so they’re not used to the nuance of pronunciation – so it may sound more curt simply because that’s how they’ve learnt to say things!

Is it true Disneyland Paris cast members can’t say no? Or hand out free stuff if asked?

Simple answer – no. Cast members can absolutely tell people no and sadly they need to do it all the time – don’t stand up on the ride, no you can’t walk into the flowerbed, no you and your group of 15 can’t come into the disabled area just because you asked. And so forth. Can you imagine what things would be like if they couldn’t say no? The parks would probably be in anarchy in no time!

As for free stuff, this is I think a result of the concept of ‘magical moments’ or ‘pixie dusting’ in the US parks, where cast members can choose to do something nice for guests as a special surprise or treat. These moments are meant to be spontaneous, and are rare. And in Paris they are rarer still in our experience! So don’t go there expecting cast members to do you loads of favours or hand out free desserts because it isn’t going to happen. And please don’t ask for a ‘magical moment’ – they’re meant to be a gift, not something requested, and funnily enough cast members are more inclined to treat people who don’t expect stuff to be handed to them on a silver platter!

I have a query or complaint, can any cast member deal with it?

This is one of those questions that doesn’t really have a simple answer because it’ll depend on what the query is. If it’s something like what time does the park close, then probably. But if it’s something in depth about a particular attraction or merchandise item, it’s unlikely a server in a quick service restaurant is going to know much about it. It simply isn’t their area and no one can know everything! You can try asking (and please be nice as you do so), but accept it with good grace if they can’t help and move on.

As for complaints, sadly cast members get these a lot. And no, not just any cast member can handle your complaint. And even if they seem connected to the complaint you have (say a cast member outside a closed attraction), then chances are the issue isn’t their fault to begin with! They’re just the poor soul lumbered with the job of informing and dealing with irate guests.

If you do have a complaint to raise in either of the parks, your best bet is to head to that park’s guests services – that’s in City Hall for the Disneyland Park, and in the Entrance Courtyard for Disney Adventure World (currently the Studios Park). If it’s a complaint in say a restaurant ask to speak to the manager or supervisor there. If it’s in a hotel, head to reception and ask to speak to a manager. And when raising complaints, please stay polite and calm with whoever you’re speaking with. It’ll enable them to help you much more quickly, and they’re more likely to want to help you if you’re friendly and polite to them than if you yell and scream in their face!

With regards to complaints too, I wouldn’t complain in park about things that are a matter of policy or that are going to be set outside of day to day park operations. Cast members in the park don’t decide how much the snacks cost, that a merchandise item needed bottomless supplies because of how popular it is, or how many people are allowed into a viewing area with a Priority Pass. They’re just there to enforce the rules and help folks as best they can. If you do want to complain about something like that you’re better off emailing Disneyland Paris before or after your trip. And if you get a customer satisfaction survey you can share thoughts in that too! But yes, it’s not Marie the Server in Bistrot Chez Remy’s fault that there’s nothing your little one will eat on the menu – they didn’t decide it.

That cast member made my trip – how do I compliment them?

The procedure for compliments is rather like for complaints, but a lot more pleasant. Guest services is a great place to leave cast compliments.

Or you can email Disneyland Paris and let them know. And customer satisfaction surveys often have a section about cast members too where you can praise particular cast members if you like.

The golden rule when dealing with cast members?

Be nice. That’s it. That’s the memo.

Remember these folks are dealing with hundreds of guests day in and day out, and sadly a lot of folks don’t seem to respect or sometimes even acknowledge the cast members exist! But they do – and they’re human beings at the end of the day. So when you’re talking or interacting with a cast member, say hello. Smile. Say please and thank you. You may not always get the good vibes back from them, but at least you’ll know that you didn’t help make their day actively worse! And really, without the cast members the Disneyland Paris parks would soon grind to a screeching halt as they really are the folks bringing the magic to life.

I hope that provides a brief introduction to the Disneyland Paris cast members! Any questions? Let us know below! And please also subscribe to our blog while you’re down there, you’ll receive our blogs in your inbox as well as a free copy of our Magically Different Guide to Disneyland Paris Attraction Accessibility (typically £3). We’d love it if you could join us at our YouTube channel too! And finally, if you’re able please do support our work by leaving us a tip. Thank you!