Disneyland recently welcomed a new president. She has been getting her bearings at the resort over the past couple of months and has now started to share some of her perspective on how she is approaching the future of Disneyland. As part of her transition into the role, she lived at the Disneyland Resort hotels for five weeks to get in the guests’ shoes.
Mickey Visit was granted an exclusive interview with the new president to talk about her transition and time living at the resort. She shared stories from her time staying on property, ranging from what coming into the role means to her to what stands out from the resort hotels. Mickey Visit brings you the latest Disney news and planning resources, including new characters coming to the parks and big new ticket sales.
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Disneyland’s New President Lived in Resort Hotel For 5 Weeks
Earlier this year, Disneyland got a new president when Thomas Mazloum was elevated to theme parks chairman after Josh D’Amaro became CEO. Jill Estorino has been in the job for six months. Earlier this summer, I heard that Estorino had spent five weeks living at the Disneyland Resort in the three Disneyland Resort Hotels. I wanted to learn more about her time at the resorts and had the opportunity to connect with her.
I sat down for an exclusive Mickey Visit interview with Jill Estorino to discuss her time spent at the hotels and general experience coming into the resort. While we focused mostly on the resorts experience, she shared a couple of key pieces of information on where her focuses are and what she is most excited about in the coming months. Throughout the first six months on the job, she told those around her that her “feet had not yet touched the ground”, but now she has her feet “firmly planted on the ground” and is ready to get to work.
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Today we’ll focus on her Disneyland Resort hotel stay experience and general perspective on hospitality, but in coming stories we will dive deeper into some specific news from the conversation and then share the full conversation transcript. Make sure to join the Mickey Visit newsletter for the exclusive information you won’t find anywhere else as we share it in the coming days and weeks.
Estorino started off by sharing her reasoning on the importance of moving to the Anaheim community. “I had made the choice that I was going to move to Anaheim. A lot of people will stay in the cities where they’re living in L.A. County and commute every day. I wanted to move back to Orange County, because I thought it was important to be in the community.”
She shared that within days of finding out that she was getting the Disneyland role she was checking into a room at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel before she found her permanent residence in the area. “I wanted to be a guest before I was the president.”
She shared that “Once you get in your boardroom…you’re not gonna hear and feel the same things. So I thought by waking up and going to sleep every day, on property, for five weeks straight, walking in the hallways and the lobbies, slipping out to the park when no one knows I’m out there, slipping around property when no one knows who I am and what my role is, was a very interesting place to be.”
Estorino continued to describe the unique experience. “I wanted to get on the other side of the front desk and really walk in the shoes of the guest. I’m a marketer by trade. And so I have an orientation and centricity around consumers and guests, and what their behaviors, attitudes, and motivations are about a brand and a business and a product. So this gave me that opportunity. It wasn’t easy, you know? Living in and out of a suitcase, but I met a lot of people and I heard a lot of things, and I got to experience it firsthand as a guest.”
I asked her about what it was like interacting with cast members before they knew who she was. I wanted to know how she was treated before the cast members realized that this was now the leader of the 36,000 cast members that make up the largest single-site employer in Orange County.
She shared some specific hospitality experiences from the early days in the hotels, saying, “I have a lot of heart for housekeeping. The reason being, I think that’s the employee that’s closest to you in a hotel experience. Close to your personal things and close to your personal space. A couple of things that I remember other than they’re just lovely, to speak with, is how conscientious they are about your privacy coming in and out or amongst your things. They pay attention to your patterns. So, I remember a housekeeper leaving me a note that said, ‘I noticed that you drank more sparkling water than regular water, so I left you extra bottles’.”
She then shared that they started to understand that she was there for work. “I remember coming back after work one day, and I had thrown a scarf and a jacket, and they had neatly folded it back on the chair. So housekeeping, I had a lot of interaction with, got to know them. They eventually knew who I was. And then they saw me a lot, right? You know, four straight days, and I’m coming out to business suit. So then something was up.”
Estorino’s other example was talking with the parking attendants. She shared that she talked to those cast members a lot because she’s always headed to work in her car or walking over to the office building. “I remember a cast member noticing that I was low on gas and low on my battery. I have a hybrid. And he quickly asked me, when he got in my car, he pulled me back over. ‘Would you like me to juice up your car overnight so that you’re not stranded tomorrow?’ So it just reminds me about the care and the tradition of incredible, unique hospitality that we have in particular in the hotels.”
Next, I wanted to know what stood out most to her about the resorts and how they are already influencing her focus as president.
She shared that she sees how much institutional knowledge Disneyland has. “You talk to someone, a parking attendant, who’s been doing that role for 30 years. Specifically, I am talking about Kevin, who I met at the Disneyland Hotel a couple of times. He lives and commutes from Pasadena. So I think just this trust and commitment to Disney, that people are willing to stay long and drive far to be a cast member. They’ve been doing a role for so long, that they know it extremely well, and are experts. That you don’t see at every Disney property across the globe, that type of knowledge and commitment. You can only see it here at Disneyland.”
I was curious about her perspective on the different concierge offerings across the hotels.
I suggested that the concierge lounge at the Disneyland Hotel and the concierge lounge at the Grand Californian are both equally hospitable, but they express it in such unique ways that match the hotel’s theme. She agreed and went further, saying, “There’s still something inviting and homey about it, right? Like, the kids can still put their feet on the furniture, and, you know, handprints on the windows as they’re watching the fireworks. You don’t normally feel that way when you go to a concierge lounge, but we’ve made it so approachable.”
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We then turned to the Pixar Place Hotel. She shared that this was her first time staying there and discussed how impressed she was with the new version of the hotel. “What I do love about our choice, not only in the IP itself, but the way we expressed it, it feels so Pixar, but what I love about it is, it’s also about the artistry and the creative process that you can get a feel for.”
She then described staying in the Coco suite at the Pixar Place Hotel. She shared she “was so proud of how thoughtful we were about all the cultural details. The Mexican furniture and the cushions, and the art, and how the movie came to life. So that hotel has really impressed me. I just didn’t expect it to be that emotive.”
Finally, we turned specifically to the Disneyland Hotel. She expressed real pleasure and awe in talking about the Disneyland Hotel. “When you are the Disneyland president and you are here, and you’re staying at the Disneyland Hotel, wow, it’s for me, coming home, because I worked here before, but it’s the other side of the mother brand of Disneyland. You know, there’s the park, Disneyland, and then the hotel. I just felt like a kid again, and I felt like a responsible steward of the brand, and that just really had an impact on me.”
Hearing her share her passion about Disneyland as a unique flagship brand really connected with the sentiment that I have expressed recently. Not everything has to be about the new movies. We can also celebrate the parks as the core of the fandom for so many of us. I recently wrote about this specific parks fandom and shared this thought with her that it feels like Disney is finally acknowledging Disneyland as a fandom.
She responded, saying, “I think one of the things that Josh [D’Amaro] is making a central focus – he was always this way but he’s now doing it as CEO – is to be so fan-centric. You can hear it in any speech or any article he’s quoted in. So, it’s the fans and the respect and the importance of the fans and then also for this idea and place of Disneyland. We’ve earned our place, right, in the world. We have cared for and protected and grown this brand of Disneyland and it’s now permeated across the world, but it all started here. And so, we’ve earned that respect.”
We have more coming from our interview with Jill Estorino at Disneyland, including a look at her top food experiences coming into the resort, what she is most focused on right now, and exciting comments about the future of Disneyland Park.
Top photo by Christian Thompson/Disneyland Resort.
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