Judy SoSa Lead, Disneyland Hotel SuMMeR 2015 California Hotel & Lodging Association 19 Tell us a little about yourself. My name is Judith sosa, but i go by Judy. i am what we call a lead, also known as a supervisor of the disneyland hotel front desk. i am also the core Trainer at the front desk, the main point of contact for the training team of our hotel’s front desk. i love being a part of, not just the personal, but also the career development of the cast Members i work with. My family consists of a supportive and loving husband named Luis, an amazing 10 year old daughter named leilani, and an incredible 5 year old son named Johanzee. I originally went to school to become an elementary school teacher, but found i loved the challenge, personal and career growth, and being involved in the development of others by working in hotels and lodging. How long have you worked at the Disneyland Hotel? in september i will have been working at the disneyland hotel front desk for 10 years. What is your favorite part of working at the front desk? My favorite part of working at the front desk of the disneyland hotel is the opportunity to work for a hotel where we have the amazing opportunity to create “magic” for each and every guest in many ways. What challenges do you encounter with your position? at the disneyland hotel we are almost always able to turn around any challenges we may encounter. The only challenge i can think of would be the same as any other hotel, that due to third parties, like wholesalers, we may encounter a moment where we might be oversold on certain rooms or overall for the hotel. With these few cases we still manage to figure things out so that guests are still able to check into their rooms. What are some important skills and personality traits for someone working at the front desk to have? i think that the most important skills for someone working at the front desk are to have the enthusiasm/motivation to want to keep learning, and to be able to multitask. I think that the personality traits for someone working at the front desk of the disneyland hotel is to have a positive attitude to want to go above and beyond to create “magic” for our guests of all ages. Tell us about a time when you went above and beyond for a guest? One day while working as a front desk lead i had to talk to a guest that one of my cast Members was working with who was from out of the country and had booked their reservation through a website but the reservation was not in our system. The guest was very worried and upset because the couple was here with their family of three children and didn’t know if they would have the money to book another room to stay for the night until they could figure out what had happened. i assured them that i would do everything I could to make everything better for them. i assisted them in calling the third party website to figure out what had happened with their reservation. After being on the phone with the third party for about an hour and a half we were able to partner with them to get the reservation sent to our wholesale department and booked into our system. The family was very happy and pleased, although a bit upset with who they booked with. i was able to get them a clean and ready room with a nice view. They were very happy! i also had the opportunity to go above and beyond and send up some “magic” for their children. i sent them some Mickey plushes to welcome them to the Disneyland Resort and some Mickey-shaped cookies for them. The next day they all came to the front desk and asked for me just to let me know how thankful they were that i assisted them so they wouldn’t have to use the money they brought to spend to re-book their stay and because I took the time to turn their stay around. Are there any mottos or expressions you tend to use at work? We all work with one saying passed on to us throughout the disneyland resort which is “One Team, One Dream”—meaning that by working together as one team we can all keep pursuing the dream that Walt Disney created in starting this wonderful place i have the opportunity to be a part of, disneyland.
CHLA Lodging News Summer 2015
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