Philosophers of the age ask: If there are no pictures, did it really happen? Photos are an integral part of preserving your Disney moments and sharing the memories with family and friends. To that end, Disney offers the Memory Maker for purchase. The Memory Maker is a way to get digital copies of all of the PhotoPass photos and videos from your Walt Disney World vacation. Like any major Disney purchase, you should look at the pros and cons before you decide to drop the cash. I recently had the opportunity to use a Memory Maker as a Guest and participated in the One-day Memory Maker pilot program as a Cast Member. Here are the questions I heard from Guests—and had myself—about the Memory Maker.

I haven't posted about my College Program at all since my training. My program ended on January 5th and now I'm on a short break before I start my Professional Internship (more on that later). Now that I've finished with the role, I figured I'd give any new VPCPs (that's vacation planner college program-ers) some info and tips about their new role.

My most exciting moment becoming a Cast Member was receiving my Walt Disney World name tag. I had been taught since I was little to seek out those white ovals for help and I was proud to wear one myself. You will probably see hundreds of these name tags during your vacation and it turns out there’s a lot you can learn from pausing to take a look.

“I love their eyes,” said Gavin Lautenbach, Natural Habitat Adventures guide. “To capture a photograph of any cat in the wild, it’s about their eyes. I love their power and their strength. I love their relationships with their cubs and with other cats. I love their speed, power, precision and playfulness.”

Even spell-check does not know what a pescetarian is, so allow me to explain: a pescetarian diet is similar to a vegetarian diet, with the addition of fish. Reasons for eating pescetarian range from the health conscious to the animal loving. My family and I have been pescetarians for the past eight years–minus one stubbornly carnivorous brother. We have traveled throughout the Walt Disney World theme parks finding counter service restaurants that offer a variety of pescetarian, vegetarian, and vegan options. So whether you’re a pescetarian yourself or you ride The Seas with Nemo and Friends and think “them’s good eatins,” this pescetarian guide to Disney World is for you.

The Pantanal is the largest wetland in South America and the largest wetland in the world that has not been substantially modified by humans. The sheer abundance of large birds, reptiles and mammals mark its importance as a huge reservoir of biodiversity.

Cassie O’Connor’s commitment to conservation deepened after college when she co-managed a forestry station in Indonesia.  The pristine Indonesian environment and rich culture have since brought her back repeatedly and have inspired her in various conservation roles she’s played over the years.

Islands evoke feelings of relaxation, not death, torture and imprisonment. However, Coiba Island off the coast of Panama was actually used by the country’s former military dictatorship as a prison. Now, Coiba Island Prison has undergone a unique transformation into Coiba National Park. The park encompasses 38 islands and their surrounding reefs in the Gulf of Chiriqui. A bio-diverse paradise now replaces memories of imprisonment.

The Panama Canal is an engineering innovation integral to modern shipping, international travel and trade. Surrounding the canal is the Panama Canal Watershed, a 1,300-acre area with significant biodiversity. The Panama Canal Authority works to ensure that development of the Panama Canal has a minimal effect on the ecosystem, so that local wildlife flourishes. The watershed is inhabited by 112 species of reptiles, 80 species of amphibians and 546 species of birds.

Though now I’m (supposedly) a real adult—I just graduated in May–it wasn’t long ago that I was a teen taking my first Disney trip without parents. My first winter break in college, I went to Walt Disney World with my boyfriend and two other friends. Two years later, I went for my 21st birthday with my three younger siblings. So for any teens or young adults out there planning your first parent-free trip, here’s a quick guide into your first clumsy steps into Disney adulthood.

Over the next couple of days, I had my operations orientation and Magic Kingdom orientation. The operations orientation--"Welcome to Operations"--was a lot of learning at Disney University, including a lot of safety information and details about the different roles involved in operations.

This morning was Traditions, essentially a working-for-Disney-101 class that all new employees take. After a quick struggle to figure out how to zip up my dress (apologies to my sleeping roommate who was awoken for the cause), I arrived at Disney University at 7:50am for my 8:00am Traditions class. I would recommend not arriving any later than that if you're driving from off-site, because they started checking people in as soon as I got there.

I'm usually on top of deadlines. Every semester of college, I logged onto course registration the second it opened with my perfect schedule already planned. However, I decided last-minute to try out a course through the College Program.

A white rhino isn’t actually white and a red panda isn’t even related to the black and white, giant pandas we know and love. So what’s with their names? To help with the confusion, here’s a primer on nine animals who have been seemingly misnamed.

Thanks to your handy smartphone, you can contribute to scientific endeavors while you’re traveling or exploring natural areas near your home. More and more smartphone users are becoming so-called “citizen scientists” using their phones to capture photographs, sightings and other data about the natural world and submitting it through scientific websites and apps. This is a great way to feel like you are contributing to the study and protection of wildlife and natural places. How to get started? Download these four apps to kick start your amateur science career.

What is your ideal way to explore the Galapagos Islands? Is it to kayak against the tide, warming your muscles as you cruise past lava rocks covered in marine iguanas? Or carefully photograph every marquis species that left Charles Darwin wide eyed? Or snorkel among green turtles and sea lions?

Go on a safari in Africa and you’ll hear plenty about the “Big 5.” The term originally referred to the top five species that hunters sought on their bucket list but has now evolved to mean the top five big mammals in Africa—those being the lion, elephant, Cape buffalo, leopard and rhino.

While all of the animal lovers among us want to observe those species in their natural habitats in Africa, there are also some really cool little animals to look out for. We call this our “Little Five.”

One of WWF’s newest members, Elsa Bailey, just accomplished her dream of seeing polar bears in the wild—at 100 years old.