Scott Wolf: What were you doing before you were Ambassador?

Gina Armendariz: I was working for Walt Disney Travel Company, I was doing the travel for the Mighty Ducks so I was really excited about that because I was doing corporate travel, but then being that I'm a hockey fan I got asked to be involved with the Mighty Ducks when we purchased the hockey team, so I was handling all of their corporate travel. It was a lot of fun.

Were you the first Ambassador to come out of salaried position?

GA: Yes. I think for the most part they used to pick out of theme park operations or an hourly type of position, and being that I was in a salaried role was kind of a unique change for the whole program. It was a unique thing, in our year we had to still do our same job and kind of do dual roles so it was kind of a hybrid role that they tested and they realized we were so busy being Ambassadors that it just wasn't doable so the following year they changed that back again because that was really difficult.

And you had another distinction. Weren't you the first married Ambassador?

GA: Yes, I was. I'm no longer married now, but at the time most of the Ambassadors were usually younger, just college graduates and whatnot and I was married, I had been married for several years by the time I was selected and I never thought that they would select me, but surprises happen.

What year were you Ambassador?

GA: I was 1996.

What kinds of things happened with the park the year you were Ambassador?

GA: It was such an exciting year in that many records were broken in attendance because it was the last year of the Main Street Electrical Parade. So it was a very exciting year, but a very sad year because it was a very near and dear to everyone's heart type of event, but that was the main focus of our year.

What's really interesting about that year also was that that was the year we announced the groundbreaking of the five year project that was going to be Disney's California Adventure eventually, so I was kind of excited to be able to first talk about this new project that was going to be a whole new theme park with a whole new name. It was kind of hard to believe and envision at the time but it was kind of exciting that we were the first to be able to talk about that.

Do you have any favorite memories of being Ambassador?

GA: It's hard to pick just one or two but for the most part I'd have to say that being that I am Latina and I am fully bilingual I was able to travel all around Latin America and speak in their language, and I think that they were very excited to have that representation, and I got to travel everywhere with Mickey. I got to go to orphanages and hospitals and all of my family still lives in South America except for my mom and dad and my brother, so when I was traveling all around Latin America and doing media tours, all my family down in South America was able to see me on their local channels, so that was exciting.

I think the other memory for me is a little bit of selfish memory, but I'm a huge sports fan and the year that I was Ambassador, one of my favorite football teams won the Superbowl which is the Dallas Cowboys and it was Emmitt Smith who was the "I'm going to Disneyland!" celebrity so I got to spend the whole day with him and his family and it was a great time.

What did you do after you were Ambassador?

GA: After I was Ambassador I did go back to the travel company and I maintained there for several more years and I still did corporate travel for awhile and then I moved over to the group travel side. I did a little bit of marketing special events and then eventually I moved on and I left Disney in 2000.

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