Hello,
I was in the merchandise role at WDW in the Spring of 2013. You will find out where your location will be on your check-in day. As far as preferred locations, it really depends on your personal preferences. If you like late hours, Magic Kingdom is for you. If you like earlier hours, I would cross your fingers for Animal Kingdom. Other preferences could be based on high or low traffic, your costumes, and whatever scenery you prefer. But I can almost guarantee that you'll end up liking wherever you end up in the long run.
I was placed on Main Street East in the Magic Kingdom. That means I worked on the right side of the street in The Chapeau (hat shop), The Confectionary (candy store), The Town Square Theatre (photopass customers), The CCC (store after you meet Mickey/Princesses), The Cinema (art gallery) Uptown Jewelers (jewelry & clothing store), and three different outdoor carts (two on each side of the train station and one near the castle). We called our shifts by the colors of our costumes. If you were in brown, that meant you worked the shops rotation. If you were in yellow, you were in Confectionary all day. Sometimes if they needed extra hands, you could be pulled from brown to yellow by just slapping a hairnet on, but not vice versa. Yellow costumes couldn't step foot into the shops. There was also a stocker position, which was a blue shift. Blue shifts mean you stocked every single shop on Main Street East.
Main Street actually opens an hour before the park and remains open an hour after the park closes, so we had the craziest hours out of anyone. Most CP's close every time they work, so we would come in around 5:00 p.m. and leave around 1:00, 2:00, or 3:00 a.m. During Spring break or other busy times, expect to be scheduled until 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. Shifts were usually from 8-14 hours long, but we occasionally got shorter ones. If you really wanted to leave, you could put in an Early Request and hope for the best. If park hours were magically extended because of high traffic, we would be force extended as well, which means you are made to stay longer without a choice.
The way it worked:
You come to work dressed in the right color for the day. Clock in and get assigned a position. This is usually a register in one of the shops, part of a rotation, stocker, or greeter. Your position could be the same for 3 hours, or it could be on a rotation, in which you would change positions about every hour or so. For example, you could get assigned a register in the chapeau, then get transferred to an outdoor cart, then the photopass register, then the CCC. Stocker meant you would spend hours stocking one store. Greeter means you walk around and say hi to everyone for 3 hours. In the Confectionary, you could also be assigned Cotton Candy maker (the MOST HATED position) or Bulk puller, which meant you pulled fudge, cookies, cake pops, apples, and other sweets from a case for each guest.
I really feel like I got the best location. I got to see the Electrical parade every single night. I got to see the legendary 3'o'clock parade on early days. I got to at least
hear the Celebrate the Magic castle show and Wishes firework show every night. On really good shifts, you could get lucky and be placed on outdoor carts or get your lunch at the same time as the fireworks so you could watch them.
With all that said, my managers and coworkers could be absolutely horrendous. There was a manager that made at least a few cast members cry daily. She even got me once. A lot of them didn't even bother knowing our names since we were temporary. Most of the part and full time workers treated us like we were stupid, and I can't really blame them. A lot of the CP's would mess around on the job, sit in the breakroom/utilidor while on the clock, hide in stockrooms, and pretty much do what they wanted. It made it hard for the few serious CP's to look good. And some days, it was really hard to acknowledge that you worked incredibly hard (if you did) and were never going to be appreciated for it.
Merchandise was boring at times, at least where I was located. We had an IMMENSE amount of cast members. I remember one day that I was in Uptown Jewelers, there were 17 cast members. The shop only had 6 registers. So when traffic was low we didn't always know what to do. Of course, I worked in fast food before my program, so I had grown accustomed to crazy intense stressful work days. I'm sure it was just me.
But, I still had an amazing time, met some interesting people, and fell even more in love with Disney and Florida. I have recently been accepted to a college in Florida, and plan on transferring and doing another DCP this Fall. The program even made me change my major. Ask me anything if you still have questions! Merchandise is great and I'm sure you'll love it!