My AWESOME Job and Park Playin'!

I've actually written about five entries since last time I posted. However I haven't ended up posting any of them because I always end up wanting to write about stuff I'm not allowed to write about... and then it gets put in my other, private journal on my computer. Or it just gets insanely long and I feel bad making my reader(s) read that much of me. But moving on.

I've finally moved into my final apartment. My roommates are awesome. Three of us work in the Magic Kingdom and my fourth roommate, who's from Hawaii, works at the Polynesian Resort.

Our actual apartment has some problems... primarily water and the fact that there's flooding in random parts of our apartment. Like in our front hallway and in front of the stove of all places! Also, we woke up this morning with no water in our toilet... that was weird. My roommate's reporting that stuff right now though so I'm sure it'll be fixed soon. They are really good about maintenance here.

As for my job I'm loving every second of it! Well... almost every second. There was one day a day or two ago that I just wanted to burst into tears, give up, and be moved. But I only had one more hour of work that day and I forced myself through because really, I'm not a quitter. This job is way way WAY harder than my old job though. Yeah, I had a whole post going off of that sentence there earlier that I never posted. I may post it later though because it had many funny stories in it. :)

Yesterday, Cami, Jenna, and I went to EPCOT. Neither Cami nor Jenna had ever been before. In fact, they'd never even been to Disney really before this program. I got to be their tour guide for the day. Unfortunately, no one loves EPCOT quite like I do, but I think they still had fun. Jenna really loved Test Track... she was laughing uncontrollably, it was so funny!

I got to say hi to a bunch of people I worked with last year. A lot of them didn't recognize me without my glasses (I wore sunglasses most of the day). It was so funny because they all just looked at me for a second staring and then jumped and were like, "Heeeey!!! What's goin' on girl! You here to stay!? Oh, I haven't seen you in forever!" I love those welcomes!

We also went on some attractions I'd never done before. I'd never done them because I didn't think I'd like them, but they were actually really fun. We went on the Maelstrom ride in Norway and that was actually really good... It freaked me out for a good part of it, though. Also we did the boat ride in Mexico. It was good... just not amazing.

My Imagination area was horribly depressing. They got rid of Crystal Magic. They put walls up around the email picture machines. They stopped the "Imagination Institute" show. And next they're getting rid of my beloved pictures and puzzles that I used to make for people! They already got rid of Honey I Shrunk the Audience and put in Michael Jackson's Captain EO. We watched that. All I can say about it is that as I left the theater, the only thought going through my head was, "What the heck did I just watch?" Weird. Just weird. Maybe I would have liked it more if I knew Michael's music... or cared about him at all.

Today, I'm going to the Magic Kingdom with Helen (a Chinese girl from work) and Jenna (my room roommate). As I said earlier, our job is very hard in many ways. But one way is that we have to know a LOT of random knowledge. Helen was really having trouble with knowing the park and directions to places. She's also scared to go alone because she's only been in America for two weeks and still having trouble with language and normal culture shock. So we're going to go there today and work on knowing the park.

The main thing I was having trouble with was memorizing where all the busses and boats went to. How do you get to Wide World of Sports? How do you get to Disney Quest? How do you get to Fort Wilderness?

None of those answers were what I thought. I thought I could just send them to the TTC and from there they could get a bus... but no. It has to be complicated.

Anyway, my roommate just got back from the office and we're leaving at ten for the MK so I'm done. Maybe I'll have a post with pics soon. I haven't really taken many because I've been working and I'm not allowed to take pictures of the many amazing backstage things I see and Cami doesn't want her picture on the internet (but she only specified facebook... not blogger... heehee). But maybe sometime I'll have some play pictures up.

Also, today's my sister's birthday! Happy birthday sister!!!

Shows In Disney

I could be a pessimist and say that it's annoying seeing the shows all the time. Because I've seen certain shows and parades numerous times, I'm now aware of every time there is a mistake. Disney is unbelievable at covering mistakes. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Disney doesn't make mistakes... they simply use backup plans.

However, I am not a pessimist. And I choose to look at the bright side of life that says, "HOLY COW I'M SO FREAKIN' LUCKY THAT I GET TO MEMORIZE SHOWS SOME PEOPLE ONLY GET TO SEE ONCE IN A LIFETIME AFTER SPENDING THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS!!!!!"

Oh yeah, and Fantasmic was amazing tonnight!

Thank you.

Disney Cruise Line....Part 4

The pictures that I took on this day pretty much just summed up the whole trip. This day was spent at sea and was the most relaxing of all the days, probably. I was grateful for this because I was having trouble moving... mainly just my legs. It hurt to walk anywhere. We had refused to take elevators until this day. And that was only due to the sunburn!





Also I took pictures of Hidden Mickeys. Yep, that's been my recent obsession. Finding Hidden Mickeys!










Our two servers. Steven and Agung. They were great!

Also, just because I want to remember this, we ate dinner we three other groups of people. Each was a mom with one of their children. Two brought daughters and the third brought her son. One of the moms told us she spent $8000 to go on this cruise! Another mom said this was her fifth cruise with her daughter. While obviously rich (either that or simply really good at spending tons and tons of money) I liked them. They were all very nice and friendly and we got along great. Just wanted to throw all that in as a side note. :)




Words can't even describe how much I love when this happens!




And of course the going away party that night!



I don't remember much about this day. We ate and sat on the promenade deck thing for the longest time. We watched the final show... I forgot the name of it. But it won an award for the best Cruise show at sea in the world or something. And it was fantastic!

The whole cruise was just completely perfect and fantastic. Except of course that this was the last day and we knew we'd go home the next day. We ate our last dinner in Triton's and also had breakfast there on our last morning before deboarding the ship for the last time.




Disney never ceases to amaze me. After working here and learning so much about them, I still hold Disney is such high respect. I'm so happy I get to be a part of this! And I'm so happy I went on this cruise! It definitely was worth every penny!

First Day in the MK

I'm still working on finishing documenting the cruise. More for myself than anything... but yeah. I thought I'd let that be known.

Today I woke up at 5am. Boarded the bus around 6am. Got to work a little before 7am. Clocked in a little after 7am. And then walked around the Magic Kingdom ALL FREAKIN' DAY!

Literally. We walked around until around 2:30. At this time I took a "break" by going and getting my costumes at costuming, running home to drop off my costumes and change into more comfy clothes, and then going straight back to the MK to play for the rest of the day.

Although I have to say the first part of the day was a lot like playing too... except that I was wearing formal business attire and wasn't allowed to answer my phone when I was on stage.

I can't really say much about what we did... but it was certainly fun and I learned a LOT. And I saw a bunch of things that made me want to just stare because it's not the sort of stuff you get to see and experience every day! Except that I will.

Also, I love my job. A lot. I have the coolest job ever!

Disney Cruise Line....Part 3

On this day we decided to have breakfast in Triton's. Triton's was the super fancy restaurant on the ship. We were supposed to have dinner there the last night, but we just couldn't wait so we decided to have breakfast there as well.



We had a perfect view of the ocean!



And yes, I ate my donut with a fork and knife... I just felt weird having gooey hands in such a nice place!



It was grey outside, but we were ready to deboard the ship onto Castaway Cay (Disney's private island) so we went ahead and left. So of course that's when it started raining. As we approached the beaches, we were told the beaches were closed due to weather. So we hung out in some tourist shops and then we found this pavilion that had a basketball net and other games. We threw the basketball around for a while and then they finally opened the beaches. It was still raining, but we just changed into our swimsuits and went into the ocean.





Above is the family beach. And yes, that is our sandcastle... we didn't have many supplies to work with but I think it's magnificent! We tried to build a wall because the waves kept coming up and ruining our castle. It sort of worked... but then the waves took down our wall.

We then continued on. The BBQ was around 11:30 so we were first in line for that. It was delicious! The best thing about Disney owning an island is that all the food there was free too! It was an awesome, buffet style barbeque.



After the BBQ we watched some crab races and then headed for the adults only beach.





The beach was definitely the most relaxing part of the day. Unfortunately, it was also the part of the day that I got possibly the worst sunburn I've experienced in my entire life. We swam in the ocean for a long time. Then we sat in some chairs in the ocean for a long time. Then we laid out on the beach chairs for a long time. I had put on SPF 85+ sunscreen on that morning and SPF 50 (waterproof) sunscreen on right before this beach. And still afterwards the fronts of both my legs were ridiculously burned, my shoulders, chest, and back were all nice and red too. Fortunately, my face was left barely touched. Poor Heather was burned too on her shoulders. This surprised me especially because she's really tan and I wouldn't have guessed she'd burn as badly but yeah. It happened.

After burning we headed back to the boat. This island was gorgeous. I mean gorgeous!



The Flying Dutchman from Pirates of the Caribbean had crash landed here so we snapped some pictures. Captain Jack Sparrow was supposed to be out for a meet and greet, but because of the rain he was unable to come.





As we approached the boat there was a cast member handing out cold, damp washcloths. Genius idea, especially since we were sunburned. It was great.



And if you look closely at the above picture you can see one of the life boats has been taken down. We think they were doing some sort of training drill while we were gone. Kind of cool.

And below is me trying to get a picture of my Neapolitan self. It looked much more obvious in real life with my tan hand, bright red leg, and white and white back of my leg. Heather's was even more obvious than mine though because she was way more tan than I am.



And this was the animal... we think it was some sort of bunny. ??



So we then went to Palo. I have no picture of Palo because it was such an insanely fancy restaurant I didn't feel comfortable getting my camera out. I've been to a lot of fancy restaurants... especially with all those trips to Europe. But this one could have beat most of those. They even gave Heather a different napkin so that the napkin matched her outfit! Since I was wearing mostly white, I kept my white napkin. But as we sat down they took Heather's because she was wearing mostly black and they brought back a black napkin. So funny!

I wasn't going to order an appetizer because I wasn't terribly hungry. I was mostly just exhausted from all that relaxing I did earlier! But as I told our waitress (who happened to be from the outskirts of Antwerp, Belgium) that I only wanted the lamb, she practically made me order an appetizer! She asked if I liked seafood and I said yes. Then she told me she was bringing me the shrimp. Which was amazing. But I also have to say that lamb was the best lamb I've ever had in my entire life! It was so unbelievably delicious!

For dessert we had the chocolate souffle (kay, not sure if I spelled that right, but you get what I'm talking about). It was fantastic too. I was so sad I couldn't finish it and I felt so rude but I seriously thought I would puke if I ate any more and I figured puking would be ruder than not eating everything.

After dinner, which lasted longer than we expected, we made our way to the Pirate Party. We had missed the first few minutes, but we still got to see the fireworks and Mickey fly down and defeat the pirates!





After the party we just went to bed. We we so tired and exhausted which is weird because it was such a nice, easy-going day. My burn hurt worse and worse through the night. What sucks about having such a big, terrible sunburn is that there's no comfy way to sleep. I couldn't sleep on my stomach because it hurt my thighs. I couldn't sleep on my side because my shoulders killed. And I couldn't sleep on my back because that was sunburned too. But most of all I couldn't move from whatever position I was in because that hurt too! Needless to say it was a rough night.

I'm not saying I was miserable, though. I want to make that clear! It was worth every second of pain because it was so much fun and such a great experience. I would do it again in a heartbeat... but maybe with even more sunscreen. :)

Taking a Break

Yeah, in case I haven't made up for my severe lack of posts lately by posting like five posts in one day, here's a final one for ya!

I just thought I'd update about my life here in Disney so far a bit more before I get back to documenting the cruise.

I checked in two days ago. But it feels like I've been here for weeks! Although to be honest I haven't made it to the parks yet! I know, I know. I live ten minutes away, I've been on property no less than five different times, and yet still haven't found time to get into the parks.

The truth is that yesterday I had some friends invite me to Typhoon Lagoon (water park) but I couldn't go because my sunburn hasn't healed yet. I don't really like the idea of having a burn on top of a burn...

Today more friends were going to Blizzard Beach but again, I didn't go because of the sunburn. And also because of my poor roommate's crisis.

Yep, my roommate, who is from Hong Kong, has to go home tomorrow morning. She couldn't get the school to fill out the right paperwork and so is being booted out. Since she couldn't get into the parks, I didn't go either so she wouldn't be stuck home alone. We went to Downtown Disney for a while last night (with some other friends too) and then today we went to look at the castle from right outside the Magic Kingdom. We took the ferry across the water. I feel bad that she's leaving, but she's been really optimistic about the whole thing.

Oh, and speaking of Magic Kingdom....

That's where I'm working!!!! I will officially be working Main Entrance Ops and Parade Control in the Magic Kingdom!!

Despite the fact that I spent all semester last year building up a hatred of the park, I think I'm really gonna like it. :)

Anyway, tomorrow the plan is to see off my roommate and then, finally play in the parks with some friends I've made. And I may be moving soon since I'm now the only one left in the apartment. But I guess we'll just see what happens with that...

Disney Cruise Line.... Part 2

We ate breakfast at the Beach Blanket Buffet again.



And yes, what you see on my plate is indeed chocolate Mickey Mouse head shaped waffles smothered in syrup alongside smoked salmon. I have a wide variety of tastes, okay?



We then took off for....





Nassau!!!

As we got off the boat we were practically ambushed by people trying to sell us stuff. They were everywhere. We found this family in front of us and just followed right behind them so the ambush guys would think we were just kids part of that family and not ambush us quite as much. It worked. :) We must look really young!





I didn't really take many photos here. For one thing, we only spent about two hours on the island, if that much. And for another, we were paying attention to our surroundings a lot because we were both nervous to be there alone. On the boat before we left, though, we were given a packet of coupons, including free stuff. We went around and collected our free jewelry which included three necklaces, a charm bracelet, two charms, and a coupon for free charms if I ever visit the places on the coupon (places like Key West, Cozumel, etc.). It was great to walk around, but we quickly made our way back to the boat.





After getting back on the boat we just chilled for the better part of the day. The adult's pool was nearly empty so we hung out there for a while too. It was soooo nice and relaxing to just float there in the pool for as long as we wanted with not a care in the world.

We grabbed some lunch I think at Goofy's Galley or one of those quick serve places that I forgot the name of. It was so weird because it was just like ordering at a restaurant. I went up to the person behind the counter and asked what I wanted. Whether it was a hamburger and fries or a chicken Caeser wrap (those wraps were incredible) or the smoked salmon and cream cheese toasted sandwich, they would just give it to me and I'd go on my merry way! It felt weird because I didn't have to pay. Or, rather, I should say I already paid for it. :)

After chilling for a while and seeing some characters and such, we watched a movie on TV. Toy Story, actually. This was very convenient because the show for this night was...



Toy Story the Musical! Live, as all the shows were. It actually followed the movie pretty darn well, especially from us having watched it just previously.

Dinner for this night was at Parrot Cay.





This was probably the least interesting of the restaurants as there was nothing but a bunch of stuffed parrots or pictures on the walls. Yeah, funny that such a nice restaurant can actually be considered at the lower end! So even though it definitely wasn't one of the better ones, it was still fantastic!

This is Heather showing off the menu.



And yes, I took pictures of all my food. It was awesome, okay!?









And of course when we got back to our room after dinner we found this little number hanging up to dry...



And to end here are some extra random pictures from day two: