Let's Go To The Mall!

(This is a How I Met Your Mother reference for those that don’t understand the picture choice)

Disney has this amazing promotion for cast members around Christmas where we get more than the typical 20% off of merch. After Christmas, a 40% discount on merch stuck around until February 13^th. I had February 13^th off, so myself and several others decided to take advantage of the discount!

Danielle and I headed over to Downtown Disney for some shopping and we eventually met up with Allison and Cassie. We probably went into every store in Downtown Disney and we all spent a lot of money. My favourite purchases of the day…

I absolutely love tea! This tea set was too cute to pass up and will come in handy for our Once Upon A Time tea parties!

I also expanded my collection of not so attractive stuffed animals with this lovely purchase. I love the seagulls in Finding Nemo for their annoying nature!

It was a great day of shopping and we all managed to beat the rain home that night!

The next morning was the morning of our social security appointments. This meant, for everyone that didn’t have an American social security number, catching a bus at 6am in order to apply for one. I was told by everyone who I had done this process before to be there early and to sit at the front of the bus so that you would be one of the first ones done and you could sleep on the bus. That didn’t actually end up happening and we ended up in the last available seats on the bus!

We went into the social security office and were directed to one end of the office to sit and we each got numbers. Mine was 37 (which is funny because it’s my favourite number!) The process didn’t take that long and we were back on the bus and headed back to housing at about 8:30am. Ollie, Livvie, Zoe and I went to Starbucks to wait for the other group who were still at the social security office (the group from Chatham).

Once they met us, we went to Dollar Tree because they all needed mardi gras beads for later that night. I thought that buying some glow stick bracelets and necklaces would be fun, so I did! They would come in handy for our Canadian gathering later that night.

Livvie and I decided that we wanted to go to Hollywood Studios for the day, even though the weather did not look that promising. We took the bus over and went on The Great Movie Ride first. We both love musicals, so we had a great time! We went on Rock N Rollercoaster next, again using the single riders line.

It started to rain at this point, so we decided to go and watch the Beauty and the Beast show, which I hadn’t actually seen in years even though it’s one of my favourite Disney movies! It was fantastic and I was very tempted to sing along! After the show, the rain continued so we went to One Man’s Dream. This show is all about Walt Disney and how his dreams have expanded into what exists as Disney today. It was a nice reminder of why we are here and what our jobs stand for. I am honoured to be able to work for this company that Walt Disney created and still feel like the luckiest person in the world to be able to say that!

The rain continued after the show and we decided that Fantasmic was out for the night. We went back to Vista and got dried off before this evening’s festivities. Allison and I decided to have Applebee’s for dinner and we headed over to meet up with the rest of the Canadians to welcome the newest Canadians that had started. My group was no longer the newest group, which was weird for us because we all still felt new!

It was back to work for me the next day for a nice long run of seven shifts in a row!

The Steakhouse

My first shift in the Canadian pavilion was as a seater at Le Cellier Steakhouse. I was scheduled 11-6:30 and I made sure that I got there super early. Since it was my first shift, we started out with paperwork and a discussion of my job as a seater. I had two trainers, Jacky and Charlotte.

After the paperwork and discussion, I was brought into the restaurant and was given my own seating chart to start learning the tables and sections. It was really overwhelming at first, trying to remember where each table was and in which section. Luckily, I was able to keep the seating chart to help and this made me feel a little more comfortable.

I watched Jacky and Charlotte each seat a table and than it was my turn with them shadowing me. They corrected any little mistakes that I made, but overall I really felt comfortable seating. I didn’t take anyone to the wrong table, which was pretty exciting! I knew that knowing where the tables were and which section they were in would come with time and practice.

I had my first cute Disney moment with one of the guests on this shift as well! When one family came into the restaurant, the little girl in the family announced to everyone that it was her birthday and she was six years old! I ended up seating that family and when I asked how everyone was doing that same little girl responded by telling me that it was her birthday. I said to her “you’re six years old today, right?” Her eyes lit up and she responded “how did you know?” I told her Disney magic! It was the perfect thing to happen on my first shift and it made me so happy to know that the magical moments that I wanted to help create with this job were actually possible! It was a magical moment for me as well!

The next day I was working as the PM seater, which meant that I would be trained on the closing seating jobs that night. My trainer for today was Andrea. I had another great day and I really like seating a lot. I got to try doing trivia with guests who were waiting for their tables, which was a lot of fun! One of the little girls who got some of the questions right, and got Mickey stickers as a result, gave me a hug before she left the restaurant. These moments are really exceeding any expectations that I have had for this job, which really makes me look forward to my remaining time!

On Sunday, I was trained on Greeter, which is the person who checks in all of the guests for their reservations. My trainer for today was Jeff. I was shown how the whole computer system works, along with our reservation system. There are a lot of questions that need to be asked and details that need to be mentioned to ensure that everyone has an enjoyable meal. After getting all of this down, I felt much more comfortable with the computer system.

On Monday, I was trained on the last position in the restaurant, Setter. This person helps to clean and set up the tables in the restaurant after they have been bussed. My trainer for today was Caro. A lot of people don’t seem to like working as a setter because of all the physical work and the fast pace. I actually didn’t mind it that much. It was a lot of hard work and a lot of moving around the restaurant as fast as I could while still looking professional, but I really liked the fast pace of the job. The day flew by so quickly and I looked up and it was ten hours later and time to go home.

After my four training shifts, I had my “prove it” shifts. These are the shifts where you are left by yourself to see if you can handle the job. My first was the AM seater shift. After this shift I actually had two days off, so it was a nice way to end off my work week. It was a good shift and I had pretty much learned all the table numbers by this point!

I felt really confident in the restaurant and would be by myself for the next several shifts. I had two days off before that would happen though.

Currently listening to: “I Survived” by The Graduate from the album Anhedonia 

Thanks For Playing...

With two days off and having just received our cast member passes, we wanted to do the parks on our two days off. Myself, Allison, Cassie and Luisa decided that we would still get up super early on the Wednesday, even though we had just had a bunch of early days, so that we could be at the front gate celebration for the opening of Magic Kingdom. We decided to take the ferry boat over to Magic Kingdom and were there about 15 minutes before the park opened.

Once the park had been opened, we decided to head to Fantasyland and get on some of the rides that we hadn’t done yet. We rode Peter Pan and went back to New Fantasyland for a second chance at the new Little Mermaid ride. It was shut down, so we decided to get in line to meet Ariel instead. She told us that she wanted us to swim with her later!

We went over to the Storybrook Circus to ride Dumbo, which is even more exciting now with the duelling Dumbo rides! The Dumbo that Allison and I chose wouldn’t work (I’m hoping that it was broken, otherwise that’s kind of sad!), but we still had fun. We decided to ride the Barnstormer next which is always a good time!

We proceeded to Tomorrowland and headed right for Space Mountain. It actually was a very short line, which was exciting for us! We had lots of fun and lots of screaming occurred! We went on Stitch’s Great Escape and than went to the Monster’s Inc Laugh Floor. We actually made it onto the big screen with the caption “Smile. You’re on Monster Camera”. We all smiled and waved at the camera and I now have bragging rights for having been a part of one of the shows!

We ate at Cosmic Ray’s for lunch and Luisa had to leave to go to work. We went over to Liberty Square and rode on The Haunted Mansion. Next, we went to “the wildest ride in the wilderness”, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. We proceeded to Adventureland and rode Pirates of the Caribbean and I actually got sprayed by one of the water cannons!

The highlight of the Magic Kingdom portion of the day had to be the Jungle Cruise for us. We were the only three laughing at the jokes that our skipper was telling us! The best was waiting to dock up after the ride so we could disembark. Our skipper started playing a game of “Where are you from?” With the last person, she responded “That’s incorrect. We were looking for Pennsylvania. Thanks for playing…” This launched Cassie into a fit of hysterical laughter, which, in turn, made Allison and I laugh hysterically as well!

This was a perfect way to end off Magic Kingdom for the day and we decided that we wanted to go watch Fantasmic that night! We caught the bus over to Hollywood Studios. We went right for Sunset Boulevard and headed for the Rock N Rollercoaster. We went in the singles line, which is the easy way to skip the long wait. After, I convinced them to go on Tower of Terror. For some reason though, Cassie and Allison thought that the Tower of Terror only dropped you once. This is far from what actually happens! At the end of the ride, I was told several times “I hate you Tori”! This became the other saying that we have adopted if I make either of them do something scary!

We went next and rode The Great Movie Ride! Allison laughed at me as I was able to quote the lines from Casablanca that were being said at that part of the ride! We decided to do dinner next and chose the Sci Fi Dine In Theatre. Allison and Cassie had never been there before so it was a treat!

After dinner, we headed for the amphitheatre for Fantasmic. We got there only about a half hour before the show so we were in The Beast section at the one end of the amphitheatre. We decided that at some point we would go to another showing of Fantasmic and show up super early to get a better spot, but we still enjoyed it a lot!

We all had Thursday off too and wanted to take advantage of that day as well. We slept in a little and decided to go to Typhoon Lagoon for the morning because cast members could get in for free until February 23^rd. We started off at Crush’n Gusher (the water rollercoaster). Again, there was lots of screaming!

After a couple of rides, we went over to some of the tube rides. I managed to convince Allison and Cassie to go on the speed slides, which Allison affectionately named afterwards “Death Drop”. We went into the big wave pool and Cassie experienced the “Killer Wave”. Needless to say, I heard “I hate you Tori” several more times that day. I also managed to convince both of them to swim with the sharks!

We ended off our day going around the lazy river and managed to do everything at Typhoon Lagoon in a little over two hours. We got lunch and caught the bus back to our housing to change. We caught the bus to Epcot for the evening. We rode Mission Space and got fast passes for Test Track. Cassie wanted Mickey Ice Cream Sandwiches for surviving the day at Typhoon Lagoon! We got the sandwiches and decided to do the boat rides before our Test Track fast passes started.

We rode the Mexico boat ride and than went on the Norway one. Allison was convinced at one point that the boat was going to go outside (backwards over a waterfall), which was quite entertaining for me! Once the boat rides were done, it was time for Test Track. I was super excited because Test Track had just been completely redone recently. It was very cool looking and slightly reminded me of the new Tron movie. My car also got the best score of the three of us (yay 205!)

We went and got hot chocolate and watched Illuminations between the Canada and UK pavilions. It was a perfect view! It was a great couple of days off, but I was ready to start working officially in the pavilion!

Currently listening to: “Weak Man” by Good Old War from the album Only Way To Be Alone

Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow

The next two days were my orientation to all things EPCOT and the Canadian pavilion where I would be working! On Monday, the Canadians in Food and Beverage had our e-learning day. This consisted of about four hours of computer based learning on several different topics.

Since we have the same coordinator of training, we met up the UK Food and Beverage girls for lunch. We had a group meeting after lunch to discuss several employment policies that Disney has in place. We went to our separate pavilions after this meeting and we had our introduction to the Canadian Food and Beverage work environment. We learned all about the different jobs that we would be working as well as the different policies and procedures in place in our pavilion.

This was the entirety of this day of training for us. We got together with a bunch of the Canadian girls (and some guys) that night, but we had our EPCOT discovery day the next day, so we didn’t go out with them that night.

At 8am on Tuesday, we had to meet at EPCOT for our discovery day. We got a guided tour of the park, which was awesome! After our tour, we met up with the UK girls again for lunch. We were again dropped off in our different pavilions after lunch. We did a tour of our pavilion and learned a whole lot about the operation of our restaurant.

At the end of the tour, we headed back to the costuming department and got our costumes! We have two in the Canadian pavilion for Food and Beverage, one for the restaurant and one for the popcorn cart! They are both pretty awesome if I do say so myself! I was starting in the restaurant so I mostly got multiples of that costume, but I also made sure I was prepared for the popcorn cart shifts as well.

At the end of this day, I was ready to work! I had the next two days off, so I wouldn’t be officially starting to work until Friday. My orientation was finally over and I was ready to get going on my actual work at Disney!

Currently listening to: “Swords and Pens” by The Story So Far from the album Under Soil and Dirt

Back to School, Back to School...

On Saturday, February 2, I went to Traditions. This is the course that everyone has to take to become a Disney cast member. This is where we learn about the Disney way and we receive our name tags at Disney University!!!!!! Since a lot of the day encompasses information that I cannot reveal in relation to Disney, I will try to cover as much as I can.

The bus was scheduled to pick us up at the Vista Way pavilion at 7:30am. However, the bus did not actually show up. Someone called the bus company and they ended up getting a bus to pick us up and than head over to Chatham to get those who live in the other housing complex. With that, we were off to Traditions.

We checked in once we got there and had someone look over our paperwork and passports. We were than sent to different rooms based on your program, meaning that all of the CRP participants were together. Throughout the day we learned a lot about Disney and won prizes for answering questions. My group also won prizes as a result of winning an activity that we did. This was my collection by the end of the day…

We also had a surprise visitor that delivered our name tags to us. This really made my day that much better! At the end of the day, I left as an official Disney cast member with my amazing name tag!

After our course, we took a couple of pictures outside of Disney University. We got one of the new Canadians and one with those of us from the UK and Canada!

In honour of becoming official cast members and receiving our key to the parks (our cast member passes), we went to the Magic Kingdom to see Wishes (the fireworks show)! It really was unbelievable watching Wishes and realizing that we were now officially cast members at Disney World. We would be able to go any night that we are not working for the next year and see this show, or do whatever else we wanted to at the parks! It is a really surreal feeling, like I’m living in a dream!

Magic Kingdom was open until 11pm that night, so we decided to take advantage of that. We went on Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, It’s A Small World, Philharmagic, Cinderella’s Carousel, Winnie the Pooh, the Tea Cups, Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin and the Peoplemover. All in all, it was a busy night, but it was so exciting!

On Sunday, those of us in Food and Beverage were back at Disney University for our food safety course. We had to catch the A or B bus to get to Disney University ourselves this time. With the course not starting until 1pm, I had the chance to sleep in a bit after the long night at Magic Kingdom.

The course was fairly basic, but again I cannot go into detail about it. After we were finished in the classroom, we all moved into a computer lab and did some e-learning. We had to finish three courses on the computer and than we were done for the day.

Once the e-learning was finished, we headed down to costuming to get our slip resistant shoes for work (these were provided to us for free! Thanks Disney!) I chose the most idiot proof shoes that I could because I am completely uncoordinated! They have proven themselves so far, so I’m really happy with my choice!

After choosing our shoes, we were done for the day. We took the bus back to Vista and than headed over to Applebee’s to watch the Super Bowl! Well, I watched the Super Bowl! Most of the people I went with just really wanted to see Beyonce perform at the half time show, and that was cool! The drinks were two for one, so that was perfect for watching the game. The Ravens ended up winning (YAY!) and I was a very happy camper. Right after the game, we headed back to Vista because we had an early day at Epcot the next morning!

Currently listening to: “Secret Society” by Title Fight from the album Floral Green

Orientations, and Paperwork, and New Friends, Oh My!

The next few days were taken up with a fair amount of paperwork. On Wednesday, the day after check in, we started with a Housing Check In. I went over with my roommate to the room of one of the guys from the UK and met most of the people from the UK and two of the Canadians from the same start date. We all headed over to the pavilion together and got to know each other better.

At the pavilion, they started by sorting us into two lines, one for people who qualify for the travel allowance at the end of their program and the other for people who don’t. I got my travel allowance paperwork sorted out and went into the pavilion. We had to fill out a section on the back of our program guide and show valid identification to show that we were over 21 if we were living in a non-wellness apartment. Since we were at the front of the line, we all got through really quickly and had a couple of hours before we had to be at The Commons for the next session. A group of us took the bus over to The Commons and walked from there to Panera Bread for lunch.

Our session at The Commons began at 3 and it was our Housing Welcome Session. We all went into the Commons Clubhouse and went over all of our housing rules and details. The session started off with some trivia. The woman who was running the session, Sarah Smiles (who is probably one of the happiest people I’ve ever met), held up stuffed animals of the two main characters from The Rescuers and asked if anyone could name them. My hand shot right up (and I was sitting in the front row) so I answered Bernard and Bianca and won a Disney lanyard!

After the session, a group of us went and did a Walmart run. Since the majority of the people from the UK had arrived late the night before, many of them had very little in terms of food and other necessities. I had realized that I had forgotten a few essential items on my Walmart run from the day before (a hair dryer, sugar, etc) so I went for the Walmart run as well. I was also very amused by the differences that exist between British and Canadian terms. I learned that the British refer to Band Aids as “plasters”! This probably amused me more than it should have!

When we had finished the Walmart run we went outside to wait for the bus, to find out that the one bus that we were expecting didn’t show up. When the next bus came around, there were a ridiculous number of people waiting to head back to housing and this led to a very crowded bus!

When we got back to Vista and had unloaded all of our Walmart shopping, we decided to go to Downtown Disney and have dinner there. Since a few of the people we were with had never been to Disney before, seeing the looks on their faces while we were in Downtown Disney was priceless! We wandered around and explored the entirety of Downtown Disney. We also went into Ghiradelli’s and got free chocolate samples! For dinner, we first went to Planet Hollywood to find out that they were hosting a corporate event. We next went to T Rex and there was a huge line up just to check for a table. We decided to head over to the Rainforest Café and that was where we ended up eating! It was a great way to end out our first full day together in Florida!

On Thursday, we started off early at the Commons Clubhouse again. They started off the morning with an initial Disney look check (which my hair colour did not pass). I was told that I had to go and get my hair colour redone. The few of us who had to do this were given a list of hair salons near our housing. After our morning session, we made appointments for the next morning.

Our morning session was in relation to immigration. It was mostly filling our paperwork so that we could legally work in the United States. After this session, we went back to Vista to make our hair appointments. We went for lunch at Applebee’s and than went back to Vista for the next session. This session was a series of stations ranging from immigration paperwork, to taking pictures for id, to housing paperwork. After getting through all of the stations, I tagged along with the British girls while they went to get American phones sorted out.

Later that night, housing was putting on a Winter Wonderland Welcome Event with Tinkerbell and friends in Chatham Field. We met up at one of the apartments in Chatham and headed over to the event. We got pizza and did some dancing out on the field, including a lot of conga lines! I also learned how to wobble!

After the event, I had the opportunity to meet a lot of the Canadians. It was really nice to have the opportunity to get to know everyone and a group of us ended the night by heading out to IHOP for breakfast at 1am!

Friday was a day off for everyone before having Traditions on Saturday morning. For myself and two other girls, our Friday morning started off at the hair dressers to correct our hair. After several hours, we were fitting the Disney look (although I REALLY miss being blonde). As my parents were still in Florida until Saturday morning, I decided to spend their last day in Orlando with them! We dropped the girls back off at Vista and we headed to Downtown Disney for some lunch. We went to the Earl of Sandwich and actually ran into a couple of people from my arrival group!

After lunch, we went to Hollywood Studios for the night because I wanted to see Fantasmic! My dad really wanted to do Star Tours again and we got the podracing one this time! After the ride, we went into the gift shop and my parents bought me an ewok stuffed animal because my puppy at home looks like an ewok! Just for a point of comparison…

We decided to go see The Legend of Captain Jack Sparrow and The Voyage of the Little Mermaid. After these shows we headed down to the Fantasmic amphitheatre and got seats in the middle section (the Mickey section) just a few rows from the front. The show was fantastic (it still remains my favourite night time fireworks show at Disney) and they had added in a couple new things from the last time we saw the show, which was exciting!

When Fantasmic had finished, I went with my parents back to the All Star Movies and had dinner with them. They drove me back to Vista and we said our goodbyes. The next morning was Traditions and I had an early start for that. I only had one more day to go until I became an official Walt Disney World cast member!

Currently listening to: “Parker” by Automatic Loveletter from the album Recover

The Big Day (Made Complete by Crazy Squirrels)

My check in day with Disney was Tuesday January 29, 2013. As the complexes would not be ready for us early in the morning, we were asked to check in after noon on that day. As a result, my parents and I went to Epcot for the morning.

We went and got fast passes for Soarin’ and were planning on going on Test Track, but it was shut down that morning. Instead, we started off at Spaceship Earth. After we went over to The Seas with Nemo and Friends pavilion and rode The Seas with Nemo and Friends. We went to see Turtle Talk with Crush, where the audience has the opportunity to interact with Crush. This show proves that the phrase “kids say the darndest things” is actually true! At least, it was true for our group at that show!

After finishing off The Seas pavilion, our fast passes for Soarin’ were ready. We ended getting the first row, which is the best because you can’t see anyone flying above you. The park started to get very busy at this point, so we decided to head back to the hotel and make sure that I had fully packed everything up for my move. We packed up whatever remained in the hotel that was mine and it was then time for lunch. We headed to the Olive Garden for lunch and then headed over to Vista Way to check in.

I was so nervous heading up to Vista. Once we had reached the housing complex, and after a few mistaken directions, I found the check-in for the international program participants. I checked in and was placed in Vista. This was really strange for me to hear because the international participants had almost always been placed in The Commons. It turns out that they are trying to spread everyone out now and a fair number of us from the same arrival date were placed in Vista.

I was shown up to my room and my parents helped me unpack all of my stuff. I am in a two bedroom, so each room has a private bathroom to share between two roommates. When I moved in I met the two girls that were sharing the other room. Both of them are from Mexico. My roommate hadn’t arrived at this point. My parents and I completely set up my room and did a Walmart run. Since I was still roommate-less at this point, I went back to Epcot with my parents for the night.

We decided to eat at the Fish and Chips shop in the United Kingdom pavilion. On the way, we decided to stop in the Canadian pavilion and I met a couple of the people that I am now working with. It was nice to get to know some people beforehand, as I had not been able to meet up with any of the Canadians that had the same start date as me at this point.

We got our Fish and Chips and sat at one of the tables right outside the Chippy. There were several other people at the surrounding tables and we were all enjoying our Fish and Chips when the squirrels came out. Most squirrels would be afraid of people, but these squirrels were jumping up on the tables and were trying to get food. They were not afraid of anything! While it made our meal a little difficult to eat, it did make for an absurd story to tell people!

After our eventful dinner, we got some caffeinated drinks and went to watch the rock band in the United Kingdom pavilion, British Revolution. They put on an awesome show and played all classic rock songs by various British bands (The Beatles, The Stones, The Clash, etc.) While the show was on, I had a cute Disney moment. There was a little girl watching the show with her dad and the two of them were dancing together. When the little girl started jumping, her dad would jump along with her. It was a very cute “only at Disney would you see this” moment.

We went over to France and got some dessert (I got a strawberry tart and it was absolutely amazing!) We walked all around the World Showcase and rode both Maelstrom (the boat ride in Norway) and The Grand Fiesta Tour (the boat ride in Mexico). After this, we found a spot to watch Illuminations in Mexico. Once the fireworks were over, my parents brought me back to Vista for the night. When I got back, I got to meet my roommate! She is from the UK and is absolutely lovely! Her flight had just gotten in a few hours before and the few of them had done a quick Walmart run for essentials that night. We spent the next few hours getting to know each other while she unpacked her stuff.

That was the end of my very exciting check in day. I had received a schedule for the next few days when I checked in and had a couple of days of orientation meetings and paperwork ahead!

Currently listening to: “Fit to be Tied” by Jet Lag Gemini from the album Fire The Cannons