Living the Dream, My 6 months at Disney

Posted by Caitie at 2:30 PM Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Here are those links to the videos!!!!

Tik Tok Safety Video

Video number 1

It's been almost 2 months

Posted by Caitie at 2:28 PM

Since my last post!!! If I've learned anything at Disney it's that time seriously flies by. It's almost my three month mark of being down here, which it totally crazy to think about. In some ways it feels like I've been down here forever and in others it feels like I've just been here a few weeks.

So much has happened these past 2 months I don't even really know where to begin...But I guess I'll start with work!

Working at Liberty Tree has been so much fun!!! Which is odd considering when I first came down here that was the last place I wanted to work! Our outfit may be hideous and the bonnets definitely don't hurt, but I love pretty much everyone I work with. We just ended our busy season so the past few days have been EXTREMELY SLOW, we've had about 100 on the books for lunch and around 300 for dinner, when we're used to 300 for lunch and about 800-1000 for dinner; It's definitely a change of pace that's for sure. I've made a few really good friends at work which makes the time pass that much faster. Only one of them is a CP which is going to make leaving that much harder...but I've made the decision NOT to think about January! Right now at work we're in the Magic Kingdom safety Olympics!!! It's a really cool concept and allows me to use my creativity to the max! The past 2 challenges have been okay, the first one was to make a music video, with original lyrics, that showed how we practiced safety at LTT (Liberty Tree Tavern). I'll try to upload the video later but here are the lyrics that Courtney and I came up with!

(to the tune of I'm Proud to be an American)

From bonlnets down to aprons
From knickers to our ties
From non slip shoes to name tags
we would like to show our pride

To the gloves we use in the kitchen
to safe handling of the food
there's pride in every patriots heart
we care on how we're viewed

And I'm proud to work at LTT where we practice all four keys
Our team relates like family leaving safety legacies
and I'll glad stand up next to you and happily declare
The safety team at LTT, is always here to care.

Even though our lyrics and video were amazing we lost to Outdoor Foods...apparently they did a rendition of baby got back.

This past week's challenge was to make a workout style music video with our own original lyrics...This one was quite hard...we went through several songs but finally ended up with Ke$ha's Tik Tok. The video is up on youtube somewhere when I find the link I'll post it along with the other video. I personally thought our video was amazing but apparently Crystal Palace aka Crystal Prison's video was better because they had pooh dancing...whatever. It still amazes me that I get paid to be a little kid everyday. I get paid to color, hopscotch, jump rope, and make music videos...life really isn't all that hard here at Disney...going back into the real world is going to be hard.

But enough about work...I'm trying to think what else has gone on lately!

My Daddy surprised me and came to visit at the beginning of August for two days!!! It was a short visit but just what I needed. I was starting to get homesick and him coming and being able to explore the parks with him was well worth it. I was so glad he came...sometimes I realize what great parents I have. We stayed at Coronado springs and even got to eat at Le Cellier, the top steak house in the country!!! It was sooo good!

Dylan, Lindsay, and Ryan also came later in August!!! It was so good to have them here as well! We stayed at the new Lion King suites in Art of Animation and it was so cool!!! Disney never does anything half-way, they go all out, and that was very apparent in their new resort! The Little Mermaid rooms open soon and I'm WAY excited to see what those look like!!! But anyways it was really good to see them, it was like having a little piece of home here at Disney! We were SUPER busy when they were here and even did 3 parks in one day...which I DO NOT recommend. We started out at EPCOT in the morning at 11, went to Hollywood Studios and ended at Magic Kingdom at 2 AM. Needless to say it was a VERY long day, but still fun nonetheless.

Other than that not a whole lot has happened. I still love the girls I live with and couldn't imagine what my program would be without them...seriously. Sometimes it does get a little crazy because we have NO privacy whatsoever, but overall we all really get along. We usually go out on adventures at least a few times a week...this past Sunday Calyn and I went to Cocoa Beach. It was a relaxing day and sometimes we just REALLY need to get out of the bubble! It's great to work at Disney but when you're around THAT MANY people ALL THE TIME, it get's kind of exhausting and you want to be around normal people...not tourists.

We still go and play in the parks alot...usually 2 or 3 times a week depending on everyone's schedule. Wishes is my favorite show to go to at night followed by fantasmic purely because Pocahontas and John Smith are present.

But anyways sorry it took me so long to update!!!! Hopefully I'll be more frequent in my postings!!!

I almost forgot!

Posted by Caitie at 7:06 PM Saturday, July 14, 2012

July the 4th! It was pretty crazy at MK that day, the park reached max capacity around 5 so they were turning away guests at the gate. I'm not too sure what our guest count was that night but it was at least 600 at horseshoe and who knows how many at LTT, it was fun though! I got to watch both displays of the fireworks, July 3rd and 4th, and it was definitely worth it. Disney really does know how to put on an awesome fireworks show. At the end the fireworks were 360 degrees throughout the park for 90 seconds, it was completely amazing. I am so lucky to work at this amazing place.

Here are some pictures from the past few weeks

I'm so sorry!

Posted by Caitie at 7:02 PM

Life at Disney is completely crazy, when I do have free time I'm either napping or going out with my roommates! I'm finally starting to get settled in here and I absolutely LOVE it, seriously I don't ever want to go home.

Things since I last posted have been pretty good! One of our roommates moved out so now it's just the 5 of us! I got really lucky with all the roommates I got, I love each and every one of them. We all pretty much look out for each other and make food! It's been great! The coffee fairy visits regularly, there is always some type of baked good, and we are always doing something. It's been a great living experience with these 5 girls. It's going to be so weird to go home in 6 months and not wake up and see them on a daily basis.

As far as work goes things have been good. I'm finally feeling comfortable at my new work location and am starting to make some friends which is always good. I've gotten very comfortable with all the tasks that I am assigned to do so that makes things a bit easier...Although I still hate stocking.

I've been doing so many cool things while I"ve been here and it still seems crazy to me that I live and work in Disney World. I can go to a park pretty much anytime I want and I go to magic kingdom almost on a daily basis since I work there. Life here is pretty awesome, if this is what adulthood feels like, it feels great.

I'm starting to miss home a bit though and my friends there. It makes me sad sometimes when I think about it but such is life. I'm doing something that most people don't have the opportunity to do and I'm going to take full advantage of it.

That's really all I can think of right now, sorry this post is so short, if any of you guys have questions or anything feel free to leave it in a comment or facebook me! I'll do my best to address them in the next post!

It's been a little while...

Posted by Caitie at 5:33 PM Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Things have been SO busy, half the time I run around not even knowing what day it is, seriously. Working for Disney is SO MUCH fun but also VERY time consuming, I now understand why people don't always keep up with their blog! From now on I'll try to update at LEAST once a week but it's peak season right now so no guarantees!

But back to what I"ve been up to! The first few weeks have been SO BUSY! I've been through traditions, MK orientation, and now have earned my ears! It
's been a LONG few weeks but well worth it! I guess I'll start at the beginning.

Check In:

So I woke up SUPER early the first Monday I got here, like around 5:30ish to be at Vista at 6:15. Met up with Lena, Alison, and Calyn and went through the check-in process together! It was really nice having a group of girls I kind of knew to go through something like that with. We had to sign a TON of paperwork and then got our housing ID's. We did get Patterson like we wanted! BUT not a two bedroom :( instead we ended up with a 3 bedroom which also meant we got 2 more roommates, more on that later. Any who it was either the 3 bedroom at Patterson or a 2 bedroom at Vista...which Vista had a cockroach and ant infestation last week so I'm glad we went with Patterson. After check-in we went to Casting and FINALLY found out where we were all going to be working. I got placed at Liberty Tree Tavern in Magic Kingdom, which I wasn't too excited about, but now that I'm there and have been trained I really like it. Apparently we're the second busiest Table service restaurant in MK, aside from Cinderella's, and we get a LOT of celebrities. Calyn got placed at the Polynesian for front desk, Alison is Merch in Hollywood Studios, and Lena is in entertainment! We're all overall happy with our roles. Casting was really long but necessary, we got fingerprinted with ALL our finger prints, it was intense. IT was a long day and that night I believe I just went to eat out with my parents and then went to Downtown Disney to walk around and shop, it was a LONG and busy busy day!

Traditions:

I know I"m skipping ahead a bit BUT let's move ahead to Traditions! It was a LONG day but they made it pretty fun I must admit! Basically we just learned a lot of history about Disney and what we were going to be doing, etc. We even got to take a mini field trip to the Magic Kingdom....it was about 10000 degrees outside that day...of course. That was also the day we got our name tags! Mickey Mouse, our boss, actually came in and gave them to us! I won't lie, it was pretty freaking awesome!

MK Orientation: Magic Kingdom Orientation was honestly the best orientation for a job that I"ve ever been to. We walked around Magic Kingdom all morning, and learned little quirks about the park, it was super cool. Then we got to ride Haunted Mansion AND Buzz Lightyear Ranger Spin. It was super awesome and I couldn't believe I was getting paid to ride rides MK, it was pretty sweet. Afterwards I got my training schedule for the rest of the week!

My job and as of recent: I won't go into all the details of my training because honestly it was pretty boring but cool. The first day I got to watch all the parades and the fireworks, it was awesome. I really love my location and for the most part all my co-workers are really nice. Basically what I do is check people in, make reservations, cancel reservations, take walk-ins, stock the side stations, do set-ups, set tables with silverware, seat people, and stand outside the door answering people's questions. So far I've been paid to jump rope, hopscotch, and color with kids, it's pretty sweet. Other than that on my days off we pretty much run errands adn pick which park we want to go explore, so far I've just been to Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom, and seen fantasmic.

Traditions and My First Week

Posted by Caitie at 7:47 PM Friday, June 15, 2012

So things have been so incredibly busy here at the busiest place on Earth, between training, eating, and sleeping there really isn't time for anything else! I haven't even had time to go to the parks for fun yet!

Mom, Dad, and I drove down here from Pitt and it seems like it took us forever to get here! But the drive was fun and gave me time to think about what I really want out of this experience. It was also really nice to spend some quality time with my parents. Even though I lived at home before I left between all our working schedules we never saw each other so it was nice to spend time with them.

We stopped in Pensacola the first night and heres some pictures from that!

We left Pensacola EARLY Sunday morning and made it to Tampa and had lunch with my mom's best friend from high school, Nancy and her daughter Dawn. They were both super nice and it was comforting to know that people are here if I ever need them. We checked into our hotel and we were all exhausted so we all fell asleep pretty fast. I woke up around 5:30 the next morning for check-in and to meet my roommates at Vista. We met up around 6:40 and got in line. Luckily they let us in around 7:20 and after it was all said and done we got a 3 bedroom at Patterson, it was that or a 2 bedroom at Vista, obviously Patterson was the better choice. We didn't get done with check-in and stuff till around 1 and afterwards we started moving stuff in. It was unbelievably hot that day, of course and was hell moving stuff up three flights of stairs, but well worth it! Here are some pictures from my first few days

As for now it's time for sleep. More later

Getting Ready to Leave

Posted by Caitie at 6:52 AM Tuesday, June 12, 2012

So I haven't updated in what feels like forever but things have been so incredibly busy!!!! Before I left for Disney I had my 21st birthday and had to say goodbye to all my besties. It was hard and sad but I'll see them again soon I'm sure!

For my 21st birthday Kels, Dylan, Lindsay, Shelbi and I ventured off to Broken Bow to float the river....it was not a lazy river for any of you who are wondering. After popping 4 out of 6 tubes, losing 4 out of 6 life jackets, and countless other personal items, I'd say it's safe to say we all won't be back out into the wilderness for quite a while. Kels and Lindsay got stuck on the river till about 11 that night and it was just all around a catastrophe. Shelbi and I had to share one tube and float the rest of the 2 miles down the river on that paddling with our flip-flops...anyways here are some pictures from my last few days at home.