Living the Dream, My 6 months at Disney: June 2012

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.