Saturday, April 24, 2010

Cast Adventures

So yesterday was one of my days off. One of my roommates, Becca, and I decided to go over to the Cast Connections store and Property Control. They are right next to each other and right across from Disney University. Definitely 2 really awesome places. Basically Property Control is full of merchandise that is broken/defective/too specific to sell to guests. For example, I saw a lot of shirts that said "Joe's 25th Birthday Celebration". Obviously if they put that in a regular Disney store it would take forever to sell. But anyways, they have some good stuff in there. I got a picture frame for my sister for really cheap because it was kinda faded. Everything in there is 75% off for all cast members. You have to show your id to get in and then they swipe it when you pay. They have a little bit of everything: hats, sweatshirts, t-shirts, jewelry, sunglasses, toys, etc. Also they are constantly changing what they have, so I think I'm gonna go back in a couple weeks to see if I can find anything else I want.
Cast Connections is right next door and is also a cast discount store. Stuff is a little more expensive in there because they don't carry damaged goods. I think it's just a lot of leftover merchandise from the parks/Disney stores. Disney is constantly putting new t-shirts/sweatshirts/everything into their stores and the old stuff has to go somewhere. I'm pretty sure it sorta just ends up in cast stores.
Well after our cast discount shopping adventure, Becca and I were going to go to Blizzard Beach. Right now cast members can go to the water parks for free!! (Until June I think) Unfortunately, we got there and the park was full to capacity. Weird right? I don't think that park is very big. So we decided to go to Typhoon Lagoon instead. My other roommate Tara works at Blizzard so she was disappointed we couldn't come visit her. But we had fun at Typhoon. I hadn't been there since I was like 7 years old so it was cool to go back. My favorite slide was by far the Crush 'n' Gusher. But we also did the 3 raft rides they have, their lazy river, and the wave pool. I wanted to go snorkeling too, but by that time it was getting late in the day so we skipped it.
After that we went over to Vista Way to sign up for CP classes. I signed up for the Experiential Learning class because it sounded the most interesting. I was really disappointed that they weren't offering the Exploration Series classes. I really wanted to take the Marketing class because that would pertain to my major. Oh well.
Then we went home and had a family meal with Danica. It was kinda cute to sit around the table and eat real food. Well we had chicken, tator tots, and green beans :) That counts as a real meal.
And finally I ended the day with the Great Movie Ride and Fantasmic. That was a lot to fit into one day, but it worked :D
It's so easy to find something to do here at Disney, and it's even better when you have someone to go on adventures with you! (Not that I haven't gone to the parks by myself multiple times).
Well, I've got work in about an hour and a half, so I'll try to write later this week.
Have a magical day!

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Rain rain go away

So today it kinda rained. Yep........but rainy days are actually good to go to the parks on. I worked this morning until 145 and then was able to spend the rest of the afternoon at epcot with some cp buddies. :) What kinda sucked about my shift this morning (that started at 8) was that I had closed last night. So basically I got home at about midnight, got to sleep around 1, and had to get up for work at about 630. My roomie was sleeping when I got home and was still asleep when I left. I've been told by other cps that closing then opening shifts happen once in awhile and it's just something we gotta deal with. Oh well, sleep is overrated. I can sleep in tomorrow.

So a few days ago I got to spend the day over at animal kingdom with another cp friend that I work with. It was a lot of fun. We got to ride everest 3 times :) We also found jiminey cricket!! I was really excited because I had never seen that character anywhere in the parks before. He looked kinda lonely so we took a pic with him. I would put it up, but I don't have it :( Drew really needs to upload photos to facebook. Anyways, we pretty much did the entire animal kingdom park between 10:00 and 4:00, and we were done. The only thing we didn't do was the finding nemo show because we missed it by about 15 seconds. Seriously the people in front of us got into the show and we didn't. Oh well, I'll see it another day. After all, I do have about 4 1/2 more months here in Disney World.

That's all I have to report right now. I'm behind on laundry and grocery shopping right now. When you live in disney world, you tend to skip out on the boring everyday stuff you should do in order to go hang out in the parks and have fun :) My days off are thursday/friday so I'll be able to get caught up on stuff. Unless someone asks me to go to a park! :)

TTYL! :D

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Somewhere over the rainbow!

Hey people!! So, I haven't blogged in a few days.....sorry bout that. It's hard to make myself just sit down to write a couple paragraphs. I really want to blog a lot because it'll be cool to have a record of my stay here in Orlando, so I shall continue! :)
So now that Spring Break is over pretty much everywhere, the parks are now dead. Yep, I looked outside today in the middle of the afternoon and saw almost nobody. What do cps do when it's really slow and we're really really bored? Well we tend to talk to pretty much anybody and sing songs to the guests. :) It's what we do. I think at one point today there were 5 of us outside the restaurant singing/talking to guests.
Slow days are just that......slow! They seem to take twice as long as normal days. I literally felt like I was at work for 12 hours today when I was really just there for 7. Oh well, at least I was being paid for my time.
CP jobs at disney are never going to be glamorous, most of them are not going to be fun/enjoyable. As long as you realize that and try to have fun with the people around you then you'll survive your program. I don't think I would be able to survive if my fellow cps at the H&V weren't there. They definitely make work bearable and are always a huge help if I don't know what I'm doing. Which still kinda seems to happen a lot. Where do we sell banana milkshakes? I still have no idea!

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

I got my ears! :)

Well I was finally able to take that little red tag off my nametag that says "earning my ears", because I passed my assessment!! woohoo! I am now officially not training anymore. This means no more following people around and being babysat by other employees. Granted, I still know very little. Guests still ask questions and I have to run and ask somebody else before answering that question, but it sure is nice not to have someone breathing down your neck all day.

This week has been very tiring. Working 7 in a row.....not so much fun. But a couple of my roomies and I went to magic kingdom a couple nights ago after I got off work. It was so nice to go watch the spectromagic parade and WISHES!!! I always tear up during that fireworks show.

Happy Easter to everybody out there :) I was invited to an Easter party in another building which was a lot of fun. A couple of my roomies tagged along too. The girls who put it on went all out! They had 2 hams!!! Crazy right? We still have leftover ham in our fridge. It was really nice to go out and meet some more cps. It's been kinda hard to meet people since we've gotten here. We've all been working sooo much and there really haven't been any cp activities going on.

My family is coming to visit in a month!! yay! Well my mom and sister are coming to visit. My dad can't because of work. But anyways, I'm excited to see them. I already booked us at the Caribbean Beach with my disney discount :) It's awesome getting 50% off hotel rooms!

Well today I work from 4 to 11 which means I'll be closing....again. Closing really isn't that difficult, it's just kinda a long process. I got an overview of it last night so hopefully tonight will go well. I hope I don't have to do the ice cream machine.

Well I think that's it for now. My day off is on friday, and I think I'll do some laundry and go to the grocery store. Exciting right? Maybe I'll sneak over to Animal Kingdom at some point. I still haven't been over there since I got down here.

Talk to you later!! :)

Friday, April 2, 2010

The beginning of 7 straight work days!

Hello hello!!

Sorry it's been a few days since I've blogged. I had 2 days off which was really nice. The only problem was that everybody else was working the days I had off! So I went to wal-mart (the cp bus is really convenient) to get groceries and decided to go to epcot by myself. I have to say, going to a park by yourself is sooooo much better than just hanging out in an empty apartment. It was nice to just wander the park and watch all the crazy people that go to disneyworld!!! I got some delicious ice cream in the african section and watched the chinese acrobats' performance. Those little kids are amazing! If you haven't seen the show, GO SEE IT! They were flipping around and jumping through hoops and I just don't even know how they got their bodies in some of those positions. And yes, I'm talking about little kids. I know I couldn't do any of that at the age of 10.

I almost decided to stay for Illuminations, but I just wanted to get home and relax with my roommates. We had a very exciting trip to Marshall's for necessary clothes :) And Danica got to tell me all about being "friends with mickey" (winkwink). She's been so nervous since we got here, I think we all were. It seems that after about a week, everyone starts falling into a schedule and getting used to our different roles.

On my second day off, I slept in......a lot :) Gotta love getting out of bed at 11. I was going to do laundry, but I went down to buy a laundry card only to find out that I needed $5. This wouldn't have been a problem, except the machine wanted exactly a $5 bill. Not 5 ones or a ten, A $5 BILL. So I kinda just gave up on that and decided to go to hollywood studios for some.........hmmhmm......research :) I have to be very familiar with the park for my job, right? So I decided to go over there and wander around. Apparently, it's supposed to be really crazy crowded right now but it didn't seem too bad. Tower of terror (sign said 45min) seriously walked right into the library, amazing! Then I wandered over past the little mermaid (I don't really like the show they have) 5 minutes until the next show....ok......air conditioned and cool......sounded good to me. Then I wandered to the back of the park (toy story of course had a 2 hour line so skipped that one) and walked right into the muppets show. Then I waited 5 minutes for star tours and had some dinner at the backlot express while watching the jedi training show. Those little kids were so adorable!! Then I got into indie jones about 10 minutes before the show started. And finally, I ended the day like every day should end in the studios, in a trip through the movies on the Great Movie Ride! Overall, definitely a wonderful day, a lot of perfect timing and fun times.

Well today it was back to work. I got up at 530 and caught that 615 bus........yay. Got to work and finally got to meet with the manager who is actually organizing my training......finally. My first 2 days were pretty unorganized and today....well....it was still kinda unorganized. But guess what?! I finally learned all the table numbers!!!!! woohoo!! I'm one step closer to passing the dreaded assessment on monday. I got to meet a few more cps today at my work location! yay!! They were all really nice and helpful. I feel like the cps are definitely more willing to help me out than the full-timers that have been there 20 or 30 years. Fellow cps are a wealth of knowledge and can prove to be a wonderful source of information and guidance, always remember that. Also I think the cps make the work location more fun. People who are about 21/22 are definitely more into dancing with the characters and making work fun. I also got to chat with one of the cp character attendants too!

Overall it was another interesting day :) I'm so glad that I don't have to get up at 530 tomorrow!!! My shift doesn't start till 130 so I can sleep in. I think I'm gonna learn the closing procedures and the dinner setup.

Well I appreciate anybody who's reading this. And thank you to Jenn for giving me my first comment!!! I was so excited to see that somebody is reading and enjoying this :) If any of you readers have any questions for me or just want to say hi please leave me a comment below.

Talk to you later!!