Sunday, August 26, 2012

Traditions and First Days of Work

Well....these past few days have felt like seven years. I'm am seriously on information overload and I couldn't be more excited. I'm sorry I've been slacking on this, but once I describe everything that's happened so far, you'll understand.

On Wednesday when I woke up, I found out that my roommate, the one I was sharing a room with had to leave the program due to some sort of complication, so after a heartfelt goodbye, my roommate Alex and I went to the welcome event, which was Alice in Wonderland themed. They had tea, chick-fl-a, and biscuits. An odd combination, but totally fitting for the tea party theme. We stood in line to take pictures with Alice and Hatter, but every time we got to the front of the line, they switched off with Mary Poppins and Penguin. So, we only got pictures with them by the time we left the party. (My roommate has the pictures, so I'll upload them later.)

After that we went to Universal Studios for my first time ever and I got to see Harry Potter world and ride all of the rides there. (The Dragon Challenge was my favorite. The red dragon is the best one. Just sayin.) But I have to say that the Forbidden Journey was pretty much the coolest (and scariest) ride I've ever seen. It's so different than anything I've ever experienced and the dragon shooting "fire" in my face along with the giant ass spiders that attack you was pretty much the only reason I didn't immediately ride it again.  I can't even properly explain how much I enjoyed that ride, both the experience and the honest appreciation of the engineering of the ride. Anyway, enough of my inner nerd.

On Thursday we had TRADITIONS! I can't exactly go into much detail about it, because there isn't enough TO describe honestly. I know I hated it when people said it's "something you have to experience yourself" but really, it truly is. Yes, its four hours, but it was FUN. There was only one section that kinda put me to sleep, but they get that out of the way very quickly. Everything from then on is pretty exciting! But long day short, I became an official cast member! I got my first day of training schedule and I had a park orientation the next day. But since we finally got our Cast IDs, my roommates and I decided to celebrate by going to Studios to see Fantasmic! for the first time. Alex and I had never seen it before, but Daurie had, and let me just say that I was BLOWN AWAY by how cool everything was. My mouth was open pretty much the whole time in complete and utter awe. When Steamboat Willie came in, I FREAKED out I was so excited.  (Cause he's my faaaaaaaaavorite.)

So Friday was park orientation where we pretty much walked ALL of Hollywood Studios. We learned about the different attractions, where and what the themed restaurants were, where restrooms are, basic park ops. Then we were taken to a classroom where we were split up and we found out where exactly we were working. I am pleased and SUPER excited to announce that I am working.... Great Movie Ride!


I am seriously BEYOND excited about this. I get to be a tour guide on GMR and I get to put all of my wonderful theater experience to use! I got my training schedule and then I had the day off on Saturday, where I played in Studios and Magic Kingdom.

Today I had my first day of on the job training, and I have pretty much a 40 page script to memorize with different shows and different line options. Along with learning how to drive the car, and all of the land positions. (Land positions meaning "loader," "greeter," "head usher," etc.) Today was more of an overview of EVERYTHING GMR entails, so my brain is a little on information overload, as I've said before, and the rest of my training is going to be more in-depth. (I'm excited!)

 My costume is...interesting, but it's not terrible. I like it enough and I'll post pictures at another time. For right now I'm going to go to sleep because I have to wake up at 3:30 in the morning to get the bus to Studios that will get me there by 6:30 AM. I'll learn how to open the ride and drive the car tomorrow! Yippie! Brb, sleeping.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Check-In Excitement!

Okay, so now that I'm not completely exhausted out of my mind anymore, I feel that it is time to update everyone on check-in!

Check-in line around 7:00
(this was BEHIND us.)
My roommates and I got to Vista around 3:30 AM and we weren't the first people in line. There were roughly 30 people in front of us by that point. Apparently the first person got there around 2:00 AM (which was CRAZY.) We then proceeded to wait on the sidewalk in front of Vista until 7:30 when they finally let us in! We then received a notebook with all of the super important information that any CPer would need to know. It's basically like a planner you would get from your school...but a lot more pages.

After we got that we walked into a room where we met up with a very nice lady who assigned us to our room. Luckily we got EXACTLY what we wanted, a two-bedroom in Chatham. We were on the third floor, which was SUPER fun when we all had to unpack our very heavily packed suitcases...BUT I'M STILL SUPER HAPPY. Side note: Apparently after the Fall program, it is the last time where you'll be able to choose where you live. From Spring on, you'll be assigned to your apartment complex. 

Mural  in the hall of
Casting building
We then got our apartment keys and took pictures for our housing ID which were printed right there in the room. After that we got on a bus to CASTING! Stopping to take the much needed picture of the doors, we proceeded to wait in the really pretty room with all of the statues. That was where I found out that I'll be working in Hollywood Studios Icon Attractions. I was SO excited for Hollywood Studios, but I wasn't sure what "Icon Attractions" consisted of. So, when I asked, I was informed that I could possibly be working Great Movie Ride, Star Tours or any other attraction to the left of the Sorcerer's hat. So, imagine my excitement when I realized that the Great Movie Ride was a spieling ride! I could possibly have to memorize stuff! And Star Tours? Dude. I'm a nerd, I love me some Star Wars.

After that excitement, we had to do fingerprinting and stuff and a bunch of kinda boring stuff. Then I received my time for Traditions on Thursday, I got the second session (I believe that they're alphabetical, so since my last name is in the second half of the alphabet, I got the second session. Along with all of my roommates.) Then I received my first training schedule! I have my orientation to Hollywood Studios on Friday. Then my visit with casting was complete.

ROGER RABBIT!
Since my stomach was threatening to cause me harm if I didn't feed it, we made a quick pit stop for food before we proceeded to Chatham. Then I got to unpack all of my extremely heavy stuff up three flights of stairs and unpack and organize everything in my room. Our apartment is HUGE. Honestly. HUGE. There is so much room that we don't know exactly what to do with everything. But there were a lot of things that were DIRTY. I was pretty much cleaning everything in the bathroom twice before I could possibly use it. The bathtub had some mysterious yellow stain that I'm not even going to wonder what it was, because I don't WANT to know.
My bed. :)

But the end result was well worth it! I love my room! It's so DARN CUTE. Also, my roommate Brandi is the best. As a welcome gift to me, I got a Mad Hatter Pook-A-Looz doll. I LOVE the pook-a-looz dolls, SO MUCH. (As you can tell by my bed.) I drew all of my roomies a picture of their favorite characters for my gift. :) That was fun. After I went to dinner with my parents, I pretty much just passed out asleep. Brandi and I tried to watch Alice in Wonderland, but I was so tired, I didn't even make it past the first Absolem scene.

Today we got to sleep in for a little while before we walked to The Commons (the International students complex) where we had our housing meeting. It pretty much just explains all of the rules of the complexes and tells you who to go to when you need certain things. But the beginning was super fun, we walked in and there were laser lights, a disco ball and loud music playing and it was an exciting start to an hour long meeting. :)

Tonight, my roommates and I might be making a stop at Walmart before heading over to the Polynesian resort and watching Wishes from there. Then tomorrow is an Alice in Wonderland welcoming event! I'm so excited! I'm going to take like, a bajillion pictures with the Mad Hatter. I <3 him, SO MUCH. Then it's a roommate adventure to Universal Studios to finally hit up Harry Potter world and the Marvel Superhero island! (Can anyone say AVENGERS MERCHANDISE?!)

Friday, August 17, 2012

Late Post is Late.



image
Okay, so I haven't had a lot to update in a while because I was just really playing the waiting game until it was time to leave for Orlando. Now here I am, the night before I leave for four and a half months on the adventure of a lifetime and I'm STILL not done packing. So forgive me if this post seems....scatter-brained.

I'm scared to DEATH that I'm going to forget something important. At the same time, I have a BUNCH of stuff. I'm worrying if I brought to much (which is the most likely of cases) or if I brought the bare minimum. I also wonder if I'm going to be on say the...THIRD floor of the apartment complex and I have to bring ALL of this up the stairs. (There is NO elevator in the apartment complexes.)

I've been running around packing things and then suddenly remembering that I have to bring this or that and I still have to run to Walmart or something along those lines. Speaking of which....I need to pack up the board games I said I was going to bring....crap.

Okay! Time to catch up on things.

This past Sunday my parents through me a going away party which ended up turning into a giant photo shoot, because none of my friends are really picture-takers. I'm the one with the camera, so if pictures ARE taken, well...I'm usually not in them. Which would be a problem. But I had a lot of fun and I'm going to miss everyone SO MUCH, but at the same time....Dude. I'm going to be in DISNEY WORLD. But my scatter-brained thoughts are getting ahead of me.

Tomorrow I'll be driving down to Orlando where we'll be staying in a hotel close to Vista Way, which is where the check-in will be. My future roommates and I are going to have dinner on Sunday and then we're pretty much going to be camping out in front of Vista Way at 3:00-3:30 AM to hopefully make sure that we get a two-bedroom apartment at Chatham, because we've been reading on other blogs that people haven't been getting them. (Apparently Chatham is popular. lol)

I don't have a lot to really update here, but I was long overdue for one. My next update will be about check-in and my adventures at Casting! I'll be able to find out (and post) where I'll be working! Yay! See you soon!