Week Five: Service Dogs on Dumbo & Days Off!!

I actually wrote notes on my phone for this week so I could remember what I did! Yay!

February 20th (Monday): I worked from 4:30pm - 11:45pm which was nice to have the morning to sleep in! I went to Walmart in the morning before heading to work. Work was good, I was mostly on Dumbo but we had the FUNNIEST service dog interaction! So on Dumbo, service dogs can ride as long as they are in a body carrier thing, or lying on the floor of Dumbo and we had a lady with a service dog chihuahua in a chest carrier. The dog was facing forward like a baby and was wearing Mickey ears, tennis shoes, and a shirt. And when the lady, her husband, and their dog were in the air they were holding the dogs arms up in the air hahahaha. After they landed they told us the dog loved it and had the dog wave at us, best thing ever.

February 21st (Tuesday): I went to Trader Joe's and Publix with my roommate Alexa before work to pick up a few things I forgot the day before, then worked from 3:45pm - 11:45pm. I worked Barn and Dumbo pretty 50/50 but I had a super cute couple wearing an "I'm Celebrating" pin. When I asked them what they were celebrating, they said they were on their first date!! Super cute :) The day was good, I got to watch the fireworks from my location which is always a plus.

February 22nd (Wednesday): I had my class from 9am - 11am and we talked about marketing tactics and strategies. Again, pretty dry, but good information. I was off Wednesday (FINALLY) and went to Disney Springs with Corey where we got to try out Disney Quest! Disney Quest is closing for good in like June or July so it's free for CM's until then. It's basically a 5 story interactive game room. So there are some simulator attractions, video games, and other similar style attractions. We did an interactive jungle cruise, pirate ship where we shoot things, Aladdin themed race thing, build your own rollercoaster, and a few other things. The highlight for sure was the rollercoaster simulator where you build your coaster on a screen similar to Test Track. You can pick from a bunch of different moves (like barrel roll, banked S-turn, corkscrew, etc.) and string them together until you fill up the track. Then you scan your card and go to the actual simulator, scan it again, and go through your simulation! Super fun. There's 5 different intensity levels and ours was a level 3. After Quest we went to Magic Kingdom but it was a TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR. Holy rain. Thankfully I brought my rain gear so I was set but we still got pretty soaked. Alexa met up with Corey and I and we did Monster Inc. Laugh Floor (but the audio cut out halfway through so we had to exit early), Carousel of Progress, Little Mermaid, Mine Train, Space Mountain, and Splash Mountain (since we were already soaked). Once I upload the photos I'll insert them here. And I got a yummy waffle sandwich from Sleepy Hollow. Then I went home and did laundry.

February 23rd (Thursday): I was also off today! Mariam, Alyssa, and I all went to Universal and did all the crazy rollercoasters! We did Mummy, Rip Ride Rockit, Men in Black, went to the Leaky Cauldron for lunch, did the Hulk, both Dragon Challenge coasters (red is better), the Hogwarts castle ride, went to Honeydukes, watched the Sinbad stunt show, ate at Mythos for lunch/dinner, and ended outside Islands of Adventure at the Chocolate Emporium! It's a new restaurant thing that has a merch shop, milkshake bar, and restaurant. We went for the milkshakes which were super yummy. They were pricey at like $12 but were those over the top style milkshakes with souvenir mugs/glasses. I got marshmallow dream or something that was like a rice krispie treat.

February 24th (Friday): I worked 10am - 9:25pm and we had the crankiest guests this day. The park was busy and everyone was just so mad. I had one guest on Dumbo that was with his family of like 7, but they only wanted 3 Dumbos, so they got 3 boarding passes. Once they got on though, they decided they needed 4, so one family didn't have a Dumbo. Well I asked the dad to move since he was supposed to sit with his wife and baby, he through a fit, then moved. My coworker Allison then asked for their boarding pass and checked the seatbelt and the wife moves to stand up to look for it, and the husband says "this is ridiculous, I should sue, I've had to get up 7 times now" and throws another fit. Well we finally get the ride going and after the ride the man comes up to me and tells me he had to move 8 times and the customer service was horrible and blah blah blah so I just apologized over and over, like what else am I supposed to do haha. Same day new guest: a lady wants to take her baby on the ride over the fence and I tell her we can't pass people over the fence or load from the exit, and the grandparents go complain and take down a bunch of our names to complain to Guest Relations. BUT on the bright side I got to see my old DCP roommate Mikaela who's here for the week with her family :)

February 25th (Saturday): Saturday was okay, better than Friday but still some cranky guests. For the first time in my life I was accused of being racist because I told a family if they wanted to ride I'd have to measure their little daughter first. The wife looks at me and is like "it's because of him, isn't it?" and points to her husband and I'm like "oh no, we have a height requirement so we have to measure all little ones!" and she just looks at me and walks away. Still not sure how I came off as racist but that was a new one. Oh and I worked 3:45pm - 11:45pm.

February 26th (Sunday): I worked 3:45pm - 11:45pm and it was a good day! We were super backed up at Barnstormer because the girl at grouper couldn't keep up, but when I rotated into grouper after her I was super efficient and my coordinator noticed and said something, so that was nice to hear. I worked Barn and Dumbo 50/50 again but it was a good day and we closed super fast which is always nice!

That's it for this week! On my days off this coming week I'll go to a park Wednesday after class (last one!) and probably Blizzard Beach on Thursday for some water fun. Then next week some friends from home will be here so I'll go to the beach with them and to Universal :)

Week Four: WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK

Helloooooo humans! Weekly update: I worked every day but last Monday (it's now Monday the 20th), and work until Wednesday, so I think that's eight days in a row.

February 13th (Monday): This was my other day off. Unfortunately, both Sunday and Monday only I was off (literally not another soul had these days) so I didn't do a whole lot. I slept in then headed over to Epcot for a few hours. At Epcot I basically wandered aimlessly around the World Showcase. I got a snack in France that was basically an ice cream sandwich made with caramel ice cream and caramel sauce on a brioche roll thing. So they but it on a little grill thing, the end result being toasty on the outside and ice cream on the inside! So that was fun and yummy. I sat in France for a while and read my Kindle while eating my snack, then later headed to the Electric Umbrella for lunch/dinner and got my classic kids chicken nugget meal. I also went to Club Cool for a few soda samples, rode Soarin' with a FastPass and went home! Not super exciting.

February 14th (Tuesday): I worked from 8:30am - 8:45pm and don't remember anything particularly exciting happening. All my days just kind of blur together, especially with me working so many this week! My shift was long enough that I had one unpaid lunch, and three paid 15-minute breaks.

February 15th (Wednesday): My shift was 4:30pm - 10:45pm, a super weirdly short six hour shift. I had my class in the morning which was good, not particularly thrilling but included a lot of good information about their marketing department that could be used in an interview. I went back home after class got out at 11am and took a two hour nap before heading out to work! Work was super easy because by 4:30pm most of the crowds have died down, and by 10:45pm it's completely dead.

February 16th (Thursday): I worked 11am - 8:15pm and mostly worked at Dumbo. I also got a little card for answering a safety auditors questions correctly. In attractions we have safety auditors come around pretty frequently to observe us and ask questions pertaining to safety to ensure we're operating safely. He asked me two super easy questions about what to do if a kid was too short, and what to do if a kid was too young to ride by him/herself.

February 17th (Friday): I worked from 10am - 9:15pm. Work was fine, but I got off in time to watch Wishes from backstage, so after I clocked out (we can clock out 12 minutes early since we have to take a short bus to get to work) I stood by the bus stop and watched the fireworks! They set the fireworks off SUPER close to the backside of Circus/Mermaid areas so they literally fill up the entire sky and it's super incredible. It also sounds like bombs going off. So I enjoyed the fireworks :)

February 18th (Saturday): I worked 4:15pm - 12:45am and Magic Kingdom was PACKED. We had 72,000 guests in the park since it was President's Day Weekend. We had lots of cranky guests as you always do with large crowds, and that sucks, but that's life at Disney. I was at Ringmaster FOREVER (inside the Dumbo tent where you hand pagers out to guests for the play area, it's part of the standby queue when it's busy) and that sucks because 1) adults hate that they are required to wait in there until their pager goes off, even though they're waiting the same amount of time and they can sit down in the air conditioning and 2) it is SO HARD to explain to guests who don't speak English what the purpose is. We have a sheet that explains the process in Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German, but they still get confused. So I had a few guests tell me they were so disappointed in Disney, and their vacation has been terrible, and blah blah blah. So you just smile and move on haha. The good guests BY FAR outweigh the bad guests, which is great. Also just about all my favorite coworkers closed with me so that was super fun.

February 19th (Sunday): I worked 2:45pm - 12:45am and even though it was still very busy, I had much better guests. I worked Barnstormer and Dumbo pretty 50/50 but got to chat with some awesome families. I also had a little girl come up and hug me and it was SO CUTE. Although I did have this one family that was terrible and out of control. I was working at grouper on Barn (where you tell people what rows to sit in) and had like five kids probably 10-14 or something in ages and ask them how many and they say they're waiting for their mom, so I tell them to step the side and wait for mom to catch up. Then they point and say "oh she's right there, coming up the line, if these stupid people would just move over and let her through" and start yelling at the other guests to move. So mom joins and I ask if they're together and they say yes, so I put the six of them in three row and continue grouping. Well another couple comes out of nowhere to join the family of six, and when the gates open they literally flood the station and steal other people's rows and are basically a menace. So Xavier who was on main panel ("lift up on that lap bar please" person) tells them to all turn around and go back through the gates. So they are all super rude about it and I had to shuffle people around so the awful group of eight can sit together. Oh, and I had a group of 10 that wanted to wait for the front row which is also dreadful. But it was great aside from that haha.

February 20th (Monday, today): I traded with my coworker to work later so I'm working 4:30pm - 11:45pm. I went to Walmart today and spent way more than I needed to, actually cooked real food for lunch, and am now about to get ready for work!!

Also got my schedule for next week and I was originally scheduled 46 paid hours but was able to trade around a few shifts so I'm worked closer to 40 paid hours, all evening. Yay! Inspections are happening starting today and go through March 4th or something, so we cleaned up the apartment a little bit. Also I'm off Wednesday and Thursday this week! So I'm going to the parks with Alexa on Wednesday, and Universal with Mariam and Alyssa on Thursday. PUMPED :)

Week Three: Earning My Ears, Days Off, and First Marketing Seminar!

This week was my first full week of working. I had 8.5 hour training shifts Sunday, Monday, and Thursday, my assessment Friday, and my first day of work on my own yesterday (Saturday). And I was off Tuesday and Wednesday!

February 5th (Sunday): I had day 3 of training, opening Dumbo. So I had another 6:45am - 3:15pm shift. Basically we learned that Dumbo is WAY easier (for the most part) than Barnstormer and is a pretty simple attraction to run. So this day was nice and stress-free. :)

February 6th (Monday): This was day 4 of training, closing Dumbo! We worked from 1:30pm - 10pm, and it was another easy shift. Anything late at night is super easy because no one is really riding either of our attractions at night - they're all over at Space Mountain or something like that. Especially since ours are geared toward small children, a lot of kids go to their hotels after Wishes.

February 7th (Tuesday): I got to go to Universal!! Finally! But we didn't go until 2:30pm, so I spent the morning in Hollywood Studios with my roommate Mariam, then later met up with my other roommate Alexa. Mariam and I rode the Great Movie Ride, did some shopping, and watched the Frozen show! IT WAS SERIOUSLY SO GOOD GUYS. Like, the kids love it for the sing-a-long part, and the adults love it because it's basically stand-up comedy, similar to the role of the genie at the Aladdin show in Disneyland. So it was really funny, both of us loved it. Then Alexa met up with us and we got lunch, and that's pretty much it. Wait times were horrendous when we first got there so we didn't get the chance to do Rockin' Rollercoaster or Tower of Terror. I went with my friend Melissa, who I met on my orientation days. She works Fantasyland West at Philharmagic, the Carousel, and Princess Fairytale Hall. Even though she has three attractions, she only had three days of training because they're all pretty simple!! So anyway, we went with four of her roommates, and one of their friends, and adventured through both parks. Honestly the longest line I waited in all day was the line to buy my annual pass at the ticket booth, it took like 45 minutes and was super annoying. But we rode the Mummy, Minions, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, Gringotts, King Kong...and I think that's it. Also literally every single Universal ride splashes water at you and uses 4D technology. Side note. Wait times were like 20 minutes or shorter all across the park. We also got butterbeer (duh) and I got candy from Honeydukes!!

February 8th (Wednesday): On this day off I had my first Marketing & Sales seminar!! It's a four week course that includes no homework, yay! I think it'll be interesting, but I'm most excited for the last session where we get to interact with a panel of leaders from marketing departments across property. So I have that every Wednesday (for four weeks) from 9am-11am at Chatham. After that I went to Cast Connections with Mariam and Alexa, and we bought some awesome Disney merch for super cheap! Basically the big part of the store is set up like a warehouse/retail shop where everything is organized and for sale, but no displays are set up. The whole store is on sale for Cast Members, and you can bring non-CM's in with you. So from this store I got a Star Wars shirt for like $8. There's an awesome side store that has old or damaged or returned merchandise, and everything is 75% off. ONLY Cast Members are allowed in this side room. So from there I bought a giant, 2XL BB-8 shirt to sleep in for $5. Anyhoo, we went from there to Epcot and spent the day in Epcot! We got Fastpasses for Test Track and Living with the Land, and rode those, Frozen, Figment, Soarin', and Nemo. We also got lunch at Mexico, a snack in Germany, tried the sodas at Club Cool, and checked out some shops! Brooklyn met up with us at one point in the day, then we all headed to Animal Kingdom Lodge and met Alyssa for dinner!! We made reservations for Boma because we got 40% off there, and got lost trying to find it. There are two main buildings for AKL, and we picked the wrong one at first. Whoops! Anyway, Boma is African-style food, and is a GIANT buffet. So I naturally got three plates and two bowls of food. I got some chicken, steak with sauce, spiced sweet potatoes, peanut rice (SO GOOD), bobotie (a type of casserole thing), macaroni and cheese from the kids corner, veggies, applesauce, fruit, pasta salad, grapefruit/avocado/papaya salad (I got like three helpings), salmon, plantain chips, guava panna cotta, cookies and cream mini cheesecake bites, and ZEBRA DOMES. Zebra domes are these magical desserts that everyone needs to try, we all LOVED them holy wow. Also we got bottomless fountain drinks (including Shirley Temples!). So yes, delicious delicious day.

February 9th (Thursday): Last day of training! We closed Barnstormer and worked from 3:30pm - midnight. Closing is much easier than opening, and working Barn that late is SUPER easy. It was Disney After Hours which is where like 1,500 or 2,000 guests can pay extra to have the park to themselves from 8pm - 11pm. Well. Those people aren't paying extra to ride Barnstormer late at night. So we had one family actually ride it like seven times in a row or something because we can do re-rides if there is no one else in line and they don't get out to exit. So yeah, super easy.

February 10th (Friday): Assessment day! Tamara and I had our assessment with Liz, and we both passed. Our assessment included two 100+ questions exams, multiple choice, one for each attraction. Then we went out and talked about then physically performed every part of the rotation. So that was from 11am - 7:30pm. Pretty easy, not as scary and we thought it was going to be!

February 11th (Saturday): My first shift without the "Earning My Ears" tag! I worked from 9:15am - 6:45pm and mostly worked over at Dumbo. I had to deal with two children peeing on the play area, and one child who thought she was lost. Always an adventure in there. Also spent a little bit of time at Barn doing FastPass greeter and Merge, but Barn went down for maintenance issues and so half that time was me standing outside and informing guests. Luckily, if you have a FastPass when the ride goes down, you can use that FP at any other attraction in your time window! Except Peter Pan or Mine Train. Or you can come back later in the day and your FP is still good. After work I changed and went into the park to watch Once Upon A Time and Wishes! Celebrate the Magic is so much better than Once Upon A Time, just saying...and even though I LOVE Wishes, I'm excited to see the new firework show in May! Also Rivers of Light is finally a thing, so I'm excited for that in the next couple of weeks. I got a cinnamon roll (BRICK) from Gaston's Tavern, and I much prefer the old recipe. So next time I'll just stick to Lefou's Brew :) Otherwise I just walked around until Wishes at 9pm! Then the monorail was crazy busy, and the bus wasn't set to get to the Contemporary for like 30 minutes, so I hopped on a bus to Wilderness Lodge and took the CP bus from there.

February 12th (TODAY! SUNDAY! DAY OFF!): Right now I'm sitting in bed, drinking my breakfast smoothie and waiting for laundry to be done. Then I'm going to do some quick Walmart errands, then go to DAK! Cory has his assessment today so hopefully I can run into him and cheer him on ;) I plan on basically just watching some shows, maybe single ride on Everest, walking around the animal areas, then going to Epcot for eating! Yay! Maybe I'll make a FP, who knows. Unfortunately, literally no one has Sunday or Monday off so I'm on my own! That's okay though :) I'll probably go to MK or Epcot tomorrow then I work the next eight days! Work schedule until next day off is as follows:

2/14: 8:30am - 8:45pm
2/15: 4:30pm - 10:45pm
2/16: 11am - 8:15pm
2/17: 10am - 9:15pm
2/18: 4:15pm - 12:45am
2/19: 2:45pm - 12:45am
2/20: 9am - 8:15pm
2/21: 10am - 8:30pm
2/22: OFF
2/23: OFF
2/24: 10am - 9:15pm
2/25: 3:45pm - 11:45pm

I think it's close to 48 hours next week? Anyhoo, see ya next time!

Week Two: Magic Kingdom Orientation, Training, and Days Off!!!

So here's a giant compilation of my first week after Traditions!!!

January 29th (Sunday, the day after Traditions): So this day I went to Epcot by myself, then Lindsey and Alyssa met up with me. We walked around the World Showcase, walked through the aquarium outside of Finding Nemo, did Soarin' Around the World (OMG SO GOOD), rode Figment, did the little show right next to Figment that's three Disney short films, and rode Frozen!! Super fun, and I hadn't ridden any of those attractions so that's super cool.

Then we headed over to Hollywood Studios where we met Moana, rode Toy Story Midway Mania (literally shortest I've ever seen the wait time at 20 minutes), rode the Great Movie Ride, and watched the Star Wars fireworks!! Those were super amazing. Anyway we went home after, but it was an awesome and full first day in the parks!! I think I got like 20,000 steps in.

January 30th: Monday I went to Animal Kingdom with my roommate Brooklyn and our other roommate Mariam met up with us. Brooklyn had never been to DAK so it was super fun to experience that with her :) We rode Kilimanjaro Safari, Expedition Everest, Dinosaur, and watched Festival of the Lion King. 

After DAK we went to Magic Kingdom to watch Wishes and get dinner!! I have my roommates hooked on kid's chicken nugget meals ;) We also went and met Rapunzel and Tiana and rode Journey of the Little Mermaid.

January 31st: I had Welcome to Operations today which was horrendously boring. You basically sit in a classroom at Disney University and learn how to be safe and utilize the four keys. But I had that from 7:30am - 2pm. After class I basically went home and did laundry and all that good stuff.

February 1st: I had my Once Upon A Time Is Now class which is pretty much Magic Kingdom orientation!! I worked from 7:15am - 4pm. In the morning we took a giant guided tour of the Magic Kingdom and the tunnels with new CPs working in all lines of business. We got to ride the People Mover and were supposed to ride Haunted Mansion, but it was down :( After that we broke for lunch and grouped up by role and location! So I was in a group with Fantasyland attractions. They immediately gave us our exact attraction assignments and training schedules, and I'm working Storybook Circus! So that includes Dumbo and Barnstormer. Of our group there were 4 working Storybook Circus. maybe 6 working Philharmagic/Princess Fairytale Hall/Carousel, 4 working Pooh/Teacups, 4 working Peter Pan/Small World, and 1 working Mine Train. And maybe one at Mermaid. So they must not have had a need for many CPs at Mermaid or Mine Train. After we found that out we went on another walking tour specifically of Fantasyland and all the important places we should know such as offices, AED locations, etc. We also got to ride (via FastPass) Little Mermaid, Mine Train, and Small World! And perhaps most exciting...we got our costumes!!! I'll post a picture once I had one, but Circus is pretty cute.

February 2nd: This day I worked from 8am - 4:30pm and it was pretty much a continuation of the day before. A lot of Fantasyland and attractions information, and some classroom training!! We also got to meet one of our leaders, Sarah, who was awesome.

February 3rd: First day in costume!! I worked from 5:45am (yes I was up at FOUR IN THE MORNING UGH) - 2:15pm and it was day 1 of on the job training. The four other Circus girls and I met our trainers, and started learning how to open Barnstormer in the morning! We had two trainers between the four of us, and luckily I got paired with the coolest trainer and the coolest other girl haha. I trained alongside Tamara, and our trainer is named Jeff. Basically we all have so much sass it's ridiculous and everything is a blast. Well anyhoo, we powered up Barnstormer (we're going to call it Barn) and that was a 45 minute ordeal that includes a lot of manual power up stuff. Part of that included walking to the top of the lift (hill) and checking the safety gate!! Super cool because it was sunrise and we had a great view, but terrifying if you're scared of heights (like Jeff). The rest of the day we did some reading of the operations guide/manual, and did some of the easy positions like greeter. Greeter is the person at standby who measures heights and answers questions! We also did grouper which is the "hi how many? Rows 1 and 2 please" person. This is more stressful because it's a bunch of mental math to fill the plane, and you only have about 45 seconds to do so. I loved it because it made time fly! Then after work I went to Magic Kingdom and brought my nice camera with me to play around. Then my roommate Alyssa met me there and we basically ate dinner, rode Winnie the Pooh, and watched Once Upon A Time (the new castle light show). I got a nutella waffle with strawberries and bananas from Sleepy Hollow and it's actually SO GOOD. Wow.

February 4th: I worked from 6:45am - 3:15pm and had day 2 of training! We opened Barn again but did some different roles. We did grouper again, and worked merge, which is the person who combines the FastPass and standby lines. This was pretty easy, but you have to mentally do ratios of standby to FastPass. We also learned how to work main console (main) which is the person who pushes the buttons to make the ride go (the bigger stand) and also checks half the plane for the lap bar! Then we went out and did it, which was pretty easy but there's an overwhelming number of buttons haha. And that was pretty much it for the day!! After work I headed over to Hollywood Studios to meet up with Cory and we did Tower of Terror, Great Movie Ride, Star Tours, ate dinner at Backlot (where all my old coworkers from Studio Catering Co. transferred to), and watched the Star Wars fireworks! Cory hadn't seen the fireworks before so it was the most adorable thing ever to watch his reaction.

February 5th: Today I worked from 6:45am - 3:15pm again, and this time we opened Dumbo! Dumbo is so much easier than Barn, so it was a very stress-free day. We did grouper at Dumbo, which is basically counting people and fitting them into one of the 16 elephants, greeter, main, and remote. Remote is the smaller panel thing with buttons, and you need both remote AND main to power up the ride. So pretty much we checked seat belts, pushed a button that lets it go after main presses theirs, and read a spiel. Now I'm home, I just ate dinner and did laundry! And I think I'm going to jump over to Walmart.

That was my week!! I'm going to try get into a weekly posting schedule and basically do what I just did and recap. Tomorrow we close Dumbo so I get to FINALLY sleep in! YAY!!! I worked 38 hours this past week, am scheduled for 41 this week, and 46 next week. Those hours don't include our half hour unpaid lunch, so realistically add a few hours on top of that for "hours spent at work" haha. I mostly have closing and midday shifts, no openers! No surprise there. I do have my first 12 hour shift next Tuesday though - 8:30am - 8:45pm. Woah. I'm also off Tuesday/Wednesday this week, and Sunday/Monday next week. That's it for now! HAVE AN AWESOME DAY.