Week Fifty-Two: Crying and Flying

Week fifty-two. Can you believe it?! The day I left for Florida (January 17, 2017) is the exact same date I would leave Florida and come back home (January 17, 2018). Wow. A full year of blogging and can I just say how proud I am of myself? That's some serious commitment!! So here goes, my last weekly blog of my Disney College Program. And a short one too.

January 15th (Monday): Monday I went to Fort Wilderness with my circus friends and stayed in a cabin. SUPER fun time, the cabin sleeps six, so six of us stayed the night and another three came for the evening. We went in the (nicely heated) pool and hot tub, had a cookout dinner, roasted marshmallows, played board games, and participated in a murder mystery game designed by our very own Peter. Always a good time with the crew.

January 16th (Tuesday): After breakfast burritos (made by Peter of course), most of us went off to Universal for the day, and were joined by a few other friends. It was my last Universal day, so we tried to do everything. Luckily it was super dead, so it was easy to get things done!! We did Gringotts, Mummy, Jurassic Park, E.T., Men in Black, the Hogwarts ride, Hulk, Spiderman, and the Simpson Dumbo ride. We also got Butterbeer ice cream and took some lovely photos.

Then we went back to Michaelene's house and watched She's the Man and drank tea! And finally, the worst part, saying goodbye to everybody. As soon as I started walking down the stairs to start saying goodbye I LOST it. And of course Jenna was first, and she was probably the hardest goodbye. So we're both crying, then I have to say goodbye to Katie, then Jason, then Chris, then Alex, and finally Peter. This is a big deal for me, because I HATE crying in front of people, and have never cried saying goodbye to anyone in front of their faces. Not my family, not my college friends, just these guys. So that shows how much I genuinely love and care about my Florida family. I'm going to miss them SO much. Then comes the boring part, I packed up Michaelene's car for the morning airport trip, took a shower (cried some more), and went to bed.

January 17th (Wednesday): Michaelene and I left at 7am for the airport, said our goodbyes (surprisingly no tears, but I think she's going to visit me in March!). I got through security and check-in with no overweight bag fees (BLESS) and was on my merry way. I had a short layover in Atlanta, Georgia, where it was 18 degrees with snow on the ground (wtf Atlanta you're supposed to be mild) then another layover in St. Louis where I would have missed my flight due to being delayed out of Atlanta but they held all connecting flights. That flight was nice because it was half full, so super roomy out to Seattle! I got to work on my end of the year video (see link below).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPZD00gjB6o&t=12s

And now I'm home (indefinitely). I plan on making more blog posts about my experience and what I've learned as I settle back in here, but for the meantime, just know that I'm happy to be home but a little bit heartbroken at leaving my Florida family.

That's a wrap on my year-long Disney College Program!! It's never a goodbye, but always a see ya real soon. And since I'm a sucker for cheesy Disney lines and that archaic but somehow still wonderful Epcot ride, in the words of Spaceship Earth: "The End. Or should I say the beginning...of your future" ;)

Week Fifty-One: Bahamas Cruise!

I went on a cruise with Martia, our last week rooming together :'( We found a 4-night Bahamas cruise with Royal Caribbean out of Port Canaveral for $360 each including taxes. We had a stop in Cococay and a stop in Nassau, with a day at sea.

January 8th (Monday): I dropped my car off to be picked up by the car shipping guy, then Martia and I headed to Port Canaveral! We set sail around 4pm and we spent the afternoon/evening exploring the ship before dinner. All dinners were a set menu with three courses, and you could pick your dish for each course (there was a choice of roughly 8-12 for each course, 5-ish for dessert).

January 9th (Tuesday): We spent the day in Cococay which Royal Caribbean's privately owned island in the Bahamas. The weather wasn't super warm but we still had fun :) Then at night it was formal night for dinner so we got to dress up!!

January 10th (Wednesday): We spent the day in Nassau at Atlantis Aquaventure (the water park part of Atlantis) and it was another coldish rainy day but we still had a BLAST!!! The water park is amazing. They had a rapids river (think lazy river but way better), a bunch of tube slides, some body slides, a to of pools, aquarium access, and beach access.

January 11th (Thursday): This was our day at sea, and the nicest day of the cruise!! We got to sleep in, easy to do since our bed was INCREDIBLY comfortable. Also we had a wonderful shower with high water pressure. We spent most of the day on the deck, sunbathing, and in the pool. Oh, and eating. The cruise had free self-serve soft-serve (BLESS). We also got to use our free $5 casino credit, where we won some money then lost it all. We also got to finally catch a sunset, and got to finally go to an event! We joined in on both Battle of the Sexes (hilarious men vs women games/competitions) and Quest (kind of a scavenger hunt). TONS of fun and a great way to end our cruise.

January 12th (Friday): We got back into Port Canaveral around 7am and got off the boat around 8:30am. It's super close to Cocoa Beach so we went to Cocoa for a quick beach trip and got some Thai for lunch then headed back to Orlando. We went to Disney Springs and saw Star Wars again, then she dropped me at Jenna's for the night.

January 13th (Saturday): I spent most of the day watching movies at Jenna's, then when she got home from work we went to Universal Studios for a quick trip where we literally just got hot Butterbeer and bought my sister's Christmas gift. Then Toothsome for dinner and a trip back to Jenna's where we watched A Cinderella Story!!

January 14th (Sunday): So this technically hasn't happened yet as it's Saturday night, but Michaelene is using a guest pass to get me and her parents into Hollywood Studios tomorrow, then I'm going to go see the Greatest Showman again tomorrow night with some circus friends! Woooooo!

Trying desperately to catch up on everything since I was off the grid for the cruise, but I'm finally there. I leave Wednesday the 17th to move back home and it's HITTING me. So bittersweet.

Week Fifty: Last Shift EVER + Loading Chris Evans and Jenny Slate!

Okay so this is super belated because I was on a cruise, but here it is!! My last week working for the Walt Disney Company. Wow.

January 1st (Monday): My last shift EVER!!! So weird. I worked in the circus from 9:30am - 3:30pm, ending my program where it all started :') It never got warmer than like 58 degrees, and it was super rainy, so it was GLORIOUSLY slow. And how do I get to end my program? BY CHECKING CHRIS EVANS AND JENNY SLATE'S SEATBELTS ON DUMBO!!!! That's right, I got to check Chris Evans AND Jenny Slate on the same ride. Wow. Incredibly exciting. And that was it! I spent the rest of the evening packing up my stuff.

January 2nd (Tuesday): I spent the morning in Magic Kingdom with Martia where we got to ride Mine Train twice (THANKS SHARY!) and get lunch at Be Our Guest.

After MK I went to Disney Springs for Blaze pizza, Starbucks, and the Greatest Showman movie (which was really good!!!). I also did some shopping, use that discount while you can am I right??

January 2nd (Wednesday): It was FREEZING cold, it actually snowed in Tallahassee which is crazy. It was in the 40's which is cold for Florida, and felt colder due to the humidity. We actually had some weird sleet or something in the morning, it was SO COLD I TELL YOU. I went to Hollywood Studios with Peter, Katie, and Michaelene, and we managed to get FastPasses for ALL FOUR of the DHS rides! WOOOO! We also saw the Frozen Sing-A-Long and got chicken nuggets.

January 3rd (Thursday): I went to Animal Kingdom by myself because no one was off, but it's fine because I got a FastPass for Na'vi River Journey and Kilimanjaro Safari. I also walked Gorilla Falls and got Starbucks (like always). But it was cold again so I won't apologize.

January 4th (Friday): My program end date!! I moved out in the morning, returned my housing ID, parking decal, and apartment key, then went to Epcot with Jenna. We rode Soarin', Living with the Land, Spaceship Earth, and did the Pixar Shorts Film Festival. We also did a Showcase lap and ate lunch at Coral Reef! Then I went to Michaelene's house where I basically moved in for the following week.

January 5th (Saturday): I went Animal Kingdom with Jenna and we Festival of the Lion King (twice!), Expedition Everest, Dino Dumbo (I forget the real name), Dinosaur, and Primeval Whirl. We also got to ride Flight of Passage through FP because a really awesome Cast Member let us go up without a FP! THANK YOU! We wrote her a #castcompliment on Twitter to recognize her. ALSO our second Festival of the Lion King show was with a FP and it was such a good show to end on. Like I almost cried. I had to try SO HARD to hold them back. We got high-fived by a tumble monkey and the cast was so talented. The first FOLK show was also good, but the cast wasn't quite as good. But FUNNY STORY, when Zawadi/The Gift pulls a man from the warthog section to help lead the section she picked a guy that didn't understand English very well so when she said "and what's your name?" the guy just goes "HELLO!!!!!!!" and it was super cute. He had no idea what was going on but he had a great time.

January 6th (Sunday): Michalene and I spent the day at Magic Kingdom taking "graduation pictures" for me with my nice camera, and we also rode Little Mermaid, Mine Train, Barnstormer, Dumbo, Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, Haunted Mansion, PeopleMover, and watched both Once Upon A Time and Happily Ever After! Full full day, but a good day. Michaelene also did my makeup!

Then we went back to Michaelene's and I packed up my bags for my CRUISE!!! WOOOOO!