Week Thirteen: Jack Black Riding Barnstormer + Chill Work Week

This week was SO much calmer compared to last. Such a nice break!!

April 17th (Monday): I was off Monday, but no one was off with me so I spent a half day in Magic Kingdom! Alyssa didn't work until 5pm, so we did a bunch of FastPasses and I watched the castle show (Friendship Faire or something like that?) for the first time! It's cute, but Dream Along With Mickey is better ;)

I also made a small trip to Walgreens solely for the purpose of getting a slurpie BUT THEY NO LONGER HAVE THE MACHINES. So disappointing.

April 18th (Tuesday): I didn't work until 3:30pm, so a few of my coworkers and I went to Magic Kingdom before work and rode Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, Jungle Cruise, Dumbo, Barnstormer, and Haunted Mansion.

We also got lunch at Skipper Canteen! Instead of real food I got two desserts and a drink hehehe. Personally, I prefer their desserts to their meals, but Gerri had the chicken and it was really tasty!

Work was good, but all my breaks came really late. Also I was on Dumbo the entire day and didn't touch Barn, but it all worked out! I had a really nice woman tell me she loved my name and if she had heard of that name before her daughters were born she would have named one of them Marin, so that was really sweet. Also we have a new leader Jerry, and he spent a good five minutes trying to attack a roach with his pickers and it was hysterical. Pickers are those sticks you use to pick things up without having to touch them yourself.

April 19th (Wednesday): Jack Black rode Barnstormer!! I was actually over at Dumbo when it happened, but apparently he was super cool and they went up the exit to ride, but the children were a handful. ALSO, I got to use my German for the first time ever!!!! I took German in high school and never thought I'd actually get to use it, but I asked a kid how old he was, and he only spoke German, so I got to use my German. It was great. On the downside that day, I had to deal with a lost child situation where the parents lost their kid and he was a seven-year-old boy with Autism. So I called like five different locations where he might be hanging out at, my coordinator, and security. Luckily, security found the boy at Hundred Acre Goods (Winnie the Pooh shop) and we had him returned to his parents. His dad started crying when he saw him, it was really sweet.

April 20th (Thursday): I had the CUTEST little kid at Barn that was British, and I gave her a sticker and she says to her mom with her little accent: "look mum! I got a sticker!" and it was actually the cutest thing ever. We also had to call an ambulance for a kid who hit his head really hard in the splash zone area outside Barn. I think it ended up alright, but it was a pretty hard hit. I closed Dumbo that night and at a certain time we'll close off the lines, but keep cycling our rides until all the guests are gone, and I had a little boy come running up the FP entrance asking to ride and I had to tell him no, because it was all closed for the night, and he starts BAWLING and telling me it's his last day tomorrow, and I felt so bad. BUT...it would have been avoided if mom told him not to go under ropes and ask.

April 21st (Friday): So our costumes have buttons on them, and sometimes the buttons get loose and fall off. Well, I had a little boy come up to me and tell me he has money for me, opens his hand, and it was one of our buttons. He was a really cute little kid. Unfortunately it was also super humid that day so we were all SO sweaty and gross. I also had the joy of dealing with vomit on Dumbo. A kid threw up before riding, but his dad didn't saw a WORD, a random guest had to point it out to me so that was kind of super annoying on the dad's part. It sucked because we had some really slow cycles, but it was okay because I know I did everything right and felt good about how I handled the situation. Also we never had our wait time get longer than 25 minutes, so that was great! I also got to chat with a really cool VIP tour guide (they cost $600/hour with a minimum of 7 hours) who was escorting a Make A Wish family that day. They were in the play tent at Dumbo so we were just chatting and she said the family was awesome, but told me some stories of guests treating her literally like a servant. The one that was the funniest/worst was a family who referred to other people as "GP's" (General Public) and would say things like "do we have to ride the Jungle Cruise with all these GP'S?" and it was ridiculous.

April 22nd (Saturday): Day off! I went to MK AGAIN and saw my coworker working at Mine Train so I rode Mine Train by myself and got paired with this family of three. Kind of funny because it was the little boy's first time riding Mine Train and the dad recorded the whole thing, so I'm just awkwardly in the background of all their photos and videos.

I also did Mickey's Philharmagic by myself, which I love, and visited my friend Melissa who works there.

AND I got to meet up with one of my coworkers from my first program who was visiting Disney World with her old roommates! So that was fun. I did the Tiki Room with them for the very first time, which was super exciting.

Then Mariam came and joined me at Magic and we did Haunted Mansion, Splash Mountain, Winnie the Pooh, Speedway, Dumbo, Barnstormer, Mine Train (her first time ever doing it!), and Peter Pan.

We then ate dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern, which was pretty good, it's basically family-style Thanksgiving food! Then we went and took THE LANTERN PIC which is a big deal right now, while watching Wishes, and watched Once Upon A Time from in front of the castle.

April 23rd (Sunday): I GOT MY CAR AND I COULD CRY I'M SO HAPPY. I picked it up from Walmart at 9:40am, then did some grocery shopping right after, drove home and got my parking decal, and went to Target with Alexa where I didn't actually buy anything (WUT????). I worked from 4pm - 10:45pm, and for the first time ever....I DIDN'T TOUCH DUMBO THE ENTIRE SHIFT. Literally unheard of. But it was a pretty good day!! I did have one awkward guest encounter where I told a lady she could bring her lemonade up as long as it was stowed for the ride, and the person at the top threw it away, so I had to deal with that.

Week Twelve: Easter Bunny Comes To Work & Working 53 Hours

Busy busy week with the peak of spring break season!! I worked 53 hours but it went surprisingly well.

April 10th (Monday): Yay! Day off! Roomies and I (including our new roommate Valery) went to Trail's End for breakfast, which is basically a breakfast buffet at Fort Wilderness Campground. It's lodge themed and we get our discount there so it was only $18/person including a drink!! So that's a great deal. After breakfast I went to Magic Kingdom with Brooklyn and Alexa before they both had work, and we rode Mine Train, Space Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, and did the Laugh Floor. Then I headed home, walked to Walgreens, and relaxed for the night!

April 11th (Tuesday): I worked a whole 4.25 hours until I got my first break, which is insanely late. Apparently full-timers/part-timers actually get to go home and continue getting paid if they go 4 hours without a break, so sucks to be a CP haha. My shift was 3pm - 12:45am. The guests were all fine but I kept making little mistakes like spieling over the entire ride system at Dumbo (which includes both sides of Dumbo AND the play tent) instead of just spieling to my side when powering down. Awkward when everyone can hear you, whoops. Also one of my coworkers visited me at work!!

April 12th (Wednesday): I had the joy of working from 4pm until 2:45am, so I was super tired by the end of the night, but the guests were super cranky today. I had a man try scan his FastPasses and they were lighting up blue and he just kept telling me to "relax" and "calm down" when I told him why they were blue. Literally the only time I've ever rolled my eyes at a guest, but he was so condescending I just couldn't hold it in.

April 13th (Thursday): Some managers played Easter Bunny and came into the break room while I was there and handed out little gift bags that included candy and a movie! So I got Frozen, which was really cool of them. I also had to be at Barn merge when we went 101 for an auto-E so that SUCKED. Basically the ride emergency stopped itself after one of my coworkers pushed the lift stop (to stop the plane going up the hill because a child was standing) and we had to call maintenance. So when that happens we have to get everyone out of the queue and the only people that get paper FP's are those in front of the merge point (where standby and FP merge together) and those who had FP's. So I got the wonderful job of making everyone turn around and head back down. Luckily everyone was pretty cool about it and I had a coworker there to help me but I was fairly frazzled. I also got to be at strollers with an awesome coworker, and it felt good to be super efficient and organized. Oh, and I had a little girl come up to me who was lost, but that was an easy fix! Her name was Naomi and she was seven years old, but I called a coordinator and they found her dad fairly quickly! I worked from 11am - 12:45am, so I was EXHAUSTED after work (I only got five hours of sleep since I got off work so late the night before!)

April 14th (Friday): I worked from 2:15pm - 12:45am. We had a brand new coordinator who started by herself today and the poor girl had to end her night by getting screamed at by a guest. So I had to call a leader for the guest, and it was just really uncomfortable. Basically, they lost their hat on the ride and refused to leave until we retrieved it, which is not allowed because they should be heading out of the park by then. Well they refused to leave and the wife was yelling at Dore (my coordinator) and her husband was actually mortified and trying to apologize, which was kind of entertaining. But yeah, that happened, then when we went to catch the bus we got a lovely shuttle that could only fit like 12 people. So that sucked (but we got on so it's okay). We ended up just bonding with everyone else who was mostly from Mermaid and a girl named Victoria, who's a character attendant. So that's fun, they're all super sweet!! Also my coworker Liz, who's been here a while told me that she thought I was doing an awesome job which I really needed to hear, so that was really cool of her.

April 15th (Saturday): It was a good day all around because I was mostly grouper and main panel at both Dumbo and Barnstormer. We did go 101 at one point because a gate at Barn broke, and the ride won't let us send a plane with the gate not closed. But we called maintenance and the guests were all really cool about it, so that's awesome. I worked from 2:30pm - 12:45am.

April 16th (Sunday): I called in sick today because I woke up with some nasty stomach issues, but ended up grocery shopping and going to Disney Springs for a bit at night. I was supposed to work from 3:15pm - 11:45pm, but the digestion was not cooperating in the morning/afternoon. So I went grocery shopping once I was feeling better! I tried to take the bus to Publix but when I got there it was closed for Easter which was AWFUL because I would have had to take the bus on another loop to get to Walmart. Luckily Alyssa was kind enough to pick me up and drive me to Walmart for groceries. After that we went home to unload then headed off to Disney Springs to try the D Luxe burger place which was yummy, and visit Alexa at work! And now here I am in bed, watching the Force Awakens.

I'm scheduled 45 hours this week and about the same the following week! Tomorrow I get to sign up for housing for my extension which is crazy exciting!!! GET ME OUT OF VISTA. I'll do a Vista post at some point...

Week Eleven: Beach Time & 101's Galore

April 3rd (Monday): Alyssa was home for the week and she was kind enough to let Brooklyn and I borrow her car, so we went to the beach! We went to Fort DeSoto which is a beautiful (but small) white sand beach on the west coast (gulf side).

We spent the day at the beach with Brooklyn's friend Hayley (Hailey?), then got dinner at a super tasty Latin American street food place and Kilwin's ice cream for dessert, which is always a plus.

On the way home we stopped by Walmart and it was absolutely nuts. We waited like twenty minutes just to check out, and all checkout lines had to curve around because they were so long!!!

April 4th (Tuesday): We went Weather 101!! Since there was lightening in the area we got to close our attractions temporarily which is great for us, and we were down for close to an hour and a half. On the downside, it was crazy humid and we had 95% humidity at 10:00 at night, which makes you feel super nasty and sticky. Also we were lucky enough to have both a Code V (vomit) AND a lost child situation (they were easily found). I worked from 11:30am - 10:15pm.

April 5th (Wednesday): I worked from 5:15pm - 1:45am for extra magic (tragic) hours! Basically I sat in bed all day long until my shift, then showed up to work! I had the CUTEST little baby named Olivia try to get me to pick her up in my Dumbo queue line, but we settled for a hug since we're not supposed to pick kids up. But she was so cute. I also lucked out on rotation because I pulled all my favorite positions, and was picked up by an assessment group TWICE (they take over your position for like 15 - 45 minutes depending on the position and people and you get to stand and do nothing).

April 6th (Thursday): So the play area in the Dumbo play tent is rigged with a sprinkler system in case of a fire, so the structure itself also contains pipes that hold water. Well today one of the pipes started leaking so we had to close off a portion of the play tent and I got to sit up there for an hour and tell kids not to come in this direction, so that was kind of fun. We also had a really fun end to the night with awesome families getting to do re-rides on Barnstormer. I worked from 4pm - 11:45pm.

April 7th (Friday): I worked from 3:30pm - 11:45pm and had an interesting day. I had a child (like five or six, not a baby) running around with no pants or underwear on in the play tent which was concerning. Luckily it was easily dealt with. I also got to come into my shift during a 101 (so the ride was down with no one in line) and take over Barn dispatch which is the position with the smaller panel to make the ride go. So it was a great spot to takeover. I also had to operate in front of one manager and three coordinators, but did awesome so it's okay.

April 8th (Saturday): I woke up with no voice so sounded horrible, but made it through the day. I did laundry in the morning then had a pretty good day at work! Nothing really remarkable happened, but it was one of my favorite coordinator's last shifts with us! She's moving to Pandora for opening. I worked from 4pm - 11:45pm.

April 9th (Sunday): I spent the day with Corey and we did basically all of Hollywood Studios! We did Rockin' Rollercoaster (FINALLY), Tower of Terror, Frozen Sing-A-Long, Great Movie Ride, Star Wars Launch Bay, and One Man's Dream. We also ate at 50's Prime Time Cafe which is super yummy comfort food. I also bought myself a baseball hat and a custom Star Wars magic band which I love!!

That was it for the week, it was a pretty good week!!! This coming week I have 53 hours, so that should be fun. but the week following I'm back to a pretty standard 45. So wish us luck this week, it's going to be nuts!

Week Ten: New Roommate!

March 27th (Monday): I had the day off so in the morning I saw Beauty and the Beast again with Mariam and Alyssa, then went to grocery bingo with Mariam. We lost every single time but it was a lot of fun and we got little candy bags at the end! I also went to Magic Kingdom with Mariam. I had a ton of paper fast passes to use up so we went on a bunch of rides including Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Pirate of the Caribbean, Magic Carpets, Buzz Lightyear, Haunted Mansion, Astro Orbiter, Winnie the Pooh, and People Mover! Maybe one or two others as well?

We ate dinner at Skipper Canteen and that was fun! The food itself was a little underwhelming, but the dessert was fantastic. I got a jasmine rice pudding with mango sauce and a hibiscus meringue. I also got a fun apple slushy thing with popping boba on top! Also, the new roommate moved in but I didn't cross paths with her until the next day.

March 28th (Tuesday): Actually met my new roomie! Her name is Valery and she's from North Hollywood in California. She works merch in Epcot at the front of the park and is super nice! I also had this day off and spent it with Alexa. We went to Disney Springs in the morning and got Starbucks and ran a couple errands then went to Epcot for Flower & Garden Festival. We rode Test Track and Living with the Land and Spaceship Earth. I also got the Urban Fairy cocktail which was weird and had absinthe in it, tried the beef tenderloin tips from the booth by Canada which were really good, tried the cucumber watermelon slushy which was amazing, and got the baklava from the booth by Morocco which was pretty tasty. After Epcot we went to Animal Kingdom and watched the Festival of the Lion King, rode Primeval Whirl, rode Everest twice, and watched Rivers of Light. Not going to lie, I was a little underwhelmed by Rivers of Light, and though it was very pretty, I wouldn't wait an hour for it.

March 29th (Wednesday): I worked from 5:15pm - 1:45am so I had the whole morning free. I went to the pool in the morning/afternoon with Alexa and housing staff came out and gave us free soda and iced tea! So that was really nice. Work was good, an ambulance had to be called for a guest having a seizure, but everything else went smoothly. I also got home super late and tried to be quiet coming in since I now have a roommate, but ended up somehow breaking my shelf in the closet and causing a crash noise so whoops!

March 30th (Thursday): I worked from 3:30pm - 11:45pm and had a really cute little kid come up and grab my hand and wanted me to help him find his dad, but his grandma was like three feet away and was like "what are you doing?" so he had family with him but wanted his dad, who was on Dumbo or something but it was adorable. My coworker Shannon was kind enough to drive me home and we stopped by Taco Bell on the way.

March 31st (Friday): I worked from 3:45pm - 11:45pm and kept running into Goofy! We share a break room with the Pete's Silly Sideshow guys, and Goofy came and sat with us in our break room for awhile. He was really sweet and blew us all kisses. Work was good, I had one overload at Dumbo where a family didn't have an elephant so I got them on the next flight and let them ride twice. They were really grateful so that felt good :) I also had a VIP tour group come through and the tour guide goes to California Lutheran University which is where my little sister goes to school! Small world!

April 1st (Saturday): I had a little baby six hour shift but it seemed to take FOREVER. I worked from 5:30pm - 11:45pm so in the morning I did laundry and went to Walgreens and Subway with Alexa. At work I had to work with a certain coworker that takes a really long time to get anything done because he can't multitask and so that was a disaster. I had to write up a safety report on him and we took an extra twenty minutes to close because he took three times longer than everyone else to do his job. Also, I had a family of five overweight people and the dad made a comment that basically called his whole family fat (he was the only one of average size) so that was extremely awkward.

April 2nd (Sunday): I was off again and hung out all day in Epcot with Corey! We rode Living with the Land, Nemo, Spaceship Earth, Soarin', Figment, and watched Turtle Talk with Crush, which I hadn't seen before! It was really cute. We also tried a ton of food and drink from Flower & Garden and ending up walking over 20,000 steps. Also, I saw the America show for the first time. AND I got a free pin and sour cream from a SUPER awesome CM working the quick-service place in Mexico!! He was so great I actually grabbed a leader to tell them how good our experience was with that CM. Then we watched Illuminations and headed home :)

That's all for the week! It was a very easy week with pretty short hours, but I'm back up to 41 this coming week then 53 the week after. Fingers crossed it's stress-free!!