Week Thirty-Five: Training at Seven Dwarfs Mine Train & ADVENTURES!

September 18th (Monday): I had my first Mine Train shift for training day one (of four)! Super exciting! I worked from 5pm - 11:30pm and we closed one of the consoles in the station that's in charge of removing trains for the night. We also walked the track to pick up lost and found and check some technical stuff! I think I walked 21 flights of stairs just doing track walk because it's so hilly and because we have to climb up two different lifts (granted, they're short, but still!). We picked up a few positions and read a lot, and it was super helpful having a foundation in rollercoasters from working at the Barnstormer. So nothing was too overwhelming for me, phew.

September 19th (Tuesday): I worked a mid-training shift at the Mine from 10am - 4:30pm and we picked up a ton of positions. For the most part it's pretty similar to the Barnstormer, just more complex and bigger. Their grouping position ("how many in your party? Rows one and two") is tougher than Barn due to sheer size and setup, but merge (the person combining standby and FastPass) is MUCH better because there's normally two cast members there to help with efficiency.

September 20th (Wednesday): I had a nice EARLY shift (ew) from 6am - 12:30pm training at the Mine and it was good!! We learned what to do in case of an evacuation, and walked the track in the morning to reset and power up the track. Lots of walking, but it went smoothly! SUPER funny story though, when we were checking to make sure a gate was locked, a frog jumped onto my trainer's thigh and he started shrieking and shaking and dancing and it was SO FUNNY. What makes it so funny is how reserved and put together the guy normally is, I was crying from laughing so hard. After work I went to Universal and met up with my Circus coworkers, and we rode Mummy, Spiderman, Jurassic Park, and the Hogwarts Express. We also got Butterbeer ice cream and found Michaelene at work!! She is seasonal at a few of the shops in Diagon Alley. After Universal we went to Disney Springs and got Blaze for dinner (pizza!) and then all went home.

September 21st (Thursday): I was off Thursday so I went over to my favorite park, Animal Kingdom and took my nice camera with me. I somehow managed to score a FastPass for BOTH Pandora rides?! I also rode Everest and Kilimanjaro Safari.

September 22nd (Friday): I was also off this day so I went to the beach with Michaelene and Jenna. We went to Cocoa and had an awesome day at the beach followed by DELICIOUS acai bowls and some cuban food!

Also I got a gummy bear popsicle.

Then I attempted to make homemade cool ranch dorito fried pickles at home and they were a big disappointment. :(

September 23rd (Saturday): I had an early circus shift, 8:30am - 2:30pm and we almost opened late because of a repeated brake failure. We were also using paper cards instead of pagers at Dumbo, so basically everything was a disaster in the circus. I worked a good mix of positions, then after work went into the park and rode Winnie the Pooh and The Little Mermaid, then watched Philharmagic, got dinner and called it a day!

September 24th (Sunday): I was off again and went to church in the morning with Michaelene, then went to Typhoon Lagoon with my roomies! We spent the afternoon mostly in the lazy river, but also hit the wave pool and a couple of the slides, and got food! Like always.

And that pretty much sums it up!! A pretty jam-packed week, but lots of fun and good times!!

Week Thirty-Four: My First Treat Shift and Irma Day Two!

September 11th (Monday): Irma day two!! I did pretty much nothing but sit in bed and watch movies. We never lost power or wifi, so that's good!!! In the afternoon, after the storm had pretty much left, Jani, Kristen and I drove around to check out damage and hunt down food. The street lights were all knocked out, so it was AWFUL trying to drive around with no traffic lights working, and tons of people trying to drive back into Orlando. There were some trees and branches down and minor flooding, but we didn't see anything catastrophic like the damage done on the Florida coast. We did end up finding an open Dominos, but the line was OUT THE DOOR so we just went back home and made food haha.

September 12th (Tuesday): I went back to work, and the hurricane ride out crew did an awesome job making Magic Kingdom look good as new! You could hardly see any damage from Irma, and our rides were operating perfectly fine so that's great. I ended up offering to extend my shift, so instead of working 10:45am - 7:15pm, I worked until 9:15pm. We had a 5 minute wait ALL DAY LONG which was great and super easy, but I spent like my whole shift working outside so that was a bummer. Also I got stuck on Dumbo B a lot. I did have one girl come up to me and she just goes "hi I thought you should know that the elephant over there made me feel sick" and my first thought was like oh no this kid is about to vomit, but she goes on to say "yeah the color just makes me feel ill, I think you should consider re-painting it." Hahahahaha she rode in a green and yellow dumbo and didn't like the color, so I just went "ok thanks!" and walked away before I busted out laughing. That was pretty cute/weird/funny.

September 13th (Wednesday): I was off and spent the morning/afternoon at Epcot with some coworkers for Food & Wine then headed over to Animal Kingdom to watch Festival of the Lion King and ride Expedition Everest, Dinosaur, Primeval Whirl, and the Dino Dumbos. Everything (except Pandora) was 10 minutes or less, so that awesome.

September 14th (Thursday): I was also off Thursday, so I went to Universal with Katie and Michaelene! Everything was super short so we rode Mummy, Rip Ride Rockit, Minion Mayhem, ET, Men in Black, and watched the animal training show. We also ate at the Chocolate Emporium and found fun walls to take good pictures against!

September 15th (Friday): I got to work at treat shift!!! Yay!! They are 6:30pm - 12:30am shifts. So for the Halloween parties, we sometimes get scheduled to give out candy at Pete's Silly Sideshow and get to wear cute costumes. It's tons of fun, but you have some REALLY greedy guests! At the beginning of the night we can only hand out 3-4 pieces of candy per person to make sure we have enough candy to last the night, then as the night goes on sometimes we can hand out large handfuls depending on how much we have left. Well we would get people all night long that would get sooooo mad over only getting a small handful. Like you can come through the line as many times as you'd like sir, I don't make the rules. Also one guy did nothing the entire party but come through our candy line (for five hours!) and easily had at LEAST 20 lbs of candy. Crazy, right? But you do you. Overall it was really fun and we got to see some really cool costumes and talk to some awesome guests!

September 16th (Saturday): I had a cute little Marin come through the Barnstormer FastPass line and her dad was so excited that he took a photo of the two of us! SUPER CUTE AND EXCITING. I had a solid mix of Dumbo and Barn which was nice, but unfortunately the pagers got all scrambled at Dumbo so we weren't able to make the play area a part of our line. It was a pretty busy day, but I hear that that's how the fall will be with most days being pretty slow except for weekends when people are off school/work. My shift was 8:30am - 5pm.

September 17th (Sunday): I worked from 10am - 8:15pm and it was a fun day! We had one awkward part where a hat flew off a woman's head and onto the track at Barn so we had to go down for like 15 minutes while a coordinator went out and got it. It was a pretty chill day, but I kept pulling positions I'm not a huge fan of. An easy day though! In the evening I was area clear for the Halloween party, and that's basically where you walk around and make sure everyone in the park is wearing a bracelet for the party, proving they bought a ticket. And that fun! Super easy.

Week Thirty-Three: Preparing for Hurricane Irma and Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party!

September 4th (Monday): We had a pretty slow day, people had to go home since school started Tuesday for all the kids. I ended up pulling strollers twice, so I was SUPER sweaty, but overall a good day in the circus! My shift was 11am - 9:45pm.

September 5th (Tuesday): I went to Epcot with Michaelene and Alex and I got to do FOOD AND WINE!!! YASSSSSS! My favorite time of the year! I'll do a giant post later on everything I ate and drank, but for now, here's a sneak peek ;)

The top is Greek Nachos with pita chips and tzaziki, and the bottom is a nitro-chocolate almond frozen dessert thing with whiskey caramel! Yum! We also rode Soarin' twice, Nemo, and Spaceship Earth. OH and Alex and I did the little Remy hunt where you go find Remy around the World Showcase then can collect your prize if you find him everywhere!

Cute story behind this bottom photo, a little girl saw us leaning like this then came up next to us and did the exact same pose! SO CUTE. Also I got caught on a fence and bruised my arm. After Epcot we started preparing for Hurricane Irma, so stocking up on water and non-perishables!

September 6th (Wednesday): I did laundry before work, then went off to work! Work was good, SUPER slow but overall really good. It's nice when it's slow because less people complain ;) I was scheduled 3:45pm - 11:15pm, but extended to 11:45pm because they were really short on closers.

September 7th (Thursday): I went to the Halloween Party with Alex, Michaelene, our old coworker Jenna, and our coworker Katie. SUPER fun. We rode Dumbo and the Barnstormer (of course), Buzz where we got to see our friend Jenna hard at work, Philharmagic, and the Haunted Mansion. Our coordinator was working Dumbo and rode with us, so that was really fun. We hit a few trick-or-treat spots for candy, got candy corn soft-serve and pumpkin waffles, and saw all the shows! We got PRIME spots for the fireworks, Hocus Pocus show, and parade, which were all back-to-back. Amazing like always. We all had "costumes" that required minimal effort. I was a Seahawks fan, Alex and Jenna were wearing Halloween clothes, Michaelene was a Haunted Mansion maid, and Katie was Winnie the Pooh.

September 8th (Friday): We were super slow again, posting a 10-minute wait ALL DAY LONG for Dumbo which is ridiculous. I was at Dumbo B the entire shift (literally the entire shift), and was lucky enough to work an easy 10:30am - 4:30pm! So I went to Epcot after work and did Food and Wine Festival again with Jenna :) Yumyumyum. Also they announced that Disney would close early Saturday, and stay closed Sunday and Monday.

September 9th (Saturday): When I came into work at 10:30 for my 11am shift, NOTHING was longer than a 20-minute wait (not even Mine Train). Insane! We had the slowest day I've ever seen in my entire time working for Disney, and I kept pulling all my favorite positions including FOUR tasks, so the best day ever. I got off at 5pm then headed home just in time for a hurricane warning to come in!

September 10th (Sunday): Disney was closed so none of us had shifts (I now have FOUR days off this week!) and we just hung out at home. Luckily, we never lost power, though many of my friends in Orlando did. We watched football, played Phase 10, ate snacks, and watched the hurricane pick up. It got pretty windy and rained all day, but wasn't too scary. Irma downgraded (I believe) to a Category 1 by the time it reached us, so it was really more of a tropical storm than a hurricane. We did have a tornado warning, but nothing came of it. I think we were just in a good part of Orlando because I have friends who had some damage to their homes and/or property.

That was it for the week! A WONDERFUL week, we're "cooling down" to highs in the upper 80's instead of 90's, so that's a good sign as well. ALSO I'm officially getting cross-trained at the Mine Train in two weeks! Woo!

Week Thirty-Two: Halloween Parties Begin + Dealing With CRAZIES!

I flew back from Seattle on Wednesday so we'll just start off there!

August 30th (Wednesday): My flight got back into Orlando around 4pm, and I stopped by Publix on the way home to do some grocery shopping. Nothing too exciting, just a relaxing night back at home :)

August 31st (Thursday): I worked 3:45pm - 9:45pm. The park closed at 9pm which was super weird because we hadn't closed earlier than 10pm since I started working in February, but it's really nice being kind of slow again! I got to chat with a really friendly Canadian man at Barn who was waiting for his family to get off the ride, and that's always nice just being able to converse with someone who actually cares about you and how your day is going. After I got home around 10:30pm we had a MASSIVE thunderstorm, like I've never heard louder thunder in my life. The lightening was also so close/so bright it was lighting up our entire bedroom until 1am. So that was nuts, I was glad to be home.

September 1st (Friday): I made food before work, then had a weird day at work. Mostly it was good and slow, but at night I had this lady go OFF on me because I wouldn't let her re-ride. So we can only do re-rides at Barn if no one has to exit (or at least that's what we're supposed to do), so when this lady's plane pulled back in, my coworker was having people exit because a guest was getting on. Well my coworker was new so I was going to be a good example and make everyone leave since it's fair to everyone that way, but this lady starts yelling at me about how we were awful for making them exit and was like "you girls are just AWESOME, have a MAGICAL night" and asked for name. I was so bewildered as to why this was a big deal and just showed her my name tag, like feel free to report me for doing my job. Then as she exited she called me a b****. Super mature right? THEN she talked to my coordinator (who knew everything because I called her to give her a heads up) and told her that half the plane got to re-ride, but we made them leave, and that we shut the gates on her son's face then laughed at him, and that we so rude blah blah blah and my coordinator was literally like "okay". SUPER ridiculous. But besides that it was a great night!! We had a Halloween party so I got to listen to the Halloween Disney playlist instead of circus music, and see everyone dressed up, and see all the characters out and about!! In our area we have Goofy, Cruella, Minnie, Daisy, Donald, and the Seven Dwarfs. Also we went down for weather twice, but none of the Halloween festivities were cancelled (just delayed). My shift was 5pm - 12:45am.

September 2nd (Saturday): I had a lot of awesome guests at work which was GREAT because lately those have been few and far between. But I had tons of great interactions with people, and if anyone got snippy with me the other guests were like "we got your back" and it just felt good. We were pretty busy because of Labor Day Weekend, but luckily I kept getting taken over by an assessment group (so I got to hangout while they did my job for me, testing the new recruits to see if they're ready for solo work!). The only bummer was that I had a nasty earache all day. I worked from 8:45am - 9:45pm.

September 3rd (Sunday): Another pretty busy day because it was still a holiday weekend, but honestly not too bad. I had REALLY cute kids today, I had to walk one kid around by the hand who thought he lost his mom (naturally she was like 10 feet away) in the Dumbo play tent, and a little girl on Barn that wouldn't stop waving at me. Adorable. I did have one pass-hole (the angry passholders who pull the "I'm a passholder, this has never happened before/is unacceptable card) who was FURIOUS that she and her child had to wait in the play area. I explained that it was part of the 35-minute wait posted outside, and that the only way to skip it is with a FastPass because otherwise if you were to skip it you would be cutting 150 people in line. WELL she was like my son has a disability and can't wait in this area, so I asked her if she had the disability assistance and she goes "no I just want to talk to a manager". So I called one over and he literally told her/asked her the exact same things then she starts yelling about how she's a passholder and blah blah blah and he ended up just letting her through because some things just aren't worth it. Aside from her though, everything was great! I also got to see an OWL just hanging out next to Pete's Silly Sideshow, and that was awesome. My shift was 3:45pm - 10:15pm.

That's it for the week!! Lots of exciting things coming up :)