So, What Adventures Have You Been On?

While talking to guests in the store, I like asking people about the adventures they've been on.

Maybe it's because I enjoy living vicariously through the guest who got to go play in the park while I've been standing at a register all day. Or maybe it's because Disney sounds about 10,000 times more fun when seen through the eyes of a child. I love my sisters dearly and I love how even though we're all in high school (or older :D) we can geek out over meeting princesses. But it doesn't remotely compare to talking to a child about meeting Mickey or riding a roller coaster for the first time. That's the real magic of a Disney park: the strength of the park is that someone can still tap into their 'inner child' to enjoy the fun and it will keep them coming back year after year, but the real magic is when you go with a child. I have no children of my own and thus far have been unable to inherit any nieces or nephews so I live vicariously through the children that come through the store.

"So what'd you do today?" is so BORING but "So what adventures did you go on today?" is much more fun. It's been a while since I've blogged but I've gotten off work before midnight for the first time in forever (purposeful 'Frozen' reference), so I shall record some of my adventures!

Goofy's nametag 'Earning My Ear's ribbon'

Earning My Ears! :)

When you start off as a Disney cast member, you're given a red ribbon to attach to your nametag that reads 'I'm Earning My Ears'. Basically it signals to both co-workers and guests that you're a rookie and that they should cut you some slack. I started my training on a Monday and trained all that week. On that Saturday I had my last day of training and took my assessment: a 67 multiple-choice questionnaire that tests if you've learned all that you need to learn in training. I passed it (woot woot) and got to rip that 'Earning my Ears' ribbon right off my nametag to join the big leagues. I'm official! :)

 

Pin Trading

As a Merchandise cast member, we trade pins with guests. I was given a lanyard and told to choose at least 12 pins from a big huge bucket of Disney pins. The pin trading experience from my end is pretty simple: a guest asks to see your pins, they choose the pin that they want, and trade you one of theirs.  Some of my co-workers are avid pin collectors in their personal lives so they get really into it. I admit it: I'm a pin trader when I'm on the clock and otherwise I really don't see the appeal... I get excited like "Ooh a princess! I know who this one is!" and that's about it. I got a really cool Darth Vader pin once...it was gone within like 20 minutes. That's the thing about pin trading as a job: if you get anything cool from a guest, it's almost guaranteed that the next guest to look at your pins will snatch it up.

Awkwardly humorous pin trading story:
I was walking by one of my male co-workers the other day and all I heard was "Oh look you're a virgin". I'm forever grateful that there was no surface for me to see my reflection but I'm pretty sure I was red enough to put tomatoes forever to shame.

"Um excuse me?"

"You've got a virgin pin---a virgin is the symbol for Virgo!" he pointed to my lanyard where I had a purple Minnie Mouse with the word 'Virgo' on it. It's one of the astrological sign collections. I laughed it off and never confessed why I got so awkward about it.

 

Marie and 'The Aristocats' Throwback

I really should know this---but is 'The Aristocats' slated to be released from the Disney vault anytime soon? I have to guess that it is because we have several items with Marie from 'The Aristocats' on it---several stuffed animals and a few art sets---and the trivia board in the store has been 'The Aristocats' themed for the last few days. In Magic Kingdom, I've seen Marie available for meet n greets several times when I've never seen her in years before.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about: 'The Aristocats' is a movie from I thinkkkk the 1950's (again, I should probably know that) about rich French cats. We had it on VHS as a kid so I've seen it a couple of times. For the next story to make sense, I'll insert a picture of Marie for you.
I was walking through the children's section of the store and re-stocking some art supplies when an African American woman pulled me aside and in her hand was a Marie art kit. She asked where the other personalized art kits were. I asked her to clarify.

The art kit she was holding had a picture of Marie with the name 'Marie' in cursive across the front. This woman wanted to know if we had any other names available for the cat art kits. I had to explain that Marie was the name of the cat rather than just a personalization and that Marie was a character from 'The Aristocats'. The woman laughed, explaining that she was named Marie and that she was hoping to find one with the name Sarah on it because that was her daughter's name and her daughter loved cats. I apologized to her and said that Marie was going to be the only name on all of the cases but directed her towards the personalized keychains that we have.

"...well of course it's a white cat..." she grumbled and I laughed awkwardly and then quickly escaped altogether.

 

Meeting Princesses

Several of my roommates work in 'Magic Kingdom' so they frequently come home with stories of which princesses they've spotted at work. But my roommate Kenzie is a Fairy Godmother-in-Training at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Bootique--where little princesses can get their hair done by these Fairy Godmothers and get princess make-overs. Kenzie showed us a brochure of the different hairstyle options, so I know what they look like.

Little girls frequently come through the store dressed in princess costumes with fancy hair and just sparkling head-to-toe in pixie dust.

"Oh my goodness it's a princess! Oh princess you look absolutely beautiful! You must have had a Fairy Godmother do your hair!"

Their eyes get super big and they nod, very excited. We talk for a little bit about the Fairy Godmother who did her hair and the adventures she's been on.

One little girl in particular, Princess Emma, was my favorite. She was probably only 4 or 5 and was dressed exactly like Cinderella. I asked her if Cinderella was her favorite. Princess Emma had gotten to eat dinner at 'Cinderella's Royal Table' (a restaurant inside of Cinderella's Castle) where she met Cinderella and even got her autograph---this was big news, people! Then Prince Charming came through the restaurant with a glass slipper. He saw Princess Emma and mistook her for Cinderella and even asked her to dance---but Emma was too shy to dance with him so they just took pictures. Then the step-sisters came through the store and they were just super funny. Emma and I chatted for a good 5 minutes or so. I grabbed the autograph book we keep at the register---the super secret special autograph book that we cast members keep only for special instances like Princess Emma--and asked if Princess Emma would be willing to give me her autograph. She wrote out her name very deliberately like any good 5 year old would and drew a big smiley face next to it. I got a super big hug out of it. I think I grinned the rest of the night.

'Magic Kingdom' vs Harry Potter

I was helping a guest just earlier tonight actually. I asked how her day had been while I was ringing up this woman's items and this woman just exploded on me: the weather was miserable, the construction in the park kept her from seeing everything she wanted to see, it looked nothing like the commercials said it would, and the train was all wrong.

English wasn't this woman's first language and I did my best to empathize with her. She kept going on and on about how much of a disappointment the Magic Kingdom was. The train really bothered her--she envisioned the train much differently.

"And I couldn't find butterbeer anywhere!"

Let it never be said that I do not possess self-control because I didn't laugh out loud at this poor woman. She and I then had a long conversation explaining that while it is called the Magic Kingdom, the 'Wizarding World of Harry Potter' is actually over at Universal. She wasn't very happy about any of it but it definitely added humor to my day!

The Adventures Shall Continue!

I feel like I've had more adventures than that...but currently that's all that is coming to mind.

I still have a good 3 1/2 months left here so I have no doubt that the adventures shall continue. I have a good four day weekend coming up so I have big plans to go out exploring. I really need to make it over to Epcot and Animal Kingdom--the two parks that I haven't been to yet--and then spend some real time over at Hollywood Studios.

I'll finish up with some trivia questions that I've used to stump my dear mother lately:

--Which 4 Disney princesses finish their movies with both parents alive?

--In the movie 'The Aristocats', who falls off of the train tracks?

--What is the Tree of Life in Disney's Animal Kingdom Park originally made out of?

--How can you tell Huey, Duey, and Louie apart?

--What are 3 characteristics that Dopey has but the other 6 dwarves do not?

One Week Down!

I've known about the Disney College Program since my first semester of college and therefore have spent many hours watching vlogs and reading blogs written by people who have participated in the program. And regardless of what role the author had or even which park the author worked in, there was almost one common denominator: tons of posts ramping up to the beginning of the program with excitement and pictures and information on the check-in program... and then absolutely NO information about what happened during the duration of the program until the very end when there maybe was a really short "Ok well I'm home now and here's a quick 2 paragraph summary of my college program experience".

I committed and swore to myself that I would not become that blogger. I would be consistent. Not for anyone else's sake, but because I wanted to be able to remember everything that happened and have it all recorded for myself.

I had this whole mental plan of how I would bring my journal on the bus everyday and I'd write about what happened during that day with lots of detail and nothing would be forgotten. I was going to not only succeed in completing the DCP, but I was going to excel at recording it all.

Well I'm one week in and I have a whole new level of empathy for those bloggers who I so harshly judged.

Just a quick timeline of the last few days:

• Wednesday: check-in, move in, and casting
• Thursday: housing meeting, resort hopping
• Friday: no meetings (woot woot!) and more resort hopping
• Saturday: Traditions (orientation to working for Disney) where I received my name card and my employee ID; used that employee ID to immediately head over to the Magic Kingdom and played in the parks for 9 hours
• Sunday: slept and hung out at home--super chill day
• Monday: property orientation to Pop Century--all new employees regardless of assignment had classes to just introduce you to the resort, the themes, some traditions, policies, etc
• Tuesday: first day of on-the-job training, VERYYYY basic introduction to where merchandise is shelved and spent most of the day just kind of hovering and observing...longest day of my life; dinner with the parentals
• Wednesday: Merchentaining class (made-up word: merchandise + entertaining) where we learned the basics of the cash register system that Disney uses; went to Hollywood Studios with a group to ride Star Tours, Rock n Roller Coaster, and see Fantasmic
• Thursday (today): early morning shift starting at 5:30 am where I worked the register for the first time, 'Up'-themed housing event where I met Russell and Carl :)

I really like where I'm working. Over the weekend I got a little hesitant about Pop Century just because it wasn't what I had imagined I'd be doing during my college program and I wasn't sure if I'd like working in basically a glorified Disney store like you'd find at the mall. I've had to learn about a lot of the different programs that are new: the Magic Bands are pretty awesome and I had a glorious 2 hour class yesterday on the details of the Disney Dining Plan.

But I love it. The hours are much nicer and it's more of a close-knit feel. The parks would be fun simply because you're always busy, there's always something to do, and you have that chance of spotting the electrical parade or watching the fireworks every night. I haven't worked a night shift, but I'm told that's when the place gets really busy. It's the off-season right now so the latest park that's open is Epcot and it closes at 9 pm. Because the parks close so early, guests come back to the hotel and that's when they shop. It gets busy but it doesn't get "line all the way out to the door for several hours" busy. And I will never ever be sick of the parks this way. There's no 'tainted' memories associated with work that I would bring into a park with me.

There's a lot of interesting lingo that goes with working at Pop Century. Because we're themed from the 1950's through the 1990's, we get to speak in decade-appropriate vernacular. "Have a groovy day" is still not a natural phrase for me to say and in some ways I hope that never just starts freely flowing forth from my lips. When directing guests, they advise us to say things like "ok just go out those doors, make a right turn, and then time travel down to the 1950's". It's cheesy dorky goodness, but it's fun.

I've learned some interesting Disney trivia over the past few weeks:

• 'Pirates of the Caribbean' was originally meant to be a walk-through wax museum and it was mostly completed when Walt told the Imagineers to scrap it and start from scratch. He wanted to incorporate the water-ride technology from "It's a Small World" with the animatronic technology from "The Tikki Room"
• Disney parks used to be partnered with the U.S. Treasury to start circulating silver $1 coins around the parks to be used as regular tender. They had to stop doing that because guests started trying to redeem them---thinking that they were just 'Disney money' and not actual U.S. currency because they thought that the faces on the coins were characters from the 'Haunted Mansion' ride when in face they were the faces of U.S. Presidents. Round of applause for Americans knowing their history.

I'm really happy with what I'm doing. Last night (Wednesday) I was a little bummed out because I had spent 3 straight hours completing learning modules at a computer as part of my training and I knew that I had to be at a bus stop at 4:30 in the morning which is just altogether a depressing concept. I wasn't too happy about it but my wonderful roommate invited me along to go see Fantasmic and I'm really glad that I went. Getting into a park for free for even just a few hours after work is absolutely worth the crazy schedules that require you to maneuver the bus system. When we went, 'Star Tours' was completely empty so we walked directly on and were seated in the first row. 'Fantasmic' was incredible. I had seen it at Disneyland a few times before but it was so great to see it in a big open amphitheater in a space designed specifically for that show rather than just cramming it on Tom Sawyer island and trying to watch it as you wait in line for 'Haunted Mansion'.

The one thing that they kept stressing over and over again is that the core of any job at Disney is to create happiness. It's a powerful idea to wrap your mind around but being paid solely to make someone else's day better...it's not a bad way to live. The buses are rough (I have to be at my bus stop at like 3:45 am to catch a bus that leaves at 4:02 am so I can clock into work at 5:30 am. It literally takes less than 15 minutes to get to Pop Century from my apartment but these are the joys of taking a bus). The hours are long. My feet really hurt. But it's worth it.

I'm in bed at 6:30. Not just on my bed: I am in my bed and under the covers. I've kept myself propped upright so that I don't fall asleep but I'll be surprised if I make it through one episode of Supernatural (thank goodness for Netflix woot woot!) before I fall asleep. There is some kind of twilight zone phenomenon on the DCP buses: you could get on a bus at the peak of an energy-drink induced spaz attack, and have all life and energy zapped out of you before you go five blocks. It's insane. 

It's been a little over a week but I'm so excited. I'm loving it. Some days are going to be hard, I know that. But there's a great pay-off. A lot of families swing through the store between breakfast and catching a bus to one of the parks. The excitement in tangible. Those kids are bursting at the seams and if you give them a chance they will tell you all about their favorite movie, princess, ride, all of the characters they want to meet and everything embarrassing thing their parent has ever done. I'm here making people happy and when you see people smile like that it's utterly contagious.

Disney magic is real and true people. Life is good and I am so grateful to be doing this.

The only thing that might make make this more magical is a nice big Dr. Pepper :)

DCP Day #2: Housing and Resort Adventures

Yesterday (Thursday) was a pretty easy-going day. We didn't have anything until a mandatory housing meeting at 2 pm so I slept in and it was quite lovely.

The housing meeting was at The Commons--which used to be an apartment complex solely for international participants in the program, but they've now opened it up so anyone can live there. We walked over from Patterson and it was maybe a 15 minute walk or so.

It was a pretty straight-forward meeting: don't kill anyone, don't burn your apartment down, don't do drugs, no drinking under 21, no means no, be respectful to security officers, that type of thing. Pretty redundant but it's Disney so they made it fun: the room had a fog machine and flashing lights and loud remixed Disney songs being played when we first got there. They made it less tedious, which was well-appreciated.

Coming out of the meeting, it was pouring rain. My roommates and I took a bus straight out to Walmart to go grocery shopping. Gazillions of groceries later, we piled back onto the bus and headed home. We basically got home, put our food away, and immediately ate dinner before turning back around to go resort hopping.

I'm scheduled to work merchandise at Disney's Pop Century Resort. My roommate Jackie is scheduled to be a lifeguard at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge as well as Disney's Coronado Springs Resort. The two of us have never been to Disney World before and since we don't have our passes to go into the parks, we thought it'd be nice to at least go poke our heads around to see where we would be working. Each resort was on a different bus route so our logic was that whichever of the three buses came around first, that was the resort we would go to first. The G Bus came through first so we were going to Pop Century! :)

Jackie, myself, and our roommate Megan had the bus to ourselves. We headed out to Walt Disney World (shrieking when we drove under the Disney World sign) and were very enthusiastic about going resort hopping. But...we got off on the wrong stop.

Welcome to my next 4 months!

Long story short: we got off at the employee entrance to the Pop Century resort and while we felt confident in our ability to find the guest entrance to Pop Century...we wandered around for an hour and tried to use Siri to help us. The pinnacle of the evening was when we went bushwacking up a hill through the trees to at least try to see what was over the hill. I accidentally kicked a fallen log and Jackie and Megan freakeddd out because we had just been talking about alligators and they thought it was an alligator at their feet.

Thankfully the college program bus comes around once an hour, so when it came back around we dejectedly hopped on. We laughed pretty dang hard when we realized the bus drove less than a minute and the next stop was the main entrance to Pop Century--what we had spent an hour trying to find. We got off and spent the next few hours looking around the resort.

Prince Eric <3

Pop Century is decades based: each wing of the hotel is based off a different decade. The resort spans the 1950's all the way to the 1990's. In each wing are large statues to commemorate either a pop cultural item popular during that time period (a Rubix Cube, bowling pin, large tub of Play-Doh, etc) or a Disney character whose movie came out during that time period (Mowgli and Baloo, Lady and the Tramp, Roger Rabbit, etc). The lobby has shadow boxes full of pop cultural icons for each decade (My Little Ponies for the 90's, a He-Man action figure for the 80's, etc).

We went into the main lobby to see the shop where I would be working. The store opens right up to a large food court that serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I don't know if I'll be working selling the food as well or just the merchandise, but I at least have some idea of where I'll be! The store is a pretty standard Disney store.

A bridge across a lake connects Pop Century Resort to it's sister resort Art of Animation so we walked across to check that out next.

Early draft of Timon...

Art of Animation is one of the newest resorts (according to my roommate Megan) and it's wings are based off of different animated Disney movies: Cars, Finding Nemo, The Lion King, and The Little Mermaid. Each wing has different statues with iconic characters from those movies so we naturally posed with them as well.

Art of Animation was set-up very similarly to Pop Century: a food court and souvenir shop all connected. I absolutely adored their lobby: the walls were lined with different character sketches of characters from the highlighted movies. You could walk along the wall and see different versions of how Timon was drawn before they settled on the final design. It was pretty neat to see. I was geeking out over the Lion King sketches.

We caught the bus from Pop Century and headed home where we basically all passed out. Today is a free day: nothing is scheduled. I think we might head back to Walmart for some returns and then go check out where Jackie is working today.

DCP: Survived Day #1

Well, I made it to Florida. I kind of wimped out on finishing that whole 30 Day Disney thing. If I feel super ambitious maybe I'll wrap it all up tomorrow....but doubtful.

A quick run-down of the last 36 hours or so:

• Flight to Austin, Texas
• Finished "The Book Thief" and LOVED it
• 2 hour layover in Austin
• Bought a hard copy of "Allegiant" (third book in the Divergent series) and read a good hundred pages or so
• Flight from Austin to Orlando
• Sat next to a couple planning on doing the Official Dopey Challenge this weekend: Disney 5K run on Thursday, Disney 10K run on Friday, Disney half-marathon on Saturday, and a Disney full marathon on Sunday
• Smiled like a dweeb the whole way through the Orlando airport, met up with 3 roommates, got a shuttle to our hotel
• Applebee's for dinner took 2 hours; AWFUL service
• Slept like a rock
• Woke up, took a shuttle to Vista Way for check-in and got there at 7:50 or so
• Received an apartment assignment (Patterson, for those of you who know which one that is)
• Got assigned to my location: Merchandise at Pop Century Resort! :) 
• Had a bus take us and all of our luggage to our buildings; 3 flights of stairs later and I was completely moved into my apartment by 10 am
• Slow unpacking and socializing with the roommates, walked to Subway for lunch with two of the roommates
• Headed to Casting at 4:30
• Received information about Traditions on Saturday (I'm in the group that goes at 6:45 in the morning...yay...), got fingerprinted, filled out an I-9
• Spent 2 1/2 hours waiting in line after line after line after line after line to fill out more paperwork
• Disney is awesome and because we were there so late, they bought us pizza :)
• Got home, turned around and left with the roommates to Chik-Fil-A for dinner and Walgreens for some basic groceries to tide us over until we got to Walmart tomorrow

And...that pretty much is a run-down of everything that's happened thus far. Tomorrow all I have is a mandatory housing meeting at 2 pm and then I'm free until Traditions (aka first day of orientation) at 6:45 am on Saturday. It sucks that it's so early in the morning...but that's also the day we get our park passes. My group is going to be done by noon so you can guess what I plan to be doing Saturday afternoon/evening... :) Exploring Disney World for the first time? I think YES.

Not going to lie, I was pretty intimidated when I realized what I was doing. I was outside of my parent's house and outside of the Mormon bubble. But everyone has been so nice and so friendly. The good thing about waiting in lines for literally hours is that you have ample opportunity to talk to people who are stuck and have nothing better to do than to talk to you too. I'm so excited for the next few days.

After Traditions on Saturday, I have Sunday off. I start actual training at Pop Century on Monday and Tuesday from like 8 am to 5 pm. That still intimidates me a little bit. I'm hoping to catch a bus and at least go poke my head around Pop Century some time this weekend and get a lay of the land so I don't go in there completely blind.

Am I bummed about not working inside one of the parks? Not really, actually. I think it will turn out really really well.

For those that are interested, there are 6 of us in my apartment (myself included) and we all come from BYU-Idaho. I'm in merchandise along with one other girl who is working merchandise in Adventureland in Animal Kingdom, one girl is a lifeguard at the Animal Kingdom lodge, one girl is working as a 'Fairy Godmother-in-Training' at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo Boutique in Downtown Disney, one girl is a character performer, and one girl is working in attractions.

I don't remember when the last time was that I was ready for lights out and sleep before midnight, but...I'm tired and really don't have much more to report from today.

One day down and lots more to come! :)

Bucket List (For the Disney College Program)

Holy Macaroni.

I have 4 days before I leave to go live for 4 months at Walt Disney World in Florida. To say that I'm a tad big excited would be a major understatement. Call me sadistic, but I smile way more than I should when I think of my friends returning back to the great frozen Rexburg in the next few days. I love you guys...but I'll see you when the weather warms up ;) I probably should be packing...or doing laundry so that I can pack...or cleaning my room...or making sure that I have everything that I need in order to go... SO naturally I'm online instead!

I've seen this done on other blogs and by other people I've met on the DCP (Disney College Program, keep with me on the acronyms I'm gonna use them a lot) Facebook pages, but I wanted to make one specifically for me.

 A DCP Bucket List. It's sooo much harder than it sounds because I've never actually been to Florida so I have no idea what's worth doing, what actually is a challenge, and what is just lame.

 So... in no particular order...here we go!

• Collect as many smashed pennies as humanly possible without repeating any of the designs
• Get as many pictures with the Fab 5 (Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, and Pluto) in as many of their different costumes as I can find them. Bonus points for Daisy. I don't think I've ever met her
• Do every ride in every park at least once
• Stay from opening until closing at least once in every park
• Be the last riders on a ride
• Take advantage of as many backstage opportunities as possible (Space Mountain w/ the lights on, etc)
• All 4 parks in 1 day, 3 rides in each park
• 1 day with no rides
• Photograph as many Hidden Mickey's as possible
• Pick 1 ride and ride it as many times as possible in one day
• See every show
• See every parade
• Take a picture with each park's landmark
• Watch a custodian paint a water picture
• See Illuminations, Wishes, and Fantasmic all in one night
• Buy a balloon on Main Street
• Ride all 3 mountains in one day (Space, Splash, Big Thunder Mountain)
• Meet all of the Disney princesses in one day
• 1 day that's dedicated only to meeting characters, no rides
• HARRY POTTER LAND
• Drink a butterbeer

Pretty generic right now. I definitely plan to add to this in the coming days (EEK!) and weeks, especially as I get down there and start talking to more people about all the "can't miss" bucket list items.

I'm excited. So excited. Holy cow I'm excited.

Alright. I should go do laundry now.

Disney Challenge Days 21 and 22

Disney Challenge Day #21: Most Overrated Movie

Out of all of the beloved Pixar movies, I'm still a little perplexed as to why Cars has the biggest fanbase and why they chose that movie to make a whole land out of at California Adventure.
It's cute. Very endearing. Mater is incredibly lovable. Don't get me wrong.

But people go cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs over this one and I think it's kind of overrated. The fact that Cars got a sequel before both The Incredible's and Finding Nemo seems like a real shame to me.

There's great character development in Lightning McQueen. I get it. Mater is a lot of fun. There's good moral lessons to be learned but all in all I wasn't THAT entertained to be a huge diehard fan like some people are. I just find it overrated.

Disney Challenge Days 19 and 20

Disney Challenge Day #19: Least Favorite Pixar Movie

I'm already preparing for the hate on this one... but I have to say Toy Story.

Maybe it's because I didn't grow up watching this one so it wasn't an integral part of my childhood. Maybe it was because when I finally did see it, I was at the age where I mentally categorized Toy Story as a "boy movie". Maybe it was because Sid just was way too freaking weird and because Buzz breaking his arm was just too intense for my innocent young heart to handle. Or maybe it was because I was uncomfortable that my name was so similar to that psychopath Sid.
Whatever the reason might be, I just didn't like this one.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely adored the sequels. Maybe that's ironic. But oh well, that's the truth of it. Hate on me if you'd like, but I just wasn't a fan of the original 'Toy Story'. As a kid, I thought it was weird. I guess in some ways I still do.