Earning my Ears

My training began the day of Traditions which was on Thursday, January 15, 2015.  For Traditions, we learned what it means to be a Disney Cast Member for the company.  We got our blue company IDs and name tags.  We also got to take a tour through Magic Kingdom to apply our newly acquired knowledge.  It was really interesting, and it was in that moment that I realized I get to work for this awesome company.

On Friday, I had my welcome to operations class.  This class basically trained us on how to be a cast member in Disney Parks and Resorts.  It was really long and tedious but the instructors tried to make it fun.  The one thing that got me through the class was that I got to go play with my roommates after.  After class, I took a bus to Ticket and Transportation Center and then to Hollywood Studios.  My roommates met me there and from there we went to ride a few rides.  We rode Rockin Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror before heading over to Magic Kingdom for a little bit.  I was starving by the time we got there, so Michele and I went to Cosmic Ray's to get the glorified and overpriced chicken nuggets.  After eating, Michele and I went to meet some characters at Pete's Silly Slideshow in Storybook Circus.  Donald was by far our favorite...he was ready to take us home with us!  After playing with the characters, we rode Dumbo.  After riding Dumbo, we decided to take a little trip under the sea with our friend, Ariel.  She was lovely and said the next time we go to the beach we should look for seashells for her collection.  Once we were done swimming, we headed over to the front of the castle to watch Celebrate the Magic and Wishes.  I ate a Mickey ice cream bar during these....it's casual.  After the shows we went to check the wait time for Big Thunder Mountain.  The wait was too long for us, so we headed to meet some more princesses.  We met Cinderella and Rapunzel, two of my favorites, and they were so sweet.  I told Cinderella I was going to help her in her castle in a few months and she was really excited to hear that.  After visiting some princesses, we went to Mickey's PhillarMagic before heading out of the park.  What started as a long, tiring morning ended as fun filled night.

On Saturday, I had another class.  This time it was more specific towards my role.  It was how Food and Beverage Cast Members help create magic.  It was a short class, but very informative.  After class, I went back to my apartment and ate some lunch.  After eating, Mollie, Anne, and I went to Animal Kingdom.  We thought we were going to ride some rides but we just ended up meeting some characters. After a short time at Animal Kingdom, we went back to the apartment for dinner and then we went back out to Downtown Disney.  Just another casual day in Walt Disney World.

Sunday was my last day of training before I started my on the job training.  Sunday was my "Once Upon A Time...Is Now" class which was basically my orientation to Magic Kingdom.  My favorite part about that day was walking into Magic Kingdom before the park opened.  It was completely empty and it was beautiful.  We even got to ride Haunted Mansion!  After our tour around the kingdom we branched off into our roles where we had another meeting and got our on the job training  schedules.  After receiving our schedules, we ate lunch and then went to get our costumes!  I LOVE my costume! It was a really long day, but once I got home it was game night with the roomies! We played Disney Headbandz and it was the funniest game I've ever played.  Still cannot believe how lucky I got with my roommates. :)

Monday and Tuesday were basically the same thing.  They were both on the job training and I met my trainers.  On those days it was Ruthie and Devin. They were so amazing, and I'm so glad to have had them as my trainers.  We did taste panels for dinner on those days and I definitely need to go back to the Crystal Palace on my own for dinner.  Each night we were greeter/door opener so we got to watch Wishes and Celebrate the Magic.  Crystal Palace has the best view for both, so I am really excited to be working there for the next month and a half.

Wednesday was assessment day! My friend Ally and I went into work early that day.  Ally was my training partner for the last few days, and we've become great friends too!  We seated some people, greeted and opened the door, and they even started training us on the podium to check people in.  We also did our taste panel for breakfast on this day.  After working for a few hours, it was time to review for assessment.  On this day, Devin and Dee were our trainers, and they were fantastic as well.   Janice, one of our leaders, was going to be giving us the assessment.  I now know everything about the Crystal Palace and Main Street USA, so if you have any questions about either of those places, feel free to ask me.  I am proud to say Ally and I both passed our assessment and earned our ears!  We celebrated by going to play in the park and eating dinner at Tony's in Town Square!  Neither one of us had been and it was delicious. We will definitely be going back.

Fried Zucchini Fingers. They were AMAZING

My Chicken Parm

All in all my training was successful.  Sunday will be my first day at work and not training so it'll be interesting to see how that goes.  Since Wednesday, I've been playing in the parks with my roommates and that's been a lot of fun! I'm going to do a separate blog post on all of our adventures these past couple of days.

Volunteering for the WDW marathon

Hi again! So much has been happening the last few days that's it's been hard to write about my experience volunteering for the Walt Disney World marathon.  So here we go!!

The Walt Disney World marathon is a long weekend. The expo starts on a Wednesday and the marathon doesn't occur till that Sunday.  This is why my dad and I drove down early.  On Saturday morning, January 10, we left my grandpa's to make our way over to the  marathon expo to pick up our volunteer credentials.  Before we got to the expo, we picked up Brittany, who would also be volunteering with us.  We got to the expo around 10:45 and went to pick up our credentials and look around for a bit.  After looking at some of the many booths the expo had to offer, we decided to try and check in to the hotel.

We were staying at the Courtyard Marriott off of Palm Parkway.  It was very nice for a great price.  We arrived a little earlier than check in time but they had our room ready, so off we went to drop our stuff off in the room.  After bringing everything to the room, we were really hungry so we decided to go to downtown disney for some lunch, and the choice of lunch was Earl of Sandwich (YUM).  Brittany and I both had the holiday turkey sandwich, which was AMAZING; I highly recommend it to anyone who like Thanksgiving dinner.  After lunch we decided to get some Ghiradelli ice cream because no downtown disney trip is complete without it.  We got the cookie bits sundae and it was delicious as usual.  After walking around downtown disney for a bit, we decided to go resort hopping for a little bit.  We parked, and started, at Fort Wilderness, because that's my dad's favorite resort, and then waited for my cousin Samantha to meet up with us.  Once she met up with us we went to the Contemporary so we could take the monorail to Polynesian.  We got pina coladas there.  After Polynesian it was time to head back because we had to be up super early the next morning for the marathon.

We woke up about 3am, and then went to pick my cousin up at her hotel.  We then had to drive to Blizzard Beach to get on a bus that took us to our location, which was mile 12.9 behind Animal Kingdom.  At Blizzard Beach, they also gave us a bunch of snacks and a jacket, which would come in handy later in the morning when it started raining.  We got to our location and we set up the tables and cups.  We filled them with water and then the runners started to come.  It was a lot of fun and I will probably do it again.  We took the bus back to Blizzard Beach so we could pick up our tickets and then head back.  Once we got back to the resort, we took a really long nap before we brought Brittany back to meet up with her parents.  All in all, the experience was a success.

Found a very special Delta Gamma!

My aunt is just the coolest...this was her 2nd marathon!

Check In Day and the Day After

Today's the day! The day I've been waiting for since that glorious morning on October 10.  It came so much faster than expected, but I am so glad to be here now.  I checked in on January 12 at 10am with my 5 other roommates. This was the first time we were all meeting in person, and I was so excited.  I am happy to say I love all of my roommates, and I know we're going to be great friends.

The morning of Check-In I woke up around 8:30am and gathered/organized my things.  We had stayed at the Courtyard Mariott Saturday and Sunday night, and we were checking out that morning (By the way, it was a great resort for a great price; it was the Courtyard on Palm Parkway).  We got in the car around 9:30 to make our way to Vista Way apartments for check-in.  We stopped at McDonald's for breakfast, but I couldn't really eat much because my stomach was full of nerves and excitement.  We pulled into Vista around 10:00am, and I went to the front to meet my roommates so we could begin the check-in process together.

Here is the check-in process in a nutshell....You get your program guide (this is super important, you need it for everything), then the lines begin.  After the first line you get a sticker with your location and your traditions session, then another line, then you find out your apartment complex and number (we got Patterson Court, yay!), and then another line, then you get your picture taken for your complex ID, then another line, then you get your apartment key, then another line, and then your housing ID is ready.  After this you go outside for more lines...woohoo!! The first line outside you get your casting schedule and housing meeting time.  After your schedule you stand in another line, then you talk to a lady/guy about the Disney look and what's going to happen over the next few days, then another line, and then you get to a table about how you would like to receive your paycheck.  All of this was very exciting...it gets better so stay in your seats, folks.  Needless to say there were a few more lines and more talking to people but it was all super important.  Once we finished with the endless lines, we went to unpack our cars.  This was about 11:00 and we all had casting at 12:30, so we drove over to Patterson unloaded and then headed to Chatham to catch the bus to casting.  We all had casting that day except for Mollie. :(

Casting was pretty uneventful. It was a cool building but really the only thing you do there is sign papers and get your fingerprints taken.  Although, it was in this moment as I was walking down the halls to go get my background check done that I realized I was working for the Walt Disney Company.  Such a great and surreal moment.  Casting lasted about 2 hours before we were able to get back on the bus to head back.

After casting, Maegan and I headed back to the apartment.  It started torrential down pouring which was super fun...I guess we better get used to these storms. We were only in the apartment for a little bit when we all split up again to bring our parents to the airport/cars.  Amy, my dad, and I drove Amy's mom to the airport and then we drove my dad to my grandpa's.  This is where Amy and I got stuck for about an hour because the weather was so bad.  It was like a mini hurricane outside.  Once the weather died down, Amy and I drove back to the apartment to FINALLY start unpacking. Our room was such a mess that entire day.  We had no time to unpack all day. We didn't have much time to unpack before we had to get ready for dinner at Kona Cafe at the Polynesian.  Getting to the Polynesian was an adventure in itself...

So we get onto WDW property fine but then I miss the exit for Magic Kingdom so we ended up at Epcot...no big deal. Then we get to Magic Kingdom, get to Polynesian, and I started driving WHILE WE'RE AT THE POLYNESIAN...I was looking for a place to turn in to park because I wanted to get close to the building.  Well, I passed up all the entrances to the parking lots and ended up exiting the resort area and then eventually ended up exiting MK area...MK:1 Marissa:0.  No worries, we eventually made it back but we ended up parking at MK somehow and we took the monorail to the resort. We sure did have an adventure that night, and we learned that I should never lead the caravan of cars.

After a short wait for our table, we were seated and had a magical meal at the Kona Cafe.  We all got the Pan-Asian noodles and split a few desserts.  Amy had a strawberry daiquiri and Maegan had 2 Sangrias...needless to say Maegan was in a GREAT mood the rest of the night.  We took the monorail back to our cars and headed back to the apartment.  First day was a complete and total success.

THE DAY AFTER!!

So, today was very relaxed.  We didn't have much on our agendas besides grocery shop, housing meeting, and get settled in to our apartment.  We woke up around 8:00 because 3 of us, including myself, had a housing meeting at 11am and we wanted to grocery shopping to get as much as possible before we had to be back.  Amy and I got breakfast at Chick-Fil-A because it's the best and then we headed off to Walmart.  With our pocket books aching, we headed back to the apartment to get our Program Guides and the 3 of us (Maegan, Michele, and myself) were off to the Commons Clubroom for the housing meeting.  It was really informative but nothing special really happened. Disney did they're best to make it fun, but it was also a serious meeting at the same time.

After the housing meeting, we walked back to our apartment and ate the leftovers from last night. Then Maegan and I took a wonderful 5 hour nap, which is why we are still up, and then we socialized with our roommates while Anne made us dinner (it was chicken, vegetables, and pasta with alfredo sauce).  After dinner, we had a roommate meeting to discuss the rules and make sure we are all on the same page.  The meeting was a complete success and it reassured me that I had some amazing roommates.

After our roommate meeting, we went back to Walmart to get some things we had forgotten and Michele had to get her stuff since she didn't go with us that morning.  We learned that going to Walmart is a horrible idea because that's when all the tourists come out to shop...so no more Walmart at night (if we can help it).  So, now we're back and I'm sitting here on our couch in the living room finishing up this blog.  Hopefully I'll be able to get to sleep soon, but I still need to write a post about volunteering for the marathon which will be coming soon! Until then, good night!

Here is a picture of my side of the room but it was mid move in so excuse the mess

It's the Final Countdown

Hi all! Well, I'm here in Orlando getting ready for my crazy adventure that is the Disney College Program.  I honestly cannot believe how fast the time has flown.  I feel like it was 50 days till move-in yesterday and now I only have 3 days left!

I ended up packing everything yesterday just because I had a lot of laundry to do (not really, I just procrastinated).   Huge thanks to Courtney and Jenny for helping me pack and stay on track. I probably wouldn't have been able to get everything done if they had not been there. Also, space bags are God's greatest gift to man. They're amazing...and it was great entertainment to watch everything shrink.  I ended up packing till about 2am and loaded up the car right before I left. I was really worried everything wasn't going to fit because I had a lot of bags and containers, but thankfully I got everything in the car.

We woke up about 5:45am, and I packed up the last minute toiletries and electronics.  Dad made us breakfast and I started to load up the car while he finished getting ready. We were on the road by 7:00am. Not too shabby for packing till 2am and not loading anything in the car the night before.  The trip was smooth sailing. We stopped at the Florida Welcome center to switch drivers, and dad bought me a SunPass for all the lovely Florida tolls while we were there.

Typical Florida welcome center picture

About an hour into driving and we decided to stop at Dixie RV because dad wanted to look at some campers, and it was a nice long break from driving.  We spent about an hour there and then it was on the road again till we reached Tallahassee for lunch. Our choice for lunch was Moe's Southwest Grill. We used to have one in Slidell and then it left (such a sad day in the Maynard household).  With a full lunch in our system, it was time to hit the road again.  The sunset was really pretty on our way there, so naturally I took a snapchat of it.

We stopped at Wendy's for dinner and made it to my grandpa's house at 7:30 (EST).  So now I'm sitting here catching up on blogging and making sure everything is organized and ready to go for Monday. Tomorrow we're going to the marathon expo to get our volunteer credentials, but I won't go into too much detail about that because I want to do a separate post on my volunteering experience.

Something that has happened since my last post is the registration for DORMS housing.  It was relatively easy since one of my roommates, Mollie, was nice enough to do the hard part for us, and we just had to accept her roommate request. Thanks again, Mollie!  We also got our check in time for Monday morning and we all got 10am which isn't too bad.  Something that did surprise me was I how felt as the time approached. I was so excited and then on Wednesday it just hit me like a ton of bricks. I felt nervous and a sad that I won't see my friends, family, or dogs for 6 months. Don't get me wrong I'm still very excited, but the nerves have definitely kicked in these last few days.  I'm just ready to start this adventure.

My sweet pup that I'm going to miss so so much