Family Visit

I know this is long overdue, but my family came to visit last month!! It was so amazing to be able to take a few days off work and have a little vacation with them, although they left me wishing that they could have stayed a few weeks longer!
Day 1:

Beach trip! We drove to Clearwater Beach, which is the same one that I went to with my friends before. It is on the Gulf of Mexico, and it has the most beautiful sunsets, fine sand, and of course, clear water.

Day 2:
Animal Kingdom and Epcot! I think Animal Kingdom was the favorite out of all of the parks. We got to go on a Safari ride and see real elephants, lions, giraffes, crocodiles, and more. Also, I took them to see a play called the Festival of the Lion King, which is filled with fun stuff--gymnastics, ballet, fire juggling, etc. Oh, and we met Pocahontas! No big deal.

Day 3:
Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. We only had time for a brief tour of Magic Kingdom, so I could show them where I work, but we spent a while at the Studios riding some thrill rides, as well as going on Star Tours, meeting some characters, and watching Fantasmic. Mom wasn't a huge fan of the Tower of Terror (but I was excited that she even went on it!!), but the boys loved Rocking Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror. And of course, who doesn't love Star Tours?!

Saying Goodbyes

Ok, so obviously I’m really bad at this blog thing, and Emilee and Janelle won’t stop giving me a hard time about it so I figured I would write one more time before we leave… in two weeks!!  It’s really hard to describe everything in one blog post but I’ll try.  Right now I sort of feel like I’ve come here and created this whole new life and now I just have to leave, and a lot of these people I won’t see again! I’m pretty bummed, but at the same time ready to be done with work (I’m sure you can ask any CP that and they would agree).  No matter how much you love a job here it requires a lot of hours and some difficult people to deal with. 

Since I’ve written last I was deployed to a buffet restaurant for a couple weeks called Hollywood and Vine. It has character dining with the playhouse Disney characters for breakfast and lunch.  Brief synopsis of how it went down.  I get in my snazzy little costume and enter into the back door where I am thrown into the abyss of the kitchen. I find some workers who send me to the manager’s office. The manager didn’t know why I was there. I said I was deployed so she sent me to the front and to have Nick teach me the table numbers. I walk into the restaurant where thousands of children are suddenly running and screaming and jumping and singing (ok and laughing) everywhere I go. There’s also a scary yellow bear called Oso walking around, and a kid puking. I’m taught the numbers and seat people as fast as I can, all day. Yes, there actually is such thing as hell and I experienced it firsthand.  Ok it wasn’t that bad after a while and it actually was fun to watch the characters sing and dance with the kids but I was more than happy to head back to my home at the derby where we are like a family J

And the best part is being off work! We turn pretty quickly into vacation mode when we all happen to get the same days or times off. We’ve been to all the parks many times, ridden most the rides and seen all the shows.  The shows are my favorite and still give me the chills!! Also, one of my favorite things to do is character hunt. It takes work and some good timing but it is SO FUN. I’m kind of like a little kid when it comes to seeing the princesses and what not.  I’m still determined to see Peter pan and Pocahontas before I leave. I discovered this love for character hunting when Janelle, Emilee and I went to MK dressed as tourists! It was such a blast. Everyone treated us extra special with our "1st Visit," "I'm celebrating" and "Happy Birthday" pins. (The pins are a big deal at disney!!) It was hard keeping our story straight when we made friends while waiting in line though. We still laugh about that day and how we kept almost blowing our cover. Here is exhibit A, where Emilee told Tiana her real name on accident instead of her name on her Birthday pin! (long story, and sorry emilee ;)

 In addition we’ve got lots of friends from the awesome ward here. We like to play volleyball and we’ve even made it to the beach a couple times! We have lots of fun together going to dances and different church events or going to do stuff at the parks.  Luckily a lot of them go to BYU-Idaho so it won’t be goodbye at the end of the program. We’ve already got a Disney reunion planned! 

Altogether I’m excited for the changes coming and I’m ready to leave. It’s just hard spending time with all these people I love here when I don’t know if I’ll ever see them again. I feel like I’ve grown so much here and.. I may never be back. Wow this is way too depressing haha.  Just gotta have faith in the future and know that everything always turns out the way it’s supposed to! I am so grateful for life!!

Until next time

Heidi

Beaches and Mansions (Janelle)

Last Tuesday a whole bunch of us took the day off and drove to Clearwater Beach, which is about an hour and a half away. It was so beautiful! The sand was white and the water was so clear that I could see my feet when I was standing in the water (I guess that explains the name. duh.) There was about fifteen of us who went, and we all chilled on the beach, tossed a football around while playing in the ocean, played beach volleyball, and got tan (or in my case, sunburnt, but just in spots I missed with the sunblock!). It was awesome to see the sights and to just relax and enjoy the views! And to top it off, on the way back we stopped at Steak n' Shake and got some yummy food and shakes, it was divine :)

This morning I got up and got on a bus at 5:39 so that I could go on a backstage tour of the Haunted Mansion! A bunch of my coworkers and I got to go two hours before the park opened and learn about all the tricks and history of the ride, as well as get to be the first people to ride it once the park opened. It was so neat! I love how Disney puts so much detail into everything--even things that no one but cast members would ever notice. So worth losing a little sleep this morning!

There has been a lot of playing going on lately! But it was definitely needed. Don't worry, I worked some too :) The other day was leap day! So it was an "extra Disney day" and the magic kingdom was open all night and all day! We most definitely were not going to miss that! So Heidi, Janelle and I rode the bus over at 11 pm and played all night! We even got to meet Jack Sparrow at 3 am! It was such an awesome night but really exhausting! Who wouldn't want to go on Splash Mountain that early in the morning?! It's a once in a lifetime opportunity!

The next day, the other CP's that work at Crystal Palace with me, and I, all went to work... but not to work. To EAT!! We made a reservation and went in to the buffet and let me tell you, it was good food. I don't think I've ever had breakfast that good before (except Mom's cooking of course). We actually got to spend some time with the characters and get more hugs from them! It was so much fun, we were all so tired from the night before but it was so worth it! We had such a blast!


Then, Tyler from school came to Florida and I was able to spend time with him! It was so great to see him again; we hung out a lot during school and whenever a semester ends, it's always so hard to say goodbye. To anyone! Because there are such long breaks between semesters for us so it was so fun to see him and spend time playing at the parks with him all day long, which is what we did! We went to Hollywood Studios and rode rides and we saw Fantasmic and went on the Indiana Jones stunt show! Then headed over to Animal Kingdom for everything there. We also were able to go to Magic Kingdom together and see the Wishes fireworks show and "The Magic, The Memories, and You" castle show. I love Disney World!!

Today was interesting. I worked another morning shift so it was slow and our computer system was down so we had to do everything manually which caused a few problems but we all worked it out. When I work mornings, there are times when it's slow and there's no one on the porch waiting to be sat or else it's busy and there's 30 waiting but at one point, it was a really slow time with a few people outside waiting and one old man in a wheel chair starts singing to all of us seaters! We loved it because people don't usually sing to us! He was so sweet and funny. I love working with people like that! Later on, when it was turn-over time which means that we are changing from breakfast to lunch and so people are leaving but no one's coming in to be sat, the characters got a little bored. They are so crazy when they have nothing to do! Tigger and Piglet sit at a table and pretend to eat together or else they come up to people (mostly Tigger because he's crazy) and mess with their hair or things like that. Today Tigger grabbed hold of the vacuum cleaner and started vacuuming up the floor! Then one of the seaters proceeded to chase him around the room trying to get it back. It made us all laugh... and then we had to go seat some more but I snapped a picture of the seater and Tigger together after their race. Another thing that happened today was as I was on hula hoop duty so I stand outside and hula hoop with lots of little kids or trade pins or just talk to people and answer questions. I love when Latter Day Saints come up to me and tell me they are Mormon. It makes my day to know that we're all over the world! Whenever I do see them, it makes me feel like I'm seeing family or something, people I understand and know that they understand me. It's a great feeling and I love being a part of the gospel!

Work has been insane the past few days/weeks (sorry I haven't blogged in awhile!) I love working in a restaurant! It is really hard sometimes because people don't always treat you very well but for the most part, people are nice and love to tell you about their great day at Disney World. I have now been trained to do more at the Crystal Palace and so I'm not just a "seater" but I can update the floor and I can check people in and make reservations and direct them places and recommend other places to go if they haven't made reservations (I mean, come on. You come to Disney World expecting to get in to one of the 4 table restaurants in all of magic kingdom without a reservation??!) Working at Disney World, we are expected to be the happiest people all the time and I love that but who knew what hard work it is to be so happy! But I love being there and making others happy. I helped make a "magic moment" the other day. I was on door duty (standing outside making sure that people don't come in who aren't supposed to and directing people to check-in and helping them get to where they want to be) and I heard one of the little girls inside say that she just lost her first tooth a few minutes before! A few coworkers and I got together and went to her table. We asked the little girl what her name was and then told her that Tinker Bell had talked to us who is in league with the tooth fairy of course and that she had told us that she lost a tooth that day. We gave her a pin that said "I'm celebrating loosing my first tooth!" and she lit up as we all clapped for her and prinkled pixie dust on her table telling her that it came straight from Never Land just for her. She was so happy and I couldn't believe that I get to make those little moments happen every day if I want and look for the opportunity. I also love being able to watch the Wishes fireworks every single day. It is so amazing to see them. They are a million times better than any 4th of July show and I feel so lucky to be able to have this experience in my life to look back on throughout my life.

Magic Moments (Janelle)

Since I work in both Tomorrowland and Fantasyland in Magic Kingdom, my work area consists of two ice cream shops, a drink shop, and a hot dog place. While working at one of the ice cream shops, every now and then we are given permission to do what we call a "Magic Moment." What happens is we make a big ice cream sundae using any (or all) of our toppings, grab a few spoons, and give it to a random family in the park. Yesterday a girl I work with and I made a huge sundae with a brownie, swirl ice cream, hot fudge and strawberries, and we went outside and spotted a couple walking down the street, each pushing a toddler in a stroller. They looked so scared when we stopped them, I think they thought they were in trouble or something! But then we told them this story about how Cinderella had been looking down from the tower of her castle and when she had seen them, she had decided to make them a big ice cream sundae, and she sent us to give it to them. They got so excited, it was adorable! And it turns out that it was their son's birthday, so that made it even better, because we got to wish him happy birthday and watch his face light up as we handed them their ice cream. It made my day :) I love Disney!

Fantasyland Costume!

     Also, I have been able to talk to guests at work in Spanish!! I have had several families come up to my register who can hardly speak English at all, so instead of trying to figure out what they want in English, I just switch over to Spanish. I am so glad that my Spanish has come in handy, and not gonna lie, I'm kinda excited that I can have a full-on conversation with people in another language. And the look on my coworkers' faces when they hear a little white girl start busting out Spanish is really funny!

Our New Life (Heidi)

Well, there is so much to say right now. Yep we are in Orlando and the best way to sum it up is that I love it!! I still think it’s weird sometimes that I get to be at Disney World where everyday is magical :D

Like Emilee said, I am working at the Hollywood Brown Derby. It's a signature restaurant modeled after the original Brown Derby in Hollywood where all the famous people used to eat, like Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, ...anddd a bunch of other older famous people I don't know.  It is some dang hard work but the rewards definitely compensate for the crap I can get sometimes.  I’m a hostess so my job includes making reservations, checking our guests in, and seating them.  What they forgot to mention is that I am also the person who is supposed to know everything about Disneyworld, or Hollywood studios at least.  Being the front of the house, or “on stage,” I get a lot of questions. People want to know where they can eat, how they can get there, what they can eat there, how long the wait time is, where they can get a coffee or a burger or a drink, and the list goes on! Then there’s all the questions about our food and what they can eat with different allergies and what not.   I feel like a little knowledge base or something. It was so hard at first not being able to answer anything but now that I know the basics it is so satisfying being able to help people! Most of them are really grateful for whatever information you give them and they really trust your recommendations. Yay for feeling important!!

One of my favorite things to do now is just stand in front of the restaurant and hand out menus. I end up having the most random conversations with people and it’s really fun. We are also at the very center of the park where there is a nice big stage by the huge blue magic mickey hat, which means free entertainment all day at work.  Disney Channel Rocks (oh man) plays every hour so we’ll just say I know camp rock, HSM, cheetah girls, and a lot of other songs by heart (and some dance moves to go with each song haha). It’s a love hate relationship.  There’s also the 3 oclock pixar parade and the band that plays every night (my favorite).  And of course, Disney is always full of surprises so one night we got a huge firework show and there’s always lots of other fun things going on.

To top it all off I have a ton of coworkers who are super nice and fun. Most of them have been there for over five years, and some a lot longer than that! We all joke with each other at work and we all love dancing a little to the loud music that plays outside. The guests love it too! When they see us dancing they always smile or join in. It is definitely a fun atmosphere if we make it that way.

Whew! I can still think of so many more things to say but this post is already out of control. I guess just the biggest thing I have learned so far is that attitude is everything. I could easily hate my job and I already do come up with plenty to complain about, but every time I remember where I am and the amazing things I see and the awesome people I meet, I know I am so blessed. And I guess our whole lives are that way. Life is good my friends, no matter where we are : )

Earned the ears!

The first few days actually in the Crystal Palace were kind of insane! There is so much to remember and do and if I don't do them right... well it's not good. Stressful! But it has been interesting to learn the ways of a restaurant. I've never worked in one before so it was fun to see how it works but being a hostess is harder than I thought. You get to make the guests' night magical because they're in the Magic Kingdom everything has to be perfect and that means that I have to remember everything that I need to say to them but make it seem natural and easy and not say the wrong thing or say it the wrong way. I have to know everything about the Crystal Palace and everything about the park and where things are in relation to the Crystal Palace and where the smoking areas are and the restrooms and where to send people if we are too full. I have to remember all of the people who have positions above me and everyone around me and who to go to for certain problems and what their positions are, even the chefs and sous chefs. I have to remember that it's a show and so smiling is the most important part. I come home and my face hurts from smiling all day! (which is a good thing I guess) There really is a lot to remember here but I actually "earned my ears" yesterday! That means that I had to take this big assessment/test to see if I was ready to be a hostess there and after an hour and a half of talking to a manager and answering all sorts of questions about the restaurant with the two other girls, I passed! I am officially a hostess at the Crystal Palace! I get to spend all day with little kids who have come to my restaurant to see their favorite people, Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet and Tigger. I love seeing their faces as they walk in and Tigger is bouncing around the room and Piglet runs up to give them hugs. It is so fun to watch as the little kids run up to Winnie the Pooh and give him the biggest hug I've ever seen and they just look so happy. The characters are so funny too! They don't talk but they definitely act! Sometimes during the day, if we're on door duty (opening the door for 400 guests... fun right?), we get to go outside and play with hula hoops and teach the kids how to do it and to hand them out to anyone who wanted to "give it a go," as my Australian coworker says. Yesterday, I brought some hula hoops inside and Tigger pulls me into a hoop and makes me do the hula in front of all of those little kids! Tigger was clapping for me! It was so fun to see all of the kids faces as I hula hooped for them with Tigger dancing all around. I think it will be a fun three months!

Our First Week at Disney! (Janelle)

We are all officially done with our general training, and our first week here at Disney World! WOOHOO! We all have our costumes (yikes), park access passes, housing ID cards, and name tags. We are basically legit. This week we do our on-the-job training, so hopefully by next week we will all be into the groove of how things work around here... although maybe not the bus schedule. That thing is confusing! Give us more like a month on that one.
    It is so cool how many international people work here! We meet tons of people from New Zealand and Australia, and we have also met people from the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Canada, Peru, Italy, and probably more that I cannot think of right now. There have been times where the three of us have been sitting on a bus and nobody except us is speaking English. It is really neat when the bus picks up a lot of people who work at Epcot, where they have people from different countries come and represent their cultures, because then we get to see all kinds of cultural costumes and try to guess where everyone is from. How awesome is that?

It has been so crazy here in our new home! We have been training every day but not in our job quite yet. We had to be trained about how "Safe-D begins with me" and about health standards and things like that. We've had long days of training but we've also had time to go to the parks (mostly the magic kingdom) and ride rides, see characters like Mickey Mouse, the Incredibles, Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen, Chip and Dale, and Buzz Lightyear! At the trainings, we also got to go on a sort of "cast tour" where we learned the history of Disney World and Walt Elias Disney. Did you know that when Walt Disney was building Disneyland, he soon realized that he had made a mistake because he had only bought as much land as he needed but when it had so much success, other people decided to cash in on the prophets and started buying land around Disneyland like cheesy tourist shops and little hotels so Disneyland couldn't be expanded. These cheap little shops could be seen from some of the bigger rides and Walt had a dream that his Disneyland would be a place where people could come to escape completely from the real world and enter the world of fantasy (the theme of the magic kingdom). So he decided to start the Florida project. He started to buy some land in Florida but knew that if others knew he was buying so much land here in Florida, others would do the same thing they did in Anaheim California so he created a bunch of fake corporations to buy land so it seemed as if many different people were buying it. Walt bought each acre for $143.00 but later, when the project was announced, the price jumped from 143 to thousands per acre! That is how Disney World first started. Here's a few pictures from our adventures and Disney World!
It's Buzz Lightyear and me with Chip and Dale! I think Chip is the red nosed one? I might want to figure that out... we could be best friends one day! The other one is me and Janelle about to go into the 3-D Mickey movie! It was awesome. The Crystal Palace is where I will be working! More to come (cheesy outfits and crazy people wanting to eat with Winnie the Pooh!)

The beginnings (Emilee)

Janelle Burner, Heidi Corbridge and I have decided to take on a whole new adventure! We are in Orlando, Florida and are training to work at Disney World! We've only been here for a few days but it's been a crazy ride! We arrived on Monday and went through an intense check-in, received our ID's and went straight to casting where we went through all the paperwork and made sure that everything was in order. It took about two hours and we were able to find out where we work! I am working at the Crystal Palace as a hostess where people come to eat buffet style with Winnie the Pooh and his woodland friends! Janelle is working in the Magic Kingdom as outdoor food and beverage and Heidi is also a hostess but in Hollywood Studios at the Brown Derby. Our apartment complex is called Chatham Square and we are living with other CP's (college program) only. It was a trek to get to our little "townhouse apartment." We love it!