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!