Catching Up: 3rd, 4th, 5th Feb

3rd of Feb:
I today off aswell and to be honest I didn't really do much. It was a day to spend around the apartment complex - I did some research and investigating on things for when the family comes to visit (only 50 days now!) and I had a few Skype calls  to people back at home - it was great to catch up Teagan!! :D but other then that it rather uneventful.It was nice just to have a mellow day.

4th of Feb:
Today, was the start of my 7 day working week! So for the next week or so my blogs won't be very regular unless I do something interesting before work! But this morning I did the usual trip to Walmart because we had very little food/water left! And then came home and did some cleaning of the apartment and then wen to work! Not a very interesting shift at work - people just love to talk to me - not because I'm interesting just because they love my accent. And when people comment on it (which they always do!) they always say "oh what I a beautiful accent you have" And I always find it weird because they are literally complimenting the way I talk hahaha. And it's weird because quite a few people have thought that I am British - and I'm just like ahhmm nopeeeeee! 

But anyways, I started work at 5:30 so I had all day to do things which is nice but then I don't finish until 11:30pm and depending on the bus it can be a late night by the time I get home. I definitely prefer starting at 4pm and finishing at 10:30pm and home by 11:30pm.

5th of Feb (today):
Today is raining!! So I had plans to go into Magic Kingdom but I'm not gonna do that in the rain! I don't start work until 5;30pm again (agh!) so I am just catching up on things (like my blog) this morning before work.

One of the greatest days of my life - 2nd Feb

I would just like to start todays blog with stating that I love Disney - I love what Walt has created and the legacy that he has left long after he has gone! I also love the fact that I am involved in helping to created lasting memories here at DisneyWorld - it truly is a dream job. 

And now that I have made the justification I will tell you what I did today.... I headed over to the competition; Universal World

Which plays host to quite possibly my favourite place on Earth (well realistically its probably my top 3 places) 

HARRY POTTER WORLD! 

I spent pretty much my entire day emerged into the magical world of my wizarding friend HP and I loved every single minute. Basically all day I just kept repeating "omg, omg, omg this is so amazing"

I have heard really great things about the land that is all about HP but I was very very happy to discover how well they have created and incorporated the the details of not only the movies but the books aswell. 

So let me start from the start, we took 2 buses to get to Universal and then a very long walk to get in - paid the small fortune for the annual pass (yes I know, I can go back whenever I want to - how awesome is that?!) 

And then walked into Hogsmede (if you haven't read the HP books/seen the movies this post won't make much sense to you - sorry!) 

Even the buildings had "snow" on them:

Had a photo with the stationary model of the Hogwarts Express:

And then we saw it: 

My other favourite castle! 

We walked around Hogsmede and then went to the Three Broomsticks for lunch and I got to try Butterbeer:

It was delicious! 

We went on a few rides one being the Harry Potter Experience. I'm not going to try and explain it as it won't sound nearly as exciting/well created as it should.  But let me just say that it was simply amazing! 

We then went to Hogsmede train station: 

And got on a moving Hogwarts Express at the Hogsmede station:

On the Hogwarts Express:

And then got off at Platform 9 and 3/4:

The Night Bus! This guy was hilarious because he said "oh you're Australian, but your name mustn't be because you are from Tasmania -  because you have all my teeth!" Hahaha. Even Tassie gets picked on overseas! 

However, we then went into Diagon Alley!

 

This was (if possible) even better then Hogsmede - probably due to the fact that it's newer

And they even had the hand - just like in the movie when Harry travelled by Floo powder and accidentally ended up here instead of Diagon Alley.

Hanging with Griphook in Gringotts! The new Gringotts ride was absolutely, fantastically amazing!  Again, trying to describe it would be too hard unfortunately - so you'll just have to take my word for it. 

The Leaky Cauldron:

Just like the movie! It was amazing!

Even though we are here - we still think about home! (Look behind us)

It was a long but really great day! And then to top it off - we came home and watch Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone! 

P.s Sorry for the overload of photos - these are literally just a snapshot of the photos that I took today! 

Hollywood Studios - 30th Jan

Hollywood Studios was the last park that I hadn't been to yet and I had today off work and so did Laura and Rayzhaan so we headed out for a day at Hollywood! 

It is probably the smallest of the parks but everything that it offers is something I would be interested in seeing! 

Had a chat to Walt:

We got there rather early (like 11:30am - haha) and had a look around for a bit and then went to a Car Stunt Show - which was pretty damn awesome.

Then we went to Indiana Jones Stunt show  which was more about people doing stunts rather then Cars - but it was awesome also.

This is all that is left of the Hollywood Studios Magic Hat - it was the parks icon but they need to make room for greater things. Just a tad sad that we couldn't see the full icon.

We then looked around at some shops - they actually have a whole store dedicated to Frozen now - how crazy aye!!

I bought my 5th pair of ears (I now have 1 for each park)

One of the streets of Hollywood Studios:

The Hollywood Tower of Terror - we waited in line for this ride for about an hour and it was well worth it! 

Every park (except Animal Kingdom) has a night time show - Hollywood Studios has Fantasmic! It was a water/light show/fireworks performance. It was really great!

Not very often do you see all the character chilling together on a boat! 

With Mickey driving it!

Beauty and the Beast!

 How cool is that?! (P.s I love my camera!!)

Overall it was a great day! 

Magic Before Work - 1st Feb (inc 31st Jan)

31st Jan:
As I had a few pretty long, tiring days, today I didn't do much before work. I think I just spent it sleeping in and with the roommates before I had to get ready for work.

Today was my first day without my "earning my ears" on. I think I did really well all by myself - there was always someone to help, should I need it - but basically I was thrown out the nest and I think I was flying successfully by myself. 

1st Feb:

I had work at 5:30pm today and I was feeling like I needed a 'pick-me-up' today so Hannah and Laura and I headed into Magic Kingdom for a few hours.

We had a great time wondering around exploring MK we then decided to meet circus Minnie and Daisy Duck and they were fantastic - Photos to come as I don't actually have them!

We went on a ride called 'Under the Sea' which  we basically sat in a shell and it re-told the story of the Little Mermaid - it was okay but the best part about it was the fact that we took these:

They are "Shell-fies" Hahahaha. We laughed for about 20minutes about that - so cheers to that cast member who made out day! 

Anyways, so the trip to MK, was working fantastically, I was feeling 100% better until I realised that I had forgotten 1 very important piece of my uniform - my purple vest!! And to make it even worse I didn't realise until about 4:30pm (an hour before I was meant to start work). So I literally ran out of MK and headed to the Monorail and used it to get to the costuming place that I needed to and ran all the way there and back and made it back to the Grand Floridian with 15 minutes to spare - I was quite impressed with my timing skills just enough time to get ready and start work - pheeeww!

So I made it to work on time and I can guarantee I will never forget anything EVER again because it was awful. Something else that I forgot to mention about today it  was SUPERBOWL SUNDAY!! And that probably means the same to you as it did to me - but it is MASSIVE here. And even though I know umm...about...arhhh, nothing about American football and I mean ziltch - I got pretty involved. This could have been about the fact that there was literally like no one that came into our restaurant - they were all at the bar around the corner. So I didn't really have much else to do other then to at least pretend to be interested. But it was a really close game and came down to the last like 40 seconds - so that kinda made my evening semi-interesting.

Assessment Day - 29th Jan

Today was my assessment day! I was extremely nervous! I don't really know why because if you "fail" they just train you for a few more days and then reassess you. It was really weird because everyone I talked to said that they had like 3 weeks of training - I had 1 week! I had 1 week to learn everything and remember it all. I was told that a manager would take my assessment and I had never met him before - so that added to my nervousness! It was all rather intimidating. I had to pretend that he was a guest and I had to greet him, check him in and then seat him at the table of his choosing - so I was seriously worried that I wasn't going to remember the seating chart! But anyways everything went okay-not perfect but and there was definitely some room to improve on (but let's face it, I had only been there a week!) 

BUUUUTT....

I PASSED - YAAY!

So I am now a fully fledged Cast Member and I don't have to wear my 'earning my ears' flag anymore (even though I left it on for the duration of this shift...shhhh!)

I started work at 3:30pm and didn't finish until midnight - so that was a fairly long day! But it was definitely a good day! Everyone congratulated me on passing my assessment and I was happy to finally have it out of the way! I had been told that he would ask questions about the menu and the wine so I memorised  the menu items and I knew a bit about the wine - I specifically talk about a South Australian wine that costs about $1200 to buy (he was rather impressed about that considering I am Australian. 

But yeah I came home and fell into bed after my rather stressful evening!