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Disney Day 12 (In Costume Training)

Today was absolutely my favorite day so far, aside from the fact that I had to be to work at 8am (which doesn’t seem early, unless you recall that I have to catch the bus an hour and a half before work). Today we got to go into the Emporium and actually work! When we first arrived there was a staff meeting going on, and even that was fun. These people love their jobs! And how could you not? At the end of the meeting we were told to go across the street to the Confectionary (the candy store) for a special treat. Imagine our surprise when the special treat was resistance bands and practicing exercises to prevent injury with the repetitive motions we do at work. Surrounded by sweets and doing a mini workout… brutal. We gave the bands back to the fitness instructors and headed back across the street. 

They were getting ready to open the park so our instructors let us grab Mickey gloves from a bin offstage (meaning the back room. I realize I didn’t explain this well before, but onstage is everywhere they guests can go and offstage is employee only areas) and wait on the street to greet guests as they arrived. Seeing the looks of joy and excitement on everyones face when we simply waved at them, welcomed them, or gave them a high four was just so incredible. I can’t begin to describe the joy I felt, but I definitely almost cried a couple of times. Watching adults and children alike, just beaming from ear to ear, and speed walking up the street towards the castle, especially the ones with a first visit pin on, was absolutely magical. A few of the kids came up and gave me high fours, and they were so excited! I saw one little girl across the street kind of looking around in awe, and I smiled and waved at her and she gasped. She grabbed her mom’s arm and said, “Mom, did you see that? She waved right at me!” It never really hit me how much every cast member adds to the show until that moment. To that little girl, I was a part of this mystical world she had just entered, I was a fairy tale character. I definitely didn’t think I would ever get a reaction like that from a child who is excitedly looking forward to meeting her favorite princesses. That little girl made me feel like a princess in that moment. That feeling is truly indescribable…

After we welcomed the first wave of guests into the park, we headed back inside to learn on the registers. I felt slightly overwhelmed just because at Disney World, cashiers do everything that guest service did at Target in addition to cashiering. I think I got the hang of it pretty quickly, although I struggled every time I had to fill out a resort delivery form. For my first day though, I feel like it was pretty successful. I got to make so many magic moments for people with pin trading, and taking their heavy shopping bags and promising to send them directly to their hotel. I just loved every minute of it! We got to listen to all the shows go past on Main Street, and when our area had nothing to touch up, we just got to talk to guests (which includes singing along to any music and/or playing with toys so guests just see you having fun at the happiest place on earth). Every single trainer and leader I have had thus far has asked, “How many of you got in trouble for talking in school?” followed by, “Well, that won’t ever happen here. We encourage it.” Sometimes at the Emporium, your job is literally to stand outside and play with a bubble machine and interact with guests. I’m sure the excitement will wear off eventually, but right now I’m just incredibly stoked to be here.

We got two half hour breaks, which seemed odd to me, but it was essentially the same as working at Target. One half hour break counts as your lunch and the other is essentially your two fifteen minute breaks combined. It will definitely take some getting used to… Other than that I absolutely love it! Zoning is so much easier here since the stock team comes in and makes everything perfect for the morning every single day, and cashiering is much less stressful because management encourages you to take your time with each guest and give them each a personalized, individual experience. (Fun fact: At Disney, shot glasses are not a thing. If you purchase one, it will show up on your receipt as “toothpick holder.”) Additionally, to help maintain the illusion of the show, and keep the magic, cast members are encouraged to use some variation of the following lines (which are different in each area of the park, relevant to the location and era of the park) “I’m off to tea” for going on a break, “I have to go visit the mayor’s wife”  for going to the bathroom (Don’t say that you’re going to visit the mayor though, that would be scandalous… We shouldn’t even show ankle on Main Street.), and “my carriage has arrived” to indicate the end of your shift. It seems like it might be difficult, but the park does such a good job alone creating that place that the guests become so immersed in the story, which makes it so much easier to go along with the show.

After work I finished my laundry from the night before, finished my bucket list, and cleaned up the apartment a bit in preparation for the upcoming housing inspection… :P Then I decided to check the mail since I was pretty sure no one had since we moved in. One of my roommates and I walked down to the mailboxes and found ours completely stuffed full! We literally each had an armful of mail, and were still reaching in and pulling out the strays that had been shoved into the very back of the mailbox. Apparently forwarding addresses aren’t much of a concern around here as not a single piece of mail in that box was addressed to any of us. It was a lot of magazines, but also a few important looking pieces of mail. The apartment complex front desk closes at 7pm so I wasn’t able to bring it down. at this point I’m not sure what they would do with it all. The amount of mail is ridiculous and the majority of it was for one person. Nothing for me to worry about I guess, I’m sure they have some sort of process for handling this (aka dropping it all in the trash…). 

Since I haven’t gotten a solid nights sleep in about a week… I’m going to head off to dreamland. Keep the magic!

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Disney Day 8 (Welcome to Operations)

Today one of my roommates and I had Welcome to Operations (aka training: day 1) at 7:30, which meant catching a bus at least an hour before. Our training lasted until 14:00 (Disney runs on military time so get used to that) and we had a break for lunch at noon. It was mostly just sitting in a classroom learning some pretty common sense information. The leaders know the material is boring so they try to spruce it up with humor, cartoon demonstrations, and practice at lifting things properly. Overall it wasn’t so bad, and getting up to stand is completely acceptable if you feel yourself falling asleep.

After class we all jammed onto one bus where I quickly became well acquainted with the elbow of the girl behind me who was holding onto the bar over my head and the firm buttock of the guy in front of me who’s shifting rear was level with my abdomin. At least he apologized everytime we fell onto each other… I’m definitely not tall enough to stand on a crowded bus… I wasn’t near a handle and I had to stand on my tiptoes to reach the bar. I should have feigned anxiety and lightheadedness to score a seat like the girl across from me did.

After the longest bus ride of my life… I went back to the apartment and met up with another roommate so we could go to Walmart (I know, it seems like this is my favorite place to visit in Orlando.) and get shoes for our costumes. As a merchandising cast member in Magic Kingdom West Main Street I was required to bring black slip-on dress shoes and black tights to wear with my costume which I will be receiving tomorrow at Merchandise Teir 1.

After yet another trip to Walmart, I grabbed some dinner then headed to Magic Kingdom with the two roommates who have their blue IDs (the rest of the roommates got calls today telling them to attend traditions tomorrow, but that it would be 8 hours. I assume this is a way to make up for lost time and also to ensure these cast members have full enough paychecks.) and rode Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin. The electrical parade was happening when we arrived so the lines at the rides were shorter than normal. Once off of this ride we headed for the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train which we rode in the dark with the fireworks exploding overhead. It was a pretty magical moment.

We caught the end of the fireworks show, grabbed some ice cream on main street, and booked it to the bus stop so we could get back and catch some sleep before another full day of training tomorrow.

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Disney Day 9 (Merchandise Tier 1)

Today I got to sleep in a little since my scheduled day started at 9:30, which was super nice. Since we were scheduled to go to Magic Kingdom Costuming (which is where all the cast member costumes are, not the character costumes) to get our costumes I sort of assumed we would just get our costumes and have another classroom day. I was super wrong about that! First off, for those of you who don’t know… this is what the costume at Magic Kingdom Main Street West Merchandising (aka the Emporium) looks like…

There are definitely worse things… Haha. We had a big group of people to costume and six fitting rooms so we spent a really long time trying on clothes because whatever size you think you wear… you’re wrong. Disney sizes run way small. I normally wear a child 12/14 and I’ve never been able to fit into an adult 2. I wear a 6 in Disney sizes. So just be sure to grab lots of sizes to try when you get your costume because it’s really hard to tell what you’ll need.

Once everyone found a costume that fit, we had to change back into our regular clothes to catch the bus to backstage Magic Kingdom. While we were trying stuff on at costuming, a trainer collected our IDs and they gave us all locker assignments in the fitting room, which is right next to where the characters do their make-up so that was super fun! Since there are so many cast members, there is a men’s, women’s, and unisex locker room. The unisex room doesn’t allow for costume changes, but some people (aka all us late arrivals) have their lockers in this room. The locker number they gave me didn’t exist, so I had to go find someone to assign me a new locker. 

So after the whole locker situation got sorted out and we were all in costume, we got a small tour of the backstage area and got to take a lunch. After lunch we got signed in to the hub, which is a website for cast members to view their schedules and whatnot, got 12 pins and a lanyard for pin trading, and met with a manager from our shop so they could get some information about us and talk to us about the importance of our role. Our manager was really nice and asked us some really fun questions, like who our favorite characters and villains were, what our favorite movie was, and what our “shoot for the stars” biggest goal was (I said first female CEO of Disney).

After the manager was finished meeting with us we were able to go onstage. I was not expecting this at all when I woke up today! We got to learn about all the areas, both on and offstage for our shop and the surrounding area, and we got to stand and watch the 3:00pm parade! I literally got paid to trade pins with people and watch a parade! I could definitely get used to this!

Once the parade was over, we went into the shop and looked around more at everything on and off-stage specific to our area. Our trainer had us take some time to walk around and interact with the guests (so a ton more pin trading) it was really fun, but I was no help to the guests since I didn’t really know where anything was. I loved being able to interact with some guests though and be in character. I cannot wait to really begin working here!

We only had a short amount of time left in our day since we stopped to take another break, so we took a short quiz on some computers, looked at a few more backstage things related to our role, and headed home for the evening. I’m exhausted though, since I’ve spent the summer sitting around instead of working. I’m sure I’ll get back into the swing of things soon though! In the meantime, I think I’ll take a night off to relax and work on my Disney bucket list!

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FAILED ⚠️

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The most important thing is not to be afraid. #dreamcatcher #dreamattack #everyonehasdreams (at Residence of Chulalongkorn University)

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So dizzy about this story. Help me pls dictionary!!!!!!!! Frankly,I want to boil this book and drink it up.

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Hey jude

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Hi there

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Yolo

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Waterfall 😏

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Back to basic basic. #tumyumkungnomkonwithboiledeggs

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by Casey Lewis Did you know that a long, long time ago, way before they were winning awards, posing for magazine covers, and generally ruling Hollywood, A-listers like Jennifer Lawrence, Taylor Swift, and Channing Tatum (who may not have won an actual trophy for She's the Man but will always be…

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