Family Visit

   I know this is a little out of order, but I didn't have any pictures to post along with this one since I forgot my camera when they came; Mom (of course) had hers, so I needed to wait until she had a chance to email me pictures from her camera.
   Last Tuesday and Wednesday, Mom and Grandma and Grandpa came up from Naples to visit Disney World.....Grandma and Grandpa hadn't been in the Magic Kingdom for about 30 or more years, and they have never been to Animal Kingdom or Hollywood Studios! They arrived at my apartment around 11am on Tues. and we headed for our resort: Disney's Port Orleans Riverside. We had never stayed there before, so it would be a treat regardless, but when I booked the room, the only one available was a Royal Guest Room! You may or may not know the (newer) Disney princess, Tiana, but because she's from New Orleans, she is the princess for this particular resort. The room was really nice and very "princess-y"! The detail that went into everything was unbelievable.....from the headboards to the carpeting to the bathroom counter it was most definitely fit for a princess. Not to mention upon arrival we each received a letter from Princess Tiana welcoming us to her suite.

Grandma/Grandpa and I in our Royal Room

 Mom and Grandma and I in our room

 The "food court" in our hotel

Port Orleans Riverside-one of the buildings

 After getting settled in to our room, we had a quick lunch at the food court in the hotel's main building (we were on the dining plan which is an amazing deal: one quick service, one table service, and one snack each day and a refillable drink mug; for being a cast member, it only cost us $33/per day a person!) and headed to check out the boardwalk area near the (go figure) Boardwalk Resort. We had a little difficulty finding it, but once we did we enjoyed about an hour or so walking around the shops and restaurants....it's usually more exciting and lively at night, but it is still gorgeous to look at! Also there on Tuesday afternoon was a couple getting their wedding photos taken....what a beautiful backdrop!

Boardwalk

   Since we didn't have enough time to do a park and make it worthwhile on Tuesday night, we had reservations to eat in Downtown Disney at Raglan's Road (an authentic Irish Restaurant) and planned to spend the night in the shops there. Raglan's (on the dining plan!) was fabulous.....and not just the food, but the entertainment as well. Throughout the evening while we were there, we watched Irish dancers and listened to an Irish band play right in front of us! Because we were on the dining plan and I wanted to make it worth every penny, I purposely ordered the most expensive entree on their menu, which happened to be lamb; I've never tasted lamb before so I wasn't too sure how it would go.....I loved it! Not sure I'll be eating it again anytime soon, so I was glad I decided to be adventurous.

the Irish dancers

our waitress was kind enough to take a family photo

the Irish band (can't remember their name) 

   We strolled Downtown Disney after dinner, and checked out a few shops: World of Disney, Lego Store, the Christmas Shop, and a few others.

Characters in Flight hot air balloon (we didn't ride it)

At the lego store

   Between the drive in, the boardwalk, dinner, and shopping, I think everyone was pretty exhausted and ready to head back to the room for a good sleep before hitting the parks Wednesday morning. We had taken a boat from the resort to Downtown Disney, so we boarded it again to head back.....I think I may have dozed off for a few minutes during the trip (not shocking)! 

   Well I need to finish getting ready for work, so you'll have to wait until tonight (or more likely tomorrow) to hear about our park adventures! Thanks for reading :)

Best Week Ever

    Quick post:
    This week will be a wonderful week; why you ask? Well, it started last night when I got a phone call from my amazing roommates at Naz telling me that they were coming to visit in May! I was so excited that were all able to make it work and cannot wait to see them....we Skype pretty regularly, but it's just not the same as seeing them in person and now, the next time I see them in person will be in DISNEY WORLD!!!! On top of that news, I got my schedule for this week and I am not closing any night this week; I still work late, but at least I don't have to close! Lastly, at the end of this week, one of my best friends from home and her family are coming to Orlando...they are like my second family so I am really looking forward to spending time with them.
    I hope I have more weeks like this in the future!
    Time to get ready for work now....

Disney Princess Half Marathon

    Wow. It's been about 2 weeks since I last posted, so there's quite a bit to update! I'll start with today, though, and jump around to other past days.
    This morning, I had to be at work at 4....yes, 4 AM. When I first saw that on my schedule, I was not very happy; however, once I realized it was the day of the Princess 1/2 Marathon, everything changed! Since the race goes through the Magic Kingdom, Casey's Corner was open for spectators to get food and drinks (we were NOT serving hot dogs lol); we also had a stand set up at the beginning of Main Street near the main gates to the park, which I got to be at! My friend, Ashleigh, and I were the two picked to work the stand, and we had a blast! Watched the sky get lighter (it was very foggy this morning so we didn't get a sunrise) over the train station, served many excited families coffee and hot chocolate, watched the runners come through and race down Main Street, and saw many interesting costumes on both the runners and their fans. I even had a "magical moment" during my shift outside: a man, probably in his late 20s or early 30s, came up to us at the stand to buy coffee and asked, in a very enthusiastic voice, how we were doing; we replied "great! and you?", to which he said "fantastic! I just got engaged in front of the castle!" His girlfriend was in the race and he found her as she came through the castle, proposed, took a few pictures, and sent her back on her way.....I'll bet that gave her the adrenaline rush to finish the last 7 miles! Because it was a female focused race (though we did see a few guys running), there were a lot of proud husbands and boyfriends with custom T-shirts; my favorite was probably one that said "my princess is faster than your princess".
    After the race was finished coming through the MK, Ashleigh and I went back to Casey's, had our break, then went back to work. Because the park opened at 9:00am and we had already been open, Casey's just stayed opened....but who wants a hot dog at 9:30? Needless to say, we were quite dead until I clocked out at 11:00am (right when we normally open). All in all, I must say I had a wonderful day at work despite having to be there at 4:00am! PS: Watching all the women run by inspired me, and I am planning on running the race next year (join me if you want)!! I'd better start training now :)
    Having finished work so early this morning, Ashleigh and I pretty much had the day off, so we decided to go to Epcot for a while in the afternoon with a couple of her roommates. I visited Claire at her work (she was on break so, unfortunately I didn't see her in action), got stuck for almost 10 minutes in Spaceship Earth, rode Mission Space and a few other rides and saw some of the countries in World Showcase, and strolled through a few shops. As we were walking through the park, I saw a family coming toward us wearing Buffalo Sabres and Buffalo Bills tees; I happened to be wearing one of my Sabres shirts today as well, so as they came toward us I held my shirt out and said "Go Sabres!" right as one of the girls in that family said "Yeah Buffalo!" It made me smile to have a little bit of home for even that brief moment...I don't know who that family was, but they made my afternoon!

Our "briefing" video at Mission Space

 Entrance to Mission Space

Epcot Ball behind the fountain

Canada

England

World Showcase Comedy Show

    Well, it's been a long few days of work and I need sleep! So that's all for tonight, but I'll update a little more tomorrow :)

Catching Up!

   I have been slacking on my posting! Mostly it's because I hate waiting for my pictures to load, but today's my day off and I "got time for that" (Sweet Brown reference, anyone?). There's only a few days of exciting things to catch up on....enjoy!
   Last Sunday I had the day off (it appears that Sundays and Wednesdays are my days off as of right now), so Stephanie and Ashley (two of my roommates) and I went to Animal Kingdom for the afternoon; we met up with Stephanie's friend from home who is also doing the program, and Claire (my friend from home) a little bit later. First attraction we hit up was "It's Tough to be a Bug"; I had done that one with my family back in '08, but I did not get any of the "effects" (I don't want to give anything away, but it's a 4-D show) then......this time I definitely did! It's located inside the Tree of Life, which is pretty cool since as you wait in line to get in, you can see the faces carved into the Tree of Life (not actually a real tree).

Entrance 

Tree of Life

Peak of Expedition Everest in the distance

    After that, we of course headed for Expedition Everest. Our plan was to grab fast passes then wait in the standby line so we'd get to ride it twice; however, there is a single rider line that has little to no wait so we chose to do that and got to ride Everest 5 times! We didn't get to ride with each other the first 3 times, but I think that made it funnier when you looked at the pictures they take on the ride. The 4th time, Stephanie and I got put in the same car and that was a blast. Later in the afternoon we came back with our fast passes and got to ride all four (Steph, Ashley, Jenn, and I) in one car; we figured out when the picture is taken on the ride so we staged our photo:

It's supposed to be YMCA...sort of worked out!

   While at Animal Kingdom we also rode Dinosaur (again did not remember that ride very well and as a result was quite surprised!) and Primeval Whril (a very jerky kids ride, but that just made for a hysterical video of us on it!), and enjoyed lunch at Restaurantosaurus. These are my kind of days off!
   My other day off was Wednesday; Stephanie, Ashley, and Kaitlyn also had the day off, so we decided it would be a good day to go to the beach. Cocoa Beach is about an hour away and I found a park with beach access called Lori Wilson Park; not only is it a park and beach, it also has a dog park with pools!! That may or may not have influenced my decision to select that park :) The beach was gorgeous....the sand was so soft and there were very few people there (probably because it was a Wednesday in February).
   We were having a great time until Kaitlyn (against the warnings of the rest of us) threw a piece of crust to a seagull, assuring us it would be just fine. Wrong. As soon as she tossed it, a huge flock flew at the gull and chased it. A few minutes after that ruckus died down, Steph went for her sandwich; she was almost done with the first half when a seagull swooped down from behind and snatched it right out of her hands!! Kaitlyn wasn't allowed to sit with us after that haha actually she didn't even notice what happened....she just thought we were fooling around in telling her to leave (we were of course joking....sort of!) Unfortunately, that wasn't the only wildlife encounter at the beach. As we were leaving we saw a raccoon under the boardwalk stairs; didn't really think much of it other than it was odd to see one in the middle of the day. We reached the other end by the parking lot and saw the raccoon to our right; okay a little bit frightening. Looked to our left and there were two more....started toward the car and 4 more came out from the woods and were on the pathway! Cue the screaming. Luckily the screams scared them off and we made it to the car, laughing. It wasn't until we were pulling away that we saw 3 baby raccoons with their mother crossing the pathway....they were actually pretty cute!
   We came back to Orlando and went to Bahama Breeze (great restaurant!) for dinner to finish our day off.

Kaitlyn and I on the pathway to the beach

The seagull.

Came out kind of dark, but the sun was shining through a hole in the clouds

The beach!

Batter Up!

   Our internet has been a bit whack lately, so I have not posted in a while!

   On Friday, I had my first day of training at Casey's Corner in the Magic Kingdom. Thank goodness I worked at CCB and know how to make hot dogs since that is what our location serves (of course we don't make nearly this many at CCB). Because it's Disney World, though, the hot dogs are not just any hot dogs; the specialty dogs we offer are Chicago Style (has 2 pickles, loaded with Chicago relish which is onions, mustard, tomatoes, and sweet relish, and topped with banana peppers and celery salt/poppy seeds), BBQ Slaw (has barbecue pulled pork topped with cole slaw and barbecue sauce), and Chili Cheese (self explanatory). And obviously, we have a classic hot dog! In addition there are fries, corn dog nuggets, and ball park nachos. The food all smells so good....even though the dogs aren't Sahlen's! 

   My hours are not the greatest, but I suppose I'll take it as learning how to be used to terrible hours because that's what's going to happen when I'm a beginning nurse!

   The costume I wear at Casey's is fun...it's a baseball uniform; some of the girls I work with think it's weird for a girl to wear a baseball uniform, but my stint in the Clarence Town Baseball League served me well so I like the costume! 

   The first few days were on the job training so I was basically given a tour of the Main Street area in Magic Kingdom, a tour of the kitchen at Casey's, had the various positions explained to me, and did some online courses for working in quick service. Monday I learned how to use a cash register, which I have never done before....so that's why I thought it was worth mentioning. Tuesday was my location assist day; this meant I was working as a regular cast member as if I weren't in training. It went fairly well for my first day! Finally, today I had my last day of training and my assessment.....I passed! I am now officially a cast member at Casey's Corner (come visit me and eat hot dogs!)

Tomorrowland Terrace Training Days

   I apologize for not having posted anything these past couple of days! Tuesday and Wednesday I had training for the Tomorrowland Terrace Dessert Party and yesterday I was off. Today I have my first day of training at Casey's Corner; because TLT is seasonal, they are not currently open for regular hours, just the dessert party, so I am going to be working at Casey's for the time being.
   Tomorrowland Terrace was.....okay I suppose. I really like the other college program cast members I worked with, but the work itself was not what I was hoping to do while here. I knew, of course, that it was not going to be glamorous to work here on the college program, but I was hoping to be doing something different than what I do ALLLL summer long at home. The dessert party, to me, felt exactly like doing a tournament day at CCB; spend hours setting everything up, watch the guests run through the product while restocking and keeping the station tidy, then spend a few more hours breaking it all down and cleaning everything when it's over. I think also, part of what I'm not enjoying about my role right now are the hours; anyone who knows me, knows I am most certainly a morning person....up by 8am at the latest and ready to go. So, having shifts that are from 2pm-12:15am do not bode well for me; I'd much prefer having a shift that's 8am-5pm, but unfortunately my locations are not open in the morning. It's tough, too, because most of my roommates have early shifts so they're gone in the morning and when they all get back at normal hours, I'm barely into my shift at work.
   Okay, so that's enough complaining for one day. I really am grateful for this opportunity, but right now it's hard to focus on the positives since I'm homesick and not close enough to family to see anyone in person.....counting down the days until Mom, Grandma, and Grandpa come visit!
   Yesterday, my roommates Stephanie and Julie, and I had the day off so we went to Panera Bread for lunch then headed to Disney's Hollywood Studios for a couple hours in the afternoon. We ended up being given free fast passes from some cast members for Rock N' Rollercoaster and any other ride we wanted (we chose Toy Story Mania), so we took advantage of those and skipped lines. We also went on The Great Movie Ride and Stephanie made me do the American Idol Experience; since we're cast members though, I couldn't do anything other than the initial audition...I don't sing, though, so I was okay with that! The guy told me I did well, but I think he was just being nice haha Also, we had to go on an adventure to find Stephanie's lifeguard costume at the Pop Century Resort costuming building before it closed. We were successful and it was quite entertaining!

Steph and her pile of costumes

   Later last night, I had a chance to Skype with my roommates/friends/favorite people from Naz....Lauren, Tori, and Alex! It was great to get to "see" them and talk to them. Made me feel a little less homesick...they're awesome :)
   Today and tomorrow, I have my next few days of training (at Casey's) then I'll be off Sunday and Monday (but then working Tuesday-Saturday at this point).

Magic Kingdom Solo

   Monday, I decided to head to the Magic Kingdom to do some exploring by myself...it was cool to just take my time, but it did make me feel a bit sad for some reason. Ashley, my roommate, met me there a few hours later so it was more fun :) Here are some pictures from my afternoon!!

Marie from Aristocats!

Dapper Dans

Walt and the castle (the crane is there to take down all the Christmas lights)

Glass blower in the Crystal Arts store

New Fantasyland!!

Seven Dwarfs Mine Ride under way (opening in 2014?)

Gaston's Tavern

Ariel's Grotto

Tea Cups ride

New Storybook Circus!! lines were too long to ride anything :(