Typhoon Lagoon and a tornado or two thrown in!

Today I visited one of Disney's water parks here in Orlando, 'Typhoon Lagoon'. Entry is currently free for cast members and it was totally amazing, I took a book with me thinking I would just be relaxing by the pool, but instead I totally spent 5 hours playing on the various water slides, rapid rides, water rollercoasters and in the massive wave pool. It was a lot of fun!

They also have this fantastic area called Shark Reef, which is a huge salt water tank that you can snorkel around. It is full of small reef sharks, sting rays and colourful fish, like Dory from 'Finding Nemo'. A really good experience.

The weather started to turn in the late afternoon so we left the park. While we were waiting for the housing bus to collect us a huge storm rolled in really fast.
A passing cast member, who was returning to her car, told us that 5 tornadoes had already touched down in the Orlando area and that hail was forecast.
The wind whipped up really wildly and totally freaked everyone, so we headed back down to the cast buildings just as the rain started to fall. It was torrential and we were trapped in the closed cast cafeteria for almost an hour until it eased up enough to return to the bus stop. There were bits of trees and debris all over the place and the bus seat we had been sitting on had been completely turned over.

So much for sunny Florida!

And the rain, rain, rain, came down, down, down.....

On Sunday the humidity here in sunny Florida was very high, the park was packed and the sweat was flowing! On Monday morning at approximately 5am a huge thunderstorm hit the area, the thunder and lighting continued until about 11am but the heavy rain came down all day. I had finished work at 3:30am on the Monday morning so slept through most of the actually storm, when I woke up around ten I thought it would be a good day to stay in bed! So I watched a dvd of the first series of the Disney cartoon Gargoyles from the 90's.

When I eventually had to go to work it was still bucketing down. Disney provide very flattering (not) raincoats for such occasions, but I still got pretty wet that day. Standing out in the rain providing direction and assistence to a practically empty park as an interesting experience though, particularly when by 10pm there were less than 8000 people in the entire park and we were open until 1am!

Everyone thought it was going to rain all week but by the time I woke the next morning around 9am the skies were clear again and back to being sunny Florida!

Have a Magical sunny day!

Universal and Potter!

Finally went to Universal Studios!

It is quite a trek to get there on public transport but it only costs 25c each way, compared to a $30 each way cab fare! We arrived about 1:30pm by which time the park was soooo crowded. Unlike Magic Kingdom, which stays open to midnight (and later!), the park closed at 9pm, so we really only got to go on about 6 rides as the wait times were crazy (between 45 mins & 2 hours!). But we did get to experience the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, yay!

We waited about 90mins for the main castle ride, 'Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey'. This was such an amazing experience, totally immersive and hard to describe! We also went on 'Flight of the Hippogriff', which is a small rollercoaster a lot like the Roadrunner at Movieworld on the Gold Coast.

I also got to taste Butterbeer! It is quite sweet and tastes a lot like butterscotch. I decided to try the frozen one which I really enjoyed!

At Universal they have an area of rides and characters from Dr Suess which is really colourful and cute. We went on the Cat in the Hat ride ("we can have lots of fun") and also a really cute carousel.



But the other really good thing at Universal is their tribute to my hero The Phantom! I couldn't actually find any merchandise but he was there on the outside of the store.

Have a Magical Day!

Chocolates and Top marks!

Disney Housing conduct inspections every 6 to 8 weeks to check on the overall cleanliness and general state of the apartments. Failure incurs a financial penalty which gets dearer the more times that you fail, passing is the norm for most places, but for those apartments which exceed expectations (which are pretty high) the occupants are given the 'White Glove Award' - consisting of a card, a big box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates and have their photo taken to put up on the 'Wall of Fame' in the Housing offices.

Our apartment inspection occured yesterday. I'll let this picture inform you all of our result!

The other exciting thing that happened was that I got top marks (100%) for my last homework assignment. Makes staying up half the night almost worth it!

Have a Magical Day!

Great Service Fanatic!

Disney has a cast member reward system, which provides managers and other cast members an opportunity to recognise and reward fellow cast for doing a good job, either in providing great guest service or exemplary workplace performance.

There is a small 2 piece card called a Great Service Fanatic card, which can be filled out and after it is signed by a leader, the top piece gets placed in a box and the bottom piece is retained by the cast member who recieved it. There is then a draw conducted monthly and the winners are visited by the Prize Patrol Team at their work location, given a balloon, a special certificate, 2 meal vouchers for a Disney restaurant and 4 movie tickets.

I was really excited to recieve one this week from two of my managers who recognised me for exemplary workplace performance! Yay! I doubt I will win the balloon, but I appreciated the recognition :)

Have a Magical Day! 

EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival

Every Spring Disney holds a Flower & Garden Festival in the grounds of the EPCOT Park. There are lots of lovely beds of colourful flowering plants and greenery. The gardeners have also created a large number of topiaries shaped as Disney characters and there is even a Butterfly House, filled with different coloured butterflies and their chrysalids. I visited the Park with a couple of my American friends and we just wandered about enjoying the colour and the sunshine. My only problem was the hayfever triggered by the gardens which kept me sneezing all day!

Have a Magical, Colourful Day!

Disney Resorts and Roaming Deer.

On my day off this week I went and visited a couple of the Disney resorts. First I went to Wilderness Lodge, which is totally huge and has a bubbling brook in the lobby, which becomes a stream, that flows under a little bridge and then goes outside to become a creek cascading down a set of falls, that finally flows into the massive pool area!

From here I walked along a nature trail which connects the Lodge to the Fort Wilderness Campgrounds. It was only about a mile but it was so quiet and peaceful, when I was about halfway along, I looked up to see 2 deer on the path ahead, I managed to get a pic of them before they ran off.



The campsite area was really pretty with its own little beach, play area and pony rides available. It was fairly quiet as it was the early afternoon and most guests were probably at the Parks. It is really quite large and I will need to visit again in order to see everything there. I caught the ferry back to the TTC (Transportation and Ticketing Centre). Self portrait below.

Where I caught the monorail to the Contemporary Resort, one of the original resort hotels to open here at Walt Disney World. The monorail actually passes through the centre of the A shaped hotel and there is a station inside above the lobby. I found a few hidden mickey's here (thanks to a family that I was standing near who were pointing them out to each other!)

From the Contemporary I hopped back on the monorail and went to EPCOT where I was meeting friends for dinner and to watch the fireworks. We ate in the restaurant at the Morocco pavillion which was delicious. The fireworks were pretty special too!

Have a Magical Day!

Late Late Nights

Walt Disney World is very busy at the moment, with lots of families on the start of Spring Break holidays. The Magic Kingdom Park is therefore opening a lot longer during the day, because it is the most popular park. Disney recognises that people have to wait in line longer for rides and shows, and so stays open to allow guests to experience enough attractions to feel that they have gained value for their money.
This means though that I am worker longer hours, and have quite late nights. The park now mostly closes at Midnight, but some nights it is 1am or even 3am. Since it takes at least an hour to get home I am not getting anywhere near enough sleep!
 This is compounded by the fact I have had quite a bit of homework to do this week too, one night I got home at 1am and did homework till 3!

As I am finishing late it also means I start a lot later in the day so sometimes I go in to work early to play in the park. This week I went early to see a show they have in front of the castle called 'Dream along with Mickey'. Lots of characters and singing and dancing, they even have short-range fireworks at a few points in the show (completely pointless during the daytime if you ask me!) Here are a few pics.

Have a Magical Day!

Character Hunted!

Those of you who have been reading this blog regularly will know by now that I enjoy visiting the characters to collect autographs and photos. Here are a few more recent pics.

Well the highlight of my week then was to have a family come up to me, when I was out the front of the Haunted Mansion in costume greeting guests, who wanted my autograph and photo! So I signed my name 'Maid Narelle' and drew a little bat above the M. I was very pleased!

Have a Magical Day!

Hollywood Birthday Fun

Two of the girls from my group who stayed at Pop Century prior to the start of the program at Disney have Birthdays this week. On the day before Ella's birthday we spent the day at Hollywood Studios as she had wanted to audition for the American Idol Experience (a show which people audition for early in the day and then heats are run in the afternoon and there is a finale in the evening) but unfortunately we found out that Disney cast members are unable to be in it. :(

Instead we went on the Backlot Tour and told the cast member it was Ella's birthday so she got to participate in the show. This basically meant that she had to pretend to be in the engine room of a sinking ship and had gallons of water dumped on her!

It was very funny! We then went and met Tow Mater and Lightning McQueen from cars, which were really cute and made funny noises.

After this the girls convinced me I really needed to go on the RocknRoller Coaster and Tower of Terror rides, which I have now done and really never need to do again!

As we were getting ready to leave the park one of the girls spotted a private party having photos with multiple characters, so with a bit of begging we also got the have a group photo! This normally almost never happens, so we were pleased to have been in the right place at the right time!

When we left the Studios we went over to Disney's Polynesian Resort for dinner. They have Hawaiian Pizza and also Pinapple Dole Whip (a bit like whipped sorbet). After dinner we sat on their beach to watch Magic Kingdom's Wishes fireworks.

 In all a pretty magical day, do have one for yourself!

Ice Cream Welcome

All the new CPs and ICPs (College Program & International College Program) that work in the Ad/Lib area (Adventureland/Liberty Square) were gathered for a welcome session this week. They gave us all a Mickey Mouse ice cream bar and told us about how great our area is, because it has all the best costumes and the best themed rides (Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc) and that these were all Walt Disney's favourites too. We also had the Disney Basics reinforced again and were informed about our record cards too. These record cards keep track of any absences from work, as well as any disciplinary action we get. They track all Disney employees this way, and it can affect promotional opportunities in the future, so anyone wanting to get work at Disney after the end of their program (not Internationals just the American kids) need to have a pretty clean card! 

Have a Magical Day!

Classes

My second class started this week, the morning one on Guest Services. It turned out to be quite interesting, all about the Disney way of providing guest service which makes the 'Disney Difference'. Most weeks we will have guest speakers from around different areas of the business come to discuss how guest service is done in their area, and there is an excursion in week 7 to Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge (one of the expensive resorts here at Disney World). Should be interesting however my other class begins half an hour after this class and I will definately not have time to get back to the education centre for it on the excursion day!

I got my first assignment back for the afternoon class on Creativity & Innovation, and I got 95/100 (HD) so pretty pleased with that! I have another assignment due next week so will have to see how I go on that one.

Have a Magical Day!