T minus... 2 DAYS!!!

Ahhhh!!

TWO DAYS!  T-W-O Days! So exciting!

I can't believe its finally here, from my countdown in the 200's.

Anyway, so the big the news is, my lovely friends threw me a surprise goodbye party that I had absolutely no idea about!  I can't believe they actually managed to pull it off considering I've been having going away breakfasts/brunches/lunches/coffees/afternoonteas/dinners for the past two weeks.  So I was very surprised!  I'll post some photos when I get some.

Anyway, all thats left is to pack and to catch up with the last few people.  My next post may be in Orlando!  Ahh!

Why does Disney send exciting emails when I need to go to bed early?!

So breaking news,

We all just received an email about putting housing preferences in!  This kind of throws all my plans off as I was leaving it to Disney fate.  Now that we have this option I'm preferencing.  I'm still not room mate matching but I guess this is a pretty good option.  No program to my knowledge has been able to do it this way so perhaps they are trialing it with our group.

I figured in light of this I would explain how the housing works as the most common questions I get asked have to do with where I'm living blah blah blah.

SO

For all the disney programs there are four housing complexes.  Vista, which is the oldest, largest and has the reputation for being the party scene, then there is Patterson Court which is the newest but also has the reputation of a retirement home, then there is Chatham Square which is somewhere in the middle.  Lastly there is the Commons, which seems very mysterious as only internationals doing cultural representative programs live there but they are apparently mega fancy, i.e. having in built laundries.  

I'm pretty skeptical with doing preference systems, except I figure if I was going with Disney fate anyway it doesn't make much difference.  So I put Chatham, Patterson and Vista, in that order.

Then we had to pick number of rooms, there are 2 people for each room and we had the option of a 2, 3 or 4 bedroom.  I put 2 bedroom as number one because that way I'm guaranteed a bathroom to each of the rooms.  Followed by 3 then 4.  

We also got to pick the level we wanted, 1, 2, or 3.  I really don't care about the level so i just went 1, 2, 3.


SO yes, that is housing.   Will just have to wait and see!  Less than two weeks!  And 8 Days till I leave!! EEEEEEEK!

16 Days!! Zomg!! And Australian Flag Tattoos!!

Ahh I can't sleep and I'm excited so it's resulting in a blog post!!  I figure I should try and get into the habit of posting so that there is still a chance that I will post when I'm over there.  I make no promises.

So for a Fortune 500 company Disney sure like the element of surprise.  I guess it keeps us on our toes. Anyway, last week we got this lovely long email from Disney going through all the important last minute bits of info we need before checking in, when bam out of nowhere, slotted in the middle of the last paragraph of dot points, was a dot point along the lines of

• and your monthly insurance will be deducted from your pay monthly at a rate of $65-$75 depending on the cover you have chosen.

WTF?!  This was the first we had heard about it.  We had paid a $100 insurance fee and figured that covered us, but then they sprang this on us.   Long story short, and a few frantic phone calls later turns out this doesn't apply to us and we don't need to fork out an extra $70 a month.  Which is fantastic because a) the cover was hardly worth the money, basically just the essentials and b) I am getting my own insurance so the Disney insurance would have been redundant.   

But the good news is, it is all sorted!  

To add to all the excitement, last night some lovely Australians who are already doing the program started looking up all the locations for our roles!  So most of us (apparently they gradually release people into the system) know where we are working.  I wasn't sure if I wanted it to be a surprise or not but everyone else was finding out and I got caught up in the excitement.   So.. Drum Roll... I'm working at the TTC which is the Ticket and Transport Centre or something like that.  Exciting!  It's the biggest Vacation Planner spot so hopefully it will be fun, the only thing I'm not sure about is apparently TTC people get a few parade control shifts which I don't think I really want.  But we will see!

Umm, what else, well its 16 days till I leave, which is crazy.  I feel like everything's under control but I'm sure one week out I'll  be freaking out like crazy.

I've sort of, kind of started packing,  I'm aiming for only one suitcase, but I struggle with one suitcase for two weeks, so this will be interesting.

I'm having a Princess Tea Party as a goodbye kind of thing for my school friends for a bit of fun.  Hopefully I'll actually take some photos and upload.  

OHHH and the biggest news ever.  I bought my first ever Australia Flag Tattoos!!    The Olympics are going to be on while we are over there so I figured to show some Australian spirit they may come in handy.  And on that note it is going to be so weird watching the Olympics in another country!  But it will be half the fun.

So I am pretty sure I am rambling, so I'm going to leave this here.  Feel free to comment, ask questions etc etc!  

22 Days.

Only 23 days to go!  Without work or anything though it still seems kind of far away.  Although people from our little Disney group are starting to leave now, so I'm sure time will start to speed right along!  Almost in to the teens!!  We have come along way for the 200+ days.  I'm not even going to be there for 200 days.  Thats a scary thought.  It's actually 198 days until I am back!

The only things left are paying for Travel Insurance and converting to US $$$ but I think I'm too scared to bite the bullet.  Today might just be the day!.  I think I'm going to go with 1 Cover, considering I'm already doubling up on the Disney Insurance. 

There's really not much else going on, but I feel like I haven't updated in forever!