Finally!
I'm officially at Disney.
I woke up again super early, and just tried to amuse myself until 10.30 where a few of us caught a cab over to Vista Way for Check in.
It was super quick, we dropped our bags down, got our names checked off, lined up in a line of about eight, got our passport/visa clearance done and got given our welcome packs and apartment keys,
I'm in Patterson Court, a 2 bedroom on the third floor. So I have two other room mates from Australia, they both know each other, are 22 and are super nice which is a relief! haha. We are still waiting for my actual roomate, I just hope she isn't crazy. It has been kind of nice though having today to get organised by myself. I'm going to take photos tomorrow, so I'll upload a few.
We went to walmart to get a few more essentials, but we will definitely have to go back to get some more tomorrow.
We get tomorrow off, and on Monday we start having housing meetings, and then on Tuesday we have traditions. Exciting stuff!
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Friday, August 3, 2012
Walmart and Cell Phones
In my attempt to not fall behind in this whole blogging thing ill do a quick post.
So, today started with breakfast at Applebees, where I met a few of the Disney girls, jasmine, Kate and Janine. The juice was gigantic. Like huge.
Following the gigantic juice myself and a few others went to walmart. It was so exciting, I have pics to prove it. Then we came back to the hotel where we chilled in janines room and waited for a few more people to surface, arrive and went to downtown Disney! It was hot! Super hot! It still is hot. We had lunch at the rainforest cafe thing, they split bills every each way. Quite cool. Following that after much deliberation we went to Florida mall and I got my american sim! It's extremely complicated getting sim cards because America runs on a CDMA network that doesn't use them, only a few networks do.
After that we came back to the hotel, and I crashed. /end blog
So, today started with breakfast at Applebees, where I met a few of the Disney girls, jasmine, Kate and Janine. The juice was gigantic. Like huge.
Following the gigantic juice myself and a few others went to walmart. It was so exciting, I have pics to prove it. Then we came back to the hotel where we chilled in janines room and waited for a few more people to surface, arrive and went to downtown Disney! It was hot! Super hot! It still is hot. We had lunch at the rainforest cafe thing, they split bills every each way. Quite cool. Following that after much deliberation we went to Florida mall and I got my american sim! It's extremely complicated getting sim cards because America runs on a CDMA network that doesn't use them, only a few networks do.
After that we came back to the hotel, and I crashed. /end blog
Thursday, August 2, 2012
I made it!
Apologies, this entry is going to be All over the place, half of it was writtenon the plane, a third after no sleep for thirty plus hours, and the rest just then.
Blog entry one
So I hadn't left the airport and i had already accepted drugs from strangers. Drug of choice being a hot pink sleeping tablet with a name which I'm sure I've heard in the movies but cannot remember. Don't worry it didn't work.. There's only five hours left so there's still time but I highly doubt it.
When I write it like that it does sound kind of dumb however they were med students, Brian, lance and Brian. and their story all matched up so at the time it seemed like a good idea. (famous last words?) But they were all very nice, and killed the forty or so minutes we had to wait to board. They live near Disneyland!! Although they did say the novelty died off once they had to start paying for entry - lucky, I get in for free! Anyway most of them had been studying from '04, '05 and '06 but they won't graduate till 2015!!! Crazy so glad I'm done. They also said walmart is always good to boost lift self esteem. Imma check that out. Virgin also have a seat chat thing so you could chat during the flight so the last hour went by fast because it took so long to type on the weird controls.
Anyway the planes pretty empty which is lovely as the seat next to me is empty and the guy next to the empty seat let me use the empty seat - still no luck sleeping though. He also said my sleeping tablet looked like an ecstasy tablet. I think we are in the all clear now, consider I took it about 6 hours ago.
Anyway I'm really bored which is why I typed all that, I also took a photo of my plane food because I'm cool like that, I'll upload if I remember. Five hours to go!!
Oh yeah, Alanna suggested to blog about three things I miss, so I figured I would do that now but I'll also do three things I'm looking forward to!
3 things I miss
My pillow
Leg room
Sleep
3 things I'm looking forward too
Checking in at the hotel
Meeting all the other Australians.
Going to walmart.
Ohh this is all out of order but I can't be bothered re ordering it, and I'll have to edit the pictures in later because I can't seem to get Internet on my Mac only the iPad.
Anyway got through intimidating customers the fastest I've ever got through customs and got on a very full flight to Minneapolis. Haha so random. But that airport is huge! And made it t my gate with five minutes to spare. When they say you have a fuzzy head I actually know what that feels like and it is not very pleasant. My head felt like I had an eye mask on My forehead. But by the time we landed it had disappeared and I made the epic journey to baggage claim, got my baggage, figured out how to get the mears shuttle to the hotel got to the hotel, checked in, got lost finding my room,found my room, washed my hair logged onto Internet and fell asleep. And just woke up.
Ohh and I got upgraded to exit row in premium economy on my last flight which was nice.
I epically rushed the last half but I wanted to get it down before the fun starts. Lance, Brian, brian and Albert (my seat buddy) if somehow your reading, hope you have a nice life!
I definitely needed the walmart boost after the epic journey!
Blog entry one
So I hadn't left the airport and i had already accepted drugs from strangers. Drug of choice being a hot pink sleeping tablet with a name which I'm sure I've heard in the movies but cannot remember. Don't worry it didn't work.. There's only five hours left so there's still time but I highly doubt it.
When I write it like that it does sound kind of dumb however they were med students, Brian, lance and Brian. and their story all matched up so at the time it seemed like a good idea. (famous last words?) But they were all very nice, and killed the forty or so minutes we had to wait to board. They live near Disneyland!! Although they did say the novelty died off once they had to start paying for entry - lucky, I get in for free! Anyway most of them had been studying from '04, '05 and '06 but they won't graduate till 2015!!! Crazy so glad I'm done. They also said walmart is always good to boost lift self esteem. Imma check that out. Virgin also have a seat chat thing so you could chat during the flight so the last hour went by fast because it took so long to type on the weird controls.
Anyway the planes pretty empty which is lovely as the seat next to me is empty and the guy next to the empty seat let me use the empty seat - still no luck sleeping though. He also said my sleeping tablet looked like an ecstasy tablet. I think we are in the all clear now, consider I took it about 6 hours ago.
Anyway I'm really bored which is why I typed all that, I also took a photo of my plane food because I'm cool like that, I'll upload if I remember. Five hours to go!!
Oh yeah, Alanna suggested to blog about three things I miss, so I figured I would do that now but I'll also do three things I'm looking forward to!
3 things I miss
My pillow
Leg room
Sleep
3 things I'm looking forward too
Checking in at the hotel
Meeting all the other Australians.
Going to walmart.
Ohh this is all out of order but I can't be bothered re ordering it, and I'll have to edit the pictures in later because I can't seem to get Internet on my Mac only the iPad.
Anyway got through intimidating customers the fastest I've ever got through customs and got on a very full flight to Minneapolis. Haha so random. But that airport is huge! And made it t my gate with five minutes to spare. When they say you have a fuzzy head I actually know what that feels like and it is not very pleasant. My head felt like I had an eye mask on My forehead. But by the time we landed it had disappeared and I made the epic journey to baggage claim, got my baggage, figured out how to get the mears shuttle to the hotel got to the hotel, checked in, got lost finding my room,found my room, washed my hair logged onto Internet and fell asleep. And just woke up.
Ohh and I got upgraded to exit row in premium economy on my last flight which was nice.
I epically rushed the last half but I wanted to get it down before the fun starts. Lance, Brian, brian and Albert (my seat buddy) if somehow your reading, hope you have a nice life!
I definitely needed the walmart boost after the epic journey!
Sunday, July 29, 2012
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!
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!
Monday, July 23, 2012
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!
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!
Sunday, July 15, 2012
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
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!
Sunday, July 8, 2012
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!
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