All Moved in

WOW!!!!

so the last couple of days I've been running around like a chicken with his head cutoff trying to move everything in and figure out what everything is. Just a note for anyone reading this who hasn't moved in yet, LEARN THE BUS SYSTEM. I honestly would always take the bus that is 2 slots earlier than the tiem you need to be anywhere because sometimes the buses take forever. I live in chatham and it takes me 35 mintues to get to work in  Animal Kingdom.

Beyond that I figured I would upload some pictures showing the journey so far.

Que line......get used to them

Here we are at 6:45 A.M. on move-in day waiting for Vista Way to open. I would in all honesty get there as early as possible to try and get the apartment you are wanting. The Process itself is rather streamlined once everything gets running so just be prepared and always bring everything you need.

Here's a video of the apartment before we moved everything in.

I suppose I should mention that we are living in Chatham Apartments. The place is actually rather nice minus the fact that our air conditioner was frozen over when we moved in, but that was taken care of quickly by the management staff which is pretty good. Of course they have the usual rules that must be enforced whenever you are in an area where teenagers now have a new found freedom from their parents and feel the need to become idiots. But the security guards are really cool to talk to (always have/show your ID) and the same goes for the Bus drivers.

After everything is said and done at Check in you THEN go and get your role from casting which is EXTREMELY efficient for as many people as they have coming through there. There were about 500 people in front of me and I was in and out within 40 minutes and that included going over my I-9 as well as getting fingerprinted and all that jazz. Disney seriously brings their A game.

After initial move in and Casting and a housing meeting and getting groceries and getting house supplies you can finally relax. My advice would be make a list of household items you need before you come down so you aren't like my roommates and I who probably made close to 15 trips to wal mart the first day here. We seriously are still having to go to wal mart to buy things we have forgotten.

Traditions is fun but I can't tell you about it or else I would have to kill you (seriously). But once you finally get  through it you get the one thing everyone is waiting for.

I could not love a human baby as much as I love this nametag

Unfortunately you don't get to do any role specific training until a later date. This wasn't an issue because as soon as we got our ID's me and my roommates hit up the parks. The freedom of being able to go on one ride in Hollywood Studios then hop over to Magic Kingdom for Lunch before you hit up the Kilimanjaro Safari in Animal Kingdom is just plain awesome (Did I mention its free??). Now granted I have not pulled a 60 hour week yet but I seriously think the benefits of working for Disney outweigh any cons that might pop up.

So what role am I? Animal Kingdom Parking lot. Whats that mean? That means I get to drive the Tram, be the Tram Spieler, as well as be a parking lot attendant. Apparently we rotate throughout the shifts just to keep things different because I'm pretty sure I would go crazy standing in a parking lot 8 hours a day 6 days a week. Which reminds me......Here's my awesome costume:

Banana Man

now....do I hate yellow?? Yes. Do I look like a full blown carnie in this outfit?? Yes. But you know what, I'm here working for Disney in Orlando Florida and have some pretty sweet roommates along with some awesome neighbors, I'm pretty sure I can put up with a dorky outfit.

Anyways, I suppose in all honesty I have been horrible at updating this blog which I am gonna try and get better at. So until next time.

Disney Shopping

Coming down to the Final weeks Gents,
My preparations are finally starting to speed up. I've finished all my projects thankfully and found out last night which classes I need to sign up for and what all I have to do to get them to transfer credit over for Eastern. In all honesty it's not really THAT much work, I have to do weekly work evals for like 3 weeks then send in monthly reports for my classes. I honestly was expecting a whole lot more work. But then again I do now have to take a spanish class while down there.

yeah, you read that right. Even though I took 2 years of French in High school I somehow managed to not meet the requirement set by my college for my Foreign Language requirement. So what am I doing? Instead of wasting yet another semester at Eastern I decided to take an online Spanish Course while down at Disney. I know that is yet another thing to put on my plate but I honestly have no choice.so now for some good news, I went suit shopping last week.

YEAAAHHH!!!!!!!!!!

I'm pretty sure its in every man's DNA to get excited about buying new suits. If it's not, then you must not be a true man and you need to go downtown and turn in your Man Card immediately. I decided on a dark brown suit and a charcoal pinstripe one. Pretty classy if you ask me.

Beyond that I'm honestly just gonna start packing up my apartment seeing as how I have to be out of here end of next week. So my next post will probably be after that.

RANDOM FACT:

Because of the weather in Japan, Main Street at Disneyland Tokyo is covered by a glass canopy. The entire area can be cooled in summer and heated in winter. 

The light at the end of the tunnel

Here's to the end of March (raises glass). Another month down and another day closer to Disney. Today is my girlfriends birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY!!!) and yet I still have 2 tests and a paper to finish today. Oh the busy life of a college student. Disney is finally becoming an actual reality in my mindset now, to think that just a little over a month from now I will be down there is still stopping me in my tracks when I think about it. There is still so much to get squared away before then on top of my ever surmounting schoolwork. It's good because it keeps me busy, it's bad because there is SO MUCH TO DO. 

Oh and I decided to start tanning in April as well. I've never gone tanning so it should be interesting. I came to this decision by realizing that with my Scandinavian skin tone I would go up in flames down in Orlando seeing as how my job is completely outside. So I'm sure for the next 2 weeks I'm gonna look like a lobster buy I'm hoping that will help lessen the sudden and drastic change from Illinois sun and weather. Anyways, I'm gonna try to write on this more now that it is getting closer to D-Day.

RANDOM FACT:

Back in the 60s, long hair and facial hair was considered to be a sign of hippies, which the empire could not afford to be associated with. Hence a policy was born requiring all male employees to have short hair and no facial hair at the theme parks. It took until 2000 for the theme parks to renege on the policy. Now male employees are allowed to have neatly trimmed mustaches.

9 Weeks left

Today marks 9 weeks, which means 63 days, until sign in day down at Vista Way. I find myself in a WORSE place now then when I was pended. Now it just seems that all I want to do is get to Disney: a change of pace, scenery, and people. Today I find myself at the library working on some final projects over my spring break so that I am not overwhelmed with them come the end of April. Out of no where I get this feeling of monotony, a feeling that I have been in this exact same situation, in the exact same place before. I just closed my books, my laptop, and my eyes and just sat there in my little cubicle in complete silence for a couple minutes wondering how analyzing  Charles Dickens's "Hard Times" and the Industrial Revolution is going to help me better myself as an individual, as a person, as a productive member of our future workforce and society. Then the excitement of Disney kicked in.

I realized that this "internship" could be the first step in my future career. "The beginning of the rest of my life" as the cliche goes. I want change, I'm ready for it. Now some of you may be thinking "Wow, thats a lot more emotion/seriousness than I was  expecting from a blog about Disney," well to you guys apologize but I told myself when I started this blog not to change any of my emotions and to write about exactly what I was feeling when I created a new post. Besides, I'm sure some of my future CP's can agree with the feeling.

On a lighter note, however, I have requested to work Main Gates at Magic Kingdom and got a reply back that my "request was being reviewed and noted during the process of final scheduling." I really got the feeling that this was just an automated response but I'm gonna stay positive about it. I believe any job in Main Entrance (the category I got assigned to) is gonna be fun and not really all that stressful so I'll be fine with whatever I get. I suppose I've rambled on enough for this post, time for my random disney fact

RANDOM FACT:
Animal Kingdom has about 100 species of trees and shrubs foreign to North American soil.

86 days and counting.....

I meant to do a "90 days and counting" post but completely slipped my mind as I am now starting preparations to move to Orlando. I have yet to figure out my school end of Disney as my meeting with the ONLY professor on my entire campus who knows how to do credits for Disney has postponed our meeting until this Friday. Once I get that squared away though I should be set paperwork wise with my school. The sad thing is that is the EXTREMELY easy part of this whole ordeal, after I square things away then I get to deal with Disney.

My Sisters wedding is on July 25th and I have to be there, seeing as how I'm a groomsmen. So I e-mailed Recruiting like a good camper and requested the days off........today is day 6 of them not e-mailing me back. Now I understand recruitment is extraordinarily busy right now, but I really need to know before I get disowned from my family for possibly missing the wedding. Regardless of when I hear from them I also need to start saving money together for some new dress clothes for Traditions and the class I'm debating on taking (HR Management). I've also started thinking about roommates...............

Now don't get me wrong, I'm extremely easy to get along with, but rooming with 2-7 strangers it is inevitable that something will go wrong eventually. So I am trying to prepare for it by getting together like 2 or 3 guys for a 2-3 bedroom in Chatham. How did I decide on Chatham you might ask?? Let me tell you, everybody knows that Vista Way is where the parties are at. Now I do like to meet new people but the chance that my roommates or my neighbors will throw a party when I have work at 6 in the morning or just got off of a 12 hour shift at 2:30 AM just doesn't sound that appealing to me. Patterson, from what I understand, is the complete opposite. Everyone is quite and reserved and barely anyone drinks, whether sociably or from an uncontrollable addiction to getting blacked out every weekend.

Chatham seems like a good middle ground. 2 guys that I'm talking to seem to be rather cool and like minded. We want to have neighbors come over for gatherings and themed parties, but by no stretch of the imagination are we alcoholics, nor will we be hosting any such nonsense. We're geeks, video game nerds, movie fanatics.......if this sounds like you are you are over 21 and moving in on May 18th shoot me a comment!! lol. Beyond that, Chatham has their own bus stop and "newer" renovations from what I'm told. This seems like a good place to hang my hat (which has mickey ears on it) for the 8 months while I'm down there.

Also I decided to start posting a random fact about Disney on all of my blogs from now on starting with this.

RANDOM FACT:
At the Walt Disney World Resort, more than 3,500 different designs make up a working wardrobe of about 2 1/2 million pieces.

The Emotional Rollercoaster that is Disney

ALRIGHT!!!!!!!

So the last couple of days have been pretty crazy. Last friday (2/11) I got my pended e-mail from Disney. I'm going to have to say that the feeling from a pended letter is worst then the actual rejection. With an actual rejection you know whats going on, with a pended e-mail everything is put on hold and you hang in the balance. To complicate matters my advisor has been hounding me about  my fall semester. "You need to know what you are doing this fall Michael", I got that line in 2 e-mails and during our meeting. Why I need to rush I'm not quite sure since I can't register for classes for another month. Annoying.

But then today I got the letter all of us are waiting for.....MY ACCEPTANCE LETTER!!!!!!! I have officially been accepted for Fall Advantage at Disney World as a Main Entrance Operator. so HA Mr. Shirley, I will be at Disney this fall. So my emotions have gone from depressed and utterly crushed to excited and pumped for this fall Semester all within the last 4 days......Ridiculous.

So this officially means that this blog will continue into the summer/fall. ::Puts on sunglasses:: I'll Be back

Waiting for acceptance (Star Trek Style)

Journal Log stardate 02.11.2011

This is day 17 with no contact from the mothership, I'm beginning to wonder if they are really out there. I've been going through the motions of my regular schedule with no hope of it easing the anxiety of when they'll beam me up. I hear rumors that today is the day that a lot of us Cadets will be chosen for our crew positions, but until that time I will keep all of my hailing frequencies open for any type of communication. I will not lose hope.

Disney Pictures

So in my wait for Disney I decided just to post some more pictures from my Disney trip this fall. Enjoy!!

Everyone Needs a photo like this 

This is where it ALLLLLLL begins

Door at the Vikings building in Epcot (I want this door frame)

Best ride in Epcot

Cool Night Photo

Performers doing a show in front of the castle

One of the best rides in Magic Kingdom

I never can get enough of the caste!!

Skipper Dan.......BEST SKIPPER EVER (sorry it's out of focus)

I have lots more but it's time to go to class so maybe I'll upload some more later, who knows. Untill then, keep on truckin.

Ice......natures way of trying to kill us off, but we're to stubborn

Well as everybody knows we had that huge storm a couple days ago that covered the ENTIRE midwest as well as northern east coast. I heard of places getting over 2 FEET of snow during the storm. Down here in Chuck town most of the snow went right over us (maybe 3 inches???) but what did hit us was ice.

Now I'm not one to normally complain about storms as the geek in me comes out whenever mother nature throws her weight around, but the weather man needs to learn to be a bit more accurate with his claims. "1/4 inch of ice" is what he called for, with as much sleet and ice as we got we EASILY were up to 3/4 if not 1 inch of ice. Cars were literally stuck in their spots in my parking lot. Ironically enough the power never went off untill after the storm had already passed. I'm still not quite sure what happened but some 10,000 people were without power on Thursday. Thats a huge amount saying we have a grand total of 12,000 people living in Charleston (not including students of course). Eastern was able to keep it's power somehow with only a few flickering lights that I noticed.

As many of you who follow my blog are fellow CP hopefuls you will undoubtedly already know that acceptance letters are starting to arrive in full effect. A large group of people who had their phone interviews a day before me have now been accepted, I'm hoping this means that my letter/e-mail will arrive early-ish next week (if not later today ::fingers crossed::). At this point it's almost time for me to sign up for fall classes so I just need to know if I need to signup for some actually classes or sign up for the "internship credit."

Hopefully my next post will have a picture of me with my acceptance letter!!

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

So just got a Winter Weather Advisory update on my phone. Central Illinois is expected to get 1/2 inch of ice with 12-20 inches of snow in the next 48 hours. This is more snow then we have gotten all season so this could be interesting. I really hope this makes classes optional as I have recently developed no will to do any of my school work. Disney has now consumed me and I check my e-mail every hour on the hour for the past 2 days. I literally woke up at 3 this morning to check my e-mail. Alas, there was nothing new to read. I suppose I honestly need to keep up on my readings for classes as midterms are right around the corner and as such, my first grades in any of my classes. This is one of the perks of being a History Major, we have mid-terms, finals, then maybe 1-2 papers and thats it for classes. No homework, no attendance policies (for most of my teachers anyways). Now this is fantastic as I am not overloaded with work, but this also means if I tank one assignment, my grade is almost wrecked for the entire semester. I suppose you have to have a trade off somewhere.

Well the next couple of days could get interesting as I'm halfway expecting this storm to knock out power, and even if it doesn't, I have a lot of reading to catch up on. So until the next time we meet.......You stay Classy San Diego.

The waiting game

So I'm on my facebook page today just surfing around and on the "official" Fall/Fall Advantage 2011 program page I see that 4 people have already gotten their acceptance letter. I honestly was not expecting people to start getting accepted this quickly. This honestly just throws off my entire game plan because I was finally content on not knowing for atleast another 2 weeks and now people who have interviewed like a day before me are getting their letters. So I might know BEFORE the end of next week. So the waiting game has intensified dramatically in the past 3 hours that I have learned this. Cross your fingers folks,

P.S. I want to congratulate all the people who have already made it into the program. I hope to see you there!!

Random Updates

Well first off I finally got my video player working on my blog (YEAAAAAAAAHH!!) So now you can watch some of my favorite Disney songs and the videos that go along with them. On another note I got another call from the same interviewer (interviewee???) Yesterday. She called to ask me about my public speaking again and how comfortable I am in front of groups of people. I of course told her I have ZERO issue with talking in front of people and she seemed to like that. So I am again taking this as a good sign, possibly since I showed great interest in Jungle Cruise (as well as being a Concierge) that those are the rolls I'll get since both of those have to deal with talking in front of people almost your entire shift. Beyond that watch the videos on the left and enjoy!

Phone Interview

WELL, I just got off the phone with Audrey from Disney. I won't deny that I was a nervous wreck right when the phone rang. I was perfectly calm and serene up untill the phone rang. Anyways, on to the actual conversation.

We of course talked first about why I wanted to do the program and how I heard about it. Then we dove into the nitty gritty stuff such as all the "What If's" with customers and what not. Luckily I never even hesitated on one of the answers and was able to give an example of a similar situation that I have had and how I handled it. We then dove into my work history which I was able to regale her with some stories that made her laugh so hard she almost couldn't finish a couple of the questions (Good Sign I'm assuming). She told me at the end that I was the funniest person she has interviewed and thinks I'm exactly what Disney is looking for. Now I realize she doesn't make the decisions but I'm hoping this is a good omen that I will be getting that acceptance folder near the end of February.

Until then, stay tuned for more updates. Same bat channel, same bat time.

The Leap of Faith

So this is a fairly large leap of faith, creating the blog for my (hopeful) journey to Disney world before I have even had my phone interview which will be the deciding factor in if I get accepted or not. I figure regardless of how this turns out I can at least have some fun while going through the process.


So why am I going to Disney World? For the Walt Disney World College Program Internship. This program allows college students to apply to a paid position in the world renowned Walt Disney World Resort, or if you apply separately, to the Disneyland Resort. Now I know people who have gone through both programs, but I ultimately decided to apply to Disney World in Orlando, Florida because that is where I visited.

Extremely typical Disney picture?? I don't care

My Disney Fever an be attributed to my girlfriend. She took me to Disney World for my first time over Christmas Break this year, and I have never looked back. I loved everything about Disney World, the attention to the little details, such as the sidewalk at night in Epcot in certain places lights up like there are little stars in it, or how the water fountain at night changes colors as it sprays water. The ability of a business the size of Disney to be able to pay such close attention to the small things really impressed me and made my Disney trip just that much more enjoyable. So after much deliberation (actually more like a twenty minute decision) I decided to apply to the Fall Internship program. If you haven't looked at the program I highly suggest you do, Here's the link to the main page; www.wdwcollegeprogram.com......This site is packed full of information on what the program is and what you can expect when you get there. Beyond that just youtube WDWCP and about 8 million videos will come up from either expectant students or former students who have already gone.


Whenever I have my actual phone interview I shall update and tell how things have progressed since then. In the meantime, I'm gonna go watch every Disney movie I own.