Friday 31 December 2010

Happy New Year

It’s New Year’s Day and I’m sure sure last night was filled with much merriment for many around the world. It’s also one of several days of the year when an extraordinary large amount of fireworks are set off. So on that note I’m going to talk fireworks...



Anyone that has ever visited WDW or picked up a brochure will know that fireworks play an important role in nearly every cast member’s daily existence. They happen at Magic Kingdom and Epcot nightly and at Hollywood Studios on Fantasmic nights. Additionally special displays are created for events such as July 4th and New Year’s Eve. Animal Kingdom is the only major no-go area when it comes to fireworks because of... well, the...er...animals. So here’s a rundown.

Magic Kingdom

Home of Wishes, Hallowishes, Summernightastic, Pirate and Princess Party and the famous July 4th and New Year’s Eve Fireworks. Generally for a good all-round view there are two places I’d recommend standing. First, there’s the hub (the big circle in front of Cinderella’s Castle) and second, there’s the beach at Disney’s Polynesian Resort (this is a really great location if you don’t have a Disney ID yet - because it’s FREE!!!). Worth noting is that some displays make use of peripheral fireworks which are set off from the area outside of the visible park boundaries. This means that you are completely surrounded by fireworks. Also, the musical accompaniment is broadcast to the three monorail resorts and the TTC (Transportation and Ticket Centre) as well as the top of Bay Lake Tower’s and the park-facing rooms there.

Epcot

I’m a touch biased but these are, for many, the best fireworks at WDW. They take place on World Showcase Lagoon and feature a variety of barges that shoot water and flames into the air as well as the famous globe barge. Anywhere facing the water provides a great view although try to make sure that the wind is blowing away from you. Also, if you see any “glowers” in red flag shirts say ‘Hi’ because they’re part of the awesome team at Towers.

Hollywood Studios

Fireworks here are, for the most part, part of Fantasmic! this show is definitely worth watching. If there is inclement weather go anyway. They won’t do the full show but they still set off the pyro and fireworks and it’s pretty cool (as long as you don’t mind getting wet from the rain). They do have regular fireworks on July 4th and New Year’s Eve.



The majority of CPs and ICPs find themselves working long shifts on July 4th and missing the special fireworks. The Magic Kingdom fireworks are usually on on July 3rd as well and it’s also worth seeing if there’s somewhere in your location that you can watch them from.

On July 4th I was scheduled to work from 9am to 4:30pm. I was pleased because it mean’t I could have the special July 4th lunch at the cafeteria and also be able to get to MK to watch the fireworks. At lunchtime I was asked if I’d like to extend because some other CMs had called in and they needed some extra hands. (It’s is worth remembering that no-one can force you to ER or extend, nor can they recommend that you do one or the other. It is entirely up to you). Initially I said no and then tongue-in-cheekly suggested that I’d only extend if I could glow because then I could still watch the fireworks (admittedly at Epcot rather than MK). The response was an immediate yes with the caviat that I would have to leave before everyone else because of regulations regarding the number of hours you can work at Epcot in one day. Don’t think I just got paid to stand and watch fireworks though. I was still working and if a guest came up to me during the fireworks they would be my priority. I just took advantage of Towers having an outdoor location.

Glow was, by far, my favourite part of the job. For me, it was getting to play with all those toys I wanted to play with as a kid, except that I didn’t have to pay for them! I had so much fun doing it, and yes, I probably looked like a total idiot dancing around like a lit up Christmas tree, throwing spinning toys in the air, blowing bubbles. I got to meet so many amazing people from every walk of life and help make magic happen for them.

If anyone who visited WDW this summer has any pics of me in full glow gear with them feel free to send them in. I’d love to see them.

Happy 2011! May it be full of magic for everyone!

Wednesday 29 December 2010

I love to plan!

When planning any trip its always good to do a certain amount of planning and research before hand. Over the next 6 months I’ll try to include more of the tips that I’ve been highlighting already. Here are a few relating to travel/flight plans:

1) Don’t feel like you have to rush into booking your flights just because everyone else is. I didn’t book my flights to Orlando until mid-April last year.

2) Take advantage of any sales on flights but don’t let them dictate your plans. The other day I saw return flights for £450 but you had to fly via Toronto and Washington Dulles. Be aware that you will be busy from the moment you land in Orlando so don’t get over tired from travelling.

3)Consider flying an American airline. BA and Virgin have the advantage of flying direct to Orlando but if you want to travel afterwards a US airline is good for connecting flights. For example:

19th June - Heathrow-Washington-Orlando
2nd September - Orlando- Newark (New York)
9th September - Newark - Heathrow

...was slightly cheaper than doing...

19th June - Heathrow-Washington-Orlando
2nd September - Orlando - Washington - Heathrow

So you could have a trip to another city without any additional travel costs.

4) Don’t feel you have to arrive before your arrival date. Disney are highly organised when it comes to people arriving and it’s difficult to describe just how smooth the arrival process was. It makes no difference whether you arrive at 11am or 11pm. Unless you plan on having a quick holiday pre-arrival I recommend just arriving on the day.

5) Don’t worry if you’re not on the same flight as everyone else. I flew solo and ended up meeting loads of people on the Mears shuttle to Vista Way.

6) Start making a list of things you really want to do while you’re at WDW. For example are there any particular restaurants you want to visit? Time flies quickly in Disney!

Well that’s all the tips for now. More blogs on the way...

Monday 27 December 2010

What happened next?

Hello again! (I told you I’d be better at updating this didn’t I!)

I’m begin to realise that that first week at Disney is now proving to be a bit of a blur. Looking back it’s almost like it was one long day so I’m going to look more at the key events rather than what happened on a specific day because quite frankly I can’t actually remember.

Traditions

By the time you arrive at Disney, Traditions is quite possibly the single most anticipated event of week 1. If you want to I’m sure you can search for exactly what happens in Traditions class. I’m not going to go into great detail. Now in this case it’s not because I don’t remember what happened. No, this is because I think it’s better if that you don’t know about certain elements of the class until you get there. It’s all part of the magic. But here’s what I will say...

Traditions is where you receive your Disney ID and nametag. If you have a specific name you go by that you want on your nametag I recommend contacting them in advance although they did ask on the day as well. For me this is important because I don’t go by my official name and while they are similar I will, subconsciously not even recognise Suzanne as being my name if someone is talking to me (unless it is in an official situation). I do know people who had their official name on their tag and it took weeks for it to be changed. Your Disney ID gets you various discounts, allows you to go backstage and, most importantly, gets you into the parks for free, arguably the single greatest perk of working at WDW.

Traditions is also the first time during your stay in Florida that you will be required to wear professional attire.

*TIP* Make sure your shoes are as comfortable as possible and that your clothes are not too heavy. You will go outside during the class.

That’s all I’m going to say about Traditions other than I highly recommend you actively participate in the class. There are parts of it that are a LOT of fun.


Park Orientation

Obviously not everyone is based in a park so this may not apply to you but if you are in one of the 4 Theme Parks you get to have a Park Orientation. Again this is professional attire so the same clothing recommendations apply as before.

Each park orientation has a different name and most people will only ever take one of them so in my case I had Discovery Day a.k.a. Get to know Epcot.

As I mentioned before I spent some time writing an essay on the design of Epcot and the Magic Kingdom.( I’d go into details but I could guarantee that most people would fall asleep.) So the all-knowing arrogant side of me thought I wouldn’t learn anything new. I was wrong.

The day was essentially split into three parts:

- Lecture
- Tour
- Meeting an area supervisor/ getting your costume and locker.

*Fun Fact* Epcot is the one park where most guests go backstage without even realising. How? Because the outside section of Test Track is located backstage. If you look at this map you can see that everything to the right of Avenue of the Stars is part of the backstage area (roughly speaking).


View Larger Map

At Epcot the CP bus drops you backstage so you have to walk through it to get to the front turnstiles.

Now here’s why working at Towers was so great. We were located on the Future World side of World Showcase lagoon right next to the lake, right in the centre of the park. So here’s what would happen when you’d arrive.

- The bus dropped you off right outside Cast Services. This is where costuming and the lockers were located.
- From there it was a 2 minute walk to the First Aid entrance (located next to the cafeteria)
- Then it was another 2 minute walk into Disney Trader’s where you clocked in/out.

So within 5 minutes of the bus arriving you were at your location, ready to go and at break times it was a quick walk to the cafeteria so you never had to worry about making lunch etc. Fantastic!

Location/Area Training

Again, I won’t go into too much detail but for Merchandise training takes a total of 5-6 days. For Towers this was:

- Basics training
- Merchantainment class
- Floor training
- Baby Care
- Glow

Each part takes 1 day unless you are International. This is because you apparently require an extra day to familiarise yourself with the language, customs and currency of the USA. For me the extra day was slightly frustrating because I used to live in California and my native language is English but there you go, I had to do it anyway. There was one further area of training - stocking, although I managed to avoid this altogether, something I’m quite grateful for. Training was a lot of fun because it was the one time that you were guaranteed to be working with someone else. I recommend asking lots of questions because believe me it’s not so easy to do when the park is busy and you’re on your own.


Social Security

At the end of your second week in WDW you are taken en-masse to have your social security appointment. For everyone from the UK this is the equivalent of receiving your National Insurance number and is basically a tax thing. If you’ve already got an SSN then you don’t have to do it - lucky you!


And so ends my description of the more formal events that welcome you to your new life at WDW. Now I can start talking about the fun stuff :P

Sunday 26 December 2010

Suzie Fail

Hello Everyone! Long time no speak. Obviously this is all my fault. I just had a look back and released I haven’t posted any updates since day 2 (excluding the minimal vlogging). Epic Suzie fail!

In an effort to not bore everyone to death I’ll try to upload some summaries (hopefully timed vaguely with the vlogs) of what happened during my summer working at Disney World.

Last time it I summarized Day 2 of the experience. By which point I had basically got off a plane, moved in and signed my life over to WDW. So here’s what happened next...

Day 3

As far as I can remember this was pretty much more meetings. Now what these meetings were about I genuinely can’t remember (obviously meaning they were very important). They were with the infamous Jill who everyone knows from their face-to-face interviews which I suspect means that they consisted of more paperwork and employment contracts - fun stuff. That though was in the afternoon, the ‘exciting’ stuff had happened in the morning. That Thursday morning we received the single most exciting piece of information you receive as a Cast Member - your work location.

Now if you had asked me anytime up until about the 5th June where I would like to work (within Merchandise) I would have said:

- Hollywood Studios
- Magic Kingdom
- Animal Kingdom
- Contemporary Resort
- Polynesian Resort
- Water Parks

There are 2 major absences on that list:

1) Downtown Disney. (If you have ever seen World of Disney during peak periods you would understand why. It would have actually been my worst nightmare)

2) Epcot. (It was my least favourite park to visit and my favourite to learn about. I have actually written essays on it. it’s also the park I remember being dragged around most as a kid because it’s the park Adults tend to find most interesting but the lack of attractions within the countries did not gel with my short attention span)

So... off I went to be told my location with a sense of nervousness rather than excitement. I cannot emphasise enough just how much I didn’t want one of those 2 locations. So up I walk to a very excited Cast member who somewhat over enthusiastically declared that I would be working in “Epcot - Towers and Glow”. I suspect my face said it all because she then repeated the glow part as though it was some kind of redeeming feature of the location.

Now i have been visiting Disney World prey much every year for my entire life and i had no idea where “Towers and Glow” was. The glow part seemed pretty self explanatory - I’d be selling the glow toys that emerge during the nighttime parades, shows and fireworks but Towers? Where on earth was that? So I did what every self respecting student does I went on Facebook and Google and searched for it.

At this point I had already realised one significant upside to my location - the costume. “WHAT?” I hear you cry. “Everyone HATES their costume!” Yes, it’s true. The costumes at WDW can be quite spectacular. At the interviews it’s the one thing they willingly admit. But I noticed several key good points about my costume.

1) Shoes. Whether you’re visiting or working at WDW you spend a lot of time on your feet and walk several miles a day. The array of potential footwear that you could be wearing ranges from traditional black work shoes to hiking boots. On the piece of paper I was handed it read “White tennis shoes”. For me this was really the best option available because it meant that I could wear a really comfy pair of shoes that would actually get some use in the outside world.

*TIP* Go to the outlet mall for shoes rather than Walmart. They’re a little more expensive but your feet will appreciate the extra comfort and quality. There are also a LOT more options available.

2) Clothing. A short sleeve shirt and white shorts/trousers. No increase in temperature as a result of the costume. For pics of the lovely costume visit the Towers and Glow facebook page http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=43357945066

If you don’t want to look at those pictures here’s a brief description: Red flag shirt, white shorts, white socks, white trainers/tennis shoes. The flag shirt is really worth a look and before anyone mocks let me tell you I had a LOT of guests come up to me and ask where they can buy it so :P

Needless to say if you asked me where the best place to work in Merchandise at Disney World is I would say, without a doubt, Epcot: Towers and Glow.

To be continued.....

Episode 15: Meet the Queen of Glow

Sunday 7 November 2010

SDA: Episode 14 - The Long Overdue Episode

Hello everyone! It's been 5 months since my last vlog but I've finally been able to create a new one. I filmed lots of stuff from my summer at Disney so there will be lots more vlogs to look forward to.

Wednesday 2 June 2010

Day 2

Isn’t long distance travel fun? It comes with perks like waking up at 5am unintentionally.

Today basically consisted of a series of meetings dedicated to everything housing. The morning was spent filling out housing paperwork (signing your life away, finding out how much rent is, etc) and getting your housing ID. Cue awkward photo sessions...
At some point we got a voucher for Chik-fil-a so headed their for a really early lunch at about 11am. Then it was time for the oh so fun housing sessions and more paperwork. 3 1/2 hours later we finished. I’d give a summary of what was actually said but to be honest it was all fairly mundane and boring so believe me when i say its probably better that you don’t know what they tell you in advance.
We then all headed to Downtown Disney to have an explore. This was a lot of fun for me because none of the people i was with had ever been to WDW before. Their faces when we went in the World of Disney store were priceless. Then had the first proper meal of the trip at T-Rex and got back home around 11pm. Oh...it rained a bit as well.
All in all another great day.
Tomorrow I get to find out where I’ll actually be working so that’s something to look forward to (I hope!)
Signing off...

Move-in Day!

So yesterday I moved into my apartment in Vista Way. Was absolutely exhausted. So many things seemed to happen yesterday that I’ll quickly try to run through them all...

First of all I didn’t get ANY sleep Monday night due to a combination of excitement and editing. The trip to Washington Dulles was all fairly straight forward. My layover was about an hour and a half which is usually plenty of time. Especially given that i was the first person off the plane. I joined the immigration queue and there was a massive long line of people who got off a plane from Tokyo and only 1 immigration officer was processing them. For the next hour I was constantly looking at my watch. I left Customs and Immigration with about 10 mins before my flight was due to take-off. Cue some manic sprinting though the airport because the gate was on the other side of the terminal. I got to the gate and they had literally just closed it about a minute earlier. I went straight to the customer service desk who (go United) were really helpful and booked me straight on the next flight no questions asked. Unfortunately, that meant a 2 hour + wait :( I sat on the plane and they said they were gonna have to sit on the runway for 45 mins because of storms :( Eventually landed at about 6pm. I headed straight for the Mears shuttle and while I was sat there waiting someone recognised me (Jayne) so I got chatting to a whole load of Brits who are all doing the same thing at Disney as me.
Disney were on hand with a warm welcome when we arrived and gave us some free food and things. The food selections were slightly odd and included crackers, porridge, noodles and Cup-a-Soup. The showed us to our apartments and it turned out that one of the girls I met at the airport was also my roommate. Her name’s Janelle and she’s from Glasgow. There was then a late night run to Walmart. I didn’t get back to my room until about 1am so I was really shattered. Jet lag has resulted in me waking up at 5am this morning. hopefully that will sort itself out soon. The upside is that I did need to get up this morning for housing meetings and stuff.
The itinerary for the next few days is pretty much all meetings/training. Can’t wait to get my Disney ID so I can head into the parks. I’ve set up wireless internet for my flatmates (which they’ll discover once they wake up lol!).

I did film some of the stuff that happened yesterday and will hopefully do some more today :D

The sun is out now though. Let Day 2 commence!

Tuesday 25 May 2010

Episode 11: Flying the Flag

1 WEEK!!!

In exactly 1 week’s time I’ll be in Orlando, Florida and will have moved into my new apartment and hopefully met my new roommates.
Today was also the arrival day for the previous group of ICPers so hopefully I’ll start hearing lots of details from them.
I’ve got a few things to sort out this week before I head out (all slightly complicated by the fact that this weekend is a bank holiday weekend which basically means I can’t do anything on Monday). Here’s a rundown of things I need to do before I leave:
1) Buy $$$$$
2) Pack
3) Freeze DVD rental
4) Get a haircut
5) Say goodbye
6) Make another vlog
7) Check-in for my flight

Can’t think of anything else right now but I’m sure some other things will come up.

I’m currently uploading another vlog so there’s that to look forward to!

Wednesday 12 May 2010

Smile

I know i’ve gone quiet for the last few days. I won’t lie, I’ve had complaints!
Life’s been busy in the UK the last week. I’m sure many people have heard about the General Election that happened last Thursday, although it took the best part of a week to end up with a result. To be honest it was all fun for about a day and then it just all got boring. Hopefully all the news outlets can move on to something else now.
Moving swiftly on....
I had my one and only exam on Tuesday afternoon. Hopefully that explains the silence on the blog and vlog fronts. Tuesday evening I celebrated as only I could - with a trip to the theatre. More on that in a future vlog.
I’m working on 2 vlogs at the moment. Both feature a little more of London and one has a guest star! the plan is to upload both by the weekend.
Speaking of the weekend...
This weekend is move-out day for me. I’m really excited because it means I’ll be one step closer to arriving at Disney World. It’ll be sad to not be living with certain people anymore. You all know who you are!
Right now I’m probably the happiest I’ve ever been. Life is good!
I know a lot of people still have exams and essays and everything. Keep going and remember there’s always room for a smile!

Sunday 2 May 2010

Episode 6: Blast from the Past

4 Weeks Eve

There’s now less than a month to go until I’m on that plane to Orlando. I’ve finished all my essays and I’ve just got my exam left on the 11th. My mum asked me if it was the 11th June and I was like “Nooooooo! Cos I’ll be in Disney!”.
I’ve also only got 2 weeks left at my job. I’m kind of sad because the people I work with in the residence are all really cool so I’ll miss them. A lot of them are graduating this summer so it’ll be odd next year not getting to see them all the time.
This weekend I was on lock-in so I had a LOT of time to kill. I ended up filming about 4 vlogs back to back so they’ll be going up slowly over the next week or so. I just finished editing one so it’s uploading to youtube as I type. In fact its just about finished!

Sunday 25 April 2010

Heigh Ho...Heigh Ho...

So no sooner do I make a vlog about going to the embassy to get my visa but it arrives on my doorstep. Well it would have done if I had a doorstep. it actually arrived at the security desk but that doesn’t sound nearly as cool. Only one major thing left to do and I can’t do that until I get an email from Disney - yay!
In the meantime I’ve got a week of work ahead...well now it is only 3 days of work ahead but it was a week. I’m now 1 essay down with 2 to go. By Thursday morning I’ll be able to relax...at least until my exam on the 11th. Could be worse :P
Once again I managed to sneak a Disney reference into my essay and if that wasn’t enough I also managed to write a massive chunk of it on King’s Cross station and the Hogwart’s Express. I don’t know what’s got into me right now. It must have been Jasmine asking for a tour of Hogwarts!
Thursday is going to be a day of coolness by which i mean I’ll be hanging out with my friend Vix all day. Quite literally. If everything goes to plan we’ll be hanging out for a full 15 hours. Who knows maybe I’ll film some stuff too!

Wednesday 21 April 2010

Plymouth, Visas, vlogs

I don't post anything for a few days and I feel bad. So here's a multitude of things to keep everyone entertained until i get my act together.

Last weekend I went with the family down to Plymouth to drop my sister back at uni. It's way bigger than I thought. Saw various places and things including a hotel my dog stayed at called the Crooked Inn (sounds like some spooky location from Jonathan Creek).

Tuesday I had my visa interview at the US embassy in London. You're not allowed any cuts or blisters on your fingers because of the scans so I was completely paranoid about getting a paper cut at work on Monday. Everything seemed to go fine though and I met a bunch of cool girls who are all doing the Disney International College Program as well. All in all a good day.

There was also a Disney-related surprise during my trip to the Embassy. For more details WATCH THE VLOG!!!!

WDW is getting ever closer. Only 40 days left until my plane takes off.

Thursday 15 April 2010

EPCOT

Today’s blog is not about the Epcot park in Walt Disney World. Why the title then? Because many things that were created by both Walt and the Disney company were designed with edutainment in mind. So I thought I’d reflect on the ways Disney has helped benefit my education.

Firstly, Disney taught me how to draw. Quite literally. They sat me down with paper and pen and taught me how to draw. Perhaps I will one day use my vlog to demonstrate my amazing ability to draw Donald and Goofy without much thought. (The other characters usually require a little more work on my part).

Next up - customer service. It drives me up the wall seeing customers treated badly. Especially when I’ve seen the level to which customers can be treated.

Films - Disney helped instil me with the love of films that eventually led me to studying film at university (admitted via a rather long winded route).

Essays - I am now the proud author of, at last count, 4 essays directly related to Disney. On what? you may ask. Well....there was the one about Mathematics and Donald in MathMagic Land, one about a photo of Walt, one on architecture, city planning and park design, and finally one on the early Alice shorts and Oswald the Lucky rabbit cartoons. Don’t even get me started on the number of times I’ve used the term “Mickey-mousing”.

Learning - I love learning stuff. It is one of those amazing things about human beings - their capacity to learn. There are so many educational tools around us. I still remember my Dad buying our first PC at a time when no-one had access to the internet. It’s just incredible to see how far things have come in the last century.

I’ve recorded another vlog and have one in the pipeline as well. Don’t forget to let me know if there’s anything you want me to do/talk about in one!

Tuesday 13 April 2010

Se7en

I love the number 7. Yes it’s a little predictable but hey, even Snow White knew there was something special about it.
There is now exactly 7 weeks until I’m on my way to Orlando. Excited much? Well...maybe a little! ;P
I hope the vlogs are providing everyone with a little entertainment as they wait for their arrival date to come by. I have been asked to provide a tour of Hogwarts which would seem to be a little difficult (at least until I’m in Orlando and the new Harry Potter themed area of Islands of Adventure opens) but hey, I’ll see what I can come up with!
In the meantime if you have any other (hopefully slightly easier) suggestions as to things you’d like to see in the vlogs (particular sights in London, different topics, etc) then let me know.

And now it’s back to the blog.....

So in keeping with the theme of the number 7 I thought I’d do 7 lists of 7 things that are related to the program.

7 things I’m looking forward to doing this summer
        -Meeting new people
        -Living in WDW for nearly 3 months
        -Making the magic happen
        -Eating Dole Whip
        -Eating decent Buffalo Wings
        -CP specific activities
        -Meeting relatives I didn’t know about until 7 months ago

7 favourite Disney films
        -The Little Mermaid
        -Beauty and the Beast
        -The Reluctant Dragon
        -Mary Poppins
        -The Happiest Millionaire
        -Cinderella
        -The Princess and the Frog

7 favourite restaurants at WDW
        -Teppan Edo
        -Chef Mickey’s
        -The Brown Derby
        -Coral Reef
        -Ghiradelli’s
        -Sanaa
        -Sci-Fi Dine-In

7 things I’ll miss
        -Friends
        -Family
        -Driving
        -Squash
        -The Apprentice UK
        -The theatre
        -Commercial free television

7 things I won’t miss
        -Lectures
        -Essays
        -Marmite
        -Britain’s Got Talent
        -Everything being expensive
        -The 8 hour time difference with LA
        -No airconditioning

7 things I have to do before leaving
        -Get my visa
        -Pack
        -Write 3 3000 word essays
        -Sit my exam
        -Move out of halls
        -Freeze my bills
        -Make more vlogs

7 things I need/want to do on arrival day
        
-Get to the Disney Apartment complex
        -Move in
        -Meet people
        -Have dinner (preferably in a large group)
        -Unpack
        -Get groceries
        -Sleep

Ta da!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Monday 12 April 2010

Friday 9 April 2010

In space no-one can hear you scream

At the moment no-one can hear me anywhere.
It’s now day two of having no voice. I’m hoping it will come back before the weekend is over because I have an interview on Monday and a day of answering the phone on Tuesday.
Despite the lack of voice I have now finished all my visa paperwork. All that’s left is the interview in just over a week’s time. From what people have been saying it sounds as though the whole process has been sped up since I last applied for a visa. No-one wants to be stuck in the US embassy for 7 hours on the hottest day of the year. Can’t believe that was nearly 4 years ago.
I’m “locked-in” this weekend. If I start my essays I think it’ll be a new record.

Vlog 2: Part 2

Vlog 2: Part 1

Thursday 8 April 2010

Now I know how Ariel felt

So over the weekend I had a cold which was generally not a big deal - just any old regular cold. Yesterday it developed into more of a chesty cough and I so I sat through the whole of Oliver, coughing, and probably annoying the rest of the audience. Today was much of the same thing except I was at work answering the phone all day. When I returned home I felt exhausted for no apparent reason so had a nap before I did block checks as part of my job as a Senior Student/RA* in the halls/dorms* (* = delete as appropriate). When I woke up I had lost my voice, although on the upside the cough is slightly better in a less frequent sort of way. My friend Mathini, a 4th year medical student, has banned me from talking which is kind of annoying because I had planned to record my tour of London tomorrow so they may be a slight delay with that one. Cue sad faces everywhere...

...Luckily (or perhaps unluckily depending on how much you enjoyed my first vlog) I had some footage that I’d recorded at home (in a typical Blue Peteresque “here’s one I made earlier” fashion) so I’ve created a somewhat epic 2-part vlog #2 (mostly because my computer and I are a bit tired and we don’t feel like cutting the footage down).

Everyone’s comments about the vlog have been really great so far. One of the highlights was my mum saying it was nice to see my face. Sweet...if I hadn’t seen her about 12 hours earlier - bless! Keep the comments coming, keep subscribing and keep asking questions. A couple have already emerged so as soon as I get my voice back I shall try to answer them.

Tuesday 6 April 2010

First Vlog

So today my visa paperwork arrived. Yay! So I’ve got my visa appointment all booked so in celebration I created my first vlog.

Monday 5 April 2010

The Adventure Begins....

Well, actually the adventure began back in August last year when I submitted my application for Disney’s International College Program, Summer 2010 via Yummy Jobs, a UK-based company that handles the application process on behalf of Disney.

So a quick summary of the journey from then to now....

In about September/October time I got invited for a phone interview with one of the members of the Yummy Jobs team where they ask you a bunch of questions ranging from “Why do you want to work for Disney?” to “How do you think you’ll cope with the Florida heat?”.

Then I got invited to an actual interview at the end of November that involved the International version of the standard College Program presentation, along with a quiz, and then interviews in pairs.

In December I heard that I got accepted for a Merchandise role, although there was been a slight mix up with the start date. Initially I was given a start date in May which would have clashed with my summer exam but they quickly changed it to the end of June.

I knew that I would only have one exam in the summer and that it would likely happen in May so, unlike most ICPers I didn’t book any flights and instead waited for my exam timetable to be published ....at the end of March :(

Fast forward to March and sure enough my exam is scheduled for May so I make a quick call to Yummy Jobs and they push my departure date forward to June 1st. Cue screams down the phone as I make another ICPer very happy by freeing up a spot on the later start date, enabling her to go.

Of course, Disney had been super organised, sending me my Visa documents and stuff early, so it all had to be shipped back to the US and now I’m waiting for them to arrive so that i can sort all of that stuff out.

In the meantime, my flights are now booked -YAY! So I’m now allowing myself to get excited for what could well be the best summer EVER. I shall be blogging and vlogging over the course of the next 6 months so keep following!