A few days at home and exciting news!

This week, I flew back to Indianapolis to go to the Paul McCartney concert in Louisville with my family. The concert was originally supposed to be in July but Paul got sick and rescheduled. My Tuesday started early in the morning when my roommate dropped me off at the airport and after a layover in Atlanta I arrived in Indianapolis around noon. My mom picked me up and we stopped by Gray's Cafeteria for lunch. We left for Louisville around 4 but traffic was so bad we didn't get there until around 7:30. The concert was amazing! I really liked the Yum Center. The next day I hung out with my sister and then got to see my Aunt Tracy and Uncle Billy's new house. Their house is on its way to being perfect! On Thursday my sister went back to school and I went and visited my Aunt Murney and then my parents and I went to dinner in Carmel. It was so much fun being home! 

Now for the exciting news! I have decided to extend my program for the Spring semester and stay in Florida until May. My new role will be Full Service Food and Beverage but I will not know the location until closer to January. This time I got to have a preference and I selected Sci-Fi Dine In at Hollywood Studios or Liberty Tree Tavern at Magic Kingdom. I will probably be happy anywhere though! I love having visitors so come and see me!

A visit from my family!

Over the past week my parents and sister visited me. We got to do a lot of Disney things we had never done before. We got to eat lunch at Be Our Guest in Magic Kingdom, stay at Old Key West Resort (My family is in the vacation club and this is actually our home resort but we had never stayed there before. It might be my new favorite resort because it is so pretty and peaceful!) and have dinner at Mama Melrose in Hollywood Studios. Be Our Guest was better than I thought it would be! We really didn't plan on going but we decided to wait in the stand-by line and we got in around 11am. There are three dining rooms and each one is supposed to be from a room in the Beast's castle from Beauty and the Beast. We ate in the Ballroom. The weather was perfect the whole time my family was here. It was low 80s and no rain finally! It was also really fun to show my family all the places that I work at! I also got to take them to Cast Connection which is a place cast members can go that has discounted merchandise that is overstock or out of season. They loved it! I miss them already but I am going home next week to go to the Paul McCartney concert in Louisville! 

Days of Christmas

I have been wanting to work someplace new and I finally had the opportunity to pick up a shift at a different location. The first one I found was Days of Christmas at Downtown Disney. I was a little nervous but after I got closer to the costuming building I saw some girls wearing the costume and asked them all my questions. They were helpful but I still couldn't find the back entrance so I just went through the main door and it was fine. Pretty much all the merchandise stores in Disney are the same set up so I wasn't too worried about learning too many new things. My first assignment was wrapping, which we don't even have at Mickey's of Hollywood where I normally work. Days of Christmas sells so many ornaments that they need a cashier and a wrapped at some of the registers. So for the first few hours of my shift I just wrapped guests' ornaments after they bought them. I really liked it because I actually got to talk to people more and I wasn't worried about the register. Most of the other cast members I met that night did not normally work there, but it was fun to hear about their normal locations. I actually really liked the Days of Christmas costume. There is normally a big bow that you wear kind of like a tie, but they were out so I didn't get to wear it. I am looking for shifts to pick up next week so I hope I can find one some place interesting!

Alumni Speaker Series

On Wednesday night Allison and I attended one of the Alumni Speaker Series that the College Program hosts. This one featured "leaders across property" and had a panel of seven Disney employees all who had participated in the college program. They talked about their current jobs and how they got there and also answered questions from the audience. It was pretty interesting to learn about their jobs. It seemed like most of them didn't end up where they thought they would but they all loved their jobs. 

(Allison was a lot more excited than I was haha)

 After the event we picked up Veronica and went to Celebration for dinner. Celebration, FL is a town that was developed originally by the Disney Company but now they do not have much to do with each other besides being located closely. Celebration is similar to a beach/waterfront town but with more of a New England style. There are some shops and lots of unique restaurants. We ate at a Thai place that was amazing! We will definitely be back to visit the pumpkin patch, shops, and pizza place. 

Even though it was 9:30pm after we finished dinner we decided to go to Magic Kingdom. We got there around 10pm, right after the fireworks. It was kind of cool to just be getting there as most of the crowds were leaving. We rode the Peter Pan ride and then got some ice cream and found the perfect spot to watch the second parade. It wasn't very crowded at all! It was the perfect night but we missed our fourth roommate Shelby who is visiting her family in Massachusetts this week.  

I just want to fly

Right now Epcot is having its Food & Wine Festival which will last until early November. Not only do they have so many foods and drinks to try but they also have concerts throughout the festival. Earlier this week Sugar Ray was performing three nights in a row! Veronica and I had the evening off so we decided we had to go. Even if you don't know who Sugar Ray is I am sure you have heard one of his songs before. He had a few hits in the late 90s (and he reminded the audience of it a few times during the show haha). It was a great concert and he was really funny. We ended up going to the first and second show. He took a lot of pictures with fans while singing but we weren't enough to get any selfies. 

Other performers on our list to see are Smash Mouth, Los Lonely Boys, Wilson Philips, and Wilson Philips. 

After we left Epcot, Veronica and I went to Jellyrolls, the dueling piano bar on the boardwalk. We were waiting for Allison to get off work at the Flying Fish Cafe and we had been wanting to check it out because we can get in for free. That night they were only playing requests which was so fun! They played a few of the songs we requested. But we were the youngest people there by at least 20 years haha. It was fun and we definitely want to bring our other roommates back another time. 

Working the Night Shift

Last night I worked a shift I had been dreading starting at 8:30pm and ending at 4:00am. Hollywood Studios was open for the Tower of Terror 10 Miler run for the runners and their families and most of the College Programers in my location were scheduled to work. The night actually turned out to be pretty fun and it went super fast! Everyone I worked with was excited about the race and all the guests were happy to be there. There was a DJ so the music was fun too. We didn't really get to see much of the race but it did go by the Sorcerer's Hat and ended by Rockin Roller Coaster. It was also pretty cool to get to walk back to my car through the park in the dark after the park was empty. Some of my coworkers and I went to IHOP after we got off and I got back to my apartment around 5:30. I never thought I could stay up that late but I am so glad I got the opportunity to work such a fun shift. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures since I was working the whole time but I found a picture of the medals which were so cool! 

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The best birthday ever!

Wednesday was my birthday and not only was I lucky enough to spend it with my three roommates but my boyfriend, Josh, was visiting also! Since we all started working it is really rare that the four of us have the same day/days off during the week but by some Disney magic it worked out that everyone was off! For my birthday I wanted to do something extra special so I decided we should do something from our bucket list.........go to all four parks in one day! 

We weren't sure if it would be easy or difficult but the night before we made a plan. The plan looked like this: 

• Drive to Animal Kingdom and get there right when it opens
• Drive to Animal Kingdom Lodge for a birthday breakfast at Boma
• Drive to the Polynesian 
• Walk over the the Ticket and Transportation Center and take the monorail to Epcot
• Leave through the International Gateway at Epcot and take the boat to Hollywood Studios
• Take a bus from Hollywood Studios to Magic Kingdom

Empty Toy Story Mania Queue (a rare Disney sight)

 We ended up doing everything we wanted and then some! Here is how the day actually went: 

• Arrived at Animal Kingdom around 9:30
• rode Expedition Everest and a Dinosaur 
• Had the best breakfast at Boma and even got a birthday cupcake and some Mickey oreos
• Made it to Ecpot by 1pm 
• rode Spaceship Earth and Malestrom
• Headed to Hollywood Studios 
• saw the new Wandering Oaken's Frozen store and rode Toy Story Mania (only a 20 minute wait!!), Rockin Rollercoaster, and Tower of Terror
• Made it to Magic Kingdom by 6:30
• At this point everyone was a little tired so we slowed down a little bit haha
• We rode the Little Mermaid ride and Space Mountain and tried Lefou's Brew 
• We left Magic Kingdom and tried to get into Ohana at the Polynesian but there weren't any openings so we ended up at Downtown Disney for dinner. 

Lefou's Brew (frozen apple cider with marshmallow and passion fruit foam) 

Thank you to my roommates for making my birthday so special! They put in so much work to make it a perfect day! I loved all my presents!! And thank you to my wonderful boyfriend for spending the week with me! I really felt like a Disney princess!