Showing posts with label Costume. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Costume. Show all posts
Friday, March 28, 2014
Jambo From Harambe
One morning after one of my beautiful and enthralling training classes I clocked in at Asia and it told me to pick up KSR Cart 1….what is that? I know the names of all my carts because we only have three…that’s not one of them. I frantically searched for a manager and discovered that I had been transferred over to Africa for the day because they were so shorthanded. So me and my fun Asian costume headed over to Africa. It was pretty much like picking up an extra hours shift, but in the wrong costume. They had a lot of different merchandise that I had to get acquainted with not to mention just finding everything in the store, because there store is huge! It was a good experience though, I met some awesome people that work in Africa regularly and if it wasn’t for their AWFUL costume, I would definitely pick up an actual extra hours shift in Africa!
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
First EHH Shift at the Magic Kingdom
Tonight I picked up an "Extra Hours" (EHH) shift at the Magic Kingdom doing Strollers from 9:15pm-12:45am. I got there SUPER early because I wanted to give myself enough time to park, ride the Westclock bus to the entrance of the utilidoors, navigate the utilidoors, and figure out where to come up into the Magic Kingdom. Earlier in the day I went to costuming to pick up the wrong costume.......the WRONG costume, like an idiot. It was a pretty similar costume, but the wrong costume nonetheless.
Because it didn't take me as long as I expected to get through the utilidoors and everything, my leader let me clock in 45 minutes early and get paid, woo! Stroller was really easy! The first position I took over was "Tunnel 4." Basically I just stood in front of one of the tunnels with one of those glow sticks that are right pasts the turnstiles and told people who were exiting the park where to bring their stroller rentals. The best part was, I got the watch Disney's Main Street Electrical Parade! It always reminds me of my grandma and I had a great spot to watch it.
Tunnel 4 made me realize that I don't know the Magic Kingdom that well. There were a lot of basic question I had a hard time answering and I know had I been in Disneyland I would've been able to answer almost anything!!!
After I got switched out of Tunnels 4 I did Back Room for the rest of the night, which was literally only stacking and rolling strollers. It was pretty boring but the people I worked with were cool and my manager was awesome! I think I'll definitely pick up another Stroller shift! It was definitely cool to work one night in the Magic Kingdom, but I definitely wouldn't want to work there full time. Hats off to the people that work their full time!
 |
| WRONG COSTUME! HA! |
Tunnel 4 made me realize that I don't know the Magic Kingdom that well. There were a lot of basic question I had a hard time answering and I know had I been in Disneyland I would've been able to answer almost anything!!!
After I got switched out of Tunnels 4 I did Back Room for the rest of the night, which was literally only stacking and rolling strollers. It was pretty boring but the people I worked with were cool and my manager was awesome! I think I'll definitely pick up another Stroller shift! It was definitely cool to work one night in the Magic Kingdom, but I definitely wouldn't want to work there full time. Hats off to the people that work their full time!
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Merchandise Tier 4 Training
Today I had my second to last day of training which means....floor stocking. This means, a new costume. Get excited people.
Weather was AWFUL today, which meant Disney's Animal Kingdom was dead. So there wasn't a lot of practice to be done. It was another one of those training days that included a lot of pointless walking around and few tips and tricks sprinkled in here in there. About half way through the day I had to take my 67 questions assessment, which I happily passed.
Tomorrow is my last day of training, Tier 5, and I will be up in the Expedition Everest gift shop, the biggest shop in Asia. There I will be learning Photopass for guests who want to purchase their photo from the ride. I'm definitely very eager to take off my "Earning My Ears" ribbon and finally start actually putting what I've learned to use. Thus far, training has been fine, nothing exciting, but nothing awful. My trainer Steven has been really cool and I find him to be a pretty entertaining man, not purposefully.
After Tier 5 tomorrow I will have one day on my own before I get another two days off...not complaining. Lots of work makes it hard to catch up on things outside of work such as laundry, errands, etc. and I'm looking forward to getting all of those done.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Merchandise Tier 3
Tier 3 has thus far been my favorite day of training. Today was actually my first day out in the park, putting my practice to the test! Everything went pretty well and I feel like it was pretty easy, especially having worked in retail before. I have definitely found my niche though - merchantaining!
"Merchantaining" is playing with the merchandise for the guests. For example (and this has been my favorite part thus far): one of our merchandise carts in Asia sells all plushes, including a small brown bear puppet that seriously looks like a real bear! Guests get a kick out of it when I put it to use and it's fun to see their reactions! I get to scare the crap out of our older guests, which is, of course, hilarious and then I get to brighten up the kiddos' faces! It seriously is just the best!
The day went by pretty quickly because we got to take a lot of breaks and a long lunch, which was nice! In my next training, Tier 4, I will be learning about floor stocking, which means another FABULOUS outfit, so just look forward to that!
"Merchantaining" is playing with the merchandise for the guests. For example (and this has been my favorite part thus far): one of our merchandise carts in Asia sells all plushes, including a small brown bear puppet that seriously looks like a real bear! Guests get a kick out of it when I put it to use and it's fun to see their reactions! I get to scare the crap out of our older guests, which is, of course, hilarious and then I get to brighten up the kiddos' faces! It seriously is just the best!
The day went by pretty quickly because we got to take a lot of breaks and a long lunch, which was nice! In my next training, Tier 4, I will be learning about floor stocking, which means another FABULOUS outfit, so just look forward to that!
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Merchandise Tier 1 Training
So today I had my first day of in-costume training at Disney's Animal Kingdom, this is also known as Merchandise Tier 1. The morning started out with about two hours of E-Learning in the computer lab at the DAK Cast Services building. Although the two hours flew by, it didn't make it any less boring. There were about five of us in there, all were ladies I had DAKlimation with.
After the E-Learning, we got our Pin Trading lanyards! I'm super excited for that aspect of merchandise and actually did a lot of Pin Trading with guests when I was out in the park! After some more talk about Disney's Four Keys (ALWAYS) it was already lunch, which we all had in Pride Rock cafeteria.
After lunch, we split up with individual trainers based on what land we were in and we got well acquainted with the area and the merchandise locations within our area, not to mention all the backstage areas. I was a little disappointed to find out that the majority of merchandise locations in Asia are all outdoor carts, which means working outside, which is not exactly wonderful in the Florida heat/humidity/rain. There's actually only one indoor location. While today was a pretty general overview, it sounded like we rotate throughout all these locations during our shift.
Overall I feel like it was a very long day for not a lot of stuff, but all in all it was a fine day.
Alright, so the moment you've all been waiting for...the reveal of my costume. Let me prelude this by telling you that sadly, this costume is probably one of the best ones there. Get excited people.
Even though I was dead tired after training, we HAD to hit up Hollywood Studios with just an hour to spare (duh)!!! We went with our favorite DCP boys, our neighbors across the hall, and were able to ride Hollywood Tower of Terror and Rockin' Roller Coaster. I also saw Fantasmic for my very first time and I cried really hard like such a weenie. Just one of those side effects of Disney magic I guess!
After the E-Learning, we got our Pin Trading lanyards! I'm super excited for that aspect of merchandise and actually did a lot of Pin Trading with guests when I was out in the park! After some more talk about Disney's Four Keys (ALWAYS) it was already lunch, which we all had in Pride Rock cafeteria.
After lunch, we split up with individual trainers based on what land we were in and we got well acquainted with the area and the merchandise locations within our area, not to mention all the backstage areas. I was a little disappointed to find out that the majority of merchandise locations in Asia are all outdoor carts, which means working outside, which is not exactly wonderful in the Florida heat/humidity/rain. There's actually only one indoor location. While today was a pretty general overview, it sounded like we rotate throughout all these locations during our shift.
Overall I feel like it was a very long day for not a lot of stuff, but all in all it was a fine day.
Alright, so the moment you've all been waiting for...the reveal of my costume. Let me prelude this by telling you that sadly, this costume is probably one of the best ones there. Get excited people.
Even though I was dead tired after training, we HAD to hit up Hollywood Studios with just an hour to spare (duh)!!! We went with our favorite DCP boys, our neighbors across the hall, and were able to ride Hollywood Tower of Terror and Rockin' Roller Coaster. I also saw Fantasmic for my very first time and I cried really hard like such a weenie. Just one of those side effects of Disney magic I guess!
Friday, January 24, 2014
DAKlimation
Today I had my DAKlimation training to become acclimated to Disney's Animal Kingdom (ahhhh I see what you did there). DAKlimation began at 8:00am so I planned to take the 7:05 bus from Chatham to get there at 7:35. However, when I got to Chatham at 6:50am, the next bus wasn't coming until 7:37...a bit of a problem for me. So I ended up driving after all and with the help of my bus app map and a couple of u-turns later, I eventually made it to the cast parking lot and found my way to the Cast Service Building.
Like Traditions, I had to dress in business casual today, and after learning my lesson yesterday with wearing a skirt in the unusually cold weather here, I switched to pants and a blazer. Let me tell you...THIS DID NOT HELP! It was so cold first thing in the morning and didn't warm up until...uhhhh right now at 3:30pm, and it's STILL pretty chilly! Of course, the first thing we did in the wonderful chill was take a park tour to become well acquainted with Disney's Animal Kingdom's five lands. Each land has a different story, a different conservation message, and a different greeting, and it was really neat learning all of those, it definitely made more excited to work at DAK! The first thing we did on our tour was ride Kilimanjaro Safaris before the park opened, which, of course, was AWESOME. And as a prize for getting up so early and being up so early, we actually got to see more of the animals because they're more active in the early morning!
After the park tour, our leaders talked to us about "Disney's Four Keys" at DAK (view last post, if you're really interested in that) for about forty five more minutes, gave us the rest of our training schedules, and then we were broken for lunch at Pride Rock Cafeteria, the cast member cafeteria for DAK cast members. Apparently all cast member cafeterias have a Subway in them, and homegirl got a six inch meal for like four bucks....uh, what?!
My training schedule is as follows:
Saturday - Merchandise Tier 1
Sunday - Merchantainment
Monday - Merchandise Tier 3
Tuesday - OFF DAY
Wednesday - OFF DAY
Thursday - Merchandise Tier 4
Friday - Merchandise Tier 5
After lunch, came the best (and I say this in a half sarcastic way) part of our day...costuming. I drove to DAK Wardrobe and there had to try on a bunch of different sizes before finally getting the right ones in both tops and pants. When I found the right sizes, I eventually went home with five tops, five bottoms, one winter jacket, one rain jacket, a pair of gloves, and a fanny pack to keep my rain stuff in.
I made a lot of promises that I would show my costume today, but I didn't take any pictures while I was there trying them on because it was just so hectic. However, I do have to wear my costume tomorrow to training, so you will definitely be seeing it tomorrow when I take my picture in the morning (which is now weirdly becoming some sort of ritual?).
DAKlimation was just fine, there wasn't a ton of information just thrown at you, which was nice, it really is just what they say, just to get acclimated with the park. I got to meet some nice people in my group and even met a really sweet girl who is also doing Asia Merchandise and also lives in Patterson, so it looks like I found my carpool buddy!! I have absolutely no idea what to expect tomorrow, but I can't wait to fill you in on what happens. I'm still trying to decide if I should go to the parks tonight, I am definitely pretty tired, and I still need to go get work shoes, which I will be going to Walmart for...woo!
Also, I think you can be expecting a vlog on Tuesday!
Like Traditions, I had to dress in business casual today, and after learning my lesson yesterday with wearing a skirt in the unusually cold weather here, I switched to pants and a blazer. Let me tell you...THIS DID NOT HELP! It was so cold first thing in the morning and didn't warm up until...uhhhh right now at 3:30pm, and it's STILL pretty chilly! Of course, the first thing we did in the wonderful chill was take a park tour to become well acquainted with Disney's Animal Kingdom's five lands. Each land has a different story, a different conservation message, and a different greeting, and it was really neat learning all of those, it definitely made more excited to work at DAK! The first thing we did on our tour was ride Kilimanjaro Safaris before the park opened, which, of course, was AWESOME. And as a prize for getting up so early and being up so early, we actually got to see more of the animals because they're more active in the early morning!
After the park tour, our leaders talked to us about "Disney's Four Keys" at DAK (view last post, if you're really interested in that) for about forty five more minutes, gave us the rest of our training schedules, and then we were broken for lunch at Pride Rock Cafeteria, the cast member cafeteria for DAK cast members. Apparently all cast member cafeterias have a Subway in them, and homegirl got a six inch meal for like four bucks....uh, what?!
My training schedule is as follows:
Saturday - Merchandise Tier 1
Sunday - Merchantainment
Monday - Merchandise Tier 3
Tuesday - OFF DAY
Wednesday - OFF DAY
Thursday - Merchandise Tier 4
Friday - Merchandise Tier 5
After lunch, came the best (and I say this in a half sarcastic way) part of our day...costuming. I drove to DAK Wardrobe and there had to try on a bunch of different sizes before finally getting the right ones in both tops and pants. When I found the right sizes, I eventually went home with five tops, five bottoms, one winter jacket, one rain jacket, a pair of gloves, and a fanny pack to keep my rain stuff in.
I made a lot of promises that I would show my costume today, but I didn't take any pictures while I was there trying them on because it was just so hectic. However, I do have to wear my costume tomorrow to training, so you will definitely be seeing it tomorrow when I take my picture in the morning (which is now weirdly becoming some sort of ritual?).
DAKlimation was just fine, there wasn't a ton of information just thrown at you, which was nice, it really is just what they say, just to get acclimated with the park. I got to meet some nice people in my group and even met a really sweet girl who is also doing Asia Merchandise and also lives in Patterson, so it looks like I found my carpool buddy!! I have absolutely no idea what to expect tomorrow, but I can't wait to fill you in on what happens. I'm still trying to decide if I should go to the parks tonight, I am definitely pretty tired, and I still need to go get work shoes, which I will be going to Walmart for...woo!
Also, I think you can be expecting a vlog on Tuesday!
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