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.

WRONG COSTUME! HA!

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!

Female Character Look-Alike Audition

This morning I went to a Female Character Look-Alike Audition. The audition was held at the Animal Kingdom Costuming building which was convenient because I had to pick up some new costumes. The auditions started at 10:00am and sign in was at 9:00am, but being as I have work at 12pm and I didn't know how long it would take, I got there at 8:00am. I did costuming first, which only killed about ten minutes of my time (greeeaaatttt), but with still lots of time to spare I noticed girls already lining up at the door, so I hoped in line. They let us in around 8:20am where we got a number and we got measured. I was measured at 5' 2.25".

After about maybe twenty minutes, they began auditions and took the first fifty of us into a rehearsal room where stood in five lines of ten. Two of the Casting Directors stood at the front of the room while they played music, so we couldn't hear them talking. They looked at each line of people for about two minutes a piece and then we rotated lines. Line by line, this went on for about ten minutes. They shut of the music and thanked us all for coming. After that they told us they were going to call the people who made it to the next round......two. They picked two people out of fifty! I, sadly, was not one of these people. After that we left the rehearsal room, did the walk of shame back through the 200 women waiting in the waiting area and that was it. The end.

I wish I could give you more of an insight into the wonderful world of auditions, but sadly, that's all I got for you people! I'm so glad I went though, and Emily went too! Now I'm off to work!

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!