Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Work, then Fun!

Hi! How are you? I'm well. On Sunday I worked 7 hours. I got off at 2:45am. It was my first closing shift. It was good though because I got the easy position for closing lol. All I had to do was stand at the dispatch console and wait for the tower person to tell me when to pull the trains to storage. To pull trains to storage, all I have to do is press a button lol. I love pressing buttons lol! On Monday, I had to work 10 hours. It was a pretty long shift, but it went by pretty smoothly. Working is getting to be pretty much routine now. I know all the positions well now, and even grouper is slowly getting better. Its a lot of fun to work with all different kinds of cultures. You really learn a lot! There is one girl that I work with named Licia who is from Italy. I was talking to her about italian food, because I love me some Italian food lol, and she was telling me that here in America, most of the food that is claimed to be Italian food is not really Italian food. She said that pepperoni pizza in Italy doesn't have meat on it. Pepperoni pizza is more like a bell pepper pizza. When they put meat on their pizza, they call it salami pizza. And also, she said that the lasanga here and true lasanga is very different. I wanna find some true Italian lasanga!

Yesterday my was day off. I went to Animal Kingdom with Nikki. I don't know how she did it, because I promised myself I wouldn't go in that show ever again, but somehow she dragged me into It's A Bug's Life! That show is scary! lol. There's this one part where these wasps attack and they sting you! And then there's the part with the roaches and beetles...EwWwWwW! I hate bugs. Anyway...lol. Then we went to ride Expedition Everest YAY! The standby line was 50 minutes, and the Fastpasses were all gone, so we went in the single rider line. Thank God for single rider lines!!! We rode it twice. I freakin love Everest! Its pretty much the most amazing thing ever lol. That Yeti man! He's pretty scary! After that, we went to get something to eat. We went into this beautifully air conditioned restaraunt lol, and got a little snack. Nikki had chicken strips and I had fries. After we ate, we had all these condiments lying around lol, and it made me think about something that my sister Diamond always used to do. Sooooo I decided to try it! Haha. I mixed together ketchup, salt, sweet tea, barbecue sauce, sweet and sour sauce, and dijon mustard. Then I dipped a french fry in it and ate it. Well, actually, attempted to eat it lol because I couldn't really get it down lol. Yup. I'll never do THAT again! So after we were done eating...or, whatever we were doing lol, we went to ride Dinosaur. Omigosh. While we were standing in line, we noticed that the guy in front of us was probably so excited to be in Disney and wanted to maximize the time he had in the parks, so he decided to skip a few showers....WOW our noses were CRYING lol!!! And we stuck behind him for the whole 40 minutes we stood in line! Yeah. But besides that, Dinosaur was awesome. Next, we rode Primeval Whirl. I had never been on it before. It was ok. Really short though. Oh! Then we played these little carnival games! Nikki played the little roller ball game and won a purple Iguana and named him Iggy Star-Pop! lol. I played the basketball game and won a super cute bear in a baby blue basketball uniform! I was so excited lol. I named him Dwight! Hahaaha. After that we went on Kilimanjaro Safari. That was really cool! We got a decent sighting of some animals, but we really didn't get to see a whole lot. We saw different kinds of antelope, elephants, rhinos, hippos, flamingos, and a bunch of birds. The tour guide said that there were some cheetahs and lions, but I didn't see any. But it was still really nice. After the safari, the park was closing, so we decided to go over to Magic Kingdom. As we were heading over there on the bus, one of thise famous Florida storms came in. It was lightning like crazy and really really heavy rain. We we got to MK, we got drenched trying to run into the nearest gift shop lol. We found this really neat little theatre room that plays old Mickey Mouse cartoons. It was so cute and perfect for waiting out bad weather. After the storm had died down enough, we headed over to Fantasyland and got on the Winnie the Pood ride. Well that broke down, so we we to ride Snow White instead. Then It's A Small World.....yeah. No comment lol. Then we went back to Winnie the Pooh lol. It was so cute! Next we headed over to Tomorrowland and rode Buzz Lighyear. The rain had scared everyone off, so the lines were pretty much non existent. We got to ride twice, they just let us stay on lol. I was so mad though because I was winning both times until the very last second when she pulled ahead and won! Can you say, Cheater? lol. Anyway, after that we went on Carousel of Progress. Another ride that I had never been on before. It was pretty interesting though. It was funny in a cheezy kind of way. lol. After that, we went to our homeland, Frontierland! I finally rode Big Thunder at night. It was awesome. It was so funny seeing all my co-workers as I walked in. Everyone had to do a double take lol. They're like, "Howdy Fol....Michelle?" lol!! It was great. Then we rode...SPALSH MOUNTAIN!!!! YAY! It never gets old lol. We got SOAKED though lol. Ah. Perfect way to end a beautiful day at Disney! I'm off again today. Going to some more parks! Wooooo!!!

Love, Michelle

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Getting the Hang Of Things!

Its been a few days since my last post. A few LONG days lol. I can barely remember what all has happened since Thursday. I'll do my best lol. Thursday was another 12 hour shift. It wasn't too too bad though. When I was in Tower, which is the position where you have to watch all these screens and keep an eye on the guests on the ride and there's all these buttons and if the ride goes down you're pretty much in control lol, but anyway...when I was in Tower, of course the ride HAD to go down, and it was my first time being in Tower when the ride went down so I was like "Uh Oh..." but before I had time to panic, all these people started rushing the tower and doing everything for me lol. I helped out a bit though lol I got to spiel to the guests to let them know that the ride was experiencing technical difficulties and that they would have to exit the queue at this time. I was so professional! lol. Anyway, the next day, I was in Tower again...and the ride broke down again. I was like, are you serious? What's wrong with me? lol. But anyway, just like the day before, as soon as the ride went down, people started rushing the tower, taking over for me. This time, one the coordinators who was also one of my trainers, told everyone to back up and that I was in Tower and to let me handle things. So I got to do a little bit more. At first, I was ok with all the people trying to take over for me because I wasn't 100% sure what I was supposed to do lol, but NOW I know exactly what to do!!! First you call maintenance (8855), then you call the Greeter and tell them to pull the rope because we're 101 (ride is down), then you spiel to the guests in the queue, then you turn the ride animation off and the work lights on, then you start filling out the 101 paperwork. Yay! lol. So after we got the ride back up and running, I started thinking, well wait a minute...I know what to do when the ride goes down while I'm IN Tower, but what am I going to do when the ride goes down when I'm NOT in Tower? Lol, very soon after that thought passed through my head, the ride goes down. And I was NOT in Tower! lol. I had never done an Evac (evacuation) on my own before, but I guess there's a first time for everything! Thankfully, I got to evacuate the one part of the track that I knew how to get to, so it went very smooth. I got everyone off the train and led them back through the mountain and out to the exit. After all the trains were evacuated, we had to reset the track. I had never done that on my own either, but again, thankfully I got to reset the one part of the track that I knew how to get to. Sooooo, it went very well! I even got a "Good job Michelle!" from the coordinator! I was so proud of myself lol. So today I was in Tower again, and I just knew it was going to break down again lol. I was ready for it though, even looking forward to it because I knew exactly what to do. Of course, it didn't break down. It can't break down when I actually know what I'm doing! lol. But yeah. That's ok. Its sure to break down on me again when I'm in Tower, and when it does, I'll be ready! lol. Today I was supposed to get off at 9:00pm, but like 2 hours before 9:00, one of the coordinators came up to me and asked me if I wanted to extend until 10:00. I was like, um sure! And he was like, "Really??" lol. I mean, its only one more hour, so I didn't have a problem, but he seemed really impressed and he was really grateful. So yeah. One more hour of overtime oh yeah! lol. When I clocked out, he came up to me and thanked me again. So yeah...I'm in good with the coordinators so far lol! Tomorrow I get to sleep in YAY! I don't go in until 6:45pm. I'm super excited! And SUPER sleepy! Goodnighty!

Love, Michelle

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Days Off Pt. 2

Well, the second of my beloved days off sadly have come to an end. Now its back to work bright and early tomorrow morning and for the next 5 days straight. Today I went to see Up. It was a really good movie. Its pretty funny though, because I never cry on movies, but this one part in the movie...I just couldn't help it lol. But yeah, it was a really funny movie too. Disney has done it again! lol. After the movie I went back home to eat lunch, and then I was gonna go to Animal Kingdom by myself. But just as I was getting ready to leave, Michelle came home and asked me if I wanted to go to Hollywood Studios with her and her friends. Even though I've already been to Hollywood Studios like 10 time since I've been here, I couldn't resist lol. It was funny though, because all of her friends speak spanish, so there were a lot of conversations that I completely missed out on lol. But they were all very nice and they included me in their conversations as best they could by trying to explain to me in English what was being said. They were even helping me to learn some spanish phrases. We didn't get to do a whole lot at the park because we didn't get there until about 6:00 and the park closed at 9:00. First we rode Rock N' Roller Coaster which was awesome as always. Then we went over to the Journey into Narnia attraction. I had never been in there before, so I didn't know what to expect. I thought it would be pretty cool....yeah, no. lol. It was pretty boring. Next we went to watch The Little Mermaid show. That was really cute, but waaaaaaayyy too short lol. They tried to condense the movie so much that it turned out being kinda confusing. Lol, although it would probably help if I'd actually seen the movie before! Anyway, we saved the best for last - Tower of Terror! ALWAYS a blast! Oh, and I saw that one guy who's like the poster boy for Tower of Terror. His name is TJ and I see him working every trip I take to Disney. He plays his role so well! But yeah. Not much else to report. Fun day! But the fun is over now lol. Thanks for reading!

Love, Michelle

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Days Off Pt. 1
















I had my first day off class today. I was almost really really late though lol. I forgot to take my phone off of silent before I fell asleep, so my alarm didn't go off in the morning! Thank God Nicole came in and woke me up lol. I only had 10 minutes to get ready though. Its a really, really good thing that the class is in a building right next door to my apartment lol. Class was good. My teacher is really nice, but very crazy. In a good way though lol. She's been with the company for 29 years, so she has lots and lots of experience and valuable information to share. I'm excited about the class. It should be really good. One of the things we had to do today was to draw a picture of what our childhood dream was. I remembered that when I was little and my mom was working for US Air, I wanted to be a flight attendant lol. So I tried - key word, TRIED - to draw an airplane with the passengers inside and me as a flight attendant giving the pre-flight instrusctions lol. It was a special picture lol. After class, I went with Nikki to the post office so she could mail a package to her friend back h0me. After that, we were going to go to International Drive to explore the different shops and little attractions in the area, but we ended up not going. We went to Disney's Boardwalk instead. It was really cool. There was a magician who was really good. He put on a good show. Then we bought corn dogs....Oh my goodnesssss YUM lol. Pretty much the best corn dog I ever had ever lol! Next we went to check out what else was at the Boardwalk. We went down to the left end of the boardwalk and found these two really neat looking clubs and decided to take a peek inside. The first one was very creatively named "Dance Floor" lol. We went inside and it was practically deserted lol. There were only a few couples in there, all of them in their late 40s/early 50s lol. We quickly left. Across the way, there was a club that was misleandingly named "Jellyroll". I was thinking, Hmm...donuts! lol. No donuts. But it was still pretty cool because it was like a piano dueling show. It was pretty neat. There was, however, a $10 cover charge to get in....I was about to turn right around but then added that cast memebers get in free, so I was like well in that case....lol! The best thing about that place is that they give out free popcorn! Yum! But yeah. It was funny. After the piano place got boring (about 15 minutes lol) we headed home. It was pretty fun though. I want to go back again another day because there was a whole bunch of other stuff on the other side of the boardwalk that we didn't see yet. Well, I have my second day off tomorrow. I'm probably gonna go to Animal Kingdom. Wooo Hooo!!!










Love, Michelle

Monday, June 8, 2009

Red Shirts Everywhere!

I worked my first full day on Friday. It was a 10 hour shift and man was it LONG! It was good though. I got a lot of practice in each of the positions. My favorite position is Fastpass Distabution, and my least favorite is DEFINITELY Grouper. Grouper is so awful because you have to assign people the rows that they're gonna sit in on the train, and you're trying not to split up the parties. The people just do not listen and they always try to choose their own rows and of course everyone wants to sit in the front lol. But one of my co-workers gave me a few tips. She told me to spiel to the guests before I show them to their rows and say, "Ok everyone's gonna follow me all the way down, please do not stop, please DO NOT choose your own rows!" That helped a little bit lol. On Saturday I only had to work 8 hours and 30 minutes, but that day was very...um, "special" lol. Saturday was the annual "Gay Day" and it seemed like they ALL came out to celebrate lol. They all wore red shirts to identify themselves. There were red shirts everywhere! It was SO funny because normally Country Bear Jamboree has little to no wait, but on Saturday the lines for the show were out the door and all the people standing in line had on red shirts lol! I just wonder what the families who had no idea it was Gay Day were thinking that day! lol. Sometimes we would get parties of 15 red shirts and they all wanted to sit three to a row. They said they were very "close" lol. So yeah. It was a very interesting day lol. Yesterday was a doozy. I had to work 12 hours. I guess my body just has to get used to the routine. It wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be, but I was still exhausted when I got home. Yesterday was the first time I got the guests very mad at me lol. I was at merge assist, where you take the guests' fastpass tickets, and my neighbor Tom who also works with me was at merge point, where you merge the fastpass guests in with the standby line. The ride went down for technical difficulties and everyone was asked to leave the queue. Well, normally, the people are supposed to keep going down toward the trains to exit so that they can get fastpasses to get back in line later. Well, Tom stated sending the people back the way they came in, so I started giving them their fastpasses back, but Tom told me not to, so I stopped. People got very angry lol. I did my best to apologize and sympathize, and some people were nice about it, but some were still very very upset. I had one older man demand to see a manager, so I took him to see the manager. Tom and I are both new, so we didn't really know we were doing things wrong, but I should have just stuck with my original instinct and kept passing out the fastpasses. Later on, the manager talked to me and told me the right way to do things, which was to send the people down to the trains so they could get their fastpasses. He told me I wasn't in trouble or anything, but he told me to always air on the side of the guests'. I was kinda embarrased, but the manager was nice about it and now I know for the future. So yeah. You live and you learn lol. Well, I work again today, but its only for 6 hours so its not so bad. Then I'm off tomorrow and Wednesday. YAY! lol. But tomorrow I do start my Marketing You class. Its from 8am to noon. Oh boy. It should be cool though. Well, thanks for reading!

Love, Michelle

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Around the World and into the Future

Royal Swords in Great Britian
Naruto poster in Japan!

Lol me in Mexico


Mission: SPACE



EPCOT




Today was my day off. I went to EPCOT with Nikki. It was so much fun! First we rode Spaceship Earth. It was pretty fascinating lol. Next, we went into Innoventions and did the little video game maker thingy. TOO funny! We made a game just like the one I made with Renise. After that, we went to ride Mission: SPACE. It was too much fun lol. That launch is way crazy. We were gonna ride Test Track next, but there was a 60 minute wait, so we got fastpasses instead. Oh yeah I forgot, when we were in Innoventions, we saw a stand where you could sign up for the Kim Possible scavenger hunt in World Showcase. It looked like fun so we decided to give it a try. We got a ticket instructing us to report to Italy in World Showcase to receieve our assignment. On the way over to Italy, we stopped by the Imagination pavillion to ride Journey into Imagination. I was surprised to see that the ride had only a 5 minute wait time, but after riding, I understood why. It wouldn't be missed if you decided to skip it, and next time I will lol. We continued our path to Italy, and when we got to World Showcase, we were suddenly hit with a wave of hunger, so we decided to make a pit stop in Mexico to find some FOOD lol. Mexico is a really cool pavillion. Right outside the pavillion, they had a mariachi band playing some really cool mexican music. Inside the pavillion, there are gift shops and a restaurant, as well as a cute little boat ride called Gran Fiesta Tour starring the Three Callaberos. I had never been on it before, so Nikki and I decided to give it a try. So....pretty much its a mexican version of Its A Small World. Yeah. lol. It was cute though, only slightly more tolerable than Small World. We were gonna eat at the mexcian restaurant on the inside, but the prices were far out of my price range lol, but we found a smaller mexican restaurant on the outside of the pavillion that was a bit more reasonable. I had a burrito filled with beef, rice, black beans, cheese, sour cream, and salsa. It was GREAT. I seriously had a great time eating it lol. As we were finishing our meal, it started to rain. Hard. So we booked it to the next pavillion to wait out the rain, which just happened to be the Norway pavillion. YAY! Malestrom! Lol, that ride is so random, but I love it! Its pretty much my favorite part of World Showcase. After we left Malestrom, we continued around the world and shortly arrived at our goal destination, Italy. We walked up to the Kim Possible booth and picked up our handy dandy Kimmunicators. Its actually a cell phone that plays videos that explain your mission and gives you clues on how to complete it. Our mission was to go to Japan and stop this evil baby robot thingy lol. It was pretty cool though. We had to go to different points around Japan and when we got there, something special would happen and lead us to the next spot. While we were in the Japan pavillion, we visited this SUPER cool gift shop called Mitsukoshi. They have all kinds of awesome Japanese souveniers including a plethora of anime collectables. There was a Naruto section, a Dragonball Z section, and a Pokemon section among others. It was SOOO cool and its a really big store. I could probably spend hours in there. Anyway, we were finished with our mission helping Kim Possible save the world, so we finished our tour of the world and headed back to Future World to ride Test Track. It was too fun. I'd forgotten how fast that ride goes! After Test Track, we went into Innoventions West and went into this 3D show that simulates a tornado destroying a house and educates you on how you can better storm-proof your house. It was really cool. After that, went to the area where you can try out a Segway! That was amazing lol. It took me a minute to find my center of balance, but when I did I was surprised at how easy it is to ride it. Its really cool. When we were done there, we went to the Land pavillion to ride Soarin', but the wait time was 70 minutes and they were all out of fastpasses, so we opted out of that one unfortunately. We went to the Seas with Nemo and Friends instead. We rode the little Nemo ride that takes you inside The Seas, and then we went to see Turtle Talk with Crush. That show is SO cute! I was cracking up just like to little kids lol. I like that show! After Crush, we decided that we were ready to head home. It was a fun day. I really enjoyed it. On the bus back to the apartments, we had a pretty good view of Wishes, the fireworks show over in Magic Kingdom. They were beautiful. I had a really nice day. Tomorrow is back to work though. My shift is from 10:30am to 9:15pm. So I have a long day ahead. Thanks for reading! Goodnight!

Love, Michelle

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Ears Have Been Earned!

Well, I did end up going to EPCOT! I went with Renise. It was a lot of fun. Renise had never been to EPCOT before, and she mainly just wanted to see what it was like as well as visit World Showcase. First we went into Innoventions East, and we found the greatest thing ever! There's this setup where you can actually be in a video game and play as yourself! You record yourself running in place, jumping, and doing your victory dance lol. Then it transfers you into this computer game, and you get to play as yourself! Its TOO funny. We could barely play our game because we laughing so hard lol. It was great because we even got to email ourselves a link to the game so we could play it at home and send it to friends and family. TOO funny lol. So after that, she wanted to go check out Honey, I Shrunk the Audience. Now, as we were walking in, I remembered that Renise has a snake phobia. There's a part in the show where the audience is shrunk and there's a loose python that attacks the audience. The show is also in 3D, and I figured that could be pretty traumatizing for her, so I did the nice thing and told her about it in advance lol. I did however, leave out a few other details including the part where the mice get loose and run into the audience while the room is pitch black and you can feel the mice scuttle across the floor and brush up against your legs (actually puffs of air) lol. Pretty evil, right? MWUAHHAHHAAA!!! Anyways...after that, we headed on over to World Showcase and circled through the countries. We stopped in some gift shops and upon reading the incredibly insane price tags, we quickly made our exit lol. We didn't stay at EPCOT long, but it was fun regardless. I'm actually probably gonna go back tomorrow and hit some of them thrill rides WOOT! lol.

Yesterday was my last day of training. We spent the day getting more practice in each of the positions. At one point in the day, a bee infestation was dicovered in the upstairs queue area, so we had to re-route the guests so that they wouldn't be by the bees. That was fun. NOT! On a normal day, there's only one merge point where the fastpass line is merged in with the standby. But on this day, we had to have three different merge points in order to keep the line flowing correctly. It was pretty crazy. Today was my assesment. I was tested on everything I had learned during my week of training. I was really nervous lol. It was a two part assesment. The first part was a written examination that was 114 questions long. It took me 2 hours to complete it lol. I did pretty well though, I only got about 15 questions wrong. After the written part, I had to actually work in each position with my trainer right there with me watch me, making sure I do things right. I was so nervous, but I did pretty well. The positions really just take practice, and the more experience you get working in each position, the easier it will become. Right now, I have to be a bit more technical than those that have been here for a while, but as I get more and more comfortable with what I'm doing, I'll be able to loosen up more. I'm looking forward to the job. There's definitely never a dull moment! Its super fast paced, but I like that. So after I had rotated through all the positions, I was done! My trainer told me that I had passed, and I have officially earned my ears! YAY!!!!! YAY ME! lol. After I checked out of training, I still had about and hour and half left before I got off, so I went into rotation. This was it; first time on my own! Whoop whoop! lol. My first assignment was Grouper. Great. My first time on my own and I had to get the position that I least like. Wonderful lol. Grouper can be quite a doozy! The good thing is, you only stay in one position for about 30-45 minutes, and then someone comes to bump you out and you go to a new position. I can't even begin to tell you how relieved I was when they came to bump me out! Lord JESUS! lol. My next position was Unload. Unload is probably my favorite position so far. Not a lot of craziness, just a lot of button pushing. YAY BUTTONS! lol. At Unload, you are responsible for checking the guests' lap bars in the last 3 cars of the train. Then you go to the station console and press the dispatch button which makes the train go. Funness! I was only at Unload for about 15 minutes before the next person came to bump me out. I was confused at first until I realized it was time for me to clock out (already!). Well, at least I know the time will go fast! So tomorrow I get a day off, then its back to work for 5 days in a row! On Thursday I have a 10 hour shift! Oh Boy....lol. Well, I'm SUPER sleepy lol. I was knocked out on the bus home today lol. I woke up and this girl was like staring at me...I'm like, um, wow. Embarassing lol. I will let you know how EPCOT goes tomorrow! Love ya!

Love, Michelle