I made it!
- Stephanie M
- Sep 20, 2016
- 6 min read
I have safely made it to Orlando and am all settled in! I apologize that it has taken me so long to post an update… It has been go go go since I checked in to my apartment! I absolutely love it so far and I am enjoying every minute of it.
I moved into my apartment exactly one week ago. Before arriving in Orlando, Disney had asked us to indicate an apartment preference and at this time we were also allowed to request one roommate if we wanted to. I had requested to room with Eileen who I met on Facebook shortly after being accepted to the program and I am happy to say that we are in fact roomies! YAY! In terms of our preference of what complex we wanted to live in, we got our 11th choice…. A three bedroom six person apartment at Vista Way. When we indicated our preferences we really did not want to live in Vista Way because it’s an older complex and has a reputation of being dirty, but it wasn’t our last preference because Vista Way does not have bunk beds and we weighed the pros and cons and decided we’d rather have dirty than bunk beds (at least dirty we can fix). When we walked in, it wasn’t exactly a pretty sight… Some apartments at Vista Way have been renovated by ours has not. I think it was the fact that it was a little dated and had a “dingy” feeling that really bothered us at first. However after doing some cleaning as soon as we got there and buying some cute decorations from Target, we have really made our apartment feel like home!
As I mentioned above I live in a three bedroom, six person apartment which means I have five other roommates. I share a bedroom with Eileen and it is actually a decent size (it’s the second biggest in our apartment). Unfortunately we do not have our own bathroom and we have to share with two of our other roommates – Eugenia from Italy and Alex from China. Our other roommates, Heather from the UK and Stephanie also from Canada (LOL how crazy that the two Stephanie’s from Canada end up rooming together), have a bathroom in their bedroom. Eileen and I were really hoping for that room but Heather ended up beating us to it (shucks). Now that we are settled though we are really happy with our living arrangement and we feel at peace and are comfortable when we come home after a long day.
After move in on Monday, we had meetings Tuesday and Wednesday which consisted of filling out paperwork and also learning some rules so that we don’t get kicked out of housing, kicked out of the country or terminated from Disney. These meetings were pretty boring and in between meetings we just relaxed at our apartment since move in day was pretty exhausting. Thursday was our big day of training which consisted of Traditions! I was super excited for this day and even though it did have some boring parts it also had some really magical ones. We had really awesome facilitators who tried to make the day more fun and engaging. Basically Traditions is Disney’s fancy word for orientation where they explain the history and customs of Walt Disney World. Because I had done so much research prior to starting my program, I actually knew a lot of the information they told us at Traditions but it was still really great experiencing it first hand. Besides just learning some information about the company we also got a pair of Mickey ears, there was Disney trivia (I won a Mickey Mouse figurine), we went to Magic Kingdom, and Mickey Mouse himself delivered our new name tags!
After Traditions, we were officially Disney cast members and this meant we were allowed to go to the parks! That night Eileen and I went with our roommate Heather and some of our other UK friends to the Magic Kingdom. Because we had had a full day of training we didn’t get to MK until around 6:30pm. The first thing we did was Philharmagic, then Eileen and I went off on our own to get some dinner in Liberty Village. After that we walked onto Pirates (5 minute wait!) and then headed over to Tomorrowland to use a fast pass for Space Mountain. By this time it was already 8:45pm so we headed over to the castle to get a spot for Wishes, Celebrate the Magic and the Main Street Electrical Parade. Even though we were only there for three hours, it was still a great night and it felt so good to be back!
We had Friday and Saturday off, so Friday we got up bright and early to go to the Magic Kingdom for breakfast reservations at Be Our Guest at 8:15am. We made it to MK in time to see the welcome show in the morning and it was awesome! I would definitely recommend seeing the welcome show if you ever have the opportunity. I would also definitely recommend going to Be Our Guest! We went for breakfast and it is considered a quick service meal at that time but it doesn’t feel like a quick service restaurant. Our meal came out on nice plates, the food looked beautiful, and we got unlimited pastries and drinks included with our meal. Also the setting alone at the restaurant made it worth it! Disney really did a fantastic job of recreating the Beast’s castle, the amount of detail is absolutely breathtaking.
After breakfast we did a few rides – the Journey of the Little Mermaid, Splash Mountain (I got absolutely soaked), the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, Space Mountain, the Carousel of Progress, and the People Mover. We also watched a show called Mickey's Friendship Faire and had a Dole Whip (SO DELICIOUS). We only ended up staying at the Magic Kingdom until 2pm because the days prior had been long and exhausting so we went home to relax.
Saturday Eileen and I slept in and then we went to Hollywood Studios around 3pm. We did all the main attractions – the Great Movie Ride, the Rock’n’Roller Coaster, the Tower of Terror, Star Tours. We also looked around the shops and saw Fantasmic! Fantasmic is one of my favourite shows and it gives me goosebumps every time I see it. Along with Wishes it is definitely a must see when visiting Walt Disney World. I also had my first Mickey Bar this day and it was just as good as I remember it being! I have a feeling I will be consuming many Mickey Bars while I am on this program.
Yesterday and today we have been back to work doing training. Yesterday’s training consisted of safety training pertaining to the parks and also to our specific food and beverage role. To be honest, it was quite boring. Today was really fun though because we had our Discovery Day at Epcot which literally means we got to "discover" the park. We got to tour around Epcot, and even thought I have been to the parks many times, it was really great to see it through a cast member perspective and to notice things I might not have noticed before.
Today we were done by noon and at this point we are really quite exhausted. I napped from 2:30-5:30pm this afternoon and now we are just relaxing. We thought we might go to MK but then we had a mini-hurricane so decided to forego it for today. Tomorrow we have more training at Epcot then I have Wednesday and Thursday off. Friday is my first day of training at Le Cellier and it’s also my birthday! I only work until early evening on Friday though so I’ll be able to celebrate my day after work! I’m super excited to be in Disney for my birthday but it’s definitely bittersweet not being with my friends and family.
That's all I have for now! Hopefully I will be a bit better at keeping this blog updated, but I have honestly been so busy that whenever I have down time I have just wanted to relax and watch a movie or sleep. But if I haven't updated for a while but you want an update, please feel free to shoot me a message either here on the blog or on Facebook or Instagram! I'd love to hear from you!
Until next time xo
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