Bad days and good days

I had a REALLY awful day at work the other day. It just seemed like everything went wrong. I had some really evil guests who weren't pleased no matter what I did for them. Someone backed into me in the kitchen and I dropped a tray of nine drinks which set me behind for the first seating. I went out to the table and explained that I'd be a couple of minutes and they answered, "why should we have to wait because you're @~!#ing incompetant?!" That's always nice.

Towards the end of my shift, a table was sat on 505. I had section 501 which includes tables 501, 502, 503 and 504 so 505 wasn't my section. I carried on serving my tables. Twenty five minutes later, the guest comes over and yells that he's been waiting for ages. I went over to the table to check who was meant to be serving and guess what? Apparantly, it was meant to be me! It wasn't my fault, no one had told me that was my table but I didn't want to give excuses to the guests. They wouldn't understand so all I could do was apologise and tell them it was all my fault. Of course, they were angry and everything I did just seemed to make them madder. They ordered the pub burger which is cooked to well done and takes at least 20 minutes. I explained but they were already pissed off. By the end of my shift, I went upstairs to the toilet, sat on the floor and cried my eyes out. I know, pretty pathetic, huh? Still, I cried it all out and I felt so much better afterwards.

The following day, Kevin and I decided we had to get away from Disney and guests and go somewhere quiet. What we needed the most was a national park but here in Orlando, national parks are a little bit rare. Instead, we went to the Wilderness Campground. It's a Disney campground but it's themed to a national park. There are trees and lakes and rivers and it's really quiet and peaceful.

We hired bikes and headed off the marked trails (oopps, naughty us) and into the forest. It was amazing! It was a really sunny day and I enjoyed the exercise. We saw deer and squirrels and rabbits and cranes and herons and a chipmunk. The best part was when we came out of the forest and came across an armadillo. Wow, are they weird looking! They're like armoured rats. This one didn't seem at all bothered by us and we took lots of photos. I was crouched down next to the armadillo and I was even able to reach out and touch its back. It felt like you'd expect it to feel. Like a hard shell.

We spent most of the day on the bikes but we also took the chance to sit by the lake side in deckchairs and just listen to the water lapping on the shore. It was exactly what I needed after my bad day.

There's not much else to report right now. Well, except they're asking for trainers at work. My manager, Alisha, asked if I'd be interested. I'm really not sure, I still sometimes freak out when I have too many tables. However, if there was some sort of position that trains people just on spieling and menu learning, I think I'd be quite good at that. That's book learning, I like that. There's a meeting on Saturday and as I'm on an AM shift I'll be at the Rose and Crown anyway so I may go along.

My only other bit of news is a group of us are planning a trip to Cancun soon. I've always wanted to go to Mexico. I nearly managed it once but something else came up. I really want to see the Mayan ruins and David wants to see the beach. I'm hoping to snorkel and scuba dive. There's a large group of us going and I'm looking forward to it.

Anyway, that's all for now. Talk to you soon!

Slow times

It's typical. During the really busy period when I was working so much I didn't have time to report on what I was up to. Now its so quiet, I have plenty of time to blog but nothing much to tell you. Ironic, huh? Still, I've got a few things to write about.

Work is really quiet at the moment. It's actually quite nice after the craziness of Christmas and New Year. Managers are giving out alot of ADO's and ER's (Authorised Days Off and Early Releases). The only draw back is money is getting a bit tight. Still, I'm enjoying the free time. I was ER'ed today so I used the time to visit the bank and Walmart and run a few errands. Not terribly exciting but still stuff that needed to be done.

On my days off, I've been taking full advantage of the parks being so quiet. On Saturday I met up with a few friends (Rene, Iselin and Vader - all Norweigans), and we went over to Hollywood Studios. Hollywood is my favourite park and we had a great time doing all the rides. We really loved Toy Story Mania! We did boys V girls and naturally, the girls won! Hee hee!

We also went on the Tower of Terror (one of my favourites!). Unfortunately, I've been on it so many times, I'm getting rather blase about it. To make it a little different, we did special poses for the in ride photo! If you were there that day, you'd have noticed a photo with a couple kissing Rene and Iselin) and a girl reading Star Wars. It's actually really funny, all you can see are my eyes over the top of the book! It was funny!

In the afternoon, we ate at the 50's Prime Time Diner. It was brilliant! Our server (Memory) was awesome. She told me off for giving my greens to Rene and she made me stand in the corner with my head against the wall! I was laughing so hard I could barely stand. Memory picked on Rene even more. She called him Poky and kept telling him off for putting his elbows on the table. To stop him she drew a line of tomato ketchup! Rene still managed to put his elbows on the table so Memory made him stand up and sing "I'm a Little Teapot", complete with actions! It was so funny!

A few days ago, I got a bit of a blast from the past when an old friend turned up. I worked with Lil Steve on the ship and he was in Florida so we caught up. We ate at The Rose and Crown and visited EPCOT and MK. It was great!

Well, now you're up to date. I'll write again soon.

Work, ice and Gay Lord!

Now that New Year is finally over with, things have really calmed down at work. I went in yesterday and was surprised to see how empty it was. It was reflected in the restaurant too. I didn't have a single table for my first hour and when I finally did get sat it was a two top! Luckily, it got busier towards the end of the night but it was never frantic or even busy, really. Coming right after the holiday rush, it made for a nice relaxing shift. They reckon it'll be like this for at least a month so that means a few extra days off for us. Yes!

I've been over here for five months now and I was worried to learn that I haven't really done any of the things I want to do. I know I have seven months to go but aside from swimming with the manatees and visiting Key West, i've done nothing! People had been talking about an attraction called Ice! over at some hotel so I looked it up online and found it ended the following day. I made a point of getting up early and going to see it and I am so glad I did!

The hotel is called "Gay Lord Palms". I am not making that up. It's actually called Gay Lord Palms. It's a really posh hotel too. In the middle of their atrium there's a huge waterfall. They have alligators you can look at plus over on one side is an area designed to resemble Key West. The bar is on a sailing boat in the middle of a small lake! All of this is indoors as well.

Anyway, as impressive as the hotel was, Kev and I had gone over to see the attraction Ice! It's a walk through attraction containing loads of ice sculptures made out of clear and coloured solid ice. They had an ice bridge you could actually walk on and one scene was of a moonlit lake where the swans were ice on the ice lake. It was beautiful. Further round, they had an ice gingerbread house you could walk through and a thirteen foot Santa who's knee you could sit on. The best part of it was at the end where they had ice slides! Slides made entirely out of ice that you could slide down. I went really fast!

The only drawback to the attraction was it was really, really cold! They provided us with parkas but eventually the minus 12 degree cold really got to us. When we got outside, I had to shake my hands to get the circulation going again and poor Kevin's fingers were red and swollen (he hadn't thought to bring gloves!) Still, I'm really glad we went. Now I can tick off something from my to do list.

Well, I'm working again today so I'd better make tracks! Hope everyone had a good Christmas and a brilliant New Year! I'll write again soon!

Happy New Year!

Well, it's now 2009! How weird does that look?

It's been a good few days but I am soooo glad it's all over. Work has been really busy and full on but things should start settling down a little bit now.

I had been dreading doing the PM shift for New Years Eve. For the last month, all the managers have been saying "it'll be really busy, you'll be weeded, it'll be tough" and basically freaking everyone out. Luckily, Matt decided he wanted to work the PM as everyone said the money was really good so I traded. I was an AM instead.

The AM shift was really busy and I felt so glad I'd traded. It turns out I made the right decision too, as I made more on my AM than Matt did doing the PM. After work, Kevin, Vikki, David and I got changed and exited the park. We were told that we had to leave and come in as guests. I thought it would be wayyy too busy but we got back in with no problem. Only trouble was it was 5pm so we had 7 hours to kill. The park was really busy so we didn't bother with any rides. We just mooched around. At 7pm, we went back to the UK pavillion and did a countdown to 7pm (which is midnight back home). Everyone that was at work came out into the street and we all hugged and wished each other Happy New Year. The Americans around us all thought we were nuts!

Later on, we decided to head over to Norway to see Rene. We got halfway round world showcase when we ran into a huge crowd of people. They were stationary and we couldn't move forward. We stood in the huge crowd for about 10 minutes then tried to back out of it. At that point there were people behind us as well. We couldn't move at all. I looked left...people, I looked right, more people...I'm a little claustrophobic in crowds but I closed my eyes and tried to imagine there was no one else there. Kevin tried to lead me out but as soon as he put his hands on my shoulders I shrieked, "DON'T TOUCH ME!" We couldn't move anyway. In the end, I couldn't handle it, I felt like I couldn't breathe. I lunged for the railing and somehow (I don't remember this part) got over it. Then I sat on the grass trying to get enough oxygen. It was awful. I sat there for twenty minutes or so, then security came and helped me backstage. Once I was out of the crowds, I was fine. I still can't believe I got over that railing. Kevin is over six foot and he had difficulty! Guess adrenaline did most of it!

At around 11pm, we were back in the UK pavillion. As a joke, Kevin asked if there was any availability in the restaurant. There was! Colin said if we didn't mind the cold, he'd take us on his section. It had been empty all night because it was cold outside. We were fine to sit in the cold so we had a table right on the waterfront for the New Years Eve fireworks. It was brilliant! I had a Baileys hot chocolate and we all shared lots of different types of food. It was a brilliant way to ring in the new year!