Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party!

Once again, it's been a while but things are really busy out here. The International Food and Wine Festival begins today at EPCOT so the chances are you'll hear even less from me as we're going to be even busier. For the people who don't know, Food and Wine is a festival where Disney set up stalls from all over the world that sell the food types from that country. It means they can include foods from countries not featured in world showcase such as Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Portugal etc. They also have a Scottish one where you can get haggis, yuck!

Over in the American pavillion during Food and Wine, they have stars put on concerts. At the start of November, David Cassidy is playing. I was quite excited but everyone else I've spoken to (beside my mum) have no idea who he is! If I get the chance, I may pop over on my day off and see him live in concert. Shame it's not Donny Osmond though.

Even though I've been doing alot of working recently, I've had a little time to play around. The other night, I was in my apartment reading when the phone rang. It was Kevin inviting me up to the pool. When I got up there I found a huge group of us, Pippa, Lauren N, Nic, David, Danielle, Andy, Emma, Josh, Chloe, Kevin....We all went swimming. It was around midnight! I found it really weird to be swimming under the stars at gone midnight but it was brilliant. Only here in Florida could you do that! A few days later, I went up there again, this time with Sam, Vikki, Pippa, Lauren N and David. Looks like midnight swims may be a regularly scheduled event!

On Tuesday night, I went to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party at the Magic Kingdom. We've all been talking about this for about a week and Rhys rang me in a panic to say he didn't have a costume. I told him to get an old white shirt and some black trousers and come round. He came round later with a brand new shirt and trousers but he didn't mind too much when we jumped on them and cut them to ribbons. Unfortunately, I only have nail scissors out here so we had to use those to carefully cut off the arms and the legs. Then he took his shirt out onto the balcony while I rummaged around in my cupboard for my art supplies. Armed with a kids tub of red paint, we fell to work on this shirt. I poured paint into my hands and rubbed them together, then Rhys held his shirt while I did two bloody handprints across it. I got rather into it and made sound effects which freaked out Rhys. It was great fun. Rhys rubbed some dirt into the shirt and in the end, it looked pretty good.

My costume was alot easier. A while ago I brought a children's Pocahontas costume from Downtown Disney. It's for a 10-12 year old but I have no problem getting into it. They must have really huge 10-12 year olds out here! Unfortunately, I didn't have any shoes to go with it but luckily I'd asked my mum to send out my boots from home. They arrived that morning (my mum is amazing!!!). Vikki went as Alice in Wonderland and looked brilliant! People actually mistook her for the actual Alice more than once! Vikki's boyfriend, Dan pulled his costume together at short notice but made a really decent Indiana Jones. Our roommate Nami was a cowgirl while Nic and Lauren were just Halloweeny like with wands and pumpkin necklaces.

We met up with alot more people at the park. Tom looked really scary as a red devil and Lynda, Alex, Corinne and Nia were the "Not So Scary Fairies". Everyone wanted to do different things so we branched off into smaller groups. I went with Vikki and Dan and we did the rides. As Not So Scary is a ticketed event, the lines for the rides were pretty much non existant. We rode Thunder Mountain and as it was empty, we went in a seat each. I was in the middle behind Vikki and in front of Dan. Halfway through the ride, I got distracted from the actual rollercoaster because Vikki was sliding from one side of the seat to the other with every turn. Her Alice costume slid really well so for the whole ride she was sliding across her seat, pulling herself up and then sliding the other way. I was in stitches, it looked so funny and I could hear Dan laughing behind me. Even Vikki laughed as she struggled to stay upright. It was brilliant!

As part of Not So Scary, the park sets up "Trick or Treat candy spots" where you go over and they give you a handful of sweets. They had loads of these scattered throughout the park so we ended up with bulging bags of sweets by the end. That should keep me going for the rest of the year!

The Magic Kingdom was all decorated for Halloween in orange and black. As it got darker, the place was shrouded in orange and green lights with mist snaking its way out of the castle. All the characters were in halloween costume and it was so spooky and atmospheric. The fireworks, "Hallowishes" were amazing. They had ghost outlines shooting up the castle walls. The Boo To You Parade was great too. It started off with the headless horseman racing down mainstreet. Then came all the floats with the villains on. They had people giving out sweets at the end so we all stuck our bags out.

All in all, it was a fantastic night. We had so much fun but boy were we exhausted by the end of it! We got a taxi home and fell asleep around 2am. Scarily enough, that's an early night for us out here.

There's a throw in tonight for the new hires. We have two groups to throw in as they came within weeks of each other so it should be good. They've altered the throw in slightly and it's now themed as "cowboys and indians". I'm lucky I don't need a costume as I can use Pocahontas again. Vikki's going as a cowgirl. It should be another good night.

Bye for now!

Training, flattery and hurricane season

I've gotta be quick, I'm out the door in a few minutes and I'm not even in costume yet!

Anyway, I've completed all my podium training now and I've sat the test at the end. It wasn't difficult as your trainer is right next to you with the answers if you're unsure. I had my two days off and I went to MK (Magic Kingdom) and EPCOT. I swear, I was even more tired after my days off than I am when I'm working! It was fun though.

I now have six days of training in the Chippie. That's the fish and chipshop here at EPCOT. You have to wear the "dead jellyfish" hat which I hate with a passion but the time really flies by. I'll be learning the till today which would be great if I could talk. Unfortunately, I seem to have picked up a sore throat and blocked nose from somewhere. Still, it will pass.

A bit of advice for any Brits coming over. Don't think that because it LOOK'S like Lemsip, it does the same thing. I took something similar to Lemsip and it made me really drowsy. Luckily I was off to bed anyway but I could have taken it before work accidentally!

I had a scary moment yesterday. Marcel, one of the managers, asked to see me. I was so afriad I'd done something wrong. You can get terminated ("termed") for stuff so easily over here. I actually thought, "what if I didn't smile at a guest or something? Or what if I didn't close the ice bucket all the way?" Luckily, it wasn't for any of those reasons. Marcel has asked if I want to train as assignor which is basically the supervisor of the restuarant. I was flattered but I can't help wondering why he's chosen me. I've only been here for a couple of weeks. Marcel went on the ask if I was also interested in being a GT (General Teller). That is the person in charge of all the money taken by the UK pavillion in a day. It's a huge responsibility and I'm once again wondering why he chose me. Still, I said I'd give it a go and he's going to arrange training for me. He really shifted himself because I checked my shifts this morning and BANG! I have three days of assignor training coming up!

One last thing to tell you. Hurricane Fay is on her way out here! At the moment it's just a Tropical Storm and everyone's keeping an eye on it. It should hit land on Tuesday or Wednesday but it's no biggie. Disney is one of the safest places to be during a hurricane. In fact, the local people head for shelter at the themeparks. It looks like the Florida keys will get the brunt of it. We might possibly get some bad weather but nothing more unusual than the storms we get practically every afternoon. I'll keep you updated on it though.

Right, I've gotta run. I need to catch the bus. Till next time then!

PS. Please keep the comments coming! I like knowing people are reading this!

The Throw In

We had our "throw in", sorry, "meet and greet" last night. We had to all go round to Heather's apartment here at The Commons. When we walked in EVERYONE from the UK was there! There must have been about 60 odd people in that room! We were shut away in the bedroom while the main room was "prepared". It was extremely nerve wracking to be in there knowing something was going to happen but not what. A few of the others were majorly freaking out. I'm talking shaking and dry heaving, hat's how nervous they were. I figured they can't kill you or damage you too severely and as I'm pretty difficult to embarrass, I was quite relaxed. The door opened and Tino and Nic were selected and the door was closed again. We tried to eavesdrop but aside from catcalls and laughter, we heard nothing. I was next with Pippa. We went out and.....that's all you're gonna get. I can't tell you what happened but it wasn't anything too bad. It was a bit embarrassing for some of us but it was okay. Just go along with it, don't be afraid to get involved and relax. It's a great way to meet the people in your pavillion.

At the end, we were assigned "parents", people who look out for us while we're here. I got the amazing Dave as my dad and someone called Katherine for my mum. Afterwards Dave came and introduced himself but I never saw Katherine. I imagine we'll catch up soon though.

I had today off and I went to the Buena Vista outlet centre for my Disney Look shoes. I found some comfy ones and they weren't extortionate. I also got some tights (pantyhose) and trainer socks.

In the evening, I went to Downtown Disney with Lauren (Tigger). We had a good look around and I spent more than I intended too but luckily I was paid yesterday so it shouldn't matter. When we got back, we went to see Rhys and was surprised at how we found him! Apparantly, that's how he cooks!

I start tomorrow as AM Seater. I'm actually quite excited. I'm a little nervous but that's to be expected, right? So, tomorrow I start work at the UK Pavillion at EPCOT. If I get a chance, I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow.

Introduction, cringeworthy names and nine hour flights!

Hi, I'm Tori. I'm an English girl and I've recently been accepted to be part of the Cultural Representative Program at Disney World in Florida. It's a year long program so I've decided to keep a blog for it. Blogging is a new thing for me. I keep a diary but actually putting all my thoughts and feelings out there on the internet for anyone to read? Well, that's something a little different.

I've done quite a bit of travelling over the last few years (that makes me sound so old!) I've worked at a summer camp, did a bit of repping in France and Menorca, a little backpacking in Thailand and Australia and a bit of volunteering out in Africa. I've also worked for Disney before. I worked onboard the Disney Wonder, one of their cruise ships. The hours were crazy. Seventy hours a week (that's ten hours a day) without a single day off in a four and a half month contract. It was exhausting to the extreme. The video above shows a bit of my life on the high seas! I sound like a pirate!

The hours put me off Disney for quite a while but then I learnt about the CRP (Cultural Representative Program - Disney LOVES acronyms!). You get two days off a week so the working hours aren't so important. I can do 16 hour days if I need to as long as I know I can get some time to recover from it! Over the last few months, I've been organising everything I need for my trip. I've sorted out my flight, got my visa, paid the insurance and even got chatting to a few other people who will be doing the same thing as me. It's nice to know other people are in the same boat as me. This time not literally! I just hope I get on well with everyone. I should do as they all seem really great. Luckily, we're all on the same flight so we'll either become good friends or kill each other on the nine hour flight to Florida. I'm hoping for the former.

The agency that Disney use to recruit people for the CRP is called "Yummy Jobs". It makes me cringe every time I have to say the name as it sounds like I'm 3! Still, despite the vomit inducing name, they're really good at helping you with everything you need. They've sent me ALOT of literature. I've been rereading it to make sure I've done everything and there is now only one thing I still need to sort out. They ask you to provide your own bedding for Florida; sheets, pillows, duvets...the lot. Quick question. Do you know how much room there is left in a standard suitcase after packing a duvet into it? The answer is zero room. Maybe you can get a pen round the edge or a a couple of safety pins but any other luxuries such as clothes will need to be forgotten about. My flight arrives at Orlando at 3.20pm (their time). Hopefully I'll have enough time to nip out to Wal-Mart and buy what I need. Packing it really isn't an option. Especially as my cat, Sunrise seems to have decided all I'm taking is her!