Deployed.

Stop yelling at me. I'm finally writing a post. There has been so much going on here that I kind of want to forget about it and move on, but instead I will post it on here so that I can read about it over and over again!

I can't remember what I wrote about in my last post, so I will start with deployment. Yes, I got deployed to the All-Star Movies Resort. I was only there for a week, but it was the longest week EVER. I was so lost the whole time I was there- I didn't know where anything was. Also, the AC was broken the whole week so I was sweating my butt off the entire time. However, the managers did give me an ER almost every day so I was happy about that. And Kristen, Lilly, and Lauren were visiting that week so I got to see them one night. 

Lilly, Lauren, Me, And Kristen in HS

When my schedule came out for that week, I had two days off, then two work days, then another two days off. I found people to take my shifts on the two days I worked, so I didn't work for six days (well, seven days, because I found someone to take my shift one day all All-Star too!) So for that week I flew back to Huntsville and spent time with the family. I didn't do much while I was home but it was nice to sit around and see the fam and the dogs.

All-Star Movies Costume

The week while I was deployed, Erica moved out of our apartment and into a new apartment at Chatham. The week I was at home, Monica and Brittany left the program. Now I have three new roommates, all from China. In the next couple of weeks, a lot of CPs are leaving the program and a lot are joining the program. It's so sad because almost everyone I work with is leaving :(

I have a day off on Tuesday. I really want to go to Universal, so hopefully that will work out!

Time flies...

In Downtown Disney

I've already been here for over a month. That is so crazy. I feel so at home here (duh, it's Disney World, of course I feel at home!) It makes me sad to even think about having to leave here in a couple months. I truly am having the best time of my life and this is definitely the best decision I could have ever made. I have met so many people from so many places: China, Japan, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, Puerto Rico, England.... the list goes on. And everyone here is so friendly and eager to meet new people, so finding someone to hang out with is never hard. Except I did go to Epcot by myself the other day on my day off. Eh, I kind of needed some alone time anyway. Going to a park by yourself could be one of two things- really fun or really boring. It actually wasn't that bad. I didn't have to talk to anyone if I didn't want to, and I could do all of the things that I wanted to do. I explored all of the countries, and watched the movie in China and then the American Adventure show, both of which I had never seen before. After 5 hours of alone time, Monica came to eat with me in Japan. so expensive SO YUMMY. I haven't had too much free time to do anything else; I basically work and sleep except on my days off (when I go exploring). I finally have some pictures to document what I've been up to!

Erica and I with Rapunzel and Flynn Rider

Erica at work in Epcot

Disney Bucket List

So here it is. Erica and I spent lots of time thinking about this. Even though I have already done some of the things on this list, I want to do them again because I know it will be different as a cast member. We are going to be so broke by the end of this trip. 

Kate and Erica's Disney Bucket List 

·      Watch fireworks at every park from a good spot!

1. Illuminations @ Epcot
2. Wishes @ MK
3. Fantasmic @ Hollywood Studios

·      Ride every ride at every park!

1. Magic Kingdom
2. Animal Kingdom
3. Hollywood Studios
4. Epcot

·      See every show at every park!

1. Magic Kingdom
2. Hollywood Studios
3. Animal Kingdom
4. Epcot

·      Go to parades at every park.

1. Mickey’s Jingle Jungle Parade @ AK ( Starts November 8, 2011)
2. Celebrate a Dream Come True Parade @ MK
3. Main Street Electrical Parade @ MK
4. Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmastime Parade @ MK (Christmas time)

·      Eat at Cinderella’s Royal Table in Magic Kingdom
·      Eat at Le Cellier in Canada in Epcot
·      Go to Mickey’s Retreat
·      Try the cokes of the world in Epcot

1. ALREADY DONE! on 7/5/2011

·      Behind the Seeds Tour in the Land at Epcot
·      Eat at Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater in Hollywood Studios
·      Spend a day at DisneyQuest
·      Watch Cirque du Soleil La Nouba
·      Ride the Characters in Flight at Downtown Disney
·      Eat at Chef Mickey’s in the Contemporary Resort (during MK fireworks?)
·      Eat at Victoria and Albert’s at the Grand Floridian Resort
·      Meet all the characters that have meet and greets
·      Explore all of the countries in Epcot
·      Take boat from Epcot/ Boardwalk/ Hollywood Studios
·      Visit every Disney resort!

1. Animal Kingdom Lodge
2. Beach Club
3. Boardwalk
4. Old Key West
5. Saratoga Springs
6. Contemporary
7. Wilderness Lodge
8. Grand Floridian
9. Polynesian
10. Yacht Club
11. Fort Wilderness
12. Caribbean Beach
13. Coronado Springs
14. Port Orleans French Quarter
15. Port Orleans Riverside
16. All-Star Movies
17. All-Star Music
18. All-Star Sports
19. Art of Animation
20. Pop Century
21. Dolphin
22. Swan

Happy 4th!

I hope everyone celebrates this wonderful 4th of July with fireworks, beer, hotdogs, etc. My day has consisted of sleeping until 1pm, doing laundry, making a Disney bucket list, and writing this. Don't be silly, of course I go to work from 4:30pm until 12:30am!


I haven't gone to the parks a lot lately. It is so freaking hot outside and I got really sunburned last week to the point where it hurts for anything to even touch my body. Plus, I work all the time and when I don't work, I sleep. I worked in the market last night, which is basically stocking drinks, mugs and chips. The whole night. By myself. It was great because I was alone and the stocking was really good for my OCD. It was absolutely FREEZING in the cooler though. Beats sweating your butt off in burger!!!

Last week we got a new roommate, who moved into Natalia's room (Erica moved into the room with me). Her name is Kitzya. She is from Puerto Rico and super sweet!


I'm going to wait to post the bucket list until I've had a little time to add to it, but it will be my next post. I miss everyone so much, especially you, Nigel and Emma.


P.S- I requested time off for the iron bowl and it got approved! (Okay, well 2 out of the 4 days got approved, but who cares! I can figure it out! I'M COMING BACK TO AUBURN IN NOVEMBER WOOOO! Daley family, make plans. Everyone else, get ready... 5 months!)

No more training!

I don't know why I complained about working in the pizza and pasta section. Burger was so much worse, even though it wasn't that bad. I look back and think that everywhere really isn't that bad, and that I was just frustrated because I didn't know what I was doing. Haha. After two days of working in burger, my hands were literally a different color than the rest of my body because they were burnt from keeping my hands under the burners for 8 hours each day. Working in burger is easy, but it is SO HOT. I was dripping sweat- it was nasty gross DISGUSTING. After burger I trained in the morning in the specialty section, which had parfaits and oatmeal for breakfast and then salads and sandwiches for lunch. Not being a morning person, I definitely didn't like waking up to get to my 7am shift. I guess I didn't like the burger and sandwich parts of the shops because you have to turn around and ask the culinary for the item you need. It takes too much time and can get confusing. I like the shops that I can just get what I need myself. Anyway, yesterday in specialty was the busiest day I've had at work so far. I made parfait after parfait for a group of Brazilian kids (they all wanted the same kind of parfait, so it wasn't too bad). But then at lunch, the salad line was basically across the room, and making a salad when the guest gets to choose their own toppings takes a little time! My hand started cramping up!! Tonight I get to work a night shift again so I'm happy about that. This is the first time going into work where I don't know what section of the food court I'll be working in, because I'm officially done with training! YAY! After my shift yesterday I had to sit down with one of the trainers and take my test so that I could officially be.. a normal cast member? Haha I don't know. I think I'm going to leave my "Earning My Ears" ribbon on my name tag for a couple more days. It's my security blanket!

Bakery and Pizza

I will admit I kind of forgot about this blog for a couple of days. I've just been SO BUSY. I go to work at night, sleep in, eat, then do it all over again. One of these days that I didn't write, I went to Animal Kingdom with some roomies. It was deathly hot. We got pictures with Goofy, Minnie, Mickey, and Pocahontas!


After training in the dining room, I trained in the bakery. It was so much fun and not too much work. There are two sides of the bakery: the baked goods side and the ice cream side. Basically the whole first day I stayed on the baked goods side, handing out cookies and cake. Easy!!! I also made a cappuccino, but all you do is press a button and it goes by itself. The second day I scooped ice cream and made milkshakes the whole time. At first I didn't like making milkshakes because it takes so long and you have you move it around on this machine that sounds like a dentist's drill. But now I'm pretty much the best milkshake maker in Disney. We had to make sundaes too, which was my favorite. I did, however, cut my finger on the side of an ice cream container. FAIL. A guest saw me because I made the ice cream that I was scooping hop to a different container. She laughed really hard. It wasn't funny. Thats the one thing I didn't like about scooping ice cream- the guests sit there and watch you. I'm short so basically my whole upper body is in the ice cream cooler scooping this stuff, on my tip toes, arm shaking because the chocolate ice cream is like a rock- and EVERYONE wants chocolate.


Two days in bakery and then I get moved to pizza and pasta. Maybe it's because my stomach hurt. Maybe it's because I just really didn't want to work. Maybe it's because I liked bakery so much. But I really didn't like pizza. At all. I started out in pasta, and it was easy once you got the hang of it. You had to write on a box what sauce they wanted, then what pasta they wanted, then chicken or shrimp, then their number, then put all of the mix-ins they wanted in the box. And each section I just mentioned had its own section on the box where I had to write it (that was the hard part- remembering where to write it). So.. thats pretty much it for pasta. Pizza- ahhhhhhhh. You have to put pizza in the oven. Take the pizza out of the oven. Cut the pizza. If someone orders a large pizza, you give them a pager and when its ready, you have to page them and give them plates. You have to remember how to cut kids, individual, and large pizzas. You have to remember what's on the dining plan, what comes as a snack, what comes with a breadstick, that kids meals get two sides. You have to remember that in the craziness of all the pizza to call out the pasta numbers and put cheese and a breadstick with it. You have to put in fresh breadsticks and baked ziti. Towards the end of the night, everyone wants their orders to go, so you have to put to-go lids on everyone's pizza and pasta, and if you don't snap the lid on JUST RIGHT it takes forever to get it to snap on. It was tough work. The hardest part is remembering where everything is stored. There are two huge coolers, one freezer, and a bunch of little coolers everywhere, so someone will be like "It's in the cooler over there!" Which one?


Really looking forward to my days off on Wednesday and Thursday!!!!

Work.

Maybe I should have had a job before this, because this is killing me. I need to start stretching before I come to work because it literally takes a toll on every single one of my muscles. Like, my arms are hurting so bad today that I can barely lift my computer off of the table. Gosh I'm a wimp.


So the past two days I trained in the dining room. I cleaned tables, took out the trash, gathered trays, cleaned the beverage island, cleaned more tables, scooped ice out of the coke machines, helped close down both sides of the beverage island (which takes FOREVER), swept food off of the floor, answered a lot of guests questions that I didn't know, stocked forks, knives, and spoons, and cleaned more tables. It wasn't all boring, though. We got to do this thing called Jr. Chef, where we get little kids to come decorate cookies. And then a couple hours later we gather more kids to have a parade around the dining room, do the hokey pokey, and give them free mickey straws.


I will admit, the first day of training was tough. I was really stressed out and thought to myself, if I have to do this everyday, I don't think I can do it. But yesterday was SO much better. I didn't have my trainer with me all the time and I could do what I thought needed to be done. And everyone who was out on dining room duty helped each other out, which was great. Like the guys did garbage and let me clean tables instead. Sunday we missed the 12:25am bus and had to wait for the 1:00am bus, and then it took and hour to get home. No way am I ever waiting for the bus again. I drove last night and I am now driving every day to work.


I have today and tomorrow off. I couldn't be happier. I haven't had a single day to just chill since I've been here. I have been doing something every day, whether it's been unpacking, grocery shopping, online classes, Traditions, training...  And since I have a late shift, I never get to see any of my roommates :( I'm hoping since I have a couple days off that I'll get to hang out with them a little bit. I didn't really have pictures to put up, so I found some pictures of the Riverside Mill for you.