Happy Halloween!?

I know it's still September, but I'm celebrating a little early this year! They already started doing the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party here and me and two of my roommates went this past week. It goes like twice a week until Halloween, but we only get discounts on tickets for it for the early ones in September. If you don't know what it is, let me fill you in. Haha it's pretty much just a big Halloween party at Magic Kingdom that you can dress up in costumes for, and you have to pay for a ticket to go to it. So they close Magic Kingdom at 7pm, and then if you have a ticket to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party you have to get a wrist band in order to stay in the park. Then the park stays open till midnight and there's a special parade and fireworks show and trick-or-treating at certain places and most of the rides are open. I'm not a huge parade fan, but I have to say the "Boo To You" parade was super cool! I think one of my favorite things was they had Peter Pan and Wendy and all the Lost Boys! But then they also had a lot of other characters you don't usually see out, like all the villains and also characters from the Haunted Mansion ride. But yeah it was a good parade! The rest of the night we did a lot of trick-or-treating (and ended up with a ton of candy!), watched the Hallo-Wishes fireworks (which were also super cool!), and we were also able to ride quite a few rides - including Splash Mountain, Thunder Mountain, and Space Mountain all within like an hour of each other! I don't think I've ever done that before. Haha I love short waits.

I'm boring and don't really ever dress-up for Halloween, so for the party I just put on my tye-dye shirt and said I was a hippie! Haha but yeah it was a fun night. It just wasn't very fun getting home at 2am because of long bus waits/rides and having to wake up at 6 for work. So that was pretty much the most exciting thing I did this week. But I survived my first 50 hour work week so that's exciting! Haha it was a long week and I'm looking forward to my next paycheck for sure!

The Time Has Come

Yes, it's the moment you've all been waiting for. A picture of me in my costume. I really have meant to do this sooner, but I work opposite schedules from my roommates so I never have anyone to take my picture for me and I tried doing it myself but they didn't turn out. But the other day one of my roommates happened to be home so I got her to take one for me. So here you go. However, I have to apologize for my apron hanging lopsided. Haha I didn't even realize it and she didn't say anything about it. It's because the last time I went to costuming to drop off my dirty costumes and get clean ones they were like completely out of everything in my size, so the apron in this picture is like a 2XL instead of the normal medium I usually wear. So it hangs a little crazy on me. Anyways, here you go! This is what a Port Orleans Resort Riverside Mill Food Court costume looks like. And for some reason I look extremely excited to go to work and I'm not sure why.

 And yay for packages! Morgan was kind enough to send me a new BYU football t-shirt! And yes, I know they lost yesterday but I will still wear my new shirt around Disney World with pride. Go Cougars!

Well today I worked 7:45am-3:45pm, which means I get to go to the 8pm church meeting so I'll be catching the bus with my friend pretty soon. Peace out!

Harry Potter World!!!

Yes, it's true. I might have cheated on Disney and spent a day at Universal Studios! Wednesday my roommate and I were both off so the week before we spread the word of a possible trip to Universal Studios. We ended up with a group of 10 and it was mainly just people we know from church. So we met up bright and early Wednesday morning and took a trolley to get there, and it only cost $0.25 each way! Score! When we got to the park we headed straight back to Harry Potter, and it was amazing!! We spent a few hours there and rode the 3 rides, checked out the shops, and had lunch at The Three Broomsticks. Of course I tried the butterbeer, and it was delicious! And I had heard the frozen kind was the best, and I have to agree. The rest of the park was a lot of fun too and we were able to ride everything we wanted to with hardly any waits! I think the longest we waited was like 20 minutes for Jurassic Park. But with the Harry Potter rides we pretty much just walked right on everything and did them multiple times, which was a nice change from Disney. Haha....but yeah it was a lot of fun and I'm glad I was able to go! I was debating whether or not I wanted to get a season pass, but I ended up not doing it. But I do plan to go back with Morgan when she comes in December! I didn't take a whole lot of pictures, and I don't have any of our whole group together. So these will have to do.

So besides my exciting trip to Universal Studios, I've pretty much just been working. This week I worked about 38 hours and next week I'm scheduled for about 48. Good times! Haha...but I did get off an hour early tonight so that was nice!  

Done With Training! (Finally)

So this past week hasn't been too eventful and I really don't know how much I have to say. Last week was when I was closing a lot, and it wasn't too bad. It was actually a lot easier than I expected. I didn't do a whole lot during the week besides working because I would get home at like 1:30am or so and then sleep in and go to work again. It was a weird schedule for me because I usually never sleep in that late! I finished training in all the shops on Wednesday night and I had my assessment thing. So after we finished it the lady who was doing it with me told me I could take off my "Earning my Ears" ribbon before I came to work the next day. Then Saturday night I found out I wasn't done training yet and they had me start training on register Sunday morning. I was surprised because I had been told by other College Program kids that they don't start you on register until like 3 or 4 weeks later. But yeah so I trained on cash Sunday, Monday, and then was by myself for the first time today. I was nervous going into it because everything is still kind of confusing to me, especially with the Dining Plan stuff and what not, but it wasn't too bad. I was starting to feel pretty comfortable today so that's good. Overall work is really easy and I enjoy it for the most part.

As I've been working cash the past few days I've been able to talk more with guests and what not and I've had a few comments about being from BYU. Last night I met a family from Provo so that was pretty cool. And the other day a guy asked me if I ever saw Jimmer play! I told him I had and he kept going on and on about what an amazing player he is and how they're from the same part of New York! Even in Florida people can't stop talking about Jimmer. Haha

Yesterday I hungout at Magic Kingdom for a little bit in the morning before work and it was the first time I went to a park since last Monday. My roommates and other friends I've talked to are always surprised that I'll just go to the parks by myself, but it doesn't really bother me. They're always like, "Oh I could never do that. Don't you feel awkward?" But if I have time off I don't want to just sit around my apartment being bored because I don't have someone to go to a park with me, so I'll just go by myself. And yeah, sometimes I feel a little weird and sometimes people will give me pitiful looks when I get on a ride by myself, but whatever. Haha....I want to take advantage of my time here! And I even got some pictures yesterday! And yes, I felt kind of lame asking the character attendants if they would take my picture because I was by myself, but I'm over it and glad I have the pictures! All the Halloween decorations are up now so that was fun to see. And I realized I probably won't see Magic Kingdom again not decorated because right after Halloween they decorate for Christmas, and then I go home! Crazy. I can't believe I've been here a month. It's gone by fast, but at the same time slow. I'm having fun but I never thought I would miss Provo so much.

Holiday Weekend!

Happy Labor Day! I somehow lucked out and was off yesterday and today, so I've been able to relax a little bit this holiday weekend. It's been almost a week since my last post and as of today I can now say that I have officially visited all the parks! So that's pretty exciting. I got to go to Typhoon Lagoon last week and it was a lot of fun. One of my roommates works at Blizzard Beach and they had an end of summer cast member party at Typhoon Lagoon on Thursday night for everyone who worked at Blizzard, and each cast member was allowed to bring 3 guests. It was a lot of fun and we were able to do a lot of the slides and stuff with hardly any waits since it wasn't too crowded. We even got free dinner and had our pictures taken with Minnie and Mickey! Typhoon Lagoon was really cool, but I think if I had to choose between the 2 waterparks I would say I liked Blizzard Beach more. But that's just me.

I'm still training at work and have to wear a little ribbon on my name badge that says "Earning my Ears", but hopefully I'll be able to take that off this coming week. Work isn't too bad, except this week I'm scheduled for all night shifts so I won't be getting off until 12:30am. And then the bus doesn't come till like 12:50. And then it's an hour ride back to my apartment. So that should be a lot of fun. Sometimes it feels like half my day is on a bus! But what can you do?

So the other night after work me and a roommate and a friend from church decided to head over to Magic Kingdom for a little bit. It was like 7:30 by the time we got over there and the park closed at 10, but we were able to do a few rides. And I finally did Splash Mountain! So that was exciting. I love that we can just catch a bus over to the parks whenever we feel like it and take our time. There isn't that rush of only having a certain number of days to get everything done so we're able to just do what we feel like and have fun. We have 4 months left so we have plenty of time to do everything eventually.

Today I finally made it to Animal Kingdom! None of my friends had the day off today so I just went by myself, but it was still fun. Except it was hotter than heck so I just stayed like 2 hours. But I rode Expedition Everest (twice in a row thank you very much) and it was definitely as awesome as everyone says it is. I really liked the park and loved the trees and how green it was so I for sure look forward to going back and spending more time there.

Expedition Everest!

The Tree of Life!

After Animal Kingdom I went to this special store that's only for cast members, and it was super cool! It had all sorts of stuff that was super cheap, like merchandise from the parks as well as grocery type stuff. I ended up getting 2 t-shirts and a hoodie for $25! And they had Dasani water bottles, which cost like $2.50 in the parks, for only $0.60! It made me pretty happy because I was pretty thirsty. Haha....so yeah that's about it. I think tonight I'm going to go over to Downtown Disney and check that out so that should be fun. Other than that I've just been working and hanging out. So not too bad. I've been pretty bad about taking pictures so I'm definitely going to try to take more! Because let's be honest most of you are just wanting to see the pictures and don't really care what I have to say. Haha

We had the sister missionaries over for dinner

Captain EO!

Oh and Morgan and her friend are coming to visit in December! They booked their flights and I was able to book us a room at the resort I work at for 50% off! Yeah, I'm cool like that. Hopefully our cousin can come too!