Every second is a highlight

On Sunday, I arrived at my Grandma and Grandpa's rental house in Kissimmee. It's so beautiful and has a pool and hot tub! I met two of my roommates that night, Nicole and Samantha. We played putt-putt and later went up to Nicole's hotel room that was connected to the mini golf course. She got a penthouse with like 4 bedrooms and 2 balconies. We could see downtown disney from one of them and it was so beautiful. The other one was Lake Bryan, the lake that my apartment complex is on.

The next day, I picked Sarah, my roommate, up at 5:30 and we headed over to Vista Way. All 6 of us were finally together! We were first in line of about 150 people and at 7:30am a group of employees came walking and on segways towards us. Two ladies with ipads got our information and then we were lead to the clubhouse where we got our car decals to be able to park at our complex, we got our apartment keys, and signed the paperwork for withdrawing $88 from our accounts every week for our apartment. We got a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom apartment at Chatham Square. We also got our pictures taken for our ID's. Then, we got reusable bags with Tide, Snuggle, an orange, granola bar, a cute mickey pen and some coupons in it and headed to the bus. The bus took then took us to the Casting building, where we found out what our jobs were going to be!!! I was so excited when I found out I would be a hostess at the Kona Cafe at the Polynesian resort. Nicole, one of my suitemates, is Full Service food and beverage as well and she is working at the Tusker House at Animal Kingdom :) Linnette is merchandise at the Magic Kingdom on Main street, working at the Confectionary and embroidering names on Mickey hats, among other things. Then we went to a few rooms where we got fingerprinted, talked to someone who works at the place we're going to work and got information about our first day of training and so forth. Then we got checked to make sure we pass for the "disney look". We just have to look natural with our hair, makeup, clothing, and polish. There were some more things we did but it was such a blur I can't remember it all. Lastly, we got our picture taken in front of a disney backdrop and got a photopass where we get one free picture! After we got back to Vista Way from the bus, we unpacked all of our stuff into our rooms. Linnette's parents and Sofia's mom and Grandma were there to help unpack, and later Sarah's mom and brother stopped by. After we unpacked we had to go to a meeting at 3pm to learn about community codes and make sure we don't sneak people into the complex in our trunk, give alcohol to people underage, and a bunch of other information that I've already forgotten. Later that night, we went to WalMart and went grocery shopping. We got enough food for the whole time we're going to be here it seems like! The liquor store was so weird. It was attached to the building, but you couldn't access it from the inside of the store even though there were windows. We grabbed some weird shots called Rattlesnakes for a special night someday.

Tuesday morning at 6am me and Samantha had to go to the social security office to get a receipt. We got back at 8:30 and crashed til 10:30. We had Tuesday off so we headed to the parks. Sarah was with her mom and brother so when we got to the Magic Kingdom, she met up with us to take a group picture.

Yesterday was Traditions. We learned about the disney culture, the history, and what we need to do to make experiences special for the guests. I got a cute litte minnie figurine for answering a question.

After Traditions, we got a tour of Magic Kingdom and went underground, underneath the castle!!! When we got back, we sat down, and there was a knock on the door....it was Mickey Mouse!!! He had a blue box with a bow on top in his hands, which contained all of our name tags.

When we all got back from Traditions, we went out to Downtown Disney. We went to the Irish pub and I got a bailey's irish shake.

Then we went to Bongo's which is owned by Gloria Estefan and her husband. We kept asking the bartender for certain shot and he had no idea what we were talking about. I asked for a superman, or a girl scout thin mint and he didn't know how to make either of them. Then we asked for some pickle juice and he didn't have any because there aren't many pickles in cuban cuisine apparently. Nicole was talking about this shot that is tequila chased with pickle juice. Sounds disgusting but I was willing to try it. Then Nicole told me about a shot called a tequila suicide where you take the salt, then the tequila, then squirt the lemon juice into your eye!!! Half way through the night, 2 guys down the bar bought us all lemon drops. He thought Linnette was getting married because of her sparkly headband and thought we were having a bachelorette party. They bought me a bloody mary too haha. Then we got back on the bus because we all had to be up early the next morning.

This morning was the first day of training. We went to Disney University and had to take a computer class to learn about disabilities, food safety, and fire safety. Then we logged into the hub, which is our access to our pay stubs, our schedules, the hours the parks are open, information about upcoming events, and so many other things. We also went over to the costuming department and had our shoes provided for us, so we got to pick them out. I got some black mary janes.

Tomorrow is my first day of training at the Polynesian. It's called "Aloha Day" in the tiki room :)