First Week of Work

So I think this is going to be a weekly thing and I think it's going to be every Monday, I was going to write this yesterday but I wanted to wait until after my shift yesterday. Mainly because yesterday was my first shift on my own but I'll get to that later. Wow this week has been crazy, I feel like I've already been here for a month it's already become like home to me. I forgot that it was only a week ago that I really started working. I've gotten a lot of work experience this week at both Saratoga Springs and Old Key West. The motto for the two resorts is "Two resorts one family" so I'll be switching back and forth between the two of them along with a lot of the rest of the staff. I learned this week how to do more stuff at the dispatch office mostly but I also trained as a greeter at Saratoga Springs which has the GAUDIEST costume you're ever seen. I also spent one day working with the Disney's Magical Express service. If you fly to Disney World ever and have not used Disney's Magical Express please do! It's a great and very reliable service that transports you and your bags to and from Disney World and the airport. It's also a really cool operation from my side of things just seeing how the whole process works it's pretty amazing! One of the best parts of the week was a day last week that should have started as a terrible day but ended up being one of my best days here. I forgot to set my alarm but luckily my roommate forgot to turn his off so I barely woke up in time. I didn't have time to have breakfast but I guess one day a week someone brings the cast at Saratoga Springs Krispy Kreme donuts so I had Krispy Kremes for breakfast. Since I rushed out the door I didn't have time to make myself lunch either and this was the best part of my day. Right before I went to lunch a woman who was on her way to the airport walked up to me and gave me two large bags and said "We're going to the airport we can't take all this with us it's too heavy and we can't take it on the airplane." I said sure and took it from her and it turned out it was two huge bags of food from Earl of Sandwich. This is the greatest sandwich shop I've ever been to and some of my favorite food at Disney World and it made my day! That was a great day but I think the day that I liked the most was yesterday because it was my first day working on my own, I have officially "Earned my Ears". I closed the dispatch at Old Key West yesterday and everything went pretty well my first time on my own. As the week has gone by I realize that I really love this job, you have a lot of interaction with guests and it seems like you just make people's day left and right! I haven't really encountered any problems yet or had a bad day but so far it's easily my favorite job and even though it's early I can so far say that it is meeting and even exceeding all of my expectations. Soon I'll be starting my classes (which I'm not looking forward to) and in about a month I'll hopefully be cross training to start learning about the front desk (which I am looking forward to) and soon enough I get to shadow some managers and learn about what they do on a daily basis (which I'm REALLY excited about). I've met a lot of really cool people and really enjoy my roommates we get along well. I met a group of girls who my roommates and I have been hanging out with and we mesh really well, it's nice to have a big group of friends to be able to hang out all the time. I'm still looking for a Church to go to, there's a Church nearby that I want to try out but I don't have any transportation so I'm still looking for someone to go to Church with. Besides that I'm loving this whole experience and I think every week is just going to get better and better. That's pretty much all I have over the past week so I'll leave you with a fun fact. Did you know the All-Star resort at Disney World has over 5,700 rooms and is the 3rd largest hotel in the world? Pretty amazing isn't it. Until next time

My First Week

Well all the craziness of the first week is settling down so I thought I'd spend some time and tell you all what's been going on. My mom and I got on the plane on Tuesday with no troubles and got to Orlando in perfect time completely uneventful trip down. We went out to eat at one of our favorite Disney restaurants, Earl of Sandwich. After a little napping and relaxing by me and working by my mom back in the room we decided to go out and experience some of the Disney nightlife since this was my first time being in Disney World as a 21 year old. We went to downtown Disney and spent most of the night at one of our other favorite Disney spots, Raglan Road, it's an Irish pub and that night they had live music and Irish dancers which was pretty cool. It was a very enjoyable last night with my mother. Wednesday morning at 7 AM all the excitement really started, we headed over to Vista Way, my new place of residence, and started the check in process. The lines for check in were so long it was like I was waiting for one of the rides. When I finally got through all the hours of waiting in lines and riding buses and waiting in more lines and getting poured on I had my new living location apt #1803 Vista Way and my work location which was the most exciting part! I'm working at Old Key West Resort and Saratoga Springs Resort as a dispatcher. It was really exciting for me to get these two resorts in particular because Old Key West is our family's favorite resort and for the majority of our vacations that's where we stayed. It's customary to welcome people to the resort by saying "Welcome home" and for me it really was like I was coming home. The next day we had our "Traditions" class, it's a class that all Disney employees take just to orient themselves with the traditions and customs and history of the Walt Disney World Company. During the class we took a brief tour of part of the Magic Kingdom and let me tell you, it's very weird to enter as a cast member through some back entrances. In order to get to where we were going we got to walk through the Utilidoor or the secret tunnels under Magic Kingdom. Now if you don't know when Disney World was being built the land was to swampy to dig and build in so they built a "basement" level and Magic Kingdom is actually on the second floor. My one goal for this semester was to go in the secret tunnels under Magic Kingdom so this was super exciting for me! However the highlight of my day was definitely getting my official Disney name tag. I was officially a Disney employee. That night we went to Epcot just for a couple hours because we could. It was a very cool but also surreal feeling to just walk in for free for a couple hours just for fun. We got something to eat and watched illuminations and then left, no stress, no long lines just a very enjoyable Epcot experience. I don't know if I'll ever get used to that. The day after Traditions I had a general Old Key West and Saratoga Springs training session with some other people that were working at those resorts. Some of them were here on the College Program (CPs) but some of them were just new employees. We got our costumes (Disney talk for uniform) and found out our schedule for the week (lots of early mornings). It was mostly just an informative day on the two resorts, it was kind of a long and tiring day but it was still Disney so I enjoyed it. Yesterday was my first official day of on the job training as a dispatcher at Old Key West. I'm gonna take some time now to explain exactly what I do as a dispatcher. At the bell services desk people are arriving from the airport with their luggage, checking in checking out, going to the parks and needing to store their luggage, having packages delivered to their rooms etc. We have a very expansive property and only a few bellman so while they're off running jobs I stand at the desk and organize and send out new orders for them. I basically just run the "office" operation of the bell services and I'm also there as an information resource for the guests. As my mom likes to say, I stand there and tell everyone else what to do. I think I'm going to like it a lot. Old Key West is a pretty relaxed place and it's fun to work there. I didn't do a lot of work yesterday but the little work that I did do I really enjoyed. I hope to be able to cross train a little bit and pick up shifts as a front desk worker to just really further my knowledge and experience in the Hotel and Resort Industry. I just have a feeling that this experience is going to far exceed all of my expectations and CAN'T WAIT to see what the Lord has in store for me here at Disney this semester. Hopefully soon I'll have up some pics of my costumes and maybe a video of what my apartment looks like. Until then

Time to pack up

Well this is my first post. I just want you guys to know I'm not big on blogging, i'm doing this because there are so many people that have told me to keep them updated on how Disney is going and I didn't want to leave anyone out or forget someone so a blog became the easiest option for me. My posts will be almost entirely "What I did today" and they might not be that often. But regardless I hope you enjoy reading about my experiences as much as I enjoy living them. In two days I will be boarding my flight to Orlando, my mom and I are staying overnight and Wednesday I'll be checking into my residence and getting my job placement. So in a few days I'll have a lot more to talk about then I do now.