The next few days were taken up with a fair amount of
paperwork. On Wednesday, the day after check in, we started with a Housing
Check In. I went over with my roommate to the room of one of the guys from the UK and met most of the people from the UK and two of the Canadians from the same start date. We all headed over to the pavilion
together and got to know each other better.
At the pavilion, they started by sorting us into two lines,
one for people who qualify for the travel allowance at the end of their program
and the other for people who don’t. I got my travel allowance paperwork sorted
out and went into the pavilion. We had to fill out a section on the back of our
program guide and show valid identification to show that we were over 21 if we
were living in a non-wellness apartment. Since we were at the front of the
line, we all got through really quickly and had a couple of hours before we had
to be at The Commons for the next session. A group of us took the bus over to
The Commons and walked from there to Panera Bread for lunch.
Our session at The Commons began at 3 and it was our Housing
Welcome Session. We all went into the Commons Clubhouse and went over all of
our housing rules and details. The session started off with some trivia. The
woman who was running the session, Sarah Smiles (who is probably one of the
happiest people I’ve ever met), held up stuffed animals of the two main
characters from The Rescuers and asked if anyone could name them. My hand shot
right up (and I was sitting in the front row) so I answered Bernard and Bianca
and won a Disney lanyard!
After the session, a group of us went and did a Walmart run.
Since the majority of the people from the UK had arrived late the night
before, many of them had very little in terms of food and other necessities. I
had realized that I had forgotten a few essential items on my Walmart run from
the day before (a hair dryer, sugar, etc) so I went for the Walmart run as
well. I was also very amused by the differences that exist between British and
Canadian terms. I learned that the British refer to Band Aids as “plasters”! This
probably amused me more than it should have!
When we had finished the Walmart run we went outside to wait
for the bus, to find out that the one bus that we were expecting didn’t show
up. When the next bus came around, there were a ridiculous number of people
waiting to head back to housing and this led to a very crowded bus!
When we got back to Vista
and had unloaded all of our Walmart shopping, we decided to go to Downtown
Disney and have dinner there. Since a few of the people we were with had never
been to Disney before, seeing the looks on their faces while we were in
Downtown Disney was priceless! We wandered around and explored the entirety of
Downtown Disney. We also went into Ghiradelli’s and got free chocolate samples!
For dinner, we first went to Planet Hollywood to find out that they were
hosting a corporate event. We next went to T Rex and there was a huge line up
just to check for a table. We decided to head over to the Rainforest Café and
that was where we ended up eating! It was a great way to end out our first full
day together in Florida !
On Thursday, we started off early at the Commons Clubhouse
again. They started off the morning with an initial Disney look check (which my
hair colour did not pass). I was told that I had to go and get my hair colour
redone. The few of us who had to do this were given a list of hair salons near
our housing. After our morning session, we made appointments for the next
morning.
Our morning session was in relation to immigration. It was
mostly filling our paperwork so that we could legally work in the United States . After
this session, we went back to Vista to make
our hair appointments. We went for lunch at Applebee’s and than went back to Vista for the next session. This session was a series of
stations ranging from immigration paperwork, to taking pictures for id, to
housing paperwork. After getting through all of the stations, I tagged along
with the British girls while they went to get American phones sorted out.
Later that night, housing was putting on a Winter Wonderland
Welcome Event with Tinkerbell and friends in Chatham Field. We met up at one of
the apartments in Chatham
and headed over to the event. We got pizza and did some dancing out on the
field, including a lot of conga lines! I also learned how to wobble!
After the event, I had the opportunity to meet a lot of the
Canadians. It was really nice to have the opportunity to get to know everyone
and a group of us ended the night by heading out to IHOP for breakfast at 1am!
Friday was a day off for everyone before having Traditions
on Saturday morning. For myself and two other girls, our Friday morning started
off at the hair dressers to correct our hair. After several hours, we were
fitting the Disney look (although I REALLY miss being blonde). As my parents
were still in Florida until Saturday morning,
I decided to spend their last day in Orlando
with them! We dropped the girls back off at Vista
and we headed to Downtown Disney for some lunch. We went to the Earl of
Sandwich and actually ran into a couple of people from my arrival group!
After lunch, we went to Hollywood Studios for the night
because I wanted to see Fantasmic! My dad really wanted to do Star Tours again
and we got the podracing one this time! After the ride, we went into the gift
shop and my parents bought me an ewok stuffed animal because my puppy at home
looks like an ewok! Just for a point of comparison…
We decided to go see The Legend of Captain Jack Sparrow and
The Voyage of the Little Mermaid. After these shows we headed down to the
Fantasmic amphitheatre and got seats in the middle section (the Mickey section)
just a few rows from the front. The show was fantastic (it still remains my
favourite night time fireworks show at Disney) and they had added in a couple
new things from the last time we saw the show, which was exciting!
When Fantasmic had finished, I went with my parents back to
the All Star Movies and had dinner with them. They drove me back to Vista and we said our goodbyes. The next morning was
Traditions and I had an early start for that. I only had one more day to go
until I became an official Walt Disney World cast member!
Currently listening to: “Parker” by Automatic Loveletter
from the album Recover
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