Working for the mouse

So much has happened in the past few weeks! We are officially working and living in the happiest place on Earth. :) I am working front desk at Animal Kingdom Lodge and Alex is a Conservation Education Presenter at Animal Kingdom!

On the 6th Alex and I (with LOTS of help from Alex's mom, Pat and brother, Dan) set out on the journey to sunny Florida. It was a long trip and we had a tight schedule to stick to since our new apartment's office closed at 6pm. We were really cutting it close and we called the office several times to update them and we were told they could not wait after 6. We were really frantic and drove as fast as the 5:00 Orlando traffic would allow. We pulled into the apartment gates at 6:03. The office was completely dark and no one was answering the phone. Our hearts sank and even worse, we had no idea what to do or where to go with our 16' moving truck and all of our belongings. About 2 minutes later a car drove up and one of the ladies from the office stepped out and said she saw us coming and turned around to come get everything settled. Must have been Disney magic! We got all of the paper work taken care of and then headed to Flippers Pizza for a delicious dinner since we had to skip lunch to make it to the office in time. Day 1 was a success!

We spent a few days unpacking and settling in before we started working. On my first day I had to go to Disney's Casting building to get everything settled. Even their HR building was magical. There were statues and murals of characters everywhere. Although ultimately it was a boring process, the Disney flare still made it interesting. 

My first real day as a cast member was for an introduction class called Traditions. They issued our Cast Member IDs and taught us some of the basics as well as some history on the company and Walt himself. We also took a tour of the Magic Kingdom-- but this was unlike any tour of the park I'd ever seen. We went through the "utilidoors" or the underground tunnels that run through the Magic Kingdom. We walked into the tunnels under fantasy land and passed several characters on the way. I even saw Sleeping Beauty waiting for the elevator to the Castle stage about to perform in one of the afternoon shows! We popped out of a door that put us right in the middle of the Magic Kingdom. We walked down Main Street and had a chance to interact with some guests. We ducked into a different door in Tomorrowland and we were back in the utilidoors. It was crazy! 

When we got back from our tour we still had some learning to do but it was interrupted by a knock on the door. Who was at the door?, you may wonder... none other than Mickey Mouse himself! He had a beautifully wrapped box which we soon found out held all of our company name tags. Even though I'm technically on the "other side" of the magic now, I was still SO giddy when I saw Mickey walk through the door.

I had a couple days off before I started training so Alex and I took advantage of our free admission to the parks! We went to Magic Kingdom the first night we both had our IDs. (I got mine a day before.) The picture below is from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. My first official day of training was at Disney University. Yep, Disney University. I had four 8 hour days of front desk training at DU. I met some really cool people during training from all over the country and the world! I plan on spending lots of time with them while I'm here. During training we got to practice in a real "front desk lab" which was in fact set up exactly like a resort front desk. We practiced with the computer system and all of the guest service techniques we had been learning. 

A few days later I had my orientation at Animal Kingdom Lodge. It was actually the first time I had ever been to the lodge. It was amazing. The whole resort is beautiful and so detailed. And of course it was awesome to see the giraffes and zebras right outside of the lobby. The next day I started my on the job training which I will finish up at the end of this week. It was really overwhelming at first and I was really nervous, but I'm definitely getting the hang of it now. I've been scheduled for several days at 5:45am... as most of you know that's more like a bed time for me than a wake up call. It was tough getting out of bed but it actually feels good to be done with work at 2 in the afternoon. I've been told my schedule won't be consistent so I guess I shouldn't get used to it-- but we'll see. I have 2 more days of training with a trainer by my side then I'm on my own!

Here's Alex in his costume :)

We got an awesome view of the lions on the safari at Animal Kingdom! We've never seen them this active.