Alex's First Post!

Hello everyone! This is Alex- Emily has been asking me to post on the blog, so here it goes:

I love my job! It is a ton of fun, and the days are just flying by. I guess I'll start by talking about what I do. I'm working at Disney's Animal Kingdom, and my job title is Conservation Education Presenter. I am out in the theme park every day interacting with guests, talking to them about animals and nature and giving them conservation messages. In a normal day I talk to around 1000 people- though sometimes more. Yesterday I had talked to over 300 people before 10am!

There are basically two different things that I do- one is to stand in front of some of the different animals around the park and engage the guests there. We basically first get the guests attention, because they are often running off to the next ride or whatever and completely miss the animal right under their noses. Then, we give some cool facts about the animals, and answer any questions they have. Last, we are supposed to give them a conservation message- something that they can go home and do to help protect animals and the environment.

The other thing that my role does is to run the Kid's Discovery Club locations around the park. These are basically six different games we have around the park that are all animal themed- listening to animal sounds, tracking an animal in the "wild", even matching up dinosaur fossils. They are really fun, sometimes chaotic and always interesting since all different age groups will come to play. At the end of the activity we are supposed to give another conservation message. The fun and challenging part is figuring out how to give a message that a three year old can understand one minute, then turning around and making the same game and message relevant to a thirteen or thirty year old the next.

I also really like the people I work with. Everyone is really fun and easy to work with, and most of my coworkers are recent graduates just like me. The picture above is me (in my awesome costume) and this guy Bruce that also works at Animal Kingdom, as a performer in the Festival of the Lion King show.

If I have any complaints right now, it is that by the end of the day I am completely exhausted- it takes a lot of energy to be loud and energetic for kids and crowds in the Florida heat for 8 hours a day. Also, Emily's schedule has not matched up with mine very well so far, so we haven't seen nearly as much of each other as we would like. Luckily, when we do have time together, we can do stuff like go to Magic Kingdom!

Work, work, work

This has been a tough week. It's been crazy busy at the lodge since so many people came in for the marathon and races and all star weekend. I was scheduled 7 days in a row. However, yesterday when I woke up I wasn't feeling 100% and felt even worse as the night went on. By the time I got home at 10pm I was pretty drained. This morning I woke up for work but I had a sore throat, stuffy head and achy body-- so today is my first sick day. Disney has a "point" system so we're allowed so many call ins etc, but this was my first one so I'm still in good shape. I've been sleeping most of the day and I'm feeling a little better so hopefully it will pass quickly.
My hours are still all over the place- I'm working until 2:30am a few times this week again but I spoke to someone about it so hopefully that won't be the case for much longer. Earlier this week there was a day when our system was scheduled to go down so the check in process of course was really easy and fun. (HA) There were lots of issues and irritated guests but luckily the system came back up about half way through my shift. Despite that being frustrating, I had an interesting magical moment. I was out in the lobby being a greeter (AKA keeping guests away from the counter and encourage them to go to the parks or pool instead of trying to check in while the system is down.) A little girl was playing and twisting around one of the big posts in the lobby and I saw her look my way. She walked up to me and said "what's your name?" And I smiled and told her my name and she held her hand out for me to shake it and said "Hi, I'm Shanelle." She couldn't have been more than 7 or 8 years old so I was really surprised that she was so outgoing and even shook my hand! She talked to me for a while about how they had been waiting for her room and her mom was checking on it again because they really wanted to go to the room. So I responded with "Hopefully it will be ready for you real soon.. maybe you could go swimming for a while if it's not ready since it's nice and hot outside." And she replied "Well, yeah but we figured we can go swimming anywhere... we can only see the animals here." What a grow up response! After that I basically just said well, yeah you're right. haha Then she proceeded to tell me how she takes ballet class and demonstrated a few moves for me. Her mom left the counter very disgruntled and I tried to speak to her but she hurried off. Shanelle waved goodbye and they disappeared down the hall.
The next day I went to help the runner deliver a package to a room. On our way back down to the lobby Shanelle and her mom got off the elevator. I waved but she didn't really see me at first. After we got on the elevator right before the doors closed I heard her gasp and she ran in front of the doors and yelled "Emily! Hi!" It was like she ran into her best friend. The runner (Julia) asked me if I knew her and I told her about the previous day.
It's moments like these that remind me how much I will always love Disney and everything the company is based on. I may be struggling now with the hours and being mistreated by some fellow cast members (which shouldn't be happening) but I will never lose my passion for Disney and providing magical experiences for guests.

Valentine's Day

Sorry for the delay in posting.. I've been struggling a little bit. My hours have really been horrible and all over the place. It's making it really hard for me to get decent sleep or be on a normal sleep schedule, but most importantly it's making it difficult for Alex and I to see each other regularly unless we somehow get lucky and have the same days off. So for right now, I'm going to avoid updating on the work front.

Luckily, Alex and I both had Monday and Tuesday off- which included Valentine's Day! On Monday we spent lots of time at Magic Kingdom. The crowds were still pretty low last week so we got to ride lots of rides and the lines were pretty much non existent. We also recently started pin trading. If you're not familiar with it, it's a pretty big trend around all of the parks. Basically there's tons of pins out there from all of the Disney movies, theme parks, rides, etc. and guests can buy and trade pins all over Disney property. Most cast members wear a lanyard of pins around their necks and you can go up and trade any of your pins with them. It's become really addicting already! :)

On Tuesday we went to Animal Kingdom for lunch and walked around there for a while (by the way it was about 80 degrees here!) then we headed to Hollywood Studios. That night we had dinner at our favorite restaurant in the Polynesian resort- it's called Kona Cafe. We ate at this same restaurant right after Alex proposed, on our honeymoon and for both of our birthdays. The food was wonderful!

Here we are on the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh ride :)

this is at the end of Snow White's Scary Adventures (this is a really old ride that is actually going to be closed very soon)

Last night we went to Magic Kingdom again because the park was open until 1am. The crowds are much bigger now, and it's going to stay that way through the week because there's cheerleading competitions going on down here and also the Disney Princess half marathon that tons of people love to run. Alex and I are going to have a busy week at work, that's for sure.

I've also been missing the family a LOT lately. I sent the Phillips family a package earlier this week with a birthday present for Gracie and Kristen and of course some Mickey Mouse rice krispie treats for Leanna and Gracie. :) The other day I had a voice mail from Kristen and I listened to it on my dinner break at work. As soon as I heard Gracie and Leanna's voices thanking me for their gifts I awkwardly burst into tears right there in the break room. I miss those little girls and everyone so much! It also made it tough because last night was the first family get together since we've been gone celebrating lots of birthdays at my house. I hate missing family gatherings- it's only happened a handful of times my whole life so this was especially tough. I even thought about driving through the night so we could be there. I attempted to face chat on the iphone with Kenny while everyone was there but I wasn't at home and didn't have a wifi signal so it didn't work. :( I wish so badly that everyone was down here with us right now! I'm still determined to make it happen.. having the whole family come on vacation to Disney World would be the most amazing experience.

Earning my ears

Today was my last day of on the job training. I have officially "earned my ears!" It was really overwhelming at first but I think I'm definitely starting to get the hang of things. Check ins are going smoothly, and I'm learning a lot about the resort. Hopefully I'll have a solid routine down soon. I'm still a little worried about getting lost in the tunnels under the resort.. it's hard to tell where you are when you're under the building! Tomorrow is my first day on my own with no trainer by my side.. and it starts bright and early at 5:45am! Woo! But actually, I would prefer this shift over other ones now that I've been working it for a while. Sure, I hate getting out of bed at 4:30am but it feels good to be done with the day at 2pm! Next week I'm working until 2:30am all week and I am not happy about that at all. I won't be able to see Alex at all since he will be getting home from work the same time I have to be heading in to work. And believe it or not, I'm actually on a fairly normal sleep schedule now and I really don't want to keep flip flopping. I certainly won't be able to keep those shifts up, so hopefully I can get that worked out ASAP.
I tried to take some pictures of the animals at work today. It is SO cool to look out the window and see these amazing animals roaming around. I don't think that will ever get old. I've also seen the sunrise over the savannas through the enormous windows in the lobby the past few days and that is definitely a sight to see. I really love the lodge. When I have a stack of extra money laying around I'll have to stay there some time. :)

zebras!

giraffes!

Alex is loving his job as an education presenter. I knew he'd be a natural. He has told me lots of stories about the families and kids he's been able to interact with. He works at the Kid's Discovery Club stations around the Animal Kingdom park where he promotes conservation messages to the guests. There are several games at the different stations that he's been telling me about including one where the kids learn how to track animal signs- fake poop included. He said of course the boys get a kick out of seeing the fake poop but when the little girls realize what it is they get really shy and embarrassed. haha! He also told me that he had a family ask him to pose for a picture with their kids and that warmed his little heart. :) When I have a day off I'll have to head to Animal Kingdom and see what his normal days are like.


This is our apartment complex. We absolutely love it so far! And the name is just a bonus :) (it's called Bella in case you were wondering, and no, I didn't plan that.)

And here's some of that gorgeous Florida sunshine :)

Well, it's nap time for me! :)