Wow what a week...

Hey Guys!

Computer is broken so I haven't really been able to get online much, other than from my cell phone. I'll try to fill you in with my recent adventures!

Housing

My apartment here is pretty cool. It's a four bedroom/three bath with eight beds, though currently we have only six (would love for it to stay that way). Our building is in the back of the complex, but we have a great view of the lake...

...and I'm told that security doesn't hassle us back there too much. There are four complexes here that house over 7,000 College Program students and International Programmers! And there are over 60,000 cast members at Walt Disney World in peak season between the four theme parks, two water parks, the Downtown Disney District, and 17 hotel resorts!

To get around the resort and our apartments, we have an elaborate bus system that runs 24/7 to get us where we need to go. It may take me 45 minutes just to get to my theme park, but you meet a lot of interesting people on the bus. There is also a bus that takes us to Publix (grocery store), Wal Mart, and the local outlet mall.

Work
Starting work here has been a very long and convoluted process, but I'll explain what I can to you. We had a couple days of just paperwork, background checks, etc before we could start any training. My first training session was yesterday (Friday), a class called Traditions where we're taught all about the history and legacy of the Walt Disney World Resort. This was a four-hour class that started at 8am, so we had to board the bus at 6:45am to get to the Disney University on time, dressed professionally in our best "Disney Look." A few parts were kinda boring, but the highlight of training was walking through the Utilidor (intricate network of tunnels beneath the Magic Kingdom) and popping up in the middle of Main Street. From there we walked to Fantasyland and made observations about how Disney Cast Members maintain Safety, Courtesy, Efficiency and Show.

At the conclusion of Traditions we were given our WDW ID's and name tags...

...giving us free access to the theme parks. So, naturally we hit as much as we could that afternoon. One of my roommates will be working Attractions on Sunset Boulevard at Disney's Hollywood Studios, so we stopped there first to ride Rockin' Roller Coaster...

...and the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. We then water taxi'd over to Epcot to sample some of Future World and Illuminations (nighttime fireworks over the lagoon).

This morning (Saturday) was my Discovery Day at Epcot, a four-hour class about the history of Epcot, its diverse lineup of offerings and its Cast, and a quick tour of the park. Again, we spent a lot of time observing what Epcot cast members do to keep our guests as happy and safe as possible.

At noon today I got my official work location assignment, the Imagination Pavilion, which houses Journey Into Imagination and Honey, I Shrunk the Audience *sigh*. I am really disappointed that out of all of the possible attractions I could have been assigned to, it was HISTA, but such is life. One perk is that my hours are excellent there, the attractions both open at 9am and close at 7pm almost every night. I will make the best of it :-)

On-the-job training commences on Monday, and lucky me, it's Spring Break for many students and these two weeks are in the top ten busiest weeks of the year for WDW. I have a sane training schedule for this coming week, but it's possible that I'll be working 50+ hours the following week. Yay!