Dana

Some of my Disney friends are leaving the program this weekend, and I’m very sad that I’m going to lose them. There are several start and end dates for the college program, and one of them is ending on Friday. So as one last “hooray” with my friend Holly, a bunch of my other entertainment friends and I went and had breakfast at Play N’ Dine. This is a restaurant that we all work at a lot; mostly being friends with Playhouse Disney’s characters The Little Einstein’s. If you have a sibling younger than 6, they’ll know who I’m talking about. Breakfast was awesome, and it was great seeing the restaurant with my own eyes. We were total dorks, dancing silly dances with toddlers, but we didn’t care. We also spend the day together at Hollywood Studios riding the rides and watching some of the shows.

We danced with June

I normally can’t stand clowns, but Jo Jo is very sweet

Today I worked at the Magic Kingdom with my friend Alice in the morning, and my friend Dale in the afternoon. I love the chipmunks so much! And today after my sets in Town Square (the front of the park) I discovered that Disney planned out a catered BBQ for all the Town Square cast members. It was awesome! Free pulled-pork and ice cream; who could say no? It was a very easy day, although I had trouble pulling myself out of bed at 4:30 in the morning! Yep, I had to be at work by 6:30am, and in order to do that I had to hop on a shuttle at 5:20 that took me to a bus at 6:00, which then took me backstage to the Magic Kingdom. I’m pretty tired now. In fact, I think I might go try and take a quick nap.

Tomorrow: another fun day with my pal Alice!

Posted by Dana at 02:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Home sweet home. I just walked back into my apartment and it feels nice to kick my feet up and relax after a long day of work. Today I worked at Hollywood Studios Play N’ Dine restaurant. I love the character dining experiences, they are fun for the guests and for the characters. Plus today it was 94 degrees and I was very fortunate to be inside all day. I was not so lucky yesterday when I worked at Animal Kingdom. I will include a picture of my “friend” from yesterday and maybe you’ll understand why I was less than thrilled to work outside in hot humid weather.

Other than the hot weather everything is going well here. My roommate is coming down with the flu so I’m avoiding her like the plague. My family is coming to visit next week and I do not want to get sick while they’re here! In fact, I’m about to leave my apartment in a few minutes and go shopping with my friend Alina. She is also an Evergreen student and joined me down here for the College Program.

What I love so much about working here is that I can play in the parks any time I want. A few days ago my boyfriend Ryan and I were at the Magic Kingdom backstage talking to a manager about our contracts, and after our meeting we went onstage to ride the Tea Cups. Working at a theme park definitely has its perks!

Riding the Tea Cups! Alice’s favorite ride!

Posted by Dana at 01:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I unfortunately suffered from an intense migraine yesterday, which took up a good chunk of my day off. It was lame, I was mad that I lost a day of hanging with friends just to sit in the dark. I absolutely hate migraines, but there’s not much I can do about them. I’ve already received two while I’ve been here, and each time I’ve gotten a migraine it’s raining outside. Coincidence?

The rain is very different down here in Florida than in Washington. In Washington the rain comes down constantly, but it’s never too heavy of a downpour. Florida gets much more sporadic rain showers, where the rain will be hot and beat down on the dirt so hard the dirt will bounce. But I have yet to see a downpour last more than a half an hour here.

I did have the opportunity to ride the newest ride at Hollywood Studios yesterday! The ride is called “Toy Story Mania” and it is based on the hit Toy Story movies. I don’t want to give anything away in case some of you might come visit the parks and ride it, but it’s an awesome 3-D ride with some very cute graphics. My favorite part about the ride was the queue line. It’s designed to look like the inside of a toy box with all these games and toys spilling out everywhere. Giant crayons line the area, and the ceiling is a scrabble board! My friend Alina is working at the ride, so it’s even more fun to go there and see her. She really enjoys working at “Toy Story Mania” and loves being a part of something brand new and special at the theme parks. She really lucked out with her job; working at that ride is a big deal!

This spring quarter is literally flying by! I cannot believe there is 5 weeks left to the quarter. I still have a paper I need to write about my experience working in entertainment at Disney for my internship contract, and talk to my manager here at Disney about my evaluation at the end of the quarter. So much to do!

I met the Fairy God Mother on Sunday! She was lovely.

Posted by Dana at 08:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The last few days I have been working as a spare at Hollywood Studios Entertainment. This means that I sit around a breakroom and read or do something to keep me busy until either someone in a character costume gets sick or hurt and I take their spot, or my duty manager tells me I can have an early release from work because there is nothing more for me to do. Usually I get pulled to a character, but yesterday I have my first ER (early release). It was glorious! I left work around noon and went to the Magic Kingdom with my friend Josh. We watched the Disney Dreams Come True parade. Now that I’ve been working here for a month I know a lot more character performers, which makes watching a parade a lot more entertaining for me and them.

I’m enjoying this experience more and more each day. Although I feel a little bit like a small fish in a massive pond of entertainment, I feel like each day there is another opportunity opening up to me. This has been such a wonderful internship so far, and I can only expect it’s going to get better and better.

Last night some of my girlfriends came over to watch “27 Dresses” together. Evan and I finally got TV! We have a friend who has a computer flat screen monitor and he is letting us borrow that to get television through. It’s wonderful. I’m surprised how much I was disconnected to the news without the television. I never thought I would miss a TV, but I'm sure glad I have one now!

Posted by Dana at 07:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It’s been another fun week here at Disney World for me. I’ve been keeping busy with work and everything. I really enjoy working for entertainment! There is so much that changes and I’ve discovered that it’s very important to be flexible in this job. Some days I’ll come into work thinking I’ll be playing one character, only to learn that I’ll be playing another. It’s a lot of fun though, I’ve become “friends” with so many characters.

Disney has four parks in Orlando, and all the parks have their own entertainment system. So even though I went through a five-day training I really had to learn a lot more while on the job because I’ve been scheduled at a different park each day. And with that I play a different character each day. Each character is very different and requires learning several things about the costume, mannerisms, and signature. It’s like having a first day of work over and over again. But I really feel like I’m finally getting the hang of it. In fact, today I worked with a girl who was having her first day at Hollywood Studios and I was able to tell her what she needed to gather for her costume and everything. I was finally feeling like a regular.

A few days ago I was able to meet my good friend Alice at Epcot. Here are a few photos of her and the Mad Hatter and I. It was great seeing both of them!

Posted by Dana at 09:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hi everyone!

Yesterday I had the opportunity to fall down a rabbit hole and I ended up in Wonderland! It was amazing! What a magical world filled with odd creatures and bizarre events. It was so much fun! And Alice was quite charming; she looked like she was having a lot of fun. She met many guests and asked them if they had found the white rabbit. She also talked to many flowers and sang "A Very Merry Unbirthday". It's very sweet to hear her sing in her British accent.

I had such a fun time yesterday. In fact, I don't think I've had a bad day here yet. I've been making so many friends and keeping very busy. But this is such a wonderful place to work. I get to make magic and memories for guests all day. There is truly no other job like it.

Alice is looking for the White Rabbit

Posted by Dana at 08:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I had the last two days off and had another chance to play in the parks. On Monday Ryan and I had a blast from the past. Our camp friends Penske and Denim (camp names) were in town and met up with us at the Magic Kingdom. Although Ryan was only able to stay with us for a few hours, I had a long chance to catch up with those two. It was so much fun spending the day at “the happiest place on earth” with two of my favorite camp people! I think we rode practically everything.

Toward the end of the evening the three of us decided to venture over to Toontown and take a peek at Mickey and Minnie’s homes. While we were looking around a character attendant ran up to us and said, “Alright, if you hurry I’ll let you meet them.” We didn’t know exactly what he meant but we followed him into another room. Once we walked in we were blown away to see Mickey and Minnie waiting there to meet us! It was so great! Penske and Denim’s mouths were on the floor. We had a personal meet and greet with the big cheese and his first lady! It was a lovely ending to a wonderful day. I hope to see Penske and Denim again soon in the near future.

Yesterday Ryan and I both had the day off from work, so we took full advantage of it. Neither of us had visited Animal Kingdom yet, so we boarded a bus over there to check it out. It was such an amazing theme park! I had no idea how environmentally conscious the park was. I was very impressed, and I know my fellow Greeners would have been too. We spent the day watching some amazing shows and riding the biggest roller coaster on Disney property: Expedition Everest! One of our highlights was riding the Kilimanjaro Safari ride, which was a jeep tour across the plains to see live African animals! It was truly amazing.

In the evening Ryan and I went to Downtown Disney and had some excellent pizza at a fancy Italian restaurant. It was a nice ending to our date day. Downtown Disney is always happening, and although we had a long wait to be seated for dinner, I was glad we had some time before dinner to do some shopping. It was great having day for just the two of us. I can’t wait for another date day!

Posted by Dana at 09:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)