I EARNED MY EARS!

On Saturday evening I officially "earned my ears"! I am no longer a trainee, I'm a full-fledged Walt Disney World employee! I spent most of my work day on Saturday reviewing everything I had learned on my training days. I had to remember what items were stored in each cooler/freezer, the hold times for each item on our menu, the specific plating for each dish, and every emergency procedure (among lots of other things)! When assessment time finally came, we found out our assessor was one of my managers, "Big Will". He is such a kind, giving guy! He was actually on Good Morning America the day before with Ty Pennington from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition for all of the work he does for Give Kids the World! Needless to say, I passed with flying colors!

I forgot to take pictures, but this is what the lobby looks like. It's absolutely stunning in person!

That night, I met Kelsey, Sarah, and Denise at The Art of Animation resort for dinner. If you've never heard of it or seen it, I'd highly recommend it. It's considered a value resort, meaning it's one of their cheapest, but it doesn't feel cheap at all! It's beautiful. My salmon sandwich was delicious as well and the fact that I got 20% off as a cast member wasn't too bad either!

Roy, Minnie, and me!

On Sunday morning, the Kelseys took over Magic Kingdom. We met Pluto, Gaston, and Princess Tiana, rode on the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and ate cream cheese pretzels and frozen Coke at The Lunching Pad! Gaston was an absolute hoot. He had us feeling his muscles, posing, and laughing at his egotistical ways. Tiana was perfect, exactly how you'd expect her to be!

That night was my first day of work without training. I was finally on my own, for better or worse! I was scheduled to work from 7:30pm to 1:30am! I scooped fries at Bay 1, the chicken bay, for quite some time. It got a bit busy for a while, but I was able to handle it! After fries, I got a short break and then began our closing procedures. For me that night, it meant gathering garbage, stocking the coolers and freezers, and disposing of the food waste. It was a long night, but not nearly as rough as I'd expected it to be!

Yesterday, Denise and I ventured to Animal Kingdom. She had never been on Expedition Everest, so that was our first stop of the day. It was great, as it always is, the first and second time. ;) Then of course we had to get the crap scared out of us at Dinosaur! Our last stop at Animal Kingdom was to see Pocahontas. She was so much fun to talk to!

Expedition Everest

Loving our lives on Dinosaur!

Pocahontas and me!

After Animal Kingdom, we rode a bus to Epcot to eat at the Electric Umbrella and meet Kelsey. We rode Test Track and Journey Into Imagination with Figment before we met Alice, Princess Aurora, and Belle. They were all adorable and had fun things to say! We spent some time in the World Showcase by eating hand crafted ice cream in France, shopping in Japan, eating caramel in Germany, and riding both the Maelstrom in Norway and the Gran Fiesta Tour in Mexico!

Alice!

Belle!

Today I am finally doing laundry, cleaning, and catching up on sleep. I may also hop over to Magic Kingdom for the fireworks tonight just because I can. Just another day living the dream!

Chillin' in Chilly WDW

Today was another cool, exhausting, yet wonderful day at "The Happiest Place on Earth!" I visited both Animal Kingdom and Epcot. I also made another, always exciting, trip to Walmart.

My roommates, Sarah and Kelsey, and I woke up at the crack of dawn and headed out for Animal Kingdom. Our intention was to get to Expedition Everest as quickly as possible, but we accidentally made a wrong turn when we noticed that a Cinderella doll had fallen out of a stroller! Kelsey used the "Disney Scoop" to snatch the doll up without missing a stride and returned it to the woman pushing the stroller. Because of our detour, we ended up in Africa instead of Asia, so we went on Kilimanjaro Safaris. Of course we saw a bunch of animals, but the giraffes were probably the best because the whole tower of giraffes passed by within 5 feet of us. It was amazing!

Expedition Everest from afar

Then we made our way to Expedition Everest, fully expecting to wait in line for hours before getting on the ride. It took 10 minutes to get on, so we rode it again! It's such a fun ride! We continued to make our way through Asia and then Dinoland U.S.A. where the DINOSAUR ride is located. I don't want to spoil the ride for anyone, but my roommates and I are in college and were still so scared. (Feel free to laugh at our ride picture below)

Kelsey, me, and Sarah scared (almost to death) on DINOSAUR

After all of that excitement, we were pretty hungry. On our way to find food, though, we ran into Dug from Up! The picture is a little blurry, but Dug was so much fun! He was spastic, loving, and friendly, just like you'd expect him to be! He gave us lots of hugs and licked our faces a few times. I'm so glad we got to see him! We also stopped at It's Tough to be a Bug! We finally stopped at Pizzafari for lunch and then caught the bus back to our apartment complex where we hopped on the bus to Walmart to buy a cake for my roommate, Meg's, birthday tomorrow!

Kelsey, Dug, me, and Sarah

When we got back from Walmart, I showered and we decorated our dining room to surprise Meg when we got home later, since she had already left for Epcot with our other roommates, Denise and Gemma. We got on the bus to Epcot and after a bit of a delay (the buses are wonderful, but are sometimes late and can take a long time getting from place to place), we finally made it to the cast member entrance. It was so cool getting to use my ID to get into the "Cast Members Only" areas! I felt so official!

In Epcot, we rode Spaceship Earth, the ride inside the infamous ball, Test Track, and The Seas with Nemo and Friends. Spaceship Earth always inspires me and it's always fun to see your face on an animated body! Test Track was AWESOME. It's totally redone, but it's super cool. We waited in line for over an hour, but the time went by quickly as we hung out together and played a free version of Ellen's Heads Up app. Once inside, we got to create our own cars! Mine is shown below. The ride was awesome as always and I wished I could ride it again! The Seas with Nemo and Friends was adorable and the sea life after the ride was neat too. We left Epcot just as the fireworks show, Illuminations, was starting, so we got a fireworks send off!

The car that Sarah, Denise, and I created

Overall, it was a great day. It's still surreal to be able to go to the parks whenever I please and it's even weirder to not have to go to school. Tomorrow I start training for my job at Cosmic Ray's, so I'm off to bed! Thanks so much for keeping up with my journey! I hope you're able to live vicariously through me as I live in this fantasy world for a few months.

This is really my life right now!