So, I finished school and had graduation on Friday June 11th, and Sunday June 13th. It was really fun and pretty crazy to realize that I was done with college! It was also really nice because a lot of my family was able to come to my department graduation and we had a brunch at my Uncle Steve and Aunt Rosemary's house!
My dad and I then drove home to Colfax that evening. On Monday, I basically just did laundry, and repacked all my clothes from school, as well as pack two extra suitcases! Then I had to run some errands, to find some business clothes and some "white tennis shoes with no labels" for my costume (Disney calls their employee outfits "costumes" instead of "uniforms" haha). It was pretty difficult to find the right shoes, but I finally ended up with some pretty hot white tennis shoes from a uniform store, as well as some sweet white ankle socks. Haha.
On Tuesday morning, my dad and I headed to the Sacramento airport to fly to Florida! We had a layover in Vegas, but we finally made it to West Palm Beach in the evening and were picked up by my Uncle Chris! We stayed the night at his house, since he had found a car for my dad and I to buy and use while I'm here. On Wednesday, my dad and I ran a bunch of errands like getting insurance and registering my car before driving to Orlando. I made sure to put my UCLA Alumni license plate frame on my sweet 1995 Toyota Corolla. Haha.
After we arrived in Orlando, we ran some more errands, ate dinner at the Outback, and spent ten years at Pep Boys. The next morning we headed over to my apartment complex to check in, and I quickly unpacked all my stuff since I had to be over at the Disney Casting office to check in for work! At Casting, we turned in paperwork, learned about the "Disney Look" aka how to look right as a Disney employee, and got finger printed! Most people were finished for the day, but I had to be back at Casting in the afternoon for a meeting with Animal Programs! We met our coordinator, and the other interns, and broke up into our small groups based on where we worked to get our schedules for the next week of training. On Friday, I met all the other Seas interns at the Disney Health Services to get lab work done for our SCUBA physicals. Saturday we had our first day of training, called Traditions, where all employees learn the history of Disney and how to be proper Disney employees. We got to walk under the Magic Kingdom in the underground tunnels (yes, they do exist!) and I went to the Magic Kingdom for the first time ever! (even though it was only for 15 minutes. haha) In the afternoon, I got my costume, which luckily, is one of the best "costumes" at Disney. We just have a blue polo, blue lifeguard style shorts which are a reasonable length (most of the shorts are like 2 ft long haha) and a blue windbreaker and/or fleece jacket.
(Example of my costume on my first day of work, sans jacket.)
On Sunday, I had my first day in EPCOT, which is where I am working! All The Seas interns met with our coordinator and took a backstage tour of our exhibit and saw where we would be working!!! It was super exciting to see up above the aquarium environment, the dolphins and the manatees!!! Afterwards, we headed over to the Animal Kingdom where we got to go on a private safari in the savannah!!! Then we headed to more training, which was kind of boring.
On Monday, I didn't have anything scheduled until my SCUBA physical at 2, so I headed over to EPCOT to explore the park! I went on some rides and wandered through the world showcase (the area with all the countries)! Even though I was by myself, it was still really fun! Its so cool that we get to go to the parks as much as we want for free! And we don't have to pay for parking either! Since we have 6 months to explore all 4 parks, one of my goals is to go on every attraction, even the lame movie-ish ones that you usually skip when you go to parks and are in a hurry to get all the cool stuff done. So I'm keeping a map from each park and checking off things as I do them. Another goal is to take pictures with as many Disney characters I can find throughout the parks! So far I've got Sleeping Beauty, Belle, Aladdin and Jasmine, Snow White, Chip and Dale and Sully from Monsters, Inc! When we had training that night, we got our lockers and wetsuits issued to us!
On Tuesday we had to get first aid certified, so we were trained in first aid, CPR, oxygen administration, and AED use. On Wednesday, we had our check out dives in the aquarium!!! It was a super early morning, since we had to get to the park around 5 am! But it was worth it because diving in the main environment was sooooo cool!!! The tank has tons of fish, sea turtles, sting rays, eagle rays, and sharks! Since they are all used to humans and being fed by divers, they were not afraid of us at all, and would swim right past/through/next to us!!! The rest of the day we just had basic training. On Thursday we had our first day with our departments! The other 3 marine mammal interns and I started in our office at 8am! We basically just had a lot of training; learning how to prepare fish buckets for the dolphins, talk about the manatees to guests, and keeping records of the manatees. We also got to watch a dolphin presentation by one of the trainers, where the give the dolphins commands through the window and do a little 10 minute show. We were so excited, because WE GET TO DO THOSE PRESENTATIONS!!!!!!! Once we get to be a bit more experienced and knowledgeable, we will be able to do those dolphin command presentations as well as watch the dolphin training and research with the trainers!!! SO EXCITING!!!!
(My first morning working at "The Seas with Nemo and Friends"!)
I had Friday and Saturday off, so my roommates and I headed to the parks! My roommate Lauren and I went to the Magic Kingdom on Friday, and in the evening I met up with 2 girls from my sorority at UCLA who happened to be at Disneyworld for the Gamma Phi Convention! We ate dinner at Downtown Disney and then saw Toy Story 3! On Saturday, 4 of my 5 roommates and I hit up the Disney Hollywood Studios!
(Magic Kingdom with Lauren!)
(Disney Hollywood Studios with Blaire, Lauren, Amy and Jami! And Chip and Dale!)
Yesterday (Sunday) I worked another 8-5 shift! We started the morning by diving in the manatee tank to clean! We don't actually dive with the manatees though, since they have been rescued and are being rehabilitated to be released in the wild. They don't have any human interaction in order to prevent them from getting too accustomed to humans. They are pretty cute though. So fat and blobby, but still cute. The big one is named Lou, and he has a mangled tail paddle from being hit by a boat, and the smaller one is Jasper who is being rehabed for cold stress, which is basically manatee hypothermia. The rest of the day was devoted to preparing fish buckets for dolphins and giving manatee spiels. Basically we stand out on the deck by the manatee enclosure to keep tally of how many heads of lettuce they eat, make sure no one throws anything in and give little talks about the manatees every 30 minutes. Its fun to tell the guests about stuff, but some guests ask some pretty dumb questions. Like if manatees have gills. Haha.
(This is kind of a bad picture since I took it on my iphone, but there's Lou and Jasper!)
Today I had another day off, and I've been feeling under the weather with a kind of bad cough and the sniffles, so basically I just spent the day on the couch watching TV. I have another day off tomorrow, and then Yoav comes to visit me on Wednesday for almost a week! Pretty excited to have him down here, and hopefully I will get the last few days off while he's here, since I know I have to work the first 4 days. :(
Well, I shall try to keep this blog updated regularly now! Check back for some Walt Disney World fun!!!! :)
3 comments:
Obsessedddddd.
OMG, you have the most amazing job and life ever!! Please keep blogging regularly so us regular folk can vicariously live through you!
P.S. It's a very real possibility that I'll be visiting Disney in August. If that ends up happening, I'd love to see you!!!
definitely!!! let me know if you end up in orlando!!! :)
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