Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

Well.. I have quite a bit to catch up on! This week has been so busy I have hardly had time to think and definitely no time to do laundry! July 4th.. was busy but not insane. I thought it would be busier to be honest; but the weather was rubbish (drizzly, grey... rather like England but about 20 degrees farenheight hotter) and I think most people were at the Magic Kingdom. Nevertheless, it was a good day and I got my 'bump out' at 9.45pm so I rushed down to the outside of Star Tours and stood there just in time to see the fireworks. They don't normally have fireworks at the Studios so it was just a one-off and they were really good even though I couldn't hear the music. So, when they finished at 10pm, I left, clocked out and got the bus and was home by 10.45pm which is very good going for July 4th.

Monday (5th) was alright... nothing special to be honest. It was my last day of eight days in a row of work so I was feeling pretty tired and in need of a day off! It seemed that over the whole weekend including Monday, I ended up on the same rotation schedule - i.e. I was doing the same postitions over and over again including Unload... which is fine but makes the day a little bit repetitive. A good thing, though, was that the park shut at 7pm on Monday and so I finished at 7.30pm... after Nick and I took the Lost & Found to Guest Relations, we went to Chick-fil-A which was yummy. But then it decided to absolutely pour with rain - proper Floridian rain - so we got drenched walking back to Vista Way! Luckily, I could just go inside my apartment and get warmed up but he had to sit on a bus back to Chatham poor boy. LOL.

So, onto my days off which were Tuesday (6th) and Wednesday (7th) this week. Tuesday, the first thing on the agenda was to go to Downtown Disney with Katie and see Twilight: Eclipse! :D Now, the film itself was actually quite good although very cringy in some parts and hilarious in others... somewhat risque and violent for a PG-13 though (aka 12A)! But what I got more excited about was the trailer we saw beforehand for HARRY POTTER!!! Omg, so exciting! They look AMAZING! And from what I saw in the trailer, it looks like they're going to try and keep to the books quite well. I really hope the final films are as good as I want them to be! Then we left the cinema - Katie went to meet her parents who were at Animal Kingdom, and I went back to Vista for an hour or so before going back out to meet Char and we went to the Studios. Yes, I even go there on my day off. LOL.

It was really packed and busy so we managed to get into Indiana Jones Stunt Show with the help of an ICP I knew called Sian who was doing crowd control and put us on the VIP list :D Then after that we went and watched the American Idol experience which was good fun but VERY american in every way :P Then we grabbed some food before wondering what to do as it was so busy... so we wondered around the shops a bit before heading to Fantasmic at about 7.20pm. We got into the amphitheatre at about 7.30pm and sat there for an hour and a half before Fantasmic, although it was worth the wait! It's a good show! After we got out, we had 30 minutes before the park shut so we ran into Tower of Terror as it had no line (REALLY creepy walking around the queuing area at night when they pipe pretend fog into the area!) and that was great. When we got out, we had about 5 minutes so we legged it to Rock 'n' Roller Coaster and managed to be one of the last guests let on! :D So it was actually a good end to the night as we managed to get the bus pretty shortly after getting to the bus stop and it didn't even rain!

My second day off on Wednesday I spent half of it going to the post office which is a rediculously long trip for somewhere that is probably less than 2 miles away from Vista. Anyway, posted some beef jerky for Ben Puddy :P and my letter for Jon plus a postcard for my grandparents... then made my way back to Vista. Didn't even bother going back to the apartment as I had to get another bus very shortly after arriving as I was off to the Magic Kingdom with Hannah (and later, Nick). Hannah met me there after I'd eaten at Casey's Corner and just generally wondered around Main Street soaking up the atmosphere and remembering good times working at MK! We went over to Tomorrowland and picked up FastPasses for Space Mountain and then we watched the afternoon parade which was great! After meeting Nick and Hannah indulging in a Turkey Leg (gross), we worked our way round the very busy Magic Kingdom and ended up doing Pirates of the Carribean, Jungle Cruise, Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Monsters Inc Laugh Floor, Stitch's Great Escape, Space Mountain and finally, Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. So, a very successful day! We watched the fireworks (from a bit of a rubbish angle but never mind) and then got out of the park sharpish. We would have been home in good time but Nick decided he was starving hungry and so we ended up getting off the monorail at The Contemporary and getting food at their quick-service restaurant which was cool... and even better, we got Cast Member discount! :D Eventually, we finished our food and went back to get the bus...

So, an exhausting two days off but well needed to be away from Star Wars music for a couple of days!! And I haven't even talked about yesterday's shift yet. This blog post is turning into a very long one - apologies! Well done for reading this far!

So, yesterday was Thursday. And it was a day which reminded me how great it is to work for Disney... it was a brilliant day. Despite the fact that the actual shift was just shy of 12 hours long, it was probably the best day I've ever had on Star Tours. After a slight rush getting in (which involved me thinking I started at 10.15 but it was actually 10.30... fail.) I got my first assignment which was on a different rotation to Yoda (YAY! Yoda, btw, was the rotation I kept being on over the weekend, they have nicknames) and I was JTA2... which is to do with the Jedi Training Academy. I had to talk to the kids and keep them occupied before the show and then just do the ropes to make sure they didn't run off etc. Then I was rotated around a couple of sims and the entrance position which was good fun because the park was REALLY busy yesterday so there was a constant stream of people to talk to. After my lunch break, I was lucky enough to be on the same rotation (it's called Vader) and I had to go and find Nick who was JTA3 - they sign up the kids for the Jedi Training Academy but the PARADE was in the way! SO YAY!!! I got to see the last couple of minutes of the parade and I got totally overexcited about this fact! Once I had passed on the rotation to Nick, I had to go to photocell.

Photocell is good but a slightly stressful position to be in! Especially when three of the sims develop various minor technical faults within 15 minutes of each other! Luckily it all sorted itself out quite quickly and I spent the rest of the afternoon rotating around several different positions even including a stint in Tower! Then, when I got rotated to greeter, I was lucky enough to be able to borrow Melissa's lightsabre... well.. I knew I had to get myself one after this! So I aquired an old one which was hanging around and now I can occupy myself with having lightsabre fights (it's staying in character!!) with both fellow Cast Members and even the guests (but I always let them win!).

So, exhausted but happy, I got home at about 10.45pm last night and fell into bed because I was so tired. Got work again this afternoon from 14.45 - 22.15... so maybe I will be able to see the parade again! :D