Thursday 26 August 2010

Judge me by my size do you?

So, Sunday wasn't particularly thrilling, nor was it particularly boring... just spent the day being a really bad Disney ambassador as I kept going on about Harry Potter for the whole day. LOL.

Had a really good 12 hours sleep (for once!) on Sunday night as Monday was my first day off this week. Chilled out for most of it really, FINALLY did my laundry which means I actually have clean clothes now, went to Walmart and then watched a couple of episodes of Casualty courtesy of Jon who sent them over on memory stick :D Kevin randomly came round in the evening and then it transpired that it was my roomate's birthday and she was going to a bar called Jelly Rolls... so we went too. It was like a piano bar, they have 2 pianos that "duel" and they do requests; so it's all pop and country songs mostly. It seemed very 'american' to me but it was good fun. Got back at about 2am and went to bed.

Then Tuesday was my second day off... and my very last day off of the program! Crazy! So, I had a few fastpasses to use up and Kevin rented a car for the last 2 weeks of the program so we drove over to the Studios in the pouring rain and went on Tower, Coaster and of course, Star Tours. Then we went back to housing as he had work in the afternoon and I met up with Hannah. We headed over to the premium outlets as it was her friend's birthday and they were heading to House of Blues. Seen as I'd never been before I thought I'd go too so we were buying outfits... I spent far too much money as usual but got a lovely black dress and Nine West shoes out of it! After we got back, I went back to Vista and got ready before meeting Hannah back at Chatham. We had a couple of hours before her friend picked us up so we researched the cruise stuff and booked the All Star Music resort for the final 7 days (2nd - 9th Sept) which worked out only to $138 each (there's three of us sharing - Hannah, Katie and I) which is crazy because that's only about £100 for 7 nights in a Disney resort!

We headed out to HoB at about 11.30pm... I got in for free because I'm over 21 and a CM :D Then I got a free drink just for being a girl :D So it was a very cheap night - I only bought one drink after that because I was working the next day... it was latino night which isn't really my cup of tea... some of the songs were ok but when everyone started thinking they were the next Ricky Martin and kept standing on my feet it really annoyed me! We left at about 1.30am and got back shortly afterwards.

Wednesday... day one of eight. It was an 11.5 hour shift which isn't great but the day didn't go toooo badly. Except for one group of guests. We had EMH between 7-10pm so it was at about 8pm this group came in. I was at photocell (it always happens whilst I'm at photo!) and I got a call from tower that stand-by greeter had measured a child who they thought was too small and I needed to measure them again. So, this child was coming up the wheelchair ramp with a group of about 8 adults, one of whom was in a chair. The little kid kicked and screamed because he didn't want to be measured and sure enough, when he stood under the height stick, he was too short. I could fit all my fingers between his head and the height stick so I wasn't going to let him ride... well, this didn't go down too well.

Long story short... they did a child swap but whilst two of the adults were waiting for the first group to ride, they claim they saw another CM measure a child who was too small but let them ride. 1) They "saw" this from Sim 3 and it was happening at Sim 1 which is far too far away to judge and 2) this is always the same story. Anyways, once they came off the ride, the next thing I knew was that the man in the wheelchair and another adult came charging back up the wheelchair ramp and demanding to know the name of the CM (it was Jessica). The guest was making very aggressive punching motions with his hands and shouting about how she was going to be 'reported'... I refused to tell him her name and instead said I was going to get a manager or a co-ordinator to come and talk to him. Funnily enough, stand-by greeter was also radioing tower at the same time to get a manager down there as the rest of the group were kicking up there as well.

The bottom line is that we were doing our jobs properly, and I would be more than happy if he reported me or whoever else because we know we are right. And so do the managers. As I pointed out to the guest when I first measured the child, if I was to let him on the ride; I'd lose my job. The whole bunch of guests at photocell at the time were all witnesses to how agressive and angry this guest was as well... so eventually, one of the managers went to stand-by and talked to this group of guests although I don't know what was said. Greeter reported back that he'd been making statements like "I'm gonna punch that bitch" which is horrible and un-necessary... quite frankly, people like that deserve to be thrown out of the park. I really hope it was their first day on vacation because if they continue acting like that at their resort or in the parks then sooner or later they will find themselves banned from Disney property.

Monday 23 August 2010

Rock 'n' Roller Coaster with the lights on...

What a few days. They definitely have been the craziest of both my ICPs and I'm only just calming down now!

So, picking up from Wednesday when I last wrote... it was a pretty uneventful day and so was Thursday...ish. It turned out that Brandon (whom I work with) had to go back to University earlier than planned so it was his last day thus there was a last-minute arranged evening out after work to Ale House which I'd never been to before. It's kind of like a sports bar but it does food which is pretty damn good... I had a massive portion of chicken nachos of which I could only eat about half! Their alcohol is really cheap as well so we all indulged in one too many cocktails! All good fun and I got to bed at about 3am...

Unfortunately I had to be starting work at 9.15am the next day. Ugh. So I dragged my sorry ass in at about 8.45am (having only had about 4 hours sleep) and we were all rather tired! The day went okay though, especially when me and Steve got assigned PAC 1&2 by the lovely Jason so we ended up just doing the parade from about 2.30pm til 4pm! :D It was good fun! Then I got a break. However, after my break (so from 4.20pm) the shift got a bit crappy... the tiredness hit me and the Red Bull wore off so by 7pm I was feeling rather pissed off and fed up especially as I had some really annoying guests in my last few flights.

Then a random thing happened... Hayley asked me if I wanted to stay around after work for an event exclusive to CPs at the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster where we could ride it with the lights on! It took a bit of persuading me even though it would be really cool because I was so tired and really needed to do laundry in a big way (I had run out of most of my clothes) but she said we'd meet Janelle at costuming at 8.30pm... so after I finished work, we hung around in the break room for about an hour. She was texting away but I thought nothing of it...

At 8.30pm we walked over to costuming. I thought it was a tiny bit odd we were meeting her in the parking lot when the Coaster is on the other side of the park but whatever... so, when Hayley turned around and said "So, the thing is, we're not going to be riding Coaster tonight..." all I had the time to say was "well, what's this all about then?" before none other than Mr Nick Caughman walks around the corner!!

So, after screaming and almost bursting into tears (mainly due to the shock value!) it turned out that almost everyone at Star Tours that afternoon had been in on the surprise and everyone had kept it quiet :D So amazing. Anyway, we went to Downtown Disney and had an Earl of Sandwich (via Vista Way so I could change) and then decided we were all staying over at Janelle's. So, I had to go back to Vista again to get my stuff... but I was locked out. This was annoying. Rachel had finished her program on Friday and so the locks got changed... and I had to wait 30 minutes before security would come and unlock the freaking door. So stupid.

Eventually got all my stuff together and got to Janelle's. Fast forward to the next day and we all went to Universal :D The first ride we went on went 101 whilst we were queuing which was a bit annoying but we still only lined up for about an hour... and then none of the other rides really had any lines... at about 4pm we headed to Islands of Adventure and straight to HARRY POTTER WORLD. It was AMAZINNNNG!!!! I won't go into too much detail right now because it will ruin it for people who read this blog and haven't been. But I will post another time with details! :D It was incredible that's all! So, we ended up staying at Universal until about 10pm and didn't get back to Janelle's apartment until about midnight again (yet again, via Vista Way and getting security to let me in again!). So, another 4 hours of sleep and then I was up to go to the Studios because Hayley had work at 9.30am and me and Nick wanted to do Coaster and Tower before I had work at 11.15am...

So, we did those and then it was time to say goodbye again :( But this time, it wasn't so bad, after all, it was an unexpected visit anyway! All in all, an amazing 48 hours!

Wednesday 18 August 2010

Last Tour to Endor

Well, it's a been a busy few days since I last updated and I have lots to write about if I can remember it all!!

Friday the 13th

Well, Friday sucked. Basically. The night before, I went to ihop which was immense (as always) with Tiffany, Hayley, Brandon and Kendal. Once we got there, Kate and Nick joined us as they'd been parking it up all day and were therefore exhausted... well, Kate was. So we had fun times at ihop before getting back to housing. On the way home, I asked Nick what time I should come round to say goodbye the next day... 8am he informs me. Yuk.

So, at 8am, I was dragging my tired ass into Chatham hoping to chill out with Nick before his mum turned up and they drove back to Georgia. However, he hadn't really started packing. Fail! Therefore, the next hour was spent watching Nick throw all this belongings into bags and suitcases before attempting to fit it all in the car which was quite hilarious (on my part anyway)... unfortunately, by 9.45am they had finally finished packing up and were ready to go. So, the inevitable moment had arrived, time to say goodbye. It really sucked so much. We walked to the front desk to hand in his keys and then said our goodbyes before he got in the car and they drove off, leaving me at the Chatham bus stop trying not to cry in my Star Tours costume.

By the time I got into work, I had put make up on but this didn't stop me from having tearful moments on the bus, in the break room, in tower (some God put me there first... thank you!) and then at Entrance. Basically, everytime someone mentioned ending my program and saying goodbye to people... the day was rubbish. I also worked like 12 hours which wasn't great either.

As it was Friday 13th, clearly other things had to happen too. We had a big thunderstorm which meant most of the Jedi Academies were called off in the afternoon and then an incident on Sim 4 (of course, it had to be Sim 4... cursed sim) involving a pregnant woman who quite frankly, should not have ridden the ride. We don't know what happened to her in the end but she got carted off to the hospital and it was rather shocking all round. Eventually, the day finished and it was weird going straight home after the shift... no Wendy's... no ihop... just sleep.

Last Tour to Endor

It had finally arrived. After a rather refreshing sleep and trying to put the sad Friday behind me, I went to work early in order to bag myself a Last Tour to Endor shirt from Tattouine Traders (just as well I did seen as they completely sold out later in the day) but then I ended up starting work 45 minutes early as well. So, started at 10.45am and worked all the way through until 02.30am... that's 15 hours and 45 minutes! Crazy!!

The first part of the day was pretty much normal apart from the excitement in the air and the inordinate amount of sugar to be consumed in the break room. We had a pot luck which means that people all bring in something for everyone to eat which means that everyone doesn't have to bring loads of food into work each! I brought in Honey Mustard pringles (because they are immense) and Star Wars fruit snacks which I found at Walgreens... and are amazing! LOL! So, spent the day flying simulators and doing Jedi academy as usual... at 4pm the freaks (for want of a better word) started arriving.

You could tell when the first bus loads of people started arriving for the special celebration as they were coming straight from the Star Wars convention in Orlando, in full costume and adnorned with Star Wars merchandise. And of course, heading straight for Star Tours. Between 4pm and 7pm it was pretty normal, it was just that we had less of "what is this?" and "is this a ride?" and more day guests looking slightly confused at the amount of weird looking people standing around them. My favourite assignment I got at this time was Jedi 2. As JTA was finished for day guests (the last show is at 4.45pm), I took on the role of unofficial photopass photographer instead, taking pictures for people infront of Star Tours which was a lot of fun.

At 8pm, the official celebration started and so did the exclusive events. To be honest, I didn't get to see many of the special events as we were trapped to the confines of Star Tours for the whole night... I actually only had one session of flying starspeeders which kinda sucked. As the night flew by, I am going to sum up the best parts and the worst parts:

BEST: having a EPIC lightsabre fight with 5 kids at the same time and nearly losing both eyes... seeing George Lucas walk past me and shouting after his Guest Relations lady if he'd like to participate in Jedi Training... managing to see the whole fireworks display at midnight despite delaying the rotation by 15 minutes and having to hide in the Ewok Village so I wasn't seen by managers... watching the final Jedi show of the night and then getting stuck outside by the crowd, therefore managing to see lots of celebrities and Star Tours get "blown up" at 1am... avoiding Unload for the whole night... avoiding Tower for the whole night... and of course, sanitising all the rails at Star Tours (as we were done by 2am but none of us could get bumped out til 2.15am... so we attacked the railings with alcohol wipes inbetween taking pictures of ourselves throughout the attraction)

WORST: easily the worst moment was having to spent 1 hour 15 minutes standing at the Muppet Gate directing guests from the evacuation route out of Star Tours through backstage and back out into the park... very boring and repetitive. And I wasn't in CDS/Rotation so they forgot about me for the whole time. That sucked. Apart from that; there were no bad moments!!!

In regards to the aforementioned celebrities; I saw George Lucas, Seth Green, Anthony Daniels (C3PO), Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) and Warwick Davies! :D He also plays Professor Flitwick in Harry Potter which is immense! :D

So, all in all, it was an amazing day. And it's the only time we've all walked into the break room and just declared that we don't want to be on break, we want to be onstage!!

The Day After The Night Before

So, Sunday was RUBBISH. I got home at 3am and was back at the Studios by 10am. Everyone was exhausted from the day before, it was very hot weather and everything was back to normal. And boring. The guests were back to being grumpy and asking "is this a ride?".... and I worked 12 hours. Meh.

The Day Off

Yes, singular. Monday was my one and only day off this week and I decided to go to the Magic Kingdom as it's my favourite park. I went to Company D first at Disney University and bought a lovely Cast Member hoodie which I love <3 As I was on the VIP bus over to the tunnels, the heavens opened in a huge way... I mean POURED. Thunder, lightening and rain like never before. Luckily I had a waterproof jacket but I then had to wonder around the tunnels dripping wet and to make it worse... I got lost. I took the wrong staircase out of the tunnels and emerged somewhere near main street, ended up walking around backstage like a moron looking for the cast member exit. I'd aimed to come out by first aid but somehow came out near the Town Hall (totally the other end of Main St)... anyway, eventually got onstage and wondered around in the rain for about an hour. Decided to go and see how many people I could say hi to - managed to see Hannah at Pinnochio's and Matt in Liberty Square (even though he works at DTD usually!). Luckily it stopped raining and had sufficiently dried up for the afternoon parade.

I filmed it using the old video camera although had an annoying man next to me who kept saying the names of the characters as they came past in stupid voices for his child. So I may have to go back and film it again if I'm at MK in the afternoon soon... after I'd seen the parade I got the monorail over to Epcot as I'd had a craving for Orange Chicken in China. So, went and got that (then it started raining again) before heading to France for a cream cake and to buy some perfume which Mum's going to wrap up for my birthday (it's exclusive to Epcot!). Wondered around the countries for a bit before heading back to Magic Kingdom.

Went and did Philarmagic which I haven't seen for a while, then did Pirates of the Caribbean :D Hunted all over the park to buy a Churro (turns out they only sell them by Space Mountain, nowhere else!) before finding a fantastic spot for Wishes. Sat there for about an hour... I didn't have much else to do and was feeling pretty tired. Ended up chatting to the guests next to me which passed the time :) Finally, at 10pm... after 2 years of waiting... I saw Wishes again :D So happy :D I am definitely going to try and go back to see it at least one or two more times before I go home though because I love it.

Eventually got home.. and was up again for another shift yesterday which was pretty average although I was stuck in the same rotation all day so it literally went: Sim 3, Tower, Jedi 2, Entrance... three times over for the whole day. Got home at 8.45pm (!!!) and got a Dominos Pizza in seen as I haven't had one for ages and really fancied it. Pretty average evening, it was nice to just relax and not go straight to bed!

The next few days are going to be Star Tours, Star Tours, Star Tours as I am working about another 40 hours before my next two (yay) days off next week. In fact, I think they will be my last two days off during the program which is a bit scary!

Thursday 12 August 2010

42 hour weekend, now time for 2 days off!

Well, the weekend was truly exhausting, I worked Friday through to Monday, doing 42 hours overall. I ended up at Walmart on Friday night, Chatham til 1am on Saturday and Wendy's on Sunday AND Monday night! As Nick's leaving tomorrow (he finished his program yesterday) we've been hanging out after work but it usually revolves around fast food which isn't great LOL. So, we said we'd hit up the parks on Wednesday as we both got it off... but I'm jumping ahead.

On Tuesday, I finally got a lie-in which was REALLY nice. However, when I got up I realised I needed to get to the post office which is a bloody trek so I then realised I wouldn't have time to go to Magic Kingdom to film the afternoon parade which I wanted to do. But in the mean time, it decided to pour with torrential rain so I decided not to go to MK in the afternoon but instead just meet Hannah there when she finished work at 5pm. So, whilst I was sorting out this letter to take to the post office I noticed something crawling across my apartment floor... a COCKROACH! :O It was soooooo gross! So I grabbed Nick's Wendy's cup he'd left lying around from the other night and caught it under the cup (which was pretty hard - they move bloody fast). Then I freaked out for a while until I found a piece of card to slide under the cup (FYI: It's not as easy as with a spider!) before opening the front door and throwing the whole thing with as much force as possible over the balcony and into the rain. Apparently my roomate called housing and they send pest control around in the evening whilst I was at MK so hopefully we won't be seeing our crawley friends again. UGH.

So, I went to the post office, dodging the thunderstorms and stopped at Walgreens on the way back to invest in some roach spray which I then liberally sprayed around the apartment. Then I went off to MK; Hannah told me to meet her in the tunnels. Well, that was an experience. Having not really been in the tunnels for 2 years it was bizarre to be back down there... it smells and looks pretty much exactly the same. It really made me want to go back to the Emporium! I managed to meet her and we went onstage for some fun in the park. We did pretty well, as we headed to Tomorrowland to get fastpasses for Space Mountain (standard) and did Buzz Lightyear ride before catching the MiSiCi Show (Move It, Shake It, Celebrate It) which I managed to video, yay! We grabbed some food at Pinocchios as despite working there, Hannah has never eaten there! Then we did Thunder Mountain three times, the Haunted Mansion and then Hall of Presidents. I bought two tops at the Empo which I wanted to get before and didn't have chance and then we watched (I filmed) the fireworks at 10pm. We did Space Mountain with the FPs and then headed back into the tunnels to go to West Clock to get the bus back to Housing. A very successful evening at MK!

Wednesday was my second day off and as I mentioned, I was going to spend it with Nick doing whatever he wanted in the parks as it was his last day :) So we got up horribly early to go to Animal Kingdom and did Everest, Dinosaur and the Safari. Then we watched both Finding Nemo and Lion King which was fabulous before heading to get the bus to the Studios. I had *acquired* a few fastpasses so we headed straight for Coaster which had a 50 minute queue and did that before going to Tower of Terror which was literally a walk-on so I kept the fastpasses and we just went in stand by. We ended up doing Tower twice and Coaster twice plus watching an American Idol show and of course, Nick did his last Tour to Endor :) Hilarity occurred when Que was going to fly us in her sim and it decided to E-stop right before we got on it so we ended up in another sim with a load of guests but it was fine :) After we'd taken lots of photos and messed about at the Studios, we got a Friendship Boat to EPCOT for our reservation at the Mexico restaurant. We met up with Kate and Hannah at the park and did Mission Space (which included the highlight of seeing Katie in costume!) before going to Mexico for some AMAZING food... was sooo good. AND we got discount which was nice. It was still damn expensive but it IS Disney...

Eventually we left property to go back to housing but then Nick decided he wanted my Disney music from my computer so we went and got his USB stick from Chatham before going over to Vista. Despite saying he'd leave at 11.30pm... inevitably after finding some HILARIOUS clips on YouTube, he ended up leaving at 1am. Again. So... that brings us to today - I am sitting waiting for my laundry to finish in the tumble dryer before getting ready for work at 1.15pm - joy.

I am really looking forward to Saturday for the Last Tour to Endor party but I am not looking forward to saying goodbye to all the domestic college program people over today and tomorrow, it will be sad. However, I guess all good things must come to an end and I can always visit them when I'm back in America... :(

Sunday 8 August 2010

Funny Stories

So, one of the managers who I don't know so well came in the other day and whilst he was there we got onto the well-discussed topic of height restrictions. Star Tours has a 40 inch (102 cm) height restriction because of the seat belt you have to wear during the ride and on a daily basis I have to explain to guests why I can't let their child in because they are too small.

So, this manager, told us the story of the child whose parents bought a Mickey Ice Cream (which is shaped like Mickey Mouse, of course), broke off the two Mickey ears and placed one in each shoe so that the child reached the height requirement! Luckily they got caught and weren't allowed on the ride. Then someone else came in and recounted the story of the child who tried to get into Star Tours with crocs stuffed with serviettes from the Backlot Express Restaurant...

Anyway, this conversation then led onto the subject of babies in the parks. It is unbelievable to think that people have actually asked in the past if they could place their baby in the under seat compartment!? And, the aforementioned manager, met a lady who had put her few-month-old baby in a bag and was trying to hold it on her lap to ride Space Mountain. Yes, really!!! Unbelievable stuff happens at Disney.

So, the last couple of days haven't really been out of the ordinary. I had a 8 hour shift on Friday which was pretty quiet and I ended up flying sims for most of the shift which got a bit repetitive after a while. And then yesterday I did a 10 hour shift which was pretty dead for the most part - we had a big rush after one of the Indiana Jones shows and I was on photocell so that was quite fun because of the challenge. I also was on Entrance when we had a big 'Epic Dump' and I had to work out the ropes to put up 2 loops in the queuing area which was a slight challenge for my poor brain.

I also got my schedule for the next couple of weeks. Because of 'Last Tour to Endor' on Sat 14th, I am working about 52 hours this week. But next week takes the biscuit - I only have one day off (Monday) and am working 54 hours the rest of the time! Crazyness! On the up side, it means I might actually have enough money to fund the last week in America... I need to sort out that Plan actually.

I have Tuesday and Wednesday off this week - Tuesday I am planning (weather permitting) to go to the Magic Kingdom and film the parade and fireworks. Wednesday is the last day I will spend with Nick (sad times) so we're going to the parks and then to Mexico (in Epcot) for dinner. :)

Friday 6 August 2010

A WHOLE CAN?!

Picking up from where I last left off... we went to Italy on Monday to eat which was very yummy (if very expensive, and they don't even do Cast Member discount anymore in the evenings!) before we got a really good place to watch Illuminations from. I took lots of pictures (as usual) and they came out really well... now that the parents have given me the old video camera I'm going to go to Nightastic, Wishes (!!!) and Illuminations to film them. Even go to Fantasmic if I can get in at some point! Just so I have them on video because I don't think I'll be back at Walt Disney World for quite a few years once I've left in September...

So, Wednesday, the family were off to Universal so they dropped me off home in the morning. Initially I was going to go in early and see if I could extend as I didn't start til 5.30pm but in the end I couldn't be bothered so I just chilled out at the apartment instead. Went to work at about 4pm and whilst I was sitting at the bus stop waiting for the E bus, it decided to absolutely POUR with rain! I was really lucky though because it wasn't even raining when I actually got to the studios. The shift was only 6 hours long and even though I ended up with the Wookie about 4 times (so I was basically greeter for the whole night, I only flew about 5 flights of guests in the whole shift!) it was a good laugh. Nick was back from his training at Idol (traitor!) and Jason was the closing co-ordinator so we had fun :) After work, Ally gave me, Kate and Nick a lift to Wendy's which... on the way there... turned into a trip to Steak & Shake instead. Now, I'm not a huge fan of either of these concepts but I had chicken strips (it was 1am, I didn't feel like loads of food anyway!) and an amazing cookies & cream milkshake which was so sickly I had to finish it the next morning! Anyway, another good evening out after work, and another trip to a public place where everyone stares at the bright orange: "Wow, they actually have lives outside Disney?!"

Thursday, my parents picked me up in the morning and we went to Walmart. Fun times. Then we went to Downtown Disney where Mum and I went up in a balloon to 370 ft above Disney! It was amazing, such good views. Bit like the Bournemouth Eye. Victoria and Dad went to DisneyQuest instead and then we met up with them after a spot of shopping at the West Side end of DTD. Then we went to Beaches & Cream Soda Shop at the Beach Club Resort which was quite amusing finding our way there in the car as I'd only ever been there via a boat from Epcot. Nevertheless, we made it there and had to wait about 35 minutes for a table but then we had yummy hot dogs and a KITCHEN SINK! It has 4 different flavours of ice cream, a handful of cherries, chocolate brownies, bananas, mars bar and a WHOLE CAN of whipped cream on top plus every sauce they do squirted all over/in the pudding. Amazing.

Once we'd stuffed ourselves there, we went back to the villa. I just chilled out and they packed. Then I got changed into my amazing new skinny jeans and hugely high shoes and we went to Bahama Breeze for a final meal out. It was very delicious :D I got dropped back at about 10.15pm and managed to get a reasonably early night (about midnight, LOL.)

I then worked out I am doing 42 hours at Star Tours between today and Monday so that's fun... then two days off... and then another 33 hours between Thursday and Saturday. So, much space-themed fun! :D

Monday 2 August 2010

Wanna DFN?

Well, back at the villa again after a weekend of work, mainly. Friday's shift was good if a bit quiet towards the end. Then on Saturday, I spent the day doing boring things like sitting on Facebook, watching an episode of Casualty that the parents had recorded for me and doing my laundry before another six hour shift between 16.15-22.15. After work, we decided on a random trip to Wendy's so Nick and I met Andy, Hayley and Tiffany at about 11pm and I had spicy chicken nuggets which weren't as bad as I expected them to be. We left at about midnight, going via Walgreens so I could pick up some phone credit.

Sunday started off badly with some (irrelevant to Disney) annoyances via the internet so I wasn't in the greatest mood to start with. Then I had a 12 hour shift to deal with. So, I went in for 10.45am and basically spent six hours alternating between Sim 4 and Jedi 3 which was fine even though I never actually made it to photocell because I kept getting bumped for my break. I felt so tired for some reason, even though I didn't have *that* late a night the night before... this meant I spent most of my breaks lying on the sofa in the break room, prompting Jose to decide I looked like Kate Winslet in Titanic when she is sketched by Leonardo DiCaprio... with one major difference - I was dressed. LOL. I even got a makeshift name tag of 'Titanic Girl' until it had to be removed when I went back onstage... amusing.

Unfortunately the inevitable hit me at about 5.30pm when I got the Yoda rotation... and couldn't escape. By a horrible twist of fate it meant I ended up on Unload THREE times in FOUR hours... horrendus. The main reason (apart from the music, ugh!) I hate Unload is because it makes you think. It's so boring and there is so little to engage with apart from when the guests come out of the sims that you end up in a wierd state of meditation during which I tend to end up thinking about home, missing people etc etc. And especially after starting the day in a bad mood, it meant I kept thinking about why I was feeling pissed off. So that was NOT great.

Eventually, the shift ended. And I had to close Unload. Then do lost and found which was typically rubbish. We have to go to Muppets 3D to pick up their lost and found as well which is irritating because they never take ours, ever. I know the reason we do it is because their last show might not finish until 10.15pm whereas we always finish at 10pm but it's still stupid and annoying. So, did the lost and found and eventually got the bus. Randomly ended the evening eating a crapload of Dominos Pizza with Nick until we were stuffed and watching Little Britain clips on YouTube which significantly cheered me up. :D

Then onto today and all I've done since being picked up by my parents is go to the Florida Mall where I did some proper retail therapy (and it felt GOOOOD!) spending around $110 on a pair of headphones, 2 tops, 2 pairs of heels, 2 pairs of jeans and a hairband. Not bad! Now just chilling out at the villa before we head to Epcot later to eat in Italy and see Illuminations providing there is no massive thunderstorm like we (finally!) had yesterday!