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!