Monday, March 21, 2011

kitchen sink



Last Wednesday was fun.


My morning started off at Downtown Disney with Annie and Samantha (two lovely girls from CRT). We had a delicious lunch at Earl of Sandwich and then went to see the Justin Bieber movie! (Don't judge....it was AMAZING)
After the movie we had plans to meet up with Abby and Brent (two more lovelies from CRT) and Lisa (honorary CRT lovely <3)
For those of you who don't know, the Kitchen Sink is a massively delicious ice cream creation that you definitely need to share. Eight scoops of ice cream, every topping possible, and an entire can of whipped cream is served to you in a kitchen sink (how fitting). The six of us were able to finish it but were SO full afterwards!!!
Unfortunately, we missed Fantasmic because we were too busy stuffing our faces with ice cream but that is ok because Lisa and I are going to go watch it tomorrow night!!
xoxo,


Natasha

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

typical day in the castle



A few days ago, my wonderful roommate Lisa asked me to do a guest post on her blog about a typical work day for me while here on the college program. As I have mentioned before, we are both in the Full Service Food & Beverage role but our work experiences have been very different so far. Here, I will share what a typical day is like (for me) working in Cinderella's castle and then I will ask if I can borrow Lisa's post too :)


My restaurant is located inside the Magic Kingdom... arguably the most popular park here at the Walt Disney World Resort. Because I don't have a car here, I am one of the (un)lucky that get to ride the "A" bus to work. This bus is always full and, until another bus was added to the schedule, was a nightmare to get on. To ensure that I get to work on time I need to get on the bus approximately an hour and a half before the start of my shift.


As a seater at my location, there are two main shifts that I could work: breakfast/lunch or dinner. I almost always get scheduled dinners, but some CP's at my location get almost all breakfast/lunch shifts so it can vary. My shifts usually start at 2:45PM and end anywhere between 10:15PM and 12:15AM.


After getting off the CP bus, I usually run inside the costuming building to pick up my costume, then catch another bus that takes me backstage. When I am changed into my costume, I go clock in. One of the things that was hard to get used to was that when working the dinner shift, you are assigned to go on your lunch break right away...I have now learned to love that and enjoy the time spent with my coworkers before we all go start in our positions :)


When my break is over, I clock back in and get an assignment. As a seater there are quite a few assignments that I can receive: seater, seater/setter, updater, set-ups, greeter, greeter assist, or podium (I won't go into detail about each of these because I think this post is already getting pretty long!)


In between rounds of seating, I will go down into the break room and fold napkins. In addition to the side work you are assigned at the end of the night (cleaning high chairs/boosters, lost and found, etc.) there needs to be 22 bins of napkins folded and ready for the next day. After that number is reached, you can either clock out or stay and do task work until your scheduled out time.


After clocking out, I go change out of my costume and say a little prayer that I wont have to wait too long for the "A" bus...and that I will get an actual seat :)


Oh! And because I hate doing posts with no pictures....here is a picture of me in front of my work location with a yummy treat :D hahahaha




xoxo,


Natasha


Saturday, March 12, 2011

nom nom nom



About two weeks ago my mom flew out for a couple of days and we took advantage of an awesome cast-only promotion going on with resorts/the Disney Dining Plan. For 2 days we had the regular dining plan which consists of 1 Quick Service meal (QS), 1 Table Service meal (TS), and 1 snack per person, per day. Then, for another 2 days we tried out the Quick Service dining plan which consists of 2 QS meals and 1 snack per day plus a refillable resort mug for each person :)


I was really excited for this trip because: (a) I missed my mom and (b) I had never done the dining plan before and had been wanting to try it forever!


For the first part of our stay we were at the All Star Music resort (since our favorite, Pop Century, was unavailable) and the second half of the stay we were at Pop Century...yayyy!


I'm not going to go into crazy detail about all the delicious food we ate but the highlights were definitely Cape May and Boma! We already knew that we loved Boma but Cape May was a new experience for both of us and we were very pleased!


Here are some pictures from her trip....










Love and miss you madre!


xoxo,


Natasha

Thursday, March 10, 2011

still alive

I promise I am still alive. Life has been crazy lately and I haven't had much time to update. I will work on getting some posts up this week but in the meantime here is a preview of what is to come:

  • New Friends
  • Madre visits and we have our first experience with the DDP :)
  • ESPN the Weekend
  • Trip Home
  • Disney Magic
xoxo,
Natasha


Friday, February 25, 2011

tale as old as time



Disclaimer: This really isn't a tale as old as time.


This past week has been a lot of fun here in DisneyWorld. Since I wrote my last post, Lisa and I worked a PAC shift together (sort of), I picked up my first QSFB shift at Pinocchios Village Hause, Lisa had family in town, and I made some new friends!


The shift at Pinocchios was a lot of fun...I definitely wouldn't want to be in quick service permanently but I enjoyed my experiences as a food/drink filler :) The best part about picking up that shift was that I got to wear a new, CUTE costume! The pictures I took of myself are really awkward soooooo don't judge them k?




After class on Monday I went to Magic Kingdom with Lisa, her sister Jessie, and Katie. It was such a fun day!!! I am so glad that Lisa, Katie and I have so much fun together and it was great to meet Jessie and get to hang out with her too - she is so much fun! (Jessie, if you read this -- COME BACK!!!!)




In other news, I really miss everybody at home. Especially these 2...




xoxo,


Natasha


PS... if ANYBODY knows where you can find a kids XL grey sweatshirt like the one I am wearing in the picture above, LET ME KNOW! Jessie wanted one and they looked everrrryyywwwhhhheeerrreeee.






Sunday, February 20, 2011

voluntEAR


Since my first day here I have really been looking forward to being able to volunteer at the Give Kids the World Village, a retreat area for families of children with life threatening illnesses. For DCP participants, there are scheduled volunteer opportunities every Sunday and Wednesday nights. I usually work nights but last Wednesday I worked in the morning so I was finally able to go!

Lisa and I signed up together and were both really excited to go! We met at the Commons and after a little bit of a mix up (the housing team thought we wanted to sign up for the next Wednesday) we were in the van and on our way in our snazzy new t-shirts.

Like our Mickey "gang" sign?!

Wednesday nights at the Village are "Kid's Night Out", a night where parents and children can get a break from each other and the children are paired with mentors to play and eat all night :) At first, there were more volunteers than there were children so Lisa and I helped set up dinner in the Gingerbread House. On our way back to meet with the rest of the group, we found another family who had children interested in joining us so we were paired with some children and officially had buddies!!

The night was amazing. The services that they provide at Give Kids the World are wonderful and I was so happy to be a part of that team for the night. Unfortunately, for the next two weeks I work at night on Sundays and Wednesdays but I am planning on going through their orientation program so that I can volunteer on a more regular basis on days that I have off.

If being here on the program has taught me anything so far it is that my career needs to be in a field that allows me to provide experiences and services to families that will make a difference in their lives and create long-lasting memories that they will cherish.

xoxo,

Natasha

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

park day



So obviously a big perk of working at Walt Disney World is getting into the parks for free and since I have been here I have definitely been taking advantage of it :)


I didn't realize until now that I haven't really blogged about my park excursions. So I'm going to change that now!! Today I went to Magic Kingdom with Lisa and Katie. It is very rare that so many of us are home at the same time so it was great to hang out together!!


The three of us are on a mission to do every attraction, show, etc while we are down here so we did some of the things that we haven't crossed off our list yet liiiikeeeeee Hall of Presidents, Swiss Family Robinson Tree House, and Snow White's Scary Adventure.


We also got to go inside the castle and then took a picture with Peter Pan!


After we were done at the Magic Kingdom we went to the Polynesian for dole whips and they were OUT! nooooo bueno.


Unfortunately, our adventure had to come to an end....Lisa went to work and Katie and I went home.


It was a fun night in the apartment too :)


xoxo,


Natasha