10 Days Straight!

So far this has been my longest stretch without having touched base with you lovely lot. As the title of this post suggests, I've only recently completed a ten day stretch of days at work. It happened to be that way because of the way my days off fell whilst my schedule begins to settle in. 

So the day after my last post, I had my last day off before the 10 day stretch. I chose to head to Animal Kingdom this day after having picked up my Main Entrance Passes from the offices in Celebration. 

Main Entrance Passes are the tickets that we and our guests may use to enter the parks. It just so happens that they weren't able to send out our Main Entrance Passes on account of us not changing our address to a 'mailing address' soon enough. So just a hop, skip and a jump over to the tallest building in Celebration and to the eighth floor, then bish, bash, bosh! We were in business! 

I did try to vlog the part of the day at Animal Kingdom but both of my camera batteries were almost dead. I did get a bit of footage which I may try and spin into a vlog on my main channel. 

Whilst at Animal Kingdom I popped into the new Nomad lounge after picking up a Tables in Wonderland card. I spoke about the possibility of getting a Tables in Wonderland card before I arrived in a blog post, so for more info on what it is, you can check out that post here. I had the Leaping Lizard and by-golly it was super delicious! 

After that adventure in Animal Kingdom, I had a date would you believe?! I haven't been on a date in about... three years. So whilst I'm not going to go into all the details of the evening, I'll just say that I had a lovely meal at Sanaa with great company. 

Then began the working days. What with my current seniority status in the front of house, my shifts tend to be open to close at the moment. It's not all the time, but mostly. The longer you're here on the program, the nicer your shifts become as you move up the list of seniority. 

On the way to work on Friday 7th April, there was a bush fire ablaze not too far from housing! Apparently it's pretty routine in Florida for them to do a controlled bush fire in an effort to avoid any un-planned combustion of the woodlands over summer. 

Also on the 7th I booked the last few details of my trip to California this July! I've had my time off at work confirmed and so booked my flight and airport transfers to Anaheim for the D23 convention! I am so excited for this trip you have no idea! 

Booking time off is so much easier this time round. You go on the Hub (Disney's intranet) and simply request the dates on a calendar. Immediately it will tell you if you've had the time approved or whether you're on a waitlist... and if you are on a waitlist, how many people are in front of you. 

It used to be that you had to send a request for time off and then have a nerve wracking couple of days until you heard back from the scheduling team as to whether your time off had been approved, denied or waitlisted. If time off is waitlisted, it's approval depends on if someone cancels their time off or if there's availability for you to also have the time off at the time of the schedule posting. You basically don't find out until the schedule comes out whether it was successful if it's waitlisted. 

On the 9th of April I didn't start until about 2pm. I took this opportunity to try the Hot Pockets I bought in my first trip to Publix. To say the expectation and the reality of this dining experience was somewhat different is the understatement of the century! 

On the evening of April 10th, I had the luxury of finishing early at about 3:30pm. On this day I had the pleasure of conducting the welcome day alongside the UK Food & Beverage proprietor (sort of like an area manager). The welcome day is the day in which the new arrivals get to experience a tour of the area, an overview of our procedures, some e-learning and they get to try on their costume for the first time. 

It was a really enjoyable day for me welcoming the new arrivals but in the evening, it was especially enjoyable when Ashley, Hope and I got dressed up for an evening meal at Citricos in the Grand Floridian! One of my all time favourite Disney restaurants. 

Luckily for us, there's 40% off for cast members right now at Citricos! The meal itself was fantastic. I was most looking forward to the arancini starter, since that's the course I remember enjoying so much the last time I visited. However, this time round, dessert stole the show with a gorgeous tiramisu!  

​Our server was so incredible! So much so that I asked one of her colleagues to pass my compliments onto the management. After concluding our meal, we decided to take a stroll from the Grand Floridian to the Polynesian Village resort. Along the way we got the pleasure of enjoying Wishes from the beach and then settled into the terrace bar at the Poly for a Spikey Pineapple cocktail. Basically it's alcoholic Dole Whip and it's very dangerous since it just takes like Dole Whip! 

Then just more work, work & work! Work is enjoyable and I like being in a guest facing role again instead of just stuck behind a desk. It's tricky working with so many people which each have such different personalities though. However, for the most part everyone's friendly and good at their job. I think the hardest thing for me at the moment is my meals. 

As shifts chop and change and then most nights I won't be home before 10pm, it's tricky to get onto a good meal routine. That includes finding the time to shop and cook a decent meal. Only a couple of days ago did I manage to do my second big publix shop since arriving! It was so big in fact, that I had to take an Uber back to housing. My mother however will be pleased to know that I have stocked shelves and protein in the freezer. 

Wednesday April 12th was our throw-in! Now after writing about regretting not going to my throw-in on my last program, there was no way I was backing out of this one. A few of us opted for an Uber over the group taxi van that is normally custom on a group night out. Just as those of us in the Uber are not too comfortable with tight spaces/lots of people in one van. It worked out nicely actually as we were running earlier than everyone else, so decided to get McDonalds before meeting the others at Murphy's Irish Bar. 

It was a very chilled out evening actually. No scary trials or anything, just a quiz night like atmosphere where-by we got to introduce ourselves and everyone joined-in in playing some games to get to know one another and those in the UK Pavilion. 

Thursday April 13th was my arrival group's one month anniversary! As most of us were scheduled to work, we opted for a breakfast celebration. We met at the Yacht Club's Captain's Grille for what I would call, the best buffet breakfast on property! The variety was spectacular and the food was top notched (plus it's a 40% discount location at the moment!). I had smoked salmon alongside egg white, spinach and tomato cakes. I felt oh so very fancy... until the Mickey Waffles plate of course. 

After breakfast, those of us that didn't start for a bit or had the day off, had a little wonder around the World Showcase. We managed to ride Frozen Ever After and have a little look around the Seas before Ashley and I had to leave the group for work. 

The last two days of my ten day stretch were the most difficult. Since we didn't get back until late after the throw-in on Wednesday, then had to be up early for our breakfast, my body clock was out of it come day 10! Both days I was lagging so much that I had to request an early release (ER). An early release in UK Food and Beverage is where you may request to leave early should the location have too many people in that day or the coordinators have the ability to send someone home after the breaks have complete. Lucky for me, on both days I got an ER! Granted, they weren't used for anything special. The first enabled me to do my washing and the second enabled me to do the aforementioned Publix shop. 

Friday the 14th was my day of freedom. And how did I choose to spend it? Filming a vlog of course! In all fairness, I slept until nearly midday, then stumbled over to Disney Springs before going to the cinema and meeting my friend Josh for dinner in Magic Kingdom. You can watch the vlog of Friday below! 

After that one day off it was back to work on Saturday for one day before another day off on Sunday. Saturday was probably my hardest day at work. I was stocking in the afternoon and I was run off my feet! From about 5pm when I picked up the role until close at 9pm, I was busier than ever. After that day, I was dead to the world.

On Sunday, Hope and I planned an afternoon in Magic Kingdom, mainly to ride Space Mountain since neither of us had been able to ride it since arriving. I also vlogged this day so I won't give too much away before the vlog goes live, but I got my hair cut at the Grand Floridian which was divine, met Hope for our afternoon in Magic Kingdom then called it a day about 6pm as a result of being so exhausted from the day before. 

Now we come to today! This morning was an early start for the Train the Trainer class in which I became a Disney Trainer! This means that I can train and sign-off new cast members in training shifts. The class itself doesn't have all that much to it in my opinion but our facilitator Nancee was cracking us right up! Just what you need on a Monday morning to make you somewhat conscious. That class was followed by a short shift at work and then it was out the door at 4pm. 

I met my friend Claire at Disney Springs for a meal at Art Smith's Homecomin' where I got to try the infamous Fried Chicken with Donuts. Don't worry... it lives up to the hype! 

After that, I just retreated back to my apartment in an effort to write this post for y'all and get an early night in ready for another early start tomorrow when I get to go on a backstage tour of Fantasmic! AHH! So exciting! ​

Until next time... Have a magical day!
​Adam