Saturday 14 April 2012

No One's Gloomy or Complaining While the Flatware's Entertaining

Thursday, my Saturday, started poolside as lovely days often do. Yes, I was very sun-safe, thank you. 
In the afternoon Corin and I headed to Hollywood Studios for random fun. We almost walked into the Pixar Pals Countdown to Fun Parade. Luckily, there are Cast Members who make sure you don't walk into parades. After checking the wait time for Toy Story Mania (70 minutes!), we accepted the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular as consolation. Then we walked by Jedi Training Academy, as I have never wanted to be younger than 12 more in my entire life (I wil befriend you, JTA Cast Members!), and straight to Muppet Vision 3D, which had a fantastic wait time of 5 minutes.

Remy in the Pixar Pals Parade
Dug and Russell
No Kevin, sadly.
Lotso.
Funny story. The Lotso topiary apparently smells of strawberries.
Also, little kids carrying Lotsos encourage Cast Members to smell them.
Weird?
Then it was time for our Fast Passes to Star Tours (and walking by another round of JTA), and I nearly collided with a Storm Trooper. Okay, the re-imagined Star Tours is freaking amazing. I'll be doing that ride as often as possible for the duration of my program. I know a girl (Jen, who hosts games) who's done it some fifty times. I'm going to do that! We then were able to catch the last Studio Backlot Tour of the day, in which a few key things had changed since my visit in 2006 (the chicken coop for Hannah Montana: The Movie is there now!!!!). 

Aforementioned awesome chicken coop.
On our way to food at Rosie's All American Cafe (they most put something in the chicken fingers here), we caught Beauty and the Beast - Live On Stage. 
That evening, I experienced a marvelous thing called Fork & Screen for the first time with two fellow Canadians. It's a movie theatre in which order dinner and the food is brought to you while you watch the movie. There are little tables with lights to summon the servers and everything. Amazing. AMAZING. Oh, we saw Mirror Mirror. Also amazing. I was way overstimulated on Thursday. 

Corin and I at Hollywood Studios'  icon,
the Sorcerer's Apprentice Mickey Ears

I committed my Friday to cleaning the kitchen. I don't know if you all know that I have an absentee roommate (ie I haven't met her yet). That's the awesome part. What's not awesome is that I felt compelled to clean out her cupboard, which was attracting Floridian wildlife. Not anymore! Go Canadian cleaning power! I went to the outlet malls close to the Commons later and someone had had the terrible idea of introducing some kind of Food and Wine Festival to an outdoor mall. NO! I just want to shop. No, I haven't grown more tolerant of large herds of people yet.

Today was another lovely day of magic-making, but in the evening swarms of fancily dressed teenagers starting coming past Canada, obviously headed to World Showplace. For Prom. PROM. Who gets to have their prom at Epcot? Uuuuhhhh jealous. 

TTFN,

Note: I might be addicted to Steak 'n Shake. Evidence:

Briana (from BC) and I at Steak 'n Shake.
Why you gotta be so wonderful, Steak 'n Shake?!
Thanks to: Fork & Screen for existing. Jen for introducing me to it. 

Tuesday 10 April 2012

Plenty of Sunshine Heading my Way

Spring is in the air in Orlando! Spring and a whole bunch of bugs.

My Saturday started early by the pool (early means 10:00 now) with Amanda, a fellow Canadian, to safely work on our tans. About ten minutes in, we heard these really strange and loud bird calls and I couldn't figure out where the birds were. It turns out, housing has a recording of ducks playing every so often around the pool area so the ducks don't land in the water. Five minutes later:

Fail.
On Easter Sunday I had traded for an opening shift (to be more accurate, someone else had traded for a closing shift), which means I started at 11. Anastasia (from Ottawa) and I had started off the day early with Easter breakfast at Steak & Shake. Yes, they have breakfast. Yes, it's amazing. Then we headed to work and were ridiculously early, so we wandered our way to Bambi's Butterfly House in the Future World section of Epcot. It's a big greenhouse full of flowers and butterflies, and was an extremely girly way to spend Easter morning.

In front on Bambi's butterfly house.
Two seconds later, there was a butterfly on that butterfly topiary. 
Bambi, Thumper and Flower in the Butterfly House.
No, I do not in fact know what's wrong with Thumper. 

Once we returned to be lumberjacks, all the Canadians received a message saying 'Opening meeting in France'. So I met the UKers, the other Canadians and the managers and coordinators behind the UK and we were all herded to France, which was still closed to the public, and we had to go onstage through the UK to get there. We were greeted with an Easter egg hunt in the gardens of France, in which all the merchandise Cast Members from Canada, the UK and France ran around France like idiots searching out plastic eggs. Horticulture was not amused. Once we headed back to Canada (I was stopped three separate times to answer questions...people, I am a lumberjack, I do not belong in France!), we were rewarded with yet another Cast Member Easter egg hunt! This time, it was pictures of Thumper emerging from an Easter egg hidden in various Cast accessible areas. When we found the eggs, we called a manager and were rewarded with more candy. Not to mention the individual bags of candy on our backstage bulletin board. And the huge basket in the back room. And the huge basket in the break trailer. Yeah.

I also found a real life bunny. Probably the Easter bunny.
Again, horticulture is not amused. 

Tonight is my first time working Extra Magic Hours. The parks either open early or close late for Disney Resort guests, and they can shop or ride or eat until midnight tonight. And I'll be there.

TTFN

Note: Last night, I finally watched Brother Bear, which is supposed to be set in Canada. Can anyone tell me whether Homo sapiens and Wooly Mammoths existed at the same time?

Thanks to: Extra Magic Hours guests in advance for not wanting an engraved bracelet after 11:30 tonight. Mmmk?