I have to say, it is a strange sensation to vacation at the place where you work. But of course, when you work at Disney World, it’s also pretty nifty. My family has all gone home now, but we had a great time. We went to all four parks multiple times, ate tons of great food on the Dining Plan, and even went to Disney Quest, which was fun, but would have been WAY overpriced if four of us hadn’t gotten in free.
Unfortunately, I did have to work two days while they were here. I had my first two days of training for Tomorrowland. They were okay, but basically a repeat of the training for the other two parks. First we had the tour day of Magic Kingdom, and the next day was area training. I had the second day with Kevin and Drew, a couple of guys I worked with at Food and Wine. It was kind of annoying because our trainer kept showing us things and saying, “But you guys probably knew that.” And nine times out of ten we did. The only thing that was really new to me (besides the area, of course) was photo imaging. We will be in charge of selling the photos they take on the rides at Buzz Lightyear and the newly revamped Space Mountain. I’m going to get a full day of imaging training this afternoon, and then I’ll be ready to start working for real.
Speaking of Space Mountain, the ride has been having soft openings for the last few days. A soft opening is when a new or newly revamped ride is open before it’s scheduled to open, but it is in test mode and can be shut down whenever they need to. This keeps them from opening a ride with great fanfare, only to have problems the first day. My family was lucky enough to catch Space Mountain during a soft opening. It’s been several years since I’ve ridden, but from what I can tell, the ride itself is basically the same. The queue has been updated, with a new ceiling over the queue area, and an Asteroids-style shooter game on screens that line the queue walls to keep people entertained while they wait. The ceiling means that you can no longer watch the trains zooming around on the track while you wait, but it does make the ride itself darker. Not many substantial changes, but since I’ve always loved the ride, that works for me!
I took my family to the airport early yesterday morning, so it was a tough day for me. I was really feeling down, but last night my roommates and I got all spiffed up and had dinner at 1900 Park Fare at the Grand Floridian with the characters from Cinderella. It was a really great buffet, and we had a fantastic time together, as always. It was a great way to get back into the swing of regular life, and improved my mood drastically.
I spent part of yesterday afternoon using up all of the meals and snacks that we had left over from our dining plan. I went “grocery shopping” at Wolfgang Puck Express, and ended up with three pizzas, one barbecue quesadilla, an order of rosemary chicken with mashed potatoes, two chocolate chip cookies, two brownies, a creme brulee, four bottled waters, and one coke. That’s $95 dollars worth of food. It is now all in the refrigerator, and boy, will I be eating good this week! I also got canned Cokes, cereal, Nilla wafers, and fruit from the Pop Century food court with our remaining snacks.
Well, it’s time for me to get ready for work, but first I’m going to eat some of the delicious food I just wrote about! I made myself hungry! Maybe some rosemary chicken…hmmm…
The Happiest Internship on Earth 