Valentine’s Day

I am in awe of what Disney does when it comes to creating friendships. This program establishes connections beyond eating together at a restaurant or seeing one another at a party. Today, I saw the emotions that Disney world evokes create bonds unlike any other.
It all started when I went to Magic Kingdom this morning on three hours of sleep and a lot of coffee. I’ve always treated Main Street like an obstacle that my dad and I get around so that we can get to a good ride, but today we stopped and took pictures, sipped our coffee and watched the trolley show. I’ve never been one to meet the characters but I ended up meeting almost every single princess with my friend Travis. We even met the evil stepsisters (the Tremaines) and Gaston. Anastasia Tremaine and I really bonded and Gaston was quite the hunk.

We made friends in the line to meet Gaston. They’re also in the program and we ended up hanging out with them for the rest of the afternoon. We watched the Festival of Fantasy parade. I’ve honestly never seen it before today and I loved it. I’ve never really been into the entertainment side of Disney, my family and I would just come here to ride the rides and eat at the insanely themed restaurants. Customer service was always a huge deal to us as well. For example, one time Brian (my brother) said “I like to come here because the food is good and everybody’s nice to you.” That’s pretty much the first thought I had when I decided I wanted to come here. I really got to see a different side today and I think it made me appreciate being here a little more.

what a weekend!!

I’m just now posting about this on Wednesday, but wow I had the best weekend ever! My dad came up on Friday and we stayed at the Contemporary Resort.

We woke up bright and early Saturday morning to catch the Magic Kingdom opening show and entered the park at opening! We went straight to the back and were able to ride the Seven Dwarf Mine Train twice in a row! (the wait time for this ride gets up to about 200 minutes on Saturdays). The first time we were in the front. HEIGH HOOOO.

We left MK around 1 to check out of the Contemporary and into the Boardwalk, one of my favorite resorts. Upon our arrival at the Boardwalk, a cast member informed us that we had been upgraded to Club Level and a Cottage Suite. This was completely out of the blue and we were so excited and grateful that they did this for us- they really didn’t have to! Club level is like a room that you get access too that has free food and drinks all day from 7am till 10pm. We stayed in Club Level at the Beach club resort back in December, so we were really excited to get to experience it again!!

The cottage suite was so nice and I’m honestly still in awe that they just gave it to us. It was a really great way to keep the magic.
Sunday morning, we went to Disney’s Hollywood studios, first thing in the morning with a couple of my roommates! We rode some really great rides but my favorite part of the day was our snack break! Tess and I split a candied apple while Chandler and my dad had chocolate covered strawberries! So yum!

After we had those yummy treats, we watched the Beauty and The Beast musical show and then headed back to the Boardwalk for a nap!
That evening we headed over to Magic Kingdom with Tess and Chandler.

We rode a few rides and got to go dance around at a party with the Incredibles. It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever experienced. It was awesome for our age also because they play the music from our age group like *Nsync and Backstreet boys along with today’s music like Uptown funk and others. It’s absolutely hilarious and such a good time because you’re just dancing around with the Incredibles and they want you to take selfies with them and stuff. Frozone was my favorite. “WHERES MY SUPER SUIT”

After dancing around, we had reservations at Be Our Guest, one of the most detailed and beautiful restaurants in all of Disney World. Our server gave us the grey stuff for free because I was in the college program! 🎶”Try the grey stuff it’s delicious, don’t believe me ask the dishes!” 🎶
The next morning my dad and I went to EPCOT and it became a torrential downpour. We didn’t mind at all! We still had a blast shopping and looking around inside. After a late lunch, my dad headed to he airport and I went back home to my apartment. It’s always hard to say goodbye to him but I’m so happy with the weekend that we had!!

thanks for reading,
xoxo,
Geezy

Feb 5th Update

I haven’t posted on here in about a week 😁. I’ve been super busy. Last Friday, I attended Traditions and became an official Cast Member of the Walt Disney Company!

Following traditions, I had the whole weekend off! So, on Saturday, me and a few of my roommates went to Magic Kingdom. As we walked in, a parade was finishing so it was pretty good timing!

I really didn’t do much Sunday-Tuesday except training at Disney University. But last night we went to Disney’s Hollywood Studios to watch Fantasmic after I got off of work!

Following Fantasmic, we drove to the boardwalk for ice cream and then walked over to EPCOT for Illuminations (my favorite show). I don’t have any pictures from that because my phone died, but I’ll be watching it a lot this semester so I’m sure I’ll end up putting pictures up of it. After illuminations, we drove to downtown disney and went shopping at World of Disney, the #1 largest Disney store in the world. I bought this wonderful t shirt.

Today, I don’t have work till 3 so I’m resting up from yesterday and for this weekend because MY DAD’S COMING TOMORROW!!!

love you all,
geezy

“Resort Hopping”

I don’t have my main gate pass yet (ticket for the parks) so today I went resort hopping with two of my six roommates, Anna and Miranda.

Miranda(brown hair) is from Louisiana. She goes to the University of Louisiana Lafayette! Anna is from Venice, Italy, but attends college in New York, about 6 hours from the city.

Grand Floridian

Resort hopping is just going from resort to resort, hanging around the grounds, checking out the docks and shopping in their shops. We started at the Contemporary resort and rode the monorail to the Polynesian and Grand Floridian Resorts. From the Grand Floridian, we rode a boat to the Magic Kingdom and then the monorail to the Contemporary to have dinner. We were on the boat at the perfect time because the sun was setting. It was a beautiful day to be at the resorts.

Thanks for reading,
love and miss you all,
Geezy

Playin around

Some pictures from the Animal Kingdom Lodge, where we ate dinner

Photos from move in

Check-in Day!!!!

After months of waiting and anticipating this day, I finally checked in to the Disney College Program! I had a 7:45 am check-in time, which I believe was one of the first groups because the line was really short when I got there. The process of checking in was super easy and organized. Disney really has this program controlled like a well oiled machine. I’m working in Downtown Disney(DTD) Marketplace parking and living in Patterson court! I had never been to DTD before so I’m really excited to learn more about it! The cast members(employees) that checked me in told me about how they’re transforming DTD right now into a super nice “water-town” like area (picture San Antonio river walk on steroids mixed with Seaside, Florida).  Patterson Court is the newest of all of Disney’s living properties. I’m PUMPED that I got placed there because the rooms were super clean and the grounds are really pretty!!

After check-in, moving in, and getting drug tested, we napped for like two hours. This evening, we had dinner at Boma in the Animal Kingdom lodge. It was really nice and delicious! After dinner, we headed over to downtown Disney to check out where I’ll be working for the next few months. It was an awesome downtown area and really fun to see for the first time. My favorite place in all of Disney property is the Yacht and Beach club resort. We went to those resorts when we left DTD. We just walked around them for a while then watched EPCOT’s firework show, “Illuminations”. It was great to watch this with my dad before he leaves tomorrow because it’s our favorite firework show in Disney.

All in all, it was a very busy, fun, and tiring day!

Thank you for reading this, I love you all! (working on getting pics on here lol)

Geezy

Post 1: Three days till departure

In three days, I am leaving for Orlando, Florida as I begin my semester as a participant in the Disney College Program. I thought I would start this blog to keep all of my family and friends updated while I’m away and to provide any sort of guidance I can for College program hopefuls.

From the day I applied to this program, I have been asked about a million questions about it. I figured I would make this post to start my blog and to answer the questions that I have been asked over and over. A lot of these answers will probably bore half of y’all to death so you really don’t have to read them.

How did you hear about this program? My Dad and I have been going to Disney World for years and I’ve always loved everything about it; the weather, the joy, the customer service, and the bond it created between my dad and I. When my dad and I went for my senior year of high school, a cast member(disney employee) told me about the program and I knew I had to do it.

How did you get this opportunity? I applied this past fall (actually on the date that applications came out). Following the initial application, I was sent a link for a web interview. The web interview was basically a survey and they like your answers to it, Disney will give you the chance for a phone interview. I had my phone interview 5 days after applying and was accepted in early October. It’s rumored that only 3% of applicants are accepted, but in all honesty, I have no idea how their recruiting process works on the inside.

So, what exactly are you going to be doing? Ah, good question! The funny part is I don’t really know the specifics of my job at all and I won’t be finding out until check in day. The job that I was accepted for is titled Main Entrance Operations. Under that on my acceptance letter, there was a paragraph that said I could be checking tickets, selling tickets, a park greeter, working parade control, an usher in downtown Disney, or working parking at any park. I’m going in with an open mind and I will be happy working at any park in any position. I’m just happy I’m not working in food.

Are you still a student? Yes, I’m still a full time student at OU and I will be receiving six hours of internship credit from the internship program through the Colleges of Arts and Sciences.

Are you in California or Florida? lol r u joking :’)

I promise my next post will be a lot less technical and hopefully a little bit more interesting.

Thanks for reading,

Geezy