1/11/2019-1/16/2019
The Journey Begins…
My family has never really gone on road trips, so this was a first for me! We had to drive straight through as much as we could, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t make a couple of stops along the way. Friday we made it all the way from Wichita Falls, Texas, to Jackson, Mississippi. We stopped in Shreveport for some amazing food, and I can check Louisiana and Mississippi off of my list of states I’ve never visited. It was a long day, but it was a lot of fun with my mom. She drove all the way to Shreveport, and then I drove to Jackson, where we stayed the night.
Saturday was a solid day. It started with waffles (honestly my favorite breakfast food) in the hotel, and then we drove all the way from Mississippi to Orlando! We drove right through Alabama (it doesn’t count towards my state list since we didn’t get out of the car), and then we FINALLY made it to Florida. Little did I realize, it would take us just as much time to get through Florida as it did to get out of Texas. I got a SunPass, my first souvenir, and with that, I didn’t have to worry about any of the tolls going through Orlando. The road-trip portion of our trip was over, and I realized that I actually kind of enjoyed it. Maybe I am cut out for road trips after all?
Sunday was probably the hardest day so far. Mostly because I had to drop mom off at the airport. Physically it was easy, but it was really sad. The good news is that Sarah and her dad got to Orlando at 4 pm that day! We went to dinner at Splitsville in Disney Springs, which was effectively my first time in a Disney resort/anything, and it was really cool! We also visited World of Disney, which is Sarah’s location and has more Disney stuff than I have ever seen in my entire life. I’ll definitely be going back after I get my cast ID. I’m also interested in a career in building giant Lego characters for Legoland. They were absolutely amazing.
Move-In Day was Monday, and that was interesting. My move-in time was 10:30 am, and I was lucky enough to be in a hotel that was only 10 minutes away. As if that wasn’t a good enough start to the day, we were blessed with the best housing options we could ask for. I get to room with Sarah (again), in our first choice of housing complex (Chatham Square), in a first-floor apartment that is right next to the laundry and the dumpsters. For people who don’t know about Disney Housing, most of the complexes don’t have washers and dryers in each unit and you have to take your trash to dumpsters (typically whichever is close to you), so our apartment is in a very good location as far as getting laundry done and taking out the trash. Sarah and I are in a 4 bedroom, 8 person, apartment, which also means that our rent is pretty cheap as far as housing goes, at $476 a month. For reference, my rent at my last apartment was $695 a month, so I’m very happy with my current rent price. My roommates are all really cool, and I’m feeling really good about the apartment as a whole. After move-in, Sarah and I went to dinner with some people she’d met at Casting, and then we went back to World of Disney, ate churros, and listened to live music!
On Tuesday I had Casting at 3 pm, so I woke up around 9 am, got ready, and left for that. Luckily for me, it wasn’t as bad as some people had said it would be, I met some cool people at the bus stop, and I actually got through really fast. After that my roommates and I decided to go resort hopping, so we drove to the Grand Floridian. If you’ve never seen the Grand Floridian, I highly recommend it, as it is BEAUTIFUL. There was live music inside, and I got to buy my first pair of ears! After that, we hopped on the monorail to go to the Polynesian, which was really cool in a different way! It wasn’t elegant like the Grand Floridian, but it has a really cool theme and a TON of Lilo and Stitch merchandise. There I bought my first dole whip (which I loved), and a guy literally styled our hair with leis? It was a lot of fun, and it was good to see more Disney since I don’t get my park pass until Saturday. After that, we went to dinner at Waffle House, which I’d also never been to before, and then we came back home and went our separate ways. I knew I had an appointment at 9 am, so I went to bed kinda early, but I still got to watch some Netflix.
Today was an early day. Unfortunately, our fire alarm went off at about 4:30 am, and we still don’t know why. It seemed like it was only our apartments, but nothing was on fire? I was more than a little irritated. Anyway, I had the housing welcome session at 9 am, so I had to get up, get ready and walk to the Commons in time for that. Funny enough, when the lady that was greeting people at the door told me where to sit, it was right next to the guy I sat next to on the bus when I was going to Casting. After that, it was a quiet day, with naps and lots of Netflix, and then at 7 pm, there was the first housing event! It was called Life is the Bubbles, where we got free pizza and we got to meet Sebastian! SO I have officially met my first character, and we got free food. After the event, my roommates and I went home and watched Hercules, so it’s safe to say that this was a really solid day.
The first week of the program is really just a few appointments and hanging out and meeting people, and then next week we will start training after Traditions (essentially Disney orientation). It works out this way because they are waiting for our background checks to come back before we do Traditions, and we get time to bond with our roommates since we’ll be living with them for 4 months! For me, Traditions is Saturday, so I have time to kill between now and then. After that, I have Sunday off and then my training will start on Monday! I will be working at Electric Umbrella in Epcot, and I can’t wait to get started! Disney also offers some educational options, and I entered the lottery for two seminars (we’ll find out if we get into them around January 28), Animal Sciences in February and Communications in March, and I hope to register in other housing events as well as other educational options that come up, like the networking events and Disney Heritage (essentially Disney history), and I would also really like to be a voluntEAR while I’m here. Obviously, I don’t know how all of that is going to work out, but I’m hoping to do weekly updates here so I can let everyone know how I’m doing! If you have Instagram, I have an account dedicated to Disney called @erin_through_the_looking_glass, and it will be up throughout the program and may get updated more often!
The First Draft 
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