Disney
ICP & CRP
Blog

December, 2012

Welcome to the Blog Archive.
Posts are listed in reverse order. 2 posts are displayed per page. Use the page navigation to browse older posts.

31st Dec 2012

All Good Things Come To An End

IMG_3841

It is almost the end of 2012. Tomorrow I am working a 15 hour stocking shift on the busiest day of the year. I am very excited although I am sure it is going to be a fairly crazy night. They are already predicting that it will take over 2 hours to get out of Epcot and back to housing. I am back in work at 11am the next morning as well which should make for very little sleep.

380719_10151215916708005_779777029_nThe last few weeks have been pretty crazy as well. I have been working a lot of hours since the park has been pretty busy with the coming of Christmas and the holiday season. Before Christmas I went on one of the Epcot Segway Tours which was a lot of fun. You spend the first hour or so training and get a free breakfast at Sunshine Seasons before heading out to World Showcase to tour each of the Pavilions. It took some getting the hang of but once you learnt how to travel around it was really fun. It cost just over $50 for us which was really reasonable, I am not sure I would have paid the full price though.

I worked as stocker Christmas Day which was pretty stressful as it got quite busy as they day went on and everyone was in a strange mood with a lot of people feeling very homesick. Guests were also in a pretty bad mood which just made for a fairly unpleasant day for everyone.

IMG_3833This week also saw the end of David Sergison’s program, Dave has been a big part of my program and I am fairly sure there were weeks of my program where I spent more time at his apartment than my own. His last day of work ended with drinks in the Rose & Crown followed by fireworks at the Magic Kingdom. It made me think how little time I have left on my own program – it is really only 10 weeks until I leave now! I have already had to start thinking about what is happening in 2013 AD – After Disney.

This week I finally had 2 days off for the first time in about a month. The second day was spent with Kristen. We started in Hollywood Studios which was incredibly crowded, we left after about 2 hours and tried to get Kel to take us to IHOP for lunch. It took him over an hour to get to us through the horrific holiday traffic but when we finally got to IHOP we had some of the best service I have ever had. Our server, Heather, was lovely and amazingly attentive. In the end we all tipped her almost 50% – she deserved it! In the evening I went to see Dave for one last time to say goodbye – it was sad but I know I will see him again in the not too distant future. That night we also went tt Bahama Breeze for 3 of the girls birthdays, having already eaten 3 meals I was not very hungry but it was nice to drink and spend time with everyone – especially around Christmas.

Since then I have basically just been working – 28 hours out of the last 48 have been spent at work. Today was the busiest I have ever seen Chippy, we did not stop filling orders at full speed for almost my entire shift. I can;t wait for January now when we can finally get a well deserved break – just the craziest day of the year to go first.

See you on the other side – Happy New Year!

Scroll Down for another archive post after the break

Enjoy this post? Click Like to share it with your Facebook Friends

20th Dec 2012

Hoop Dee Doo

Hoop Dee Doo

The highlight of the past week was visiting the Hoop Dee Doo Revue at Fort Wilderness. Hoop is a dinner show which has been running since Walt Disney World opened and the price includes all-you-can-eat Chicken, pork ribs and sides as well as all-you-can-drink Wine, Beer and Sangria.

I originally made a reservation for 40 people but after any of the servers started being scheduled to work 6 days a week we ended up with just 20 of us. With our 50% discount on the late show it came to $36 per person which was really quite reasonable even with $7 on top for a taxi there and back.

Before the show PhotoPass take a group photo of everyone in your party which they late bring to the table for purchase. Ours is the photo above although we did not actually buy the picture (they took an extra on my camera), even with our 40% holiday discount.

Many of the Cast Members who work at Hoop have worked for Disney for decades. Our server Barbara was no exception, sadly however she did not provide the amazing service we have all come to expect from Disney. I never received the Diet Coke I ordered despite asking quite a few times and there were general complaints from the group as a whole about the very slow drink service meaning all of us got very little of the all-you-can-drink offering.

The food, including my vegetarian Pasta alternative, was really good and certainly filled me up.  The show is a massive cliche but it does have its funny moments, Becky and Luke being announced as recently engaged was certainly a highlight of the show on the evening we visited. Especially since Becky was trying to get them to announce Dave and Craig as the recently engaged couple!

Despite all of that it was a fun night and the finale where Andy ended up on stage dressed as an American Indian will be a memory I will have for a long time to come!

I will definitely be trying Hoop again in the hope of getting better service, perhaps in a smaller group though as I fell the size of our group may have been the overwhelming factor in the service we received. Next on my list though is Spirit of Aloha at the Polynesian and Victoria & Albert’s at the Grand Floridian which I cheekily made a reservation for the day of my Birthday last night despite having no clue at the moment how I would manage the $200 per head check even if it does provide 7 custom designed courses of some of the best food Disney have to offer.

Enjoy this post? Click Like to share it with your Facebook Friends