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January, 2013

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23rd Jan 2013

Welcome to January…

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Everything about working at Disney in December was insane, everything in January has been the complete opposite. I am finally back to working 5 days a week, I am rarely working more than 8 hours in a day and I just about work 35 hours a week. All in all life is good right now and I am having plenty of time to get stuff done.

It has been a while since my last proper post so this post covers about 3 weeks or so. After NYE we were busy until the next weekend when people finally started going home and things began to calm down. That weekend the AMs began and Saturday night I went to Ale House for a few drinks with the latest arrival group and Sunday was HOB which turned out to be really quite messy!

That Thursday I had booked a large group reservation for Crystal Palace – it was originally going to be for 30 but once people had gone out to HOB and Blue Martini the night before it dropped down to 17. It was a really fun morning and I got to meet Winnie the Pooh and friends and enjoy a ridiculous amount of food – who doesn’t love a buffet! The day was mostly spent at MK before heading to City Walk in the evening for Hard Rock for Joey’s Birthday.

Unusually for me I was then out every night for the next few with Cowboys on Saturday and 2 consecutive nights at Ale House for food and drinks and of course Lads on Monday. Work for all of those days was boring since there were very few guests and we have so many people on Podium at the moment that there are about 9 seaters at the peak of the day which means a great deal of time is spent standing around. I spent a few days where I mostly just wandered the street handing out stickers and chatting to guests – great fun!

The next Saturday a group of us went to Splitsville, the new Bowling Alley at Downtown Disney. I discovered I am really not very good at bowling… I lost by a considerable margin but the company was awesome and the drinks, while pricey are pretty good when you take in to account the 20% Disney discount. I really want to go back earlier in the day when they do their full menu – after midnight it is Pizza only and at $15 for a pizza I didn’t feel like trying it on a whim.

Sunday was the official return of after work Maccies which was a good preparation for the activities of the next day. I have been here for 10 months now and been going to Lads for 9 months or so, I have had a few opportunities to get my shirt but I have always turned it down but this week Leon came to me and told me I would have a chance this week if I wanted it. Without a shirt I cannot have a proper last and so I decided to go for it. There was much trepidation on Sunday and Monday as those of us who were taking part were discussing the rumours we had heard but Monday night came and we went to our Picnic with our heads held high ready to do whatever we had to. Suffice it to say it is a pretty difficult couple of hours where but we all got through – next monday there will be 8 new shirted UK Lads. The team work was awesome and the feeling when we finished it was incredible. I can’t wait for Monday now.

Tuesday I worked an AM and was not feeling at my best for obvious reasons but when I got home I had a relaxing few hours before heading over to Jessie’s to watch Tangled on DVD and chill out with some tea. Just what I needed after the previous 24 hours of stress.

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3rd Jan 2013

New Years Eve 2012 at Epcot

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December 31st is the busiest day of the year at all of the Walt Disney World theme parks. On NYE every single member of podium was scheduled to work at least 12 hours – I was scheduled 15. I was working as a stocker in the bar.

If you ask all of the podium cast members most of them will tell you NYE was one of the best shifts they have worked so far in their program. While it is insanely busy the atmosphere out in the street is incredible and because it is so busy everyone pulls together to make one great team. My experience unfortunately was not quite so fun, I was working on my own stocking which meant I did not really leave the backstage areas of the Rose & Crown and had minimal interaction with any guests. It was a pretty stressful evening, at the busiest time I had to get 12 full kegs from across the street to restock what we had used and the round-trip took almost 35 minutes, putting me very behind on stocking other things in the bar. If I am honest it was a big disappointment for me, I had been looking forward to New Year for my whole program but it did not really live up to the hype.

The fireworks however were amazing and getting to watch them with the whole pavilion was amazing. After 4 hours sleep I was back in the next morning on triple time thanks to Holiday Pay and Double time for not having 8 hours between shifts. I came home that night and fell straight asleep for 10 hours before waking up still tired! I am still recovering from such an epic shift.

I have had a lovely couple of days off and I’m looking forward to putting my NYE experience behind me to enjoy the last 10 weeks or so of my program.

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