a quickie

Going back through my old posts, I would like to reference my post from March 4th, where I mentioned the Toy Story soundtrack? Yeah, by the end I was sick of it, but only because there were only FIVE SONGS THEY PLAYED!!! If it had been, oh, an ACTUAL soundtrack, i'm sure it would have been great. But it was only a select few, lol. It's scary to go back and read posts from two months ago, and remember writing them like they were just yesterday. :/
People have indeed been having surprise inspections here lately (we really were thinking they were just myths...) so we had a bout of spring cleaning and the apartment looks really nice.
My friends Jasmine, Tracy and I rode Star Tours three times today at Hollywood Studios, and it was amazing!!!!! The graphics blew me away. And that's all I'll say since the ride isn't technically up until this weekend, so more later. :)
The Fall Advantage kids arrive tomorrow (today) and it's weird.  Fresh faces coming in, so I guess that means I won't be getting any sleep in the beginning from all the parties, lol.  We'll see what happens. I tried to convince my friends that we should get up at 7:15am to serenade them with the Be Prepared Song from the Lion King, but they all looked at me like I was crazy..... :D I remember my night before check in, hanging out with everyone in the Sunspree (Now Holiday Inn Buena Vista. But it'll always be the Sunspree to me). and then waking up suuuper early to get in line at Vista Way.  That was 99 days ago.  My program is halfway done. Sad face.
Did ppl actually like it when I posted my schedule? I'm scheduled for 35 hours this week (oooo!) and picked up two shifts at Hollywood Studios, bringing my total to 42.  This Saturday is one of the opening days for Star Tours and also a day I picked up an opening shift. I can't wait to see how many people show up for it!! It should be awesome. :) Sunday I worked 12 hours total, and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. On the other hand, sometimes I can barely make it through an 8 hour shift, so I don't know why I lucked out Sunday. :) Saturday I have a morning shift, and then i just put in for another one next saturday.  It's not so bad, a quick 4 hour shift before my normal shift at EPCOT, and its' overtime. :) On the other hand, this cold is trying to kill me.... time for sleep!

Photopass Pet Peeves

Okay, making up for lost time here.  So as I've been taking photo's these past three months, I've noticed a few things, and I'm sure this list will grow as I remember ones I haven't written down here.  But here are a couple things worth noting:

• When you come in to greet a character, be excited!! We (the photographers) are expecting to take like 7 pictures of you!  We have the initial reaction (if we can get it), the hug, the interaction between u and the character, the posed shot, and then saying good bye.  Don't just walk in and stand there.
• It's actually kind of hard, but when you get up there, try to hug the character with your face to the camera.  This is harder than it sounds if you're used to hugging on one side of a person, lol.  But you may actually like the picture of you hugging Minnie if you can actually see your face, and not your back.
• If you're with a group, try not to walk in front of us if your friend is hugging Donald.  Man, I have had so many shots not come out because someone walked through to the other side (not your fault, really. You're just trying to get to the other side of Donald). OR WORSE!! If you have a child in your arms, don't stop right in front of them with your back to us. We can't see anything that's going on and may miss that kiss they give them on the nose. :( 
• I don't mind taking a picture with your own camera.  I don't mind taking it with two personal cameras.  Three is pushing it, and really anything over that, you guys can just email the pictures to each other. (this is a personal opinion)
• We're trained to let you take your photo's first with your own camera.  If you have kids, they are automatically going to look at you because you're their parents.  So until you put your camera down, they aren't going to look at me, which means if I take them while you're taking them, they aren't looking at my camera.

picture updates

So I know it's been a while since I updated, but it's been a whirlwind two weeks of activity (and i'm paying for it now, being sick) but it was amazing!!!  First the family came out for their first trip ever to WDW and they stayed at the Boardwalk. I was able to get them a 40% discount and they loved every minute of it out here. The weather cooperated the whole time and only rained the last day. I could have gotten a 50% discount if i had said that I was staying with them, but I came home every night and would have felt bad lying to the company.  Oh well!
The last couple days have been crazy and amazing!! On Wednesday I got to work with Belle and Beast in France alllll day!! They have a weird location, in a small walkway by the lagoon, and are surrounded by wrought iron fences, so it's not exactly easy to move around the back to take pictures of a kid who just wants to stare at Belle, so I don't think my pictures were great but I know i got some good ones. :) Beast is kind of hard because he's so big, he frightens a lot of kids.  Belle however was brilliant!! She was so much fun and totally into her character. I picked up that shift from a co-worker who wanted to get rid of it, but this week I"m assigned two character shifts, Friday with Donald in Mexico!!! This is a shift EVERYONE always wants to work, I think just because it's Donald in a poncho, but it's in the sun all day. Saturday I'm with Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger in the UK and that's indoors!! Woo-hoo! Cause let me tell you, it's freaking hot!!
Umm... Friday and Saturday (the 12th and 13th) were AMAZING because I participated in the D23 Great Disney Scavenger Hunt, which took place in all four parks. We did two parks a day, with MK and EPCOT on day 1, and DAK and DHS on day two. We had 3 hours each for MK, DHS and DAK, while EPCOT had 4 hours because it's so big.  MK was a little hard because since it was our first park, we had no idea what to expect and didn't have a game plan.  There was much running back and forth and not much progress. EPCOT I finally got a system down and we did really good there. It helped that the country's were in a line and so were able to knock them out.  DAK was HORRIBLE tho, lol. Definitely our least favorite park! There were a lot of people, it was hard to get from one area to another, and the clues seemed hard. However, we made up for it at DHS by just kicking butt!! We figured out almost all of the clues there, and ended on a high note.

Here I am having just received my team lanyard and commemorative patch! 9:30am and it was already 85+ outside, ugh!! We were team Sharkbait :)

Hillary took this of the three of us in MK on Day 1 :) Josh was Peach, Isaiah was Bloat, Hillary was Dori and i was the fish who was obsessed with bubbles :)

Team in action!! This was taken by a D23 photographer in DAK as we were running around (before the frustration, lol). This pic is featured on their web page with several others.

A picture of our book halfway through our run through HS.  I was the book keeper and told everyone what we were looking for, and they decided what area we would head to next. I wrote notes in the books for where each clue was located (i.e. GMR = Great Movie Ride, M = Muppets, S = Sunset, St = Streets of America) I then purchased a note book and each area had it's own page, so I would write Muppets! at the top, then underneath list the question numbers. This way I could easily find them in the clue book.  Questions were worth 1, 5 and 10 points.  The page above is 1 pointers, here's a page showing 5 point questions on the left, and 10 point questions on the right....

Like my chicken scratch writing? It's really hard to walk fast and write at the same time. Several times I put the answer on the line above the question, meaning I wrote the answer in the wrong question line. There was lots of scribbling.

SO that's been my life!! It was so much fun!! Of the 520 teams registered, 517 showed up, 1 team earned only 5 points (i think they gave up really quickly because it was so hot...) and we placed..... 62nd!!! I'm so proud of us! yeah, it would have been nice to win a prize, but really! 62nd out of 517 teams that started. Yay us!!!

Oh dear...

My Friend Sahil and Me at the Formal

Eep! I dont even know where to start, i'm so behind!!! I owe posts on Photo Pet Peeves, visiting CentraCare when sick, and tonigh we just had our CP formal! ..... Let's go with the formal!!!

First off, this is sadly a "dry" even. There is no alcohol served or sold at all at this event. I had several friends go off in search of the Hotel Bar to buy alcohol so there is that option. Our event was held at Disney's Coronada Springs Resort and was a formal event (although formal wear was not required).  Most girls wore dresses though, in the color of our theme which was black and white. There were some bright color dresses, so you won't look weird if you wear a hot pink dress to a black and white ball.  The other theme was Disney Villains and that part was soooo cool because almost all the disney villains were out! There was the Evil Queen from Snow White, Maleficent, Hades, Lady Tremaine and the step sisters, Cruella, and Jafar. We also had Sorcerer Mickey, who I wish I had gotten a photo with, but Im not too broken up about.  I waited in line for Maleficent but she left before I got up front and was replaced by the Queen from SW. So my friend Marissa and I stood off to the side to wait for her to come back. After a while we realized that people weren't really paying attention so one of us stayed in the secondary line while the other jumped in and had our photo taken with the Queen, lol. I'm actually bummed because while there was a CM there to take pictures, Photopass he was not!!! My pictures aren't even in focus, I don't know what he did! :( I'll put them up here, but at least I have something, eh? Anyways, we just had to wait 20 extra minutes for Maleficent to come back, and it was totally worth it! These were the only two I was interested in (besides Sorcerer Mickey, of course).

This was the first pic and I didn't pose.

               

This time I planned ahead!

You can tell my face is all out of whack on the Maleficent one, but oh well!! There were easily over 2000 people at this, and for the most part I've seen only positive reviews for it!! One guy apparently felt it sucked, but I had fun.  It wasn't as much fun as House of Blues, but it was made fun by my friends.  :) It's free to go, there's food provided and a ton of ppl go. So at least go check it out when you're here!

Umm.. I've been going to HoB a lot lately, which is to make up for not going in the beginning. Something that seperates the SPring program from the Fall is, well a) that they accept more ppl for Fall and b) for Spring, everyone starts within a month of each other, but the Spring ppl leave in May and June while the Advantage ppl leave in August.  (For Fall, the Advantage ppl start really early, like in May, while Fall ppl start around August). But a lot of my friends are leaving in the next couple weeks!! :(  So I'm spending as much time as possible with friends. It's really easy to say, "Oh, I'm here for 6 months, I have time." I've been here for three months on May 7th!! OMG!!! So I'm cutting back on sleep and going out more!

HoB with friends that are leaving :(

The family is visiting this week and are staying in a concierge level room at Disney's Boardwalk Resort and it's amazing!! I'll have pics of that to come soon :)  Night!