Chilly Florida!!

Very very excited about my two travelling girls coming to visit me this week. They started their trip around the world on October 1st in New York and are making their way down to Orlando this Thursday to stay with me at disneys all star music resort for four days! So excited. We are going to celebrate Christmas, birthdays everything all in one because I may not see them again for a couple if years! Eventually they are 

making their way to Australia to work for a year and then working their way back home to the UK. But I haven't seen them since July at a very tearful fair well at my house so I'm super excited to squeal and run towards them for a big hug on Thursday. As a magical cast member I can let them in to the four Disney parks for free using my main gate pass and I've also managed to get them tickets to come with me for the New Fantasy land cast preview (as we are allowed to bring up to three guests) and what I've just realised is when that happens on Friday, magic kingdom will have transformed from Halloween decorations to Christmas decorations over night!!!! I'm grinning on the bus as I type this!! Can not wait to see main street USA decorated for Christmas! That means Epcot will be decorated shortly too, including the Christmas tune loop being played all day instead of the 'lovely' traditional English 

music loop we have at the moment. I do love it, my fellow merchie cast members have seen me dance and sing around the stores to that music several times, and I'm not joking when I want a copy of it to take home with me to play and cry to when I have PDD (post Disney depression) but it will be nice to have a change of music and especially if it's Christmas!!

I did another spot of shopping the other night, some Christmas presents, some just presents for me, using my 40% discount. On my Friday off I went to Hollywood studios with the current newbies which was nice, and in the evening me and Kerry went to Mickeys not so scary Halloween party with the lovely Ben and Brett. Had a brilliant night with lots of laughs, rides, character photos, parade and firework watching, and of course trick or treating! I came home with another bag full of candy (sweets and American chocolate, almond joy chocolate bar? Not as joyful as I thought as I don't like almonds or coconut, but I still ate it, Obvs!)

I also have magical news that my best friend James is coming to visit me for ten days in december for his first trip to Disney world. And what a better way to spend it that with the best unofficial tour guide of Disney (me) flights are booked, hotel being booked, YES YOU NEED TO BOOK HOLIDAY INSURANCE JAMES and hopefully he can fit a few presents into his suitcase from my magical family and inturn I will send presents back with him to go home to the Bradley's, that's free postage for you! :)

On another note, it's freezing here!!! It's gorgeous and sunny, but the humidity has gone and ok it 18degrees, but to all us Disney folk who've been surviving working in 35degrees all summer, this is cold man! It's like a fresh December morning in England when it's sunny but cold. Coats at work are being worn already, I didn't think this day would ever come. I've only got a cheeky 6 hour shift today, then me, Clare, becky and Sammie are getting the monorail to MK to see if we can get food at the Be Our Guest restaurant. A little birdie told me they are having a soft opening today for lunch and dinner. Which means they are open but don't advertise it. It's like a dress rehearsal without having to deal with the crowds.

And another thing Facebook! I hope you let me post the link to this blog from my page, I have been banned from updating statuses and adding photos for two days because I put up 600 photos last night and I did it too quickly. Many of you may remember when I got told off a few years ago for tagging too quickly. I'm sorry if I like to share joy to all my friends via Facebook. But for the next two days at least, I guess twitter will be my new best friend. 

@chlober

Follow me people!! I've been out of touch with twitter since I got here but now I'm back with bells on!!

My Magical Guests at Disney

Working in Walt Disney World is actually as magical as you would think. I am constantly telling guests how to apply, what I had to do to get this job and telling them all about it, where we live, how long the program is for etc.  I think I should get some business cards for www.yummyjobs.com because I've lost count of how many times I've written it on a piece of receipt paper and handed to a guest.  Guests are so interested in where I'm from and how I'm liking staying here. Of course the answer is 'magical, I love it here' because I love Disney, i love Orlando and i am an American trapped in an English body!! I feel like I have been here for years already and that I've know my friends out here all my life. We work, travel and spend our days off together and are constantly making each other laugh and planning trips around America.  I've been here for just over 3 months and today is the first day I'm spending by myself which will be strange, but I'm going shopping to demolish my new 40% holiday cast member discount.  I keep talking to people in shops and making friends all the time anyways so I'm sure I wont feel lonely. My Disney buddies keep saying "you're making friends again Chloe" when I start chatting to people whether I'm waiting in line for coffee in Starbucks or to the person serving me at Universal Studios.

When I'm at work it's the same, I have had some lovely amazing conversations with guests and it's these moments where I really love my job. I wish I had started writing down the funny things guests say to me like "why is it called a digestive biscuit, is that laxatives in them?" and -spoken in a very southern American accent - "oh my lord, you are just so precious, can we adopt you Chloe?". I've had a few mothers trying to marry me off to their sons, plenty of lovely guests giving me their cell phone numbers and with "if you're ever in the area give us a and we can show you around" and yesterday a guy who asked me "if you stubbed your toe and it really hurt, what swear word would you say in England?" to which I replied "I couldn't possible repeat the true answer while I'm at work sir, but 'oh jolly hock sticks' is my answer" and he laughed his head off, to his wife's disgrace who muttered "only you would ask a nice girl like her question like that" reminded me of my patents a lot!!

As I mentioned in a previous blog, Disney World received an email from a guest about me dancing around and singing like Mary Poppins and making their 10 month old son laugh. That email is now printed and framed in my apartment, along side my Applause-o-gram I received last week from a family from New York who had a daughter called Chloe. I get very excited when I meet fellow Chloes and this family I remember came into my store a few times throughout the day and every time I cheered "yaay, Chloe's family are back" and I chatted to them for ages. Well before they went home they went to guest relations and wrote out this Applause-o-gram for me saying "we just wanted Chloe's helpfulness and magic to be recognised as she was lovely to us today" which was very nice of them. It's a shame I can't get hold of them to say thank you for taking their time to do that for me because it made my day. Another couple who I met outside when I was working on Cart, were talking about blogs and how they blog about Disney and had just bought some epcot 30th mystery pins to take photos of and write about. I said that's a shame you can't do it here because I love seeing what's inside those mystery boxes, so they both said "ok let's open them here with Chloe, do you want to be in the pictures?" -did you have to ask?! So we did several 'here's the box, what's inside, yay check them out' photos. It was so much fun, and the lady said I photographed really well, I just love my guests! Then they gave me a card which read 'you've helped my Disney vacation great' and wrote a link on the back to their blog which was brilliant. So I wrote a link to my blog on my trusty Disney receipt paper as I'm not as professional as them! But it was a really nice experience and yesterday I found the link to the blog they did about the pins and loved it and loved the photos, thank you so much you guys, hope to see you around the parks again, and I still want to do what you do for a job one day, I would love to go around the parks and just write about it and take photographs. 

The other day had a mum and daughter come in to the Lords and Lady's store where we sell jewellery including a ring that features in buffy the vampire slayer series. It's real name is a Claddagh ring, but after a few attempts of mentioning buffy, every guest looked at me strangely. So I didn't say anything again, until this girl who must have been in her late teens exclaimed "look mom, it's buddy's ring that angel gave her" and I said "yes! Thank you, finally someone who understands me!" we then continued to talk about buffy and burst into song at the same time "every single night, the same arrangement, I go out and fight the fight" to which her mum looked at us strangely, but at least I wasn't alone this time!! 

All in all, my guests are magical and I do love the compliment I get nearly everyday from an Americans, "we just love to hear you talk/it sounds so much better when you say it in that accent Chloe". I'm learning where most of the states are in America by asking guests where they are from all the time, still to this day the Alabama accent is my favourite, I was the one going "no you talk, I want to listen to your accent" that time.  And I had another couple the other day from Missouri who talked to me for ages about the good places to eat around WDW and then they came back the next day to say goodbye and thank you to me for being so kind and lovely and that they had spoken to a manager at Disney and I will be getting recognition for my hospitality soon, which might mean another Applause-o-gram, I don't know, but the fact that they took the time to talk to someone else about me really makes my day and makes me think maybe I've got the hang of this job now.  I think I would like to work for Disney forever!!

Two weeks of joy update

It has been two weeks since my last blog, I apologise people!! I've been a very busy lady moving house, tanning and enjoying myself yet again :)

Last week I spent my days off at Seaworld, universal studios to watch Impact Wrestling and then me and my friends hired a car to drive to ClearWater beach and had dinner at Seabreeze and then to the Original hooters which is near Clearwater and I bought my teeshirt! Always wanted a hooters teeshirt! During that week I also dressed up as Pocahontas for Monday nights Lasses 'Heroes and villians' and spent time with Charlie and Sarah after work to do Food and Wine festival as it was their last few days with us :( very sad. This place is magical but it's very hard when someone who's been with you since the beginning comes to the end of their program and has to go home. Charlie was my trainer and I don't know what I'm going to do without her around to double check things with. Although I did make her roll her eyes at me the other day because she did something with a returned receipt that I don't normally do when I return stuff and I said "oh, that's what you do?" and she looked at me like "yes Chloe, that's what I trained you to do"  oops! Training was a long time ago and I'm old, I can't remember it all :P

This week I had the first lazy day off I have ever had here in 3 months. I stayed in, cleaned the apartment and finished unpacking all my stuff into my and ariannas nice new one bedroom apartment, it is gorgeous.  We have made it really homely. Which paid off because on our inspection yesterday we received the highest award possible which is a white glove award because it was so darn clean! And we got a big box of chocolates to say well done, yaay! Then I went to Earl of Sandwich and had a Holiday Sandwich which was the most magical thing I've ever tasted, it was a roast dinner in a sandwich and it was warm! Then we went to wrestling, standard Thursday evening, and then we went to a Uk throw-in for the newbies who arrived which was fun, we all went out after we got back from wrestling and had a few drinks. Then yesterday was spent sunbathing for a little too long because I was then late to go to universal studios. But had a very good day there including dinner at the three broomsticks and crazy golf  which was awesome even if I did come last! Then I came home to a load of mexicans as Arianna was having a little party for the new Mexicans but I didn't mind, there was Mexican food and beer :)

And we had a behind the scenes tour if the haunted mansion this week. Had to get up at 5am and to Magic kingdom for 6:30am but it was so worth it!! We got to walk the 1.5mile track of the ride where the cast members pointer out all the secrets and told us stories about the rides history. We got to go into the famous ballroom and got to go behind the glass and become a ghost sat at the table. It was just amazing. Then we were the first people to ride the ride and were able to take flash photos. That's the only time people are allowed to. Then we checked out New Fantasyland as it is having a soft opening at the moment and it was gorgeous. The new ariel ride was lovely but storyline with belle wasn't running which was a shame. But to be in the New Fantasyland after following it for years since it was first announced was amazing!! We have a cast preview to go look at everything in the November 2nd so that's going to be magical!! AND our 40% cast member discount kicks in tomorrow so I'm going shopping before work tomorrow! I'm going to get the Christmas JOY stocking I saw months ago that's $70 normal price, so the extra 20% off than normal will help with that!! I love everything joyful, I bought philidalpia the other day with "philled with Joy" on the packaging, I absolutely freaked out when I saw it, JOY!!

What a lot of joy I have to share this time!!

Sooooo much has changed since my last blog! Me and arianna had a meeting with housing about moving apartments and we settled on me moving in with someone else in a one bedroom flat at the commons and ariannas doing the same but in Patterson court which was a very sad decision to make because we want to live together but the only way we could do that was to move into a 6 person apartment in the commons which we didn't want. So we are not living together anymore.....until we got a phone call the next day saying an empty one bedroom apartment had become available in the commons if we wanted it, YES!!! So that was the happy happy news I got and made me the best bubbly cast member I could be at work. I was bouncing all day!! So we are moving all our stuff in the next few days, I've already been buying coca cola glasses and Starbucks mugs and everything for our new home which will be ours until we leave in 9 months, no more moving :)

The first day of food and wine was ridiculous, I was in the tea store all day, I have never worked so hard in my life!!! I couldn't move from behind the register all day, just to go on break. We had free tea samples and free mugs given to guests when they spent over $25 on tea etc. it was insane, but I still had delightful chit chat with each guests and made it different to each guest so they didn't hear me repeat myself as they waited in line to buy copious amount of tea!!

We then had Epcots 30th birthday on Monday where I went into work early to get a limited edition park map and badge to celebrate. Got a free cupcake from work, listened in on a cast member only talk with an imagineer who's been here since the beginning of Epcot, but then had to go to work but we all got a present and pin to trade with guests, special 30th anniversary ones which the guests where looking for, they dived towards you if they saw this special yellow pin on your lanyard, it was a bit intense!! It was a long busy day at work because there were so many guests. I treated myself to chips from the chippy at lunch. And then, we had all heard there was special fireworks that night for the anniversary and begged our managers if we could go out and watch them. So we closed the stores at 9pm sharp, cashed up in record time and ran outside to watch the end of illuminations followed by the magic that was Epcot's special 30th anniversary fireworks. I've never heard anything so loud in 

My life. Car alarms went off in the car parks, the last fireworks could be heard in resorts  close by and even in magic kingdom guests told me the following day. It was a very special moment to watch and get paid for to watch :) great ending to a bust day! During the day in the American pavilion there was a special show to celebrate the 30th and my friends Sophie and Richard were on stage representing the UK. During this, a letter was read out to the audience, that had been received recently from a guest who had been on holiday here three weeks earlier and read something like "we would like to write in to mention a girl who works in the UK merchandise location who paid our ten month old son a lot of joyful attention. She couldn't stop smiling and telling everyone how cute he was, that he was the cutest baby shed ever seen and gave him lots of stickers. Every time another cast member walked into the store she would get there attention and point him out to them.  We said he was laughing at her because she was so amusing and he must have thought she was Mary Poppins, to which she started singing and dancing around the store to Mary Poppins songs. It wasn't the fireworks or parades that we remember most from our vacation, it was this girl's attention and entertainment that stuck out to us the most and our only regret is that we didn't get her photo so would it be possible to have a photograph of the girls working that evening in that store posted to us, here is our address" and that crazy girl dancing around and singing like Mary Poppins was me. So proud. My manager read it out to me at work the following day and I nearly cried! I've asked him for a copy of the letter to frame and that family's address to send them a postcard to say thank you. My manager also took a photo of me Kerry and sammie to send to them :) pure Disney joy!

The food and wine festival is amazing! I've been to a few countries stands so far and everything in tried has been yummy, and only $3/4 each. I've eaten in Hawaii, Greece, Canada, France and Italy so far. You get a free passport to take around with you and stamp once you've eaten there. So good. On a few occasions I have stayed after work or gone in early to try more foods. It's so good and very quiet during the week, but at the weekend the lines for food can get quite long at each country. 

My last two days off have been mostly relaxing by the pool, shopping (treating myself as it was my big pay day, found a surfy shop so bought roxy shoes, reef flip flops, o'neil dress and a billabong dress) Starbucks (skinny vanilla latte is my new drink, yes I drink mild coffee drinks now!!) and universal studios. Went to watch the wrestling again Thursday night and then last night we went for Halloween horror nights. Oh my god it was the best/scariest thing ever!!! We went through all 7 scare houses. Which are massive warehouses/sound stage buildings in the depths of universals backstage areas. They all took a bit of walking to to get there. The organisation of the thing makes the mind boggle! That park closes at 5pm and they turn it into hellville by 6:30pm! Each house had a theme, mostly a scary film like silent hill or dead end. And the houses are mazes inside but with only one path through it that you have to take and every corner every few metres there are actors dressed as the dead and scary jumping out at you with loud noises and strobe lighting to make it worse and make you scream louder!! I've lost my voice. You feel the relief of getting to the end of it because you are alive, it was like being in a real life horror film. But then once you get outside, there are scary people roaming the steets going around the whole park scaring the Disney joy out of you!! They come out of no where screaming in your face! Dressed as dead things or scare scows or demons. I did feel I was in a buffy episode at one point. I was very brave towards the end and wasn't as scared as I was when we first got there, but it was absolutely amazing!! I'd defiantly go again in a few years when I come back on vacation!! Actually thought the whole thing was excellent, one point to the other park that shall not be named!!