Check-in and an Apartment Tour

Whew! These past couple of days have simultaneously felt like the shortest and longest days of my life. I had check-in on Wednesday bright and early; I had a rough time falling asleep the previous night (I think I finally passed out at about 1:00) and then was woken up at 4:00 and couldn't get to sleep again. We had planned to be at check-in at 5:45 anyways, so I started packing up my stuff and hopped in the shower.

While waiting for Jordan and Bernice to get ready, I checked the Facebook group for the people checking in on the 8th and saw that some people had started waiting in line at midnight. If you're thinking about doing the program and think this is a brilliant idea...don't. Security wouldn't allow them on the grounds that early, so they were forced to hang out in the Walgreens parking lot across the street, until about 5:45, which is when we got there. Since they were still in the process of trying to get across to the apartments, we actually got ahead of many of them in line.

If you're thinking that Disney is nuts for having check-in at 5:45, you're right: it wasn't supposed to start until 9 am. So why were we arriving so freaking early? Apartments are pretty much given on a first come, first serve basis, and since you can't officially have a designated group of roommates (unless you decide to pair up with just one person, then it's fine; but I had six other people I wanted to room with), the only way to make sure you get an apartment with all the people you want is to stand in line together. And since Chatham Square (our apartment complex) is pretty high in demand, we decided to go early.

I had filmed some of the wait/going to Casting on my camera, but the video is in a weird format so I can't edit it and put it on here. Ah well. Wasn't that exciting, I promise.  Here are some pictures!

 

Role assignment!

  

Room inside the Casting building.

Anyway, we finally got through the line, filled out all the paperwork, and got a four bedroom in Chatham Square! Unfortunately,  we didn't have time to celebrate/unpack our stuff, because we had to jump straight on to a bus for Casting! And once again, we had to stand in a line for a stupidly long time, then wind through the building filling out more paperwork. Luckily, however, this is where we found out where we were working! Bernice and I found out we're in the same location, Kilimanjaro Safari at Animal Kingdom! Pretty exciting (and a weird coincidence)! For those who are too lazy to look up what that ride is, let me tell you!

For those of you who frequent Disneyland, the most similar thing I can compare Kilimanjaro to is the Jungle Cruise (even though they have that here in the Magic Kingdom too), in the sense that I'll be  navigating a vehicle and have a little spiel along the way. The major difference, of course, is that Kilimanjaro has real animals, and the ride is taken along a huge enclosure with hundreds of different animals that you might see on an African safari (lions, hippos, giraffes, etc.). The vehicle we drive (yep, we drive and talk) isn't on a track, so animals are free to cross back and forth on the path.

 I'll have to try and not crash into any hippos.

Anyway, we all have Traditions (our first day of general training in the Magic Kingdom) on Saturday, but Bernice and I have Animal Kingdom training starting Sunday....not sure what exactly we'll be doing, since we're supposed to be in business casual attire. 

Today was really casual....we had a housing meeting at about 11, then have just been going to the grocery store and sitting around the apartment on our laptops since we finally got a router. I also filmed an apartment tour after the housing meeting!

Tonight we're planning to check out the Wilderness Lodge Resort (Jordan and Kelsea's work location) and the Yacht & Beach Club Resort (our newest, 8th roommate Jorden's going to work as a lifeguard there) to go to Beaches N' Cream to try and eat the Kitchen Sink!

(Edit: Here's my shot of the Kitchen Sink before we consumed it....and a video of the aftermath)

 

 

That's all for tonight...tomorrow's another day off, so we'll probably check out the rest of the resorts.

Have a magical day!