A New Shift

So yesterday was my first stocking shift. I was really nervous because I wasn't sure I knew how to do everything, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. As stocker you're not only responsible for keeping the store stocked and looking nice, but when it's time to close, you are responsible for EVERYTHING getting done correctly before closing the store. It's a little nerve wracking. It was a little brutal too (12 hour shift) but I survived okay.

But I can report that I successfully learned the number one rule of stocking:

Wherever you need to get to a guest will be standing in the way. ALWAYS.

And the tour groups are the worst with this. We have a lot from Brazil right now, and they always stash stuff they want to buy "later" in the most random places. Um... this is Disney. It looks messy where you've put it, and trust me, it won't be there if/when you come back for it. Because we can't have messy at Disney!

Anyway, in other news, I found out this morning that our apartment has been harboring a colony of spiders. Eeek! The two things I can't stand are snakes and spiders, so this really grosses me out. Luckily Pest Control came by to take care of it today, but I still hope I don't imagine things crawling up my legs when I'm sleeping tonight.

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When Things Go Wrong (2010) Edition

So something interesting happened at work yesterday. About halfway through the Nightastic fireworks the show suddenly stopped. They hadn't been doing the castle pyrotechnics for a few minutes, but then the show just randomly stopped altogether. About 30 minutes later it resumed, first doing all the castle pyro that hadn't gone off before and then catching up to the big fireworks for the last section of the show.

So of course when something like this happens, every cast member gets tons of questions about what happened. And as a merchandise cast member, I usually have no idea. So my answer is usually along the lines of "I have no idea, but you can try asking one of the fireworks people standing over there. But they probably won't tell you anyway because it's a trade secret."

But rumors always get spread around too. Because the fireworks people do tell our managers why they stopped. So the rumor going around is that the show was stopped because of a guest call.

For those of you who haven't seen the new show, there's a part that makes it look like the castle just got hit with a bunch of fireworks. They're really more like glorified smoke bombs, but the effect is nice. Anyway, supposedly a guest called the fire department and reported that the castle was on fire. So the show had to be stopped while they went in and made sure nothing was burning. No idea if this rumor is true, but it's interesting to think about anyway.

In other news, there was an absolutely gigantic spider hanging from one of the carts yesterday too. I pretty much started freaking out, especially when it was moving towards me. Luckily there was a guy standing there at the time. He grabbed the spider and threw it into the bushes, for which I was enormously grateful.

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New Trailers!

Okay, I know I posted YouTube stuff yesterday too, but this is exciting! Those of you who know me really well know that I'm a huge Disney Princess fan. So I've been looking forward to the new movie Tangled for awhile now. I don't really know much about it, but count me in for any princess Disney movie.

With the release of Toy Story 3 this week, Disney's also released the first trailer for the movie too. It looks awesome! Check it out for yourself:



I'll admit I was a little nervous about the fact this one was computer animated, especially after the fantastic return Disney had to hand drawn animation in Princess and the Frog. But after seeing that, I'm more excited than ever.

And here's another new trailer for you: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the new Narnia movie. And while they aren't Disney anymore (I think Fox is the new studio that's doing them) it still looks amazing. I never really liked this book in the series, but seeing this teaser makes me want to read them all over again:



Too many movies to look forward to! Too bad they both won't be out for awhile. *sniff*

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Some Toy Story 3 Fun

So today I have that 10 hour shift I talked about yesterday, but since I'm trying to do better about posting, I'm putting this up.

Today, June 18th, is the long-awaited premiere of Toy Story 3. For those of you who haven't seen the trailers and don't know anything about the movie, one of the new characters for this film is Ken, Barbie's famous counterpart. Here's a clip of their first meeting in the movie:



I totally love how they both move like you know Barbie/Ken dolls move, even though they're alive. Just one more way Disney is all about the details. So while browsing on YouTube, I also found these funny Ken's Dating Tips videos. They're pretty hilarious. So here's something to keep you entertained while I go do my time outside. Enjoy!







And here's a little trivia for you. Guess who does the voice of Barbie in the Toy Story movies? It's Jodi Benson, who also did the voice of Ariel for all three of The Little Mermaid movies. So also makes a cameo appearance as Robert's secretary in Enchanted.

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Let's Try This Again, Shall We?

Sorry about the lack of updates lately. I actually do have a lot of things I want to post, but my work schedule has kind of gone INSANE and even on my days off I'm too tired to do anything but take it easy all day.

But anyway, I digress. Today is my day off and so I'm going to try again. Nothing too exciting has been going on around here lately. The Summer Nightastic fireworks and Main Street Electrical Parade have both premiered here at the Magic Kingdom, and guest attendance has skyrocketed in their wake. This week alone they extended park hours an additional hour at least three times. I'm not sure about tonight, since today's my day off, but it wouldn't surprise me...

The other main event has been the end of Star Wars Weekends for 2010. I never managed to get a day off, but did manage to go before work. This past week I spent about 4 hours between two days waiting in line to get autographs for my darling brother (see how much I love ya kid?). I did get to see the whole Stormtrooper show, which is probably my favorite part of SWW, so that was good.

Tuesday was training for me, so I actually got off work at 6:00, which was nice. I am now an official sewer (that's sew-er not sewer like the drain) which means I can put your name on a Mickey hat. Provided the machine doesn't break, because I still don't know how to fix them.

Yesterday and today were both take it easy days again. I actually have a 10 hour shift tomorrow, and I'll be outside the whole time, so I figure I should get my rest while I can. And I had to do fun things like grocery shopping and laundry yesterday anyway.

Today I decided to go to Property Control, which I LOVE. This is essentially like an outlet mall just for cast members, and I love, love, love visiting the damages trailer. This is where they send all the merchandise that gets "damaged" and you get 75% off the original price. Which makes buying Disney affordable. Some of the stuff really is broken, but some of it is damaged because the packaging tore, or it was returned, etc. I pretty much did all of my Christmas shopping at Property Control last year, which was great. I found some great stuff today, so it was totally worth almost getting hit by lightning on my way back across the parking lot when I was done (ha ha).

I came home to wait the huge storm out, and then headed back out into the weather to hit Downtown Disney. I haven't yet been since I came back, and some of it's changed quite a lot since 2008. I wasn't really in a shopping mood, but I did wander around and trade some pins. And drool over some of the painting in the Art of Disney store. They are really nice, but I don't have $500+ to spend on a painting at the moment. Besides, where would I put it? I finished the evening off by treating myself to a Wetzel's Pretzel. Mmmmm... cinnamon. Maybe I shouldn't have, but the smell was too good to resist.

So that's the update for now. I'm going to try do better about posting, even with the crazy schedule. We'll just have to see what happens!

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Summer Nightastic

As a quick overview for those of you who are a little confused by that term, Summer Nightastic was an event that premiered at Disneyland last year (2009). This special summer event included the premiere of a brand new fireworks show (Magical), a revamped Main Street Electrical Parade for DCA, and the brand new dragon and other improvements for Fantasmic! And apparently it worked out well, because not only is Disneyland doing it again this year, but they have moved it over here to the East Coast as well.

Here at the Walt Disney World Resort, Summer Nightastic includes a (sort of) new fireworks show and the premiere of the revamped Electrical Parade here at the Magic Kingdom, some new glow effects for the Tower of Terror at Hollywood Studios, and a summer concert series for Epcot.

I have yet to see the new parade yet, but the fireworks are a recycled version of those they used to do for the old Pirate and Princess parties and they are awesome. I need to see them from the front of the castle, since all I've seen so far is the back part in Fantasyland because I'm at work.

But anyway, the main purpose for this post is actually a celebration for the West Coast. This year the Summer Nightastic festivities at California Adventure include the premiere of Disney's new show, World of Color.

This show looks amazing. For those of you who've seen Fantasmic, think of the movie projection parts of the show, only taken to the next level. Add in a bunch of colorful water fountains, and you've got the idea. But that doesn't even do the show justice. This is the reason the lagoon has been torn up with construction for the past two years, and it premieres tonight (June 11th).

So here for your viewing pleasure, is a video courtesy of the Disney Parks blog. There's some very cool behind the scenes footage here, as well as some great footage of the show itself, and some time lapse footage of the construction. It's very worth checking out, so enjoy!

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The Main Street Electrical Parade

Well, today is one of my precious days off. Weather willing, I'll be going to the Magic Kingdom cast preview of the Main Street Electrical parade, which is making it's way to Florida once again for a very short summer run before heading back across the country.

I found this interesting video of the parade doing a test run on the Disney highways last time it came this way. Check it out:


I can't wait to see the changes they've made to it since the last time I saw it at California Adventure. Here's hoping it doesn't rain!

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Stormy Weather

So today is my day off, but I'm stuck home doing things like laundry while my roommates are at Epcot. But actually, at the moment, I'm actually kind of glad and this is why:



Most of that noise isn't actually thunder, but wind noise because the wind was blowing really hard. I figured I'd take advantage of our 3rd story balcony and try to capture the brewing storm. Unfortunately I was pointing the camera in the wrong direction when most of the forked lightning went off, but you get the idea.

This is actually one of the worst lightning storms I've seen in my few months in Florida. The really weird thing is that it wasn't raining while all this was going on. Sometimes you get heat lightning without rain, but usually when it's a big storm like that, it's pouring buckets.

The storm got pretty close, so I tried to capture more of it inside the door. It didn't turn out so well, but here's the result:



Since this one was inside, all that noise IS thunder for this one. Especially that really loud crack.

So, long story short, I'm kind of glad I had laundry to keep me home. My roommates got stranded while they waited the storm out. And now I can go to Animal Kingdom in the morning with no problems because the storm seems to have moved on.

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Kids Say The Funniest Things

The other day I spent most of my shift working in Fantasy Faire, which is the shop right after Mickey's Philharmagic. I love that shop. It stays pretty busy most of the time (which is nice because that means the time goes fast) and I love the instrumental music loop they have.

Anyway, about halfway through my shift a mom and her little 4 year old daughter came up to the counter to buy some stuff. A lot of it was candy, and the little girl kept asking how much everything was, so I was telling her the price of everything as it was rung up.

The last item was a small Stich stuffed animal. I scan the tag, and then she asks me how much Stitch is, telling me that that one is for her (the candy was for her siblings apparently). I look at the tag and tell her the price (I think it was $14.95, but I don't remember exactly).

Without missing a beat she says "How about we make Stitch $1 instead?". At which point both me and her mother burst into laughter. Apparently she's been versed in the art of price negotiation at only 4 years old.

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