Amy's Grand (Floridian) Day Out
More than once a week? I know, I'm spoiling you- you'd better appreciate it. So, what's to report?
Well, Monday I wanted a bit of a relaxing day due to the fact that I was working 11:30pm- 9am (yes, I did get the am/pm bit the right way round there) that night. So Heather and I decided to check out the Grand Floridian, which is the most posh Disney hotel. And also the most expensive. By expensive, read: $315 a night at least, WITH Disney's 40% discount according to prices on the Hub. Unfortunately this meant that my curious price checking could become no more than just that.
Anyway, it's absolutely GORGEOUS. We were walking around in complete awe of the whole place. It has two pools- one with proper mattress-type-things on the loungers, and the other with a super-cool slide, there's a beach, a wedding pavillion- after seeing that I can totally understand why people would choose to get married there. I still couldn't quite bring myself to have a Disney Wedding, but it is absolutely gorgeous- it's on the edge of a beach, and there's a window at the top of the pavillion which looks out over the lagoon, Cinderella castle in the background.
Also at the Grand Floridian are SPEED BOATS that Cast Members can rent for about $13 for half an hour. Oh my God they were so much fun! Heather and I went slightly mentalist, going in the tightest circles possible which means the passenger is basically IN the water as the boat goes up on it's side, and speeding down the lagoon at the fastest the thing would go (and that's damn fast) but if in a boy-racer type vehicle then one does as boy-racers do, right?
And THEN, after relaxing by the pool and on the beach for ages (sipping our lovely, but unfortunately non-alcoholic, cocktails) we went for AFTERNOON TEA. Proper afternoon tea, with triangular sandwiches and scones with jam and cream and trifle! And tea! Oh it was so immense, though you could feel the servers chuckling at our need to photographically document pretty much everything we ate. But it was so ace! I bought my first pin (with ALICE on it :D) to commemorate the occasion.
We then laid out by the pool some more and went back to the beach before we had to go back so I could get a little bit of shut eye before the overnight shift of joy.
And what a joyous shift it was. The reason for making us all do the thing? Inventory- ie counting everything in the entire store. Including hundreds of postcards/pens/individual rings chucked into big boxes. It was wonderful. Luckily I was in the same "team" as Jordan (come on team Beige (what a motivational colour... It soon morphed into team tan, though, which has a much better ring to it I feel) and because neither of us had scanners which worked we had to do manual counting for others to scan the numbers in, so could pretty much stick together which made the whole thing slightly more bareable. It did get a bit ridiculous at about 6am (when it was getting light again...) though- we all started to get hysterical over nothing which meant there was no way we could check that the numbers put down for the china mugs we were assigned to were right for fear of breaking them, so we just ended up ticking it all. So really the whole thing was a waste of time as half of them probably aren't right, and I know that I, for one, do 'taxable catchall' for items that don't have a tag but I know the price for, which means it won't register that we've sold them anyway. Riidiculous.
Even more ridiculous was that, after getting home at 10, and sleeping until about 4, we had to get up again to go to work from 7-2. And I got to be in GHS which I fricking HATE as it's womens clothing and the person who's always in that room is a pain in the arse and treats you as if you've never done stock before. I was SO not in the mood. But oh well. 2 o'clock rolled around soon enough which meant TIME FOR TWO DAYS OFF. Woo!
So yesterday Charlotte T and I decided to do our two favourite parks; MGM and Magic Kingdom. Went to MGM first and did the Backlot tour (which was done at a pretty good time as we went past 'Lights, Motors, Action'- the car stunt show- while it was on, so got a good close up of the action), went to the muppets shop where I bought a super-cute bag with Kermit on... Oh AND we met the yellow and pink Power Rangers :D Memories! Except the red ranger's costume was all wrong and different from when we were wrong. Bah. Still, I have morphed with the Yellow Power Ranger. How super-cool am I?
We then went through the walk-through bit of One Man's Dream, about Walt Disney, before going to see Voyage of the Little Mermaid which was so cute! Loved it. I think I may have a slight obsession. Oh well.
This was followed by Tower of Terror, which I think I love even though it scares me to death. Even when they open the doors at the end and say 'welcome back' makes me jump- but who wouldn't be shaken up after a trip to the Twilight Zone?? I wish I worked there though, would be such a fun job to have. Is it sadistic and wrong that I want a job purely because I want be able to scare people?
After that we hopped on a bus to the Magic Kingdom, getting there just in time to grab a hot-dog from Casey's (so good) and find a spot for the parade, which I love. Even if the music is in my head more than 24 hours later. After that we did Dumbo, as Charlotte hadn't been able to do it yet, and went to meet Donald, Daisy and Minnie as she hadn't met Donald yet, which is something of a travesty. Then I got a mini-customised umbrella from Liberty Square (one of those cute material ones, like Mary Poppins has in Jolly Holiday), with Amy on 3 sections and 'ICP 2007' on the other- my personalised souveneir. Next was a trip to Adventureland for the sole purpose of getting some pineapple juice, which turned out to be an ace plan as it resulted in us meeting Timon and Rafiki, Mr. Smee AND the Genie. The Genie was absolutely brilliant as well- kept playing games with us, trying to make Charlotte dance and wouldn't let us go at the end; the photopass photographer actually applauded him afterwards, he put on such a good show! There's a reason why he's the best Disney character. Anyways, after that we were going to go on Thunder Mountain, but it was a 40 minute wait so we decided to go shopping on Main Street instead. Ended up buying a photoframe which is SO cute, and I have an idea of a photo I plan to beg a photopass photographer to do for us on the last day... Abuse their skills? Me? As if..!
After that it was time to come home, and quickly changed before going out to dinner at the Olive Garden with Charlotte's flatmate Maebh, and Charlottes T and I. Oh my God, it was SO good! On par with House of Blues, but SO much cheaper- free salad with the entreé, (which, for me, was tuscan garlic chicken pasta- amazing stuff) and then another M&S-style chocolate pudding which was also absolutely gorgeous- so just a generally damn good day all round.
Then this morning I went to the Premium Outlets with Charlotte T. Ended up spending way too much money on a purse, dress, denim skirt and top (the latter two from Guess, for $20 and $30 respectively- how good is that?! £10 for a denim skirt is damn good wherever it's from, but from Guess?! Woop). And now I'm off out to dinner again at some steakhouse which is meant to be super-nice, before going to see Wishes. So an excellent few days off all round= very happy Amy.
And now only six scheduled shifts left :O :O
Photos to come, but now time to get ready to go out. Quick change ahoy!
Well, Monday I wanted a bit of a relaxing day due to the fact that I was working 11:30pm- 9am (yes, I did get the am/pm bit the right way round there) that night. So Heather and I decided to check out the Grand Floridian, which is the most posh Disney hotel. And also the most expensive. By expensive, read: $315 a night at least, WITH Disney's 40% discount according to prices on the Hub. Unfortunately this meant that my curious price checking could become no more than just that.
Anyway, it's absolutely GORGEOUS. We were walking around in complete awe of the whole place. It has two pools- one with proper mattress-type-things on the loungers, and the other with a super-cool slide, there's a beach, a wedding pavillion- after seeing that I can totally understand why people would choose to get married there. I still couldn't quite bring myself to have a Disney Wedding, but it is absolutely gorgeous- it's on the edge of a beach, and there's a window at the top of the pavillion which looks out over the lagoon, Cinderella castle in the background.
Also at the Grand Floridian are SPEED BOATS that Cast Members can rent for about $13 for half an hour. Oh my God they were so much fun! Heather and I went slightly mentalist, going in the tightest circles possible which means the passenger is basically IN the water as the boat goes up on it's side, and speeding down the lagoon at the fastest the thing would go (and that's damn fast) but if in a boy-racer type vehicle then one does as boy-racers do, right?
And THEN, after relaxing by the pool and on the beach for ages (sipping our lovely, but unfortunately non-alcoholic, cocktails) we went for AFTERNOON TEA. Proper afternoon tea, with triangular sandwiches and scones with jam and cream and trifle! And tea! Oh it was so immense, though you could feel the servers chuckling at our need to photographically document pretty much everything we ate. But it was so ace! I bought my first pin (with ALICE on it :D) to commemorate the occasion.
We then laid out by the pool some more and went back to the beach before we had to go back so I could get a little bit of shut eye before the overnight shift of joy.
And what a joyous shift it was. The reason for making us all do the thing? Inventory- ie counting everything in the entire store. Including hundreds of postcards/pens/individual rings chucked into big boxes. It was wonderful. Luckily I was in the same "team" as Jordan (come on team Beige (what a motivational colour... It soon morphed into team tan, though, which has a much better ring to it I feel) and because neither of us had scanners which worked we had to do manual counting for others to scan the numbers in, so could pretty much stick together which made the whole thing slightly more bareable. It did get a bit ridiculous at about 6am (when it was getting light again...) though- we all started to get hysterical over nothing which meant there was no way we could check that the numbers put down for the china mugs we were assigned to were right for fear of breaking them, so we just ended up ticking it all. So really the whole thing was a waste of time as half of them probably aren't right, and I know that I, for one, do 'taxable catchall' for items that don't have a tag but I know the price for, which means it won't register that we've sold them anyway. Riidiculous.
Even more ridiculous was that, after getting home at 10, and sleeping until about 4, we had to get up again to go to work from 7-2. And I got to be in GHS which I fricking HATE as it's womens clothing and the person who's always in that room is a pain in the arse and treats you as if you've never done stock before. I was SO not in the mood. But oh well. 2 o'clock rolled around soon enough which meant TIME FOR TWO DAYS OFF. Woo!
So yesterday Charlotte T and I decided to do our two favourite parks; MGM and Magic Kingdom. Went to MGM first and did the Backlot tour (which was done at a pretty good time as we went past 'Lights, Motors, Action'- the car stunt show- while it was on, so got a good close up of the action), went to the muppets shop where I bought a super-cute bag with Kermit on... Oh AND we met the yellow and pink Power Rangers :D Memories! Except the red ranger's costume was all wrong and different from when we were wrong. Bah. Still, I have morphed with the Yellow Power Ranger. How super-cool am I?
We then went through the walk-through bit of One Man's Dream, about Walt Disney, before going to see Voyage of the Little Mermaid which was so cute! Loved it. I think I may have a slight obsession. Oh well.
This was followed by Tower of Terror, which I think I love even though it scares me to death. Even when they open the doors at the end and say 'welcome back' makes me jump- but who wouldn't be shaken up after a trip to the Twilight Zone?? I wish I worked there though, would be such a fun job to have. Is it sadistic and wrong that I want a job purely because I want be able to scare people?
After that we hopped on a bus to the Magic Kingdom, getting there just in time to grab a hot-dog from Casey's (so good) and find a spot for the parade, which I love. Even if the music is in my head more than 24 hours later. After that we did Dumbo, as Charlotte hadn't been able to do it yet, and went to meet Donald, Daisy and Minnie as she hadn't met Donald yet, which is something of a travesty. Then I got a mini-customised umbrella from Liberty Square (one of those cute material ones, like Mary Poppins has in Jolly Holiday), with Amy on 3 sections and 'ICP 2007' on the other- my personalised souveneir. Next was a trip to Adventureland for the sole purpose of getting some pineapple juice, which turned out to be an ace plan as it resulted in us meeting Timon and Rafiki, Mr. Smee AND the Genie. The Genie was absolutely brilliant as well- kept playing games with us, trying to make Charlotte dance and wouldn't let us go at the end; the photopass photographer actually applauded him afterwards, he put on such a good show! There's a reason why he's the best Disney character. Anyways, after that we were going to go on Thunder Mountain, but it was a 40 minute wait so we decided to go shopping on Main Street instead. Ended up buying a photoframe which is SO cute, and I have an idea of a photo I plan to beg a photopass photographer to do for us on the last day... Abuse their skills? Me? As if..!
After that it was time to come home, and quickly changed before going out to dinner at the Olive Garden with Charlotte's flatmate Maebh, and Charlottes T and I. Oh my God, it was SO good! On par with House of Blues, but SO much cheaper- free salad with the entreé, (which, for me, was tuscan garlic chicken pasta- amazing stuff) and then another M&S-style chocolate pudding which was also absolutely gorgeous- so just a generally damn good day all round.
Then this morning I went to the Premium Outlets with Charlotte T. Ended up spending way too much money on a purse, dress, denim skirt and top (the latter two from Guess, for $20 and $30 respectively- how good is that?! £10 for a denim skirt is damn good wherever it's from, but from Guess?! Woop). And now I'm off out to dinner again at some steakhouse which is meant to be super-nice, before going to see Wishes. So an excellent few days off all round= very happy Amy.
And now only six scheduled shifts left :O :O
Photos to come, but now time to get ready to go out. Quick change ahoy!