On Thursday the 28th, Anipier and I had our 3rd day of training at Typhoon Lagoon, which means we had our test to make sure we are ready to be lifeguards. The test is practically the same thing as day 2 of training, but instead of your trainer bringing you to the next stand and telling you where are the closest backboard and trauma bag, you have to bring your trainer to the next stand and tell him where they are. It's kind of like training the trainer haha! We were done by 3 PM and Anipier and I both passed with flying colors! After that they put us on stand. It was fun. I had missed lifeguarding at Disney. The guests are so nice and understanding of the rules and they respect us. One guest even came up to me to tell me I was doing a great job! On my first day back! How awesome is this!? I got extended for half an hour which doesn't seem so bad, but I have blisters on every inch of my feet and this was my first day out of six days in a row! It's gonna hurt like (bad word deleted) when I finally get a day off!
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Our second day of training was super chill and fun. We spent the whole day walking around the park with our trainer Andrew and stoping at every lifeguard stand to practice scanning. We learned where all the backboards and trauma bags are and what to do in case of an emergency. All things I already know, but it's nice to have a little refresh. Plus, I get to be Anipier's almost official interpret. She is pretty good in English and she understands most of what is said during the training, but she likes to ask me in French to make sure she understood everything. Our trainers get really confused when she asks me questions in French, but I just think it's funny! Anyway, thanks Andrew for the fun day of training! We have a day off tomorrow so we can finally sleep in and relax a little, I can't wait!
Monday the 25th of May was our first official day of training at Typhoon Lagoon. In 3 days, we will be official Typhoon Lagoon LIFEGUARDS!!! The first day is pretty boring. It's just reading OGs (Operational Guidelines) all day! At least our trainer Alex was really nice and I'm training with Anipier so that's fun. It's way too easy for me since I have gone through this training before. I'm just having as much fun as I can for as long as I'm training and I can talk to people on the job. The days are pretty lonely when you work as a lifeguard. The training days are from 9 AM to 5:30 PM so it's long, but not that bad.
On Sunday the 24th, Anipier, Karen and I all had the day off and we decided to visit Animal Kingdom since it's the only park we hadn't been to yet. We got there at about 11 and headed strait for the Safari. I had never seen so many people in Animal Kingdom in my whole life!! There was a 2 hour wait for the Safari so we decided to wait and went to Festival of the Lion King instead. It was as beautiful as ever. After that, we went on Expedition Everest, It's Tough to Be a Bug, Dinosaur and returned to Kilimanjaro Safari and waited for 80 minutes. The alphabet game is starting to get old since we have been playing it when waiting in line for a few days now. So far we have done the countries, states, animals, Disney characters, singers, actors, etc. Anyway, the Safari was amazing and we saw a lot of animals and the zebras were so close we could almost touch them. We even saw lions which is really rare because they can sleep up to 20 hours a day! We left at about 5 PM because we had to go to the grocery store and make hotel reservations for Anipier's sister who is coming at the end of June and also reservations for the Wild Africa Trek because Anipier and I are going next Saturday!! I'm so excited!
Laurie got us a reservation for lunch at Via Napoli in Italy, in Epcot. We really wanted to try this restaurant because we heard they had huge pizzas that are really good so Laurie, Florence, Édith, Anipier, Julie and I met up to try them. The restaurant was beautiful and the pizzas were delicious! It had been a long time since the six of us had spend time together and I hadn't seen Laurie and Julie in a week! We had fun telling each other our weeks and funny stories. We ended up eating two of those huge pizzas that are meant for 3-5 people! Thanks to Laurie who had special discounts, it cost us 11$ each which is nothing for how much we ate! After that we went to France for ice cream and sorbet for dessert. We tried to go to Soarin', but there was a 2 hour line so we went to Turtle Talk with Crush and went back home at about 3 in the afternoon. An other perfect day with great friends! I am so lucky!
After our little trip to Celebration, we decided to go to Hollywood Studios. Anipier met us there and the 4 of us had an awesome night! We went on Rock n' Roller Coaster, Frozen Sing-along, we tried to go on Toy Story Midway Mania, but the ride broke down, we drew Goofy at Animation Academy, we saw the Star Wars fireworks which are AMAZING by the way and we tried to go to Fantasmic!, but it was cancelled because of the weather. Anipier and Simon also went on Tower of Terror. We had dinner at the Sci-Fi Dine-in Theater which is always super fun! And even though we didn't do that many things, it was still a great time! Do you remember the memory jar I made before coming to Disney? Well it's filling up quickly from all the amazing memories I am making here with the best group of friends ever! Hopefully the rest of the summer is as awesome as it's beginning!
Contrary to what you might think, this is not some awesome party we went to. Since I did the program last year, Disney thought I would still have my Maingates (entrance passes to the parks). Even though I did keep them, they are in my bedroom... in Canada! Because of that, I had to go get new ones at Disney's Ticketing office in Celebration. Lucky for me and Florence who was in the same situation as me, Simon agreed to drive us there! In exchange, we agreed to pay for the gas and for his dinner, which I still have to pay by the way because I haven't seen him since, oops! It took us about 10 minutes to get there and I'm glad I got to visit those offices. They are 3 buildings that look kind of like the Fix-it Felix building in Wreck-it Ralph, but in green. Everything looks perfect and brand new and it was beautiful. Once we got inside (the door wouldn't open for us because we don't work in these offices even when we scanned our Blue cast member ID cards, stupid doors), it took about 10 minutes to get our Maingates and they didn't ask us any questions, they just gave us new ones. That's what I call exceptional guest service! Thank you Disney! :)
Forecast Typhoon was our first training at our location. It lasted only 4 hours and we got to learn about the story, the setting, the attractions, the restaurants, the different activities, the hidden Mickeys, etc. It was a lot of fun, but, since I have already worked at Typhoon Lagoon, I felt like I was cheating when they asked us questions. We also talked about the four keys again (Safety, Courtesy, Show, Efficiency). It was simply a fun little introduction of the park and we got to tour the whole park. Apparently I'm aloud to call guests "Dude"! Not sure if I'm brave enough to try, but it's supposed to be part of the story! The Story of Typhoon LagoonEvery Disney park has it's own story. Here is the story of Typhoon Lagoon that you can also find on the signs at the entrance of the park and in certain books and videos about the park. I didn't write this!
"A furious storm once roared cross the sea Catching ships in its path, helpless to flee Instead of a certain and watery doom The wind swept them here to Typhoon Lagoon." For as long as anyone could remember, the quaint thatch-roofed village had nestled along the shores of the sparkling lagoon, in the shadows of a great volcanic mountain. Then came the 20th century with its cruise ships, and tourists and the Placid Palms Resort... a special little place for lucky vacationers each year. The great storm, however, changed everything... a furious, unrelenting typhoon catching a small fleet of ships by surprise, and tossing them about like toy boats for one terrifying hour. But in the storm’s wake was left a remarkable scene. A surfboard had penetrated completely through a huge tree. A small boat had blown through the roof of one building. A great buoy had crashed through the roof of still another. The Placid Palms Resort was now the Leaning Palms, almost ready to topple over at any moment. A small harbor had been cut off from the sea, trapping an overturned boat and thousands of colorful fish, uh... plus a few sharks along the way. Nothing, however, topped the sight of the shrimp boat, 'Miss Tilly', impaled precariously on the peak of the great volcanic mountain. To this day, the mountain tries vainly to dislodge its unwelcome burden with an enormous geyser of water every half hour. Well, what nature has done is a little redecorating. The inhabitants were left with the most extraordinary assortment of waterfalls, rapids, pools, surf and all around wetness the world has ever seen. The once sleepy resort had been turned into Typhoon Lagoon. MAGICAL MOMENT The mascot of the park, Lagoona Gator, is out surfing on the coast of Australia (according to the last news we have of him). Every day, to take his place, the Cast Members choose one guest (usually a small child) to be the "Big Kahuna" of the day. The Big Kahuna is responsible to make sure that everything is working the way it is supposed to. For that, he gets a guided tour of the park before it opens, his name on the board at the entrance of the park, a medal, a special reserved area on the beach right in front of the wave pool and, most of all, he gets to choose which kind of waves we will have on that day and to turn them on. It is such a special moment for that child, his family and for us as cast members! :) After our afternoon swimming at the Art of Animation Resort, Florence wanted to buy a new sweatshirt that we knew they sell at Magic Kingdom so we decided, why not enjoy some rides while we are there? Simon joined us and we ended up staying until the park closed at 11 PM. Oops! Haha! We had so much fun! We rode Phillarmagic, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Magic Carpets of Aladdin, Peoplemover, The Carousel of Progress, The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (while Wishes was going on, it was magical!), Big Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain. We also got ice cream for dinner. We got home way too late (about 1 AM), but it was worth it once again! Those late nights are becoming a habit haha!
On Thursday the 21st, Anipier and I had to go get our costumes so we would have them when we start training at Typhoon on Monday. For an unknown reason, the costuming for the Typhoon lifeguards is located near the Art of Animation, Caribbean Beach and Pop Century Resorts so it's a different bus to go to costuming and to go to Typhoon. In order not to lose our day off going to costuming, we decided to bring our swimsuits and try the pools at Art of Animation Resorts with Florence. I was deployed there for a week last summer, but I had never tried the pools. We visited the Little Mermaid and Lion King parts of the resort, had lunch at the cafeteria during the thunderstorm in the beginning of the afternoon and then we went to the Nemo pool. I'm pretty sure it's the biggest pool on the Walt Disney World property and it is gorgeous! We had an awesome time and the girls had a drink at the bar which looked delicious!
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AuthorHello everyone! My name is Marie-Ève. I am from Québec, Canada and this blog is about my summer as a cast member in Walt Disney World. Since most of my family and friends speak French, everything on this blog will be written both in English and French. Archives
December 2015
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