Disney Event #2: Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party!

Event # 2 was the MNSSHP on 9/23. I had purchased the ticket to go early in the month and had planned to go with my roommates Kryssy and Kat. However by the week of the party I found out that they were no longer going and I was left with no one to go with. OH NO! It turned out all right though because I found another friend who had the same thing happen to her and we ended up going together.

I elected to wear my Pirate costume which my grandmother made me about 5 years ago. It is an epic costume if I do say so myself and I have worn it many many times on International Talk Like A Pirate Day, to Renaissance Festivals, and of course during the Halloween season. My friend Morgan dressed up like Alice. 

Since we are both performers, we love characters and decided to make the priority of our night to meet characters. We started of with Mickey and Minnie. There was a long line of people waiting to meet them in their Halloween outfits and hardly anyone in the regular queue. Since I am all knowledgable and knew when Mickey would be out in his fancy costumes and how much time the line takes, we jumped in the regular queue and were some of the first people to see them in their Halloween outfits. Basically we were sneaky sneaky and jumped all those people. BAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!

We of course made a stop to see Alice and Mad Hatter for Morgan. At this point we were joined by one of Morgan's friends whose name I of course can't remember. 

I make wonderful faces yes?

Soon after our visit with those Wonderland folk we went to watch the Villans Mix and Mingle. May I just say that the Villans show is THE BEST THING EVER! It needs to be a priority in anyones MNSSHP evening. After the show the Villans that are in the show do a short meet and greet. Short as in 15 mins. So be smart and get there early and stand in the general area of your fav villain. We watched the show and then jumped in line for Maleficent. 

We made stops to see various other characters not often seen in the parks such as Terk and Jane as well as Timon. 

We hit up the second parade since that one tends to be a little less crowded and got a good seat right at the beginning of Main Street (which is actually the end of the parade route). I took a good number of pictures but also made it a priority to enjoy myself. Many of the wonderful pirates came to visit me including the great Barbossa. Peter Pan came and asked me to a sword fight, but I couldn't get my sword out and then he had to run. :) It really is an amazing parade. 

After the parade we scurried up the street to hit up the Hub were the Villans roam. While we were waiting in line for Gaston I got a text from one of my amazing CP #1 training group family, Ryan. Turns out he was sitting across from us during the parade and recognized my voice. :) He and his wife have moved back to Orlando which is an awesome surprise. I hope to be able to hang out with both them and the other guy from my training group Patrick (and his fiance Toni). Yes that means I will be like a 5th wheel but who cares! I love them all. :)

We finished out the night dancing with some of our favorite toys at the Diamond Horseshoe. We saw Woody, Bullseye, and my favorite Cowgirl Jessie. It was quite fun and a great way to end the night. 

 All in all Event #2 was super fun. I haven't bought tickets for another party yet and I'm not sure if I will. I do have one more costume to sport but maybe I won't wear it this year. I don't know of anyone else going to another party but maybe I can convince someone to go again.

-M

Disney Event #1: Trick or Meet Up

I have decided to make a post about each of the Disney events I went to this past week. This is post #1 (obviously) about the Disney Parks Blog Trick or Meet Up.

I mentioned in the first post that I "won" a ticket. What I really meant by this is that there were a limited number of people that could attend this event and that I managed to RSVP early enough to get myself a spot on the list. Each person who RSVPed could bring one guest and was encouraged to dress up in costume.  Im not sure exactly how many people went but it was definitely more than 100.

The meet up basically revolved around the Haunted Mansion and Halloween. We met up at 9pm at Blizzard Beach and were bussed over to the Magic Kingdom from there. While we waited for everyone to check in and the busses to get there a DJ was there playing some music and facilitating a Disney trivia contest. I recognized him as the DJ that was at my first CP completion ceremony aka graduation ironically doing the same thing. I think his name is DJ Miles.

Anyway, I think we managed to get to MK at about 10pm although I'm really not sure about that. We were bussed to what is called Splash Gate which is also where the Parade Control building is and where all of the parade floats are kept. They had some of the parade floats lit up in the barn so we got to see some of those as we drove past. After we were let into the park, we were walked to the Hall of Presidents. Right outside the entrance to the Hall of Presidents, Gene the Disney Parks Blog photographer was taking pictures of guests in costume. Guess who got a picture taken of them... ME! and my twin who was my guest.

As you can tell I wore my Daisy Duck costume although stupid me forgot my bracelet. Whoops. Once we got inside and were all seated Imagineer, Jason Surrell, came in and talked to us about the Haunted Mansion and answered questions from the crowd. It was very interesting to say the least. I'm not a Disney parks/imaginer/rides expert by any means so there is a lot of things I didn't know that probably a lot of the crowd did. One of the cool things I learned was that the Haunted Mansion was completed in April of 1971 and basically they just locked the door of the ride for 6 months until the park opened in October.

After he was finished they let us go free to tour the new Haunted Mansion queue with an Imagineer, ride the Haunted Mansion, take pictures with some characters, or trick or treat. I of course did all of the above with a focus on characters. As soon as we walked out of the Hall of Presidents we saw Daisy and Donald Duck. Since I was in my Daisy outfit I dragged my Twin to the line and made him wait with me. Daisy of course thought I was the bees knees and Donald got down on one knee for me. I guess he was momentarily confused and thought I was Daisy. Twin then proposed to Daisy and it went down hill from there. I love fun interactions with characters. :)

 

I also met Dr. Facilier which was super awesome. And saw some ghostly singers serenade the guests.

Sitting outside of the Haunted Mansion was 2 wonderfully funny ghosts, Renata and Carlotta DuBois. They are totally hilarious and can be found outside the Haunted Mansion during the Halloween parties, or so I have heard.

The night was finished off with a run of the Headless Horeseman.

It was a great night and I had a ton of fun. I hope that if there are future meet ups at WDW I will be able to go. I don't know if I have ever mentioned it but a dream job for me would be to work for the Disney Parks blog. Hopefully one day I can make it to that dream.

In PI news... I have my interview for the Entertainment Management Internship (MI) tonight at 8. I finished applying for the rest of my Comm internships last night. I have a grand total of 9 internships I have applied for. 1 MI, 6 communication related PIs (all but one social media related), and 2 Alumni only PIs. I really hope I will get one of them. Wish me good luck on my interview tonight!

-M

3 Days of Disney Events!

My marathon 3 days of Disney events is well under way. Last night was the first Disney Parks Blog Trick  or Meet Up and I managed to get a "ticket". Tonight I will be attending my first Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party and tomorrow is the 40th Anniversary of Walt Disney World. I will post more about all of these including photos and such. But for now this is just going to be a teaser.

In other news... I just got an email telling me to schedule my phone screening for the Entertainment Management PI. This is great but I also need to apply for all the communication PIs I want. Its an exciting and busy time for me!

:)

-M

Professional Internships and Other News...

Updates Updates...

As I have mentioned before I am in the process of applying for Professional Internships. I have many that I am applying for but the one I have been focusing on recently is the Entertainment Management Internship. I met with an entertainment manager at Magic Kingdom that I work with somewhat frequently and she agreed to help me out. She look at my resume and made some suggestions on how I could improve it. She has also looked into setting me up some meet and greets although I am not sure how that will pan out. I am very very grateful for her help but I do wish I had meet with her earlier. The deadline to apply for the MI (management internship) is Sept 30th aka a week away. So I am going to apply and do all that without as much of the benefit of her help as I could have had if maybe I had met with her earlier.

So that is a big suggestion I have. If you are graduating or just planning on doing a PI immediately after your CP, be there for as long as possible before those PIs would start. Start talking and being visible to leadership asap. And then talk to them about your interests in PIs as soon as you can and long before the apps go up. For people who are interested in the Entertainment department, just realize that you are going to have a much harder time making contacts with managers, especially if you are a performer. Your hardly ever in the same location multiple days in a row and if you are that doesn't mean you will have the same manger every time. You probably will often not even see a manager while you are at work. They can be hard to find and even harder to get a chance to talk to. Although I can say its not impossible to get their help, because they are willing, it just isn't as a performer as it is if you are in say attractions.

Anyways I guess that is all for this post. There are lots of cool event coming up at Disney including the 40th anniversary of the Magic Kingdom and the Food and Wine Festival. I am going to make an effort to go to both and so hopefully you will get some pictures from those events.

-M

Hallloooweeeeeen!

Have I mentioned that Halloween is my all time favorite holiday? I think I did in my last post. But thats ok , its the truth so it can be repeated.

I LOVE HALLOWEEEEENN! It is really the best holiday ever. To me, it is the perfect fall holiday.

Anyways. I have pictures of the Boo To You parade to post! It was absolutely amazing. Lots and lots of fun. Unfortunately it was a bit crazy trying to get situated for the parade. If you ever doubt that Cast Members can be just as stupid as guests, please do not. The waiting, crowding, and pushing that happened before the Cast Preview is a great example that Cast Members are not above guests. They act just as idiotic given the opportunity.

I ended up going with my roommate Kryssy and friend Amanda. They had bought Woody and Jessie shirts earlier in the day so we all kinda dressed up. Them in Toy Story and me in my Daisy shirt. We ended up standing with some of the D-Fam (read almost all of the D-Fam) which was totally random, unplanned, and awesome.

Look at how cute we are!

Now for pictures of the parade! I took a good amount but I am just going to post some of the best.

I will be going to an acutal MNSSHP on the September 30th and October 6th. I also plan on going one more time in October. I have 3 costumes (Daisy Duck, Pirate, and Tinkerbell) to wear so I have to go to at least 3 parties. :) I will post pictures of the parties and me in my costume when I attend.

Thats all for now my loves!

-M

This is Halloween, This is Halloween...

GUUYYSSSSSS!

Tonight is the cast preview of the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party parade Boo To You. Basically what that means is this is the first real fall program marker. This is one of those things that you hear people talk about when the fall cp is mentioned so I am so freaking excited to go.

It also helps that I am in love with Halloween. It is truthfully my favorite holiday. Christmas? Nope. Don't really care about it. But Halloween I celebrate all month long. ... Well because of Disney I will be celebrating for two months. Beautiful. :D

I will post pictures of the parade when I upload them.

Get excited guys! Get Excited!!

-M

My Life is Crazy!

Its true. My life is crazy. I don't mean that as an excuse but as a statement of truth.

Its getting to be that time when Professional Internship listings go up. So I have been trying to get myself in the best position for those. I often feel like I am doing to little to late or really just that I suck at the whole self promotion networking getting my name out there thing.

Word to the wise, if you are in an Entertainment role, specifically performer, and are looking to network for future roles in maybe a different area.... Good Luck. I guess I didn't realize this but the global nature of a performers role is not an asset when it comes to getting to know management. I am literally never in the same place two days in a row. Managers are hardly ever around it seems and because I am never some place often the times when they are around, they are only going to see me once. So know one knows who I am and its difficult trying to ask for help when you feel like they don't know you. Maybe its just me but if I am going to ask someone to help me I at least what them to know who I am.

At this point I am relying on the two managers I knew from my time as an Attendant to help me. I have contacted one manager that I know from being a performer. I hope that she will help, but honestly I'm not sure she will even remember who I am. I hope I am underestimating my notoriety for lack of a better term. Maybe managers do know who I am.

In other news I got my first Great Service Fanatic as a performer the other day. Another performer got lost  and wasn't going to make it for their set time so one of the other performers and I split her set time to cover it. So instead of us both doing 20 min sets we did 30. It really wasn't a big deal to me and I didn't expect any sort of recognition so it was very nice to receive a GSF. I just didn't want those poor guests to have to sit there for 20 mins waiting for a character that should have come right back out just because I wasn't willing to go out there for a little longer.  I guess that is the definition of going above and beyond. Go figure.

Hummm other work tidbits... I am going to a face type out for Tokyo Disneyland. I would legit crap a brick if I got to work there. If you happen to go look at my Disney Dreams tab one of those is that I would love to work in one of the parks abroad. Working at Tokyo would be my top choice and if I could do that in an Entertainment role I might just die. They are going to be opening a new night time parade over there as well as their version of Fantastic which basically means if I were to work there, I would probably get to be in those. Insanity right? wahhhh I have never wanted to be pulled so bad. That audition is on Monday and I assume I would know relatively soon if I was offered a contract or not. I think that if I got offered that I would choose that over a PI. I probably would hardly even have begun the process for a PI at the time of an offer. I have always wanted to travel and this would be my opportunity. You have to do something like this while you are young and its not really something I will get multiple shots at. That just basically means I would have to take some community college classes in order to apply for another PI but I would do that if I needed to. But all this talk is basically just that, talk. I can't count my chickens before they hatch.

All I seem to talk about is work. Thats boring right? Maybe not. Unfortunately work seems to consume my life. I am really a boring person. I went out last night to see some of the D-fam at DTD and many of them remarked that they hadn't seen me in forever. One of them I hadn't met at all and she has been here longer than I have. I know I should go out more. I really enjoyed just hanging around with them last night. But I am so often tired and lazy. OR lets be honest here, consumed by my twin. He lives far away (aka an hour) so I often spend my two days off with him. And while I enjoy that and don't regret it, I also know that I am neglecting a lot of other people by doing that. Le sigh. Le kick myself.

Well I really must go. Literally. My computer charger is broken and so I can not charge it. And seeing as how the battery is at 19%... I really have no choice in writing any more. Its about to die on me.

Love you all. Sorry I don't write more often. If I did maybe my posts wouldn't be such massive books.

:/

-M