Notes from ShellyCentral

Vincent D'Onofrio alert!

Tuesday Feb 24

The Grid opened this morning!
What's The Grid? It's the brand new convenience store they built inside my apartment complex. Very nice. There was a grand opening, with the boss and everything, so 2 of my roommates and I went to check it out.

I was all dressed up because I had class to go to. Exploring Guest Service was very fun that day, as always. After I came home, ate some lunch, got ready for work and headed out to make the magic from 3:30 to 10:15. It was a long day, but not a bad one.

I learned the night before that my one true love, Vincent D'Onofrio, was in the parks. He had been in the Animal Kingdom and eaten at Chef Mickey's the night before.

(from Vincent's Twitter account)

Now I had heard people talk about meeting famous people while working at Disney World. It makes sense that a lot of famous people come here for their own fun vacations. And when I thought about it I thought to myself that the only famous person I'd really be overly excited to meet would be my favorite actor (and one true love) Vincent D'Onofrio. But what were the chances he'd visit during the short 15 weeks I'd be working here?

So all day I was on the lookout! Although honestly, I was a bit concerned that if I saw that glorious man I might just pass out right where I stood. I was willing to risk it. I even asked all my coworkers to keep an eye out for me. For the first part of the day I was a little obsessed. Later I was distracted by work and didn't think about it every 5 minutes. Sadly I never saw him. Maybe it was for the best. I would have been very embarrassed if they had to call the ambulance for me at the back exit of Epcot.

 

 

 

The White Glove and Messages from the Princesses

Monday Feb 23

 So here in College Program housing, our apartments get inspected once a month. If you fail, you have to pay a fine. If you pass, good for you. And if you pass so well you get the White Glove award, you get a prize.

You don't get to know exactly when they'll happen, but you're given a range of dates, so we were ready. This day we were all home in the morning when the knock at the door happened and the inspection team came in to look around.

 

Woohoo, we got the white glove! Our prize was a tin full of cookies, and the promise that if we get the White Glove again next month, our prize will be even better. Our white gloved fingers are crossed.

I had to work from 1230 - 8. This is my least favorite shift. It’s too early to get stuff done before work, and too late for much of anything after. Still, I headed to the magic kingdom after I was off. I was on the monorail headed to the park when Wishes started.

I only had my point and shoot camera, which takes really horrible after dark photos, but I still had to grab a couple from outside the park.

 

I rushed in and grabbed an open spot on Main Street.

 

Even when you catch it half way through from a bad spot, Wishes is just magic.

There was a second showing of Celebrate the Magic, so I sat down close to the castle and watched it.

I had found a fastpass the night before to meet Ana and Elsa. I was trying to decided what to say to them and remembered my baby nieces and how much they love those sisters, so I asked the ladies to let me record a little message to them. Best! Idea! Ever!

I can't figure out how to embed them here, so here are links if you'd like to see what they said:

From Elsa.

From Ana.

I was in the best mood after that. I had no idea how fun it would be.

Next I went on a desperate walk around the park looking for food. Cosmic Ray's didn't have anything that looked good. Pinocchio's was closed. Pecos Bill's? Not my favorite. But I gave up at that point and ate a kid's grilled cheese outside while I watched Main Street Electrical Parade pass by.

I had also somehow scored a fastpass to the Mine Train so after dinner I pretty much walked on to that amazing ride. I seriously love it, no matter how short it is. I don't think I'd wait in the normally super long lines to ride it, but I'll definitely jump on any time I can find a fastpass.

After that I headed home. Thanks Magic Kingdom!

 

 

Sangria Sunday

Sunday Feb 22

It was the morning of the Princess Half Marathon, and I had such a great time telling everyone who ran congratulations. Seriously fun. Also I saw my friend from the disboards and her mom this day so it was very fun working out by strollers!

A lot of roads were shut because of the marathon, so I had been hearing that I needed to leave plenty early for work because of that over and over. So I left early, and drove in some back way that was interesting. But I still got to work over an hour early. Never tell me to be early, because I am always early. Tell me to be early and it will be obscene. 

This was my first morning shift and I absolutely loved it. I like getting up and heading straight out to work and I really love being done before the day is over.

As I was heading home I texted my friends to see if anyone wanted to go somewhere for dinner, so after I went home and changed, I met my friend Monica and two of her roommates at Carrabba's right around the corner for a relaxing meal.

Even more relaxing, we tried this berry Sangria that was so delicous I could barely stand it. I would have drank an entire pitcher myself but I had driven myself there. We dubbed it Sangria Sunday and vowed to make it a recurring event, but I think I've worked every Sunday since then so not so much. I still think about that Sangria though...

 

 

 

 

 

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Friday, February 20th

It was my niece Addison's birthday. I tried to call her a couple times but didn't get through so I left a message. Her mom called me later but Addy was exhausted at that point and just said No when Lindsay told her I wanted to tell her happy birthday. Ok! Gotta love 3 year olds.

I don't even remember what I did in the morning, but I worked from 2 to 8. I love the 6 hour shift. I have such a good attitude on those days, because I know whatever happens I won't have to be there long. Hooray!

I didn't do anything exciting before or after work though. I wrote some, watched some TV with my roomies, slacked about. Those days are necessary sometimes.

 

Saturday, February 21st

Woohoo to another day off!

I don't remember what I did in the morning, but later in the day Adam and I went to the parks.

We were hungry so we went to Epcot. It's the best park for food. We picked the Cantina de San Angel. I think I said earlier that I wanted to try everything on the menu, and this day we both decided to try the Nachos. I got mine without jalapenos, he got his without sour cream. We sat inside by a window and muched away. 

 We didn't stay long. We did get in line to ride SpaceShip Earth, and there was more of a line than either of us were used to. While we were in line a crazy cold wind blew up and I was cold! I also realized that even though we had worked out a perfect plan of parking in the TTC so we could just take the monorail from Epcot to the Magic Kingdom, we were going to have to head back to my car because I needed my phone charger. Whoops. 

When we got inside the Magic Kingdom, it was almost parade time so the wait to meet talking Mickey was super short. Of course we took advantage of it. 

When it was our turn Mickey said "Well look who's here!" so of course I said "It's Adam and Shelly!!"

 

He then proceeded to tell us about his recent visit to that "creepy mansion" in Frontierland and the ghosts that tried to hitchhike home with him! He was a little worried one actually followed him and started checking behind all the curtains until his attendant encouraged us to tell him we were sure there weren't any.

 

He asked if we wanted a picture and suggested we pose like the ghosts, and instead of saying cheese, say "creeeepy". So we did.

 

We didn't have any big goals, so Adam agreed to let us go meet Buzz.

 

 

 

I told Adam I had never seen the Country Bears before and he decided I absolutely needed to see it. But before he did, he needed to buy a treat. We went into the treat store and look what I found!

 

A Mickey head peanutbutter cup. So amazingly delicious.

 

Adam has some butterscotch fudge.

The Country Bear Jamboree was actually pretty fun and I'm sorry I took so long to check it out. I'll definitely suggest my family see it when we're here next.

One of my Facebook friends that I hadn't actually met yet was working in Fantasyland, so we headed that that way to look for her. But then I realized I didn't know where she was in Fantasyland, and that's a big place. So instead we went to Pete's Silly Sideshow and met the boys.

Goofy was goofy, as usual. I'm starting to love him. 

And then we met Donald.

After that we decided to take the train around the park. We were planning to stay late because Adam had a fast pass for the Mine Train, but I was getting so very tired and had to be at work early the next morning, so Adam oh so graciously said it would be fine to go home early - and so we did.

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Wednesday, February 4

Hollywood Studios Day Off

Thursday, February 19th

It was so cold when I woke up I thought I was in Kansas. I didn't even want to get out of the bed, but it was a day off so I did. I bundled up and headed out to Hollywood Studios! 

I had connected my Magic Band with my cast member pass and My Magic Plus on the internet the night before, but for some reason it wasn't working when I got to the touch point. Luckily I had my card and got in, but I went to two different Guest Service spots and they couldn't figure out why. It all looked like it should work, so they gave me a phone number to call.

But first I had a very important fastpass to make! I headed straight for Toy Story Midway Mania where I temporarily became a toy and had a good time.

My second stop was to check on the progress with the hat. I wanted to see it - or actually I wanted to not see it and wondered how close that was to not happening.

I walked to Fairfax Fare where I planned to get some breakfast and tried the number.

After a bit of searching, the nice CM on the phone figured out it was because I have too many Magic Bands. How funny. The thing is every time you make a reservation at a different resort, and not only did we come too much last year we often stayed at more than one resort. She deactivated a few of them and I was all set.

Fairfax Fare was supposed to open for breakfast at 10:30 but it never did. I was starving a so I headed to Starbucks. It was crazy busy so I bailed so I headed for my fastpass at Tower of Terror. It was as awesome as ever.

I decided to head to the Muppets area because I hardly ever go there. I stopped in the Writer's Stop because I needed something to eat. I waited forever to get a chocolate danish. I grabbed a table outside Pizza Planet and munched away. It was giant and had way too much frosting, but it was food so I loved it. I dropped it on the ground before it was finished but it was so much food I was ok with that.

Since I was over there, I decided to check out the Muppets movie. People do not move down the row! People! Follow the instructions. Move down the row. Jeez. I saw One Man's Dream next and then headed to the Animation Courtyard. I wanted to take the drawing class so I got in line. It was a long line and the people behind me were pushy and and didn't understand personal space.

We drew Dale. I've taken this class 3 times and drawn Dale twice now.

It was Academy Awards time, so they had a statue you could get your picture taken with. Of course I did. And posted it on my Facebook with thanks to my family and friends for the support. Also thanks to Mickey for making this all possible.

After that I had to Get Out of the animation courtyard because it was packed with screaming kids who needed naps or lunch of both. I needed some lunch myself so I walked over to the Backlot Express for a burger and padawan training show.

Here's one thing I've discovered about visiting parks by yourself: If you don't have someone to scope out a table for you while you're waiting for your food, you are going to have a hard time finding somewhere to sit. Seriously. Because all the people with a family have taken the tables while their people wait in line. I've heard that during busy times CMs stand around and make sure that doesn't happen, but I haven't seen it yet at Disney (I always see it that way at Universal).  Eventually I did find a perfect table in the sun and enjoyed my food. And after that I headed back home.

Adriana got home right after me and we went with her friend to check out the last day of Cast Connections before they moved. We thought they might have some great deals since they were trying to get rid of everything before the big move - but really they just didn't have anything left. For real. So we headed back home empty handed.

It was 47 degrees then. And the low that night was 27. Crazy talk.

 

A couple more work days.

Tuesday Feb 17

I had some cereal and a bagel for breakfast and then got ready for my first Disney class! I put on some business casual clothes and headed to Chatham for Exploring Guest Service. My instructor, Jeff, was incredible and I loved him right away. I feel like I’m going to learn a lot of great things in that class.

Dianne has a class right after mine so I saw her as I was leaving. Her car was acting up so she was about to leave to take it home (to Miami) and trade it for another car until it got fixed. Bye Dianne! See you in a few days.

I went home, changed and messaged my friends Adam and Monica to see what they were up to. I picked up Adam and we met Monica at Chick-Fil-A for some lunch. I had such a fun time with them. I love them a lot already.

Monica had to go to work, but Adam accompanied me to Walmart where it was insanely crowded, loud and crazy. We went to Target after that and then I took him home. I talked to Hannah for a while and worked for a while editing photos while I chatted with my roommate Adriana. Later I talked to Brian and Alan before I went to bed.

  

Wednesday, February 18

Today was the third day in a row that I had Lucky Charms for breakfast which is weird because I never eat cereal for breakfast. I guess it's all the sugar.i was thinking a bit about going to a park before work, but i was too lazy :)

I had thought about going to a park before work, but turned out I was too lazy. Eventually I got ready and worked 12:30 to 8:15. I had to park very far away from the cast building, it must be a popular time to get to work. I forgot my pins though! I don't think I have ever remembered to take both my pins and my water bottle to work on the same day. Maybe tomorrow.

I got my lunch break two hours after I got to work. I had just eaten lunch before I went to work since I started at noon so that was bad timing. And then I had my second break at 6:15. I don't really love only getting two breaks even when one of them is really long. It felt like forever before it but eventually it was 8:15 and I was done with work.

It was super cold by then! I had taken clothes and planned to meet friends at the MK after work, but it was dropping below 50 degrees so I bailed and headed home. I made a big batch of pasta to take for lunches and talked to Adriana. Later Dianne came home and we all chatted until bedtime.

 

 

A little play before work (2/16)

Monday, February 16

I was feeling back to normal health wise, and I was feeling a little better in my emotions as well. I didn’t have to work until 4pm - woohoo! - so I had planned to head to Epcot early for some lunch before it was time to clock in.

I had heard a rumor that we couldn’t do the thing where we showed our blue ID and get day passes anymore, but I hadn’t gotten my real park pass either yet (or so I thought). I called home and had to make sure it didn’t end up in Kansas accidentally. Nope. So I called cast admissions and they confirmed my id wouldn’t work anymore, but they transfered me to HR to make sure my address here was right. That lady was super helpful and mentioned I should check at my apartment’s front desk because of many reasons.

Dianne was also headed out to a park, so she said she’d go check and call to let me know if they were there. As I was getting dressed she called and sure enough they were there. I have no idea why they didn’t let me know, but I didn’t really care because it meant I could head to a park!

 

It was a beautiful day! The sun was shining and the sky was blue as could be. I found a super close parking spot (not always easy), caught a cast bus to the front of the park and headed in. I walked straight through the front of the park to La Cantina de San AngelIt had been weeks since I had any tacos, so I ordered the Tacos de Barbacoa. I headed inside to find a table by the water and sat down to enjoy.

After that I found a lovely bench where I sat for a bit to just soak up the sun, but before I headed in to work I decided to try a cronut. I had been reading and hearing about those things for a really long time but had never found or tried one. It’s a cross between a croissant and a donut and everyone seems to love them. As I stood in line I decided if I was going to have one I should do it up and get the deluxe version with soft serve on top.

Oh my goodness it was even better than in my wildest imagining. Seriously. Get yourself one, and definitely go for the soft serve. I was sitting on a bench eating it. People walking by were checking it out and the people next to me were super interested. They asked what it was and decided they should get one too. I hope they loved it as much as I did.

 

It was time to get to work soon, so I headed out through a cast exit and headed to change into my costume. I ran into a co-worker I like a lot in the changing room and chatted with her a bit before I got back on the bus to my location. I got strollers right away which as you know I love. There were nice FastPass workers and greeters out there while I was and I had fun talking with them and answering guest questions. One of my leaders stopped by to let me know he would be on leave for a while because it was time for his baby girl to be born!

The rest of work was kind of slow. I gave out a lot of stickers and sold people some stuff. Later in the evening, there were two kids dressed up perfectly like Mary Poppins and Bert and they came in the store with the real Mary Poppins for a while. That was precious.

During Illuminations, the fireworks show, it gets really, really slow in the store so I was able to stand outside and watch a bit of that while it happened. I was off at 10 and happy to go home.

It was a pretty good day!

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Wednesday, February 4

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Work Days

Friday, Feb 13th

I was working again on Friday the 13th, from 1:45 until 10pm. I saw my roommate Dianne while I was waiting for the bus before work, and later that night while I was on a break. That was a fun treat to make my day a little more fun.

I met a girl from Australia while we were waiting on the bus after work. She had a friend from Warrensburg, which is very close to Kansas City so that was fun. She was very nice.

I was starting to feel better from my head cold, but I started having serious stomach pains this afternoon, so that wasn't great. It kept me up part of the night and I slept really badly.

Saturday, February 14th
Happy Valentine's Day

My cold was all gone, but my stomach was still really mad at me.

I woke up to a sweet email from Alan that made me wish I was back in Lawrence, cuddled up watching tv with him and Daisy in my oh-so-comfy bed. I felt super pukey which didn't help, but I worked from 12 to 7:15 which was at least distracting. I got to do strollers at the end of day and that's my favorite.

A handful of drunk people came to talk to us as the night wound down. There was a couple with their friend who asked us if we knew any good single guys for her to date. They were pretty funny. The guy of the group said he could tell I was in a committed relationship because I had that responsible, committed glow. I'm not even sure what he meant by that, but he was right so I couldn't argue.

I went home and did some around the house stuff. I called Alan and we video chatted for a while which was really, really nice.

Also, according to my notes, it was really cold. Cold for Florida anyway.

 

Sunday, Feb 15

By Sunday I was feeling a lot better physically, but the homesick was seriously getting to me. I was feeling that I might have made a horrible mistake and wondering what the point of this whole thing was. I thought I might have made another Pippin choice and considered calling my therapist to chat a bit.

Instead I decided to do what I could to make myself better and did all the things I mentioned in this post. I also discovered a frozen dinner I actually liked (the truffle mac and cheese by evol at Target) which was fantastic.

At work I did a lot of tasking and got to do strollers for a long time. Captain Phoebus from Hunchback of Notre Dame was outside my store meeting guests and I had a good time watching him from the distance. I was hoping he was out meeting when I had my breaks so I could meet him, but it didn't work out.

When I was on my second break I got the very bad news that my fascinating Great Aunt had passed away and couldn't stop from falling apart a little bit. A very sweet leader passed by me and sat down to talk about what was wrong. When my break was over she had me tell a manager who was equally sweet and gave me a hug which really just made me cry harder. They let me take my time to get it together and offered to let me go home if I needed to. But being at work kept me busy and distracted so I stayed. Everyone was very understanding about the whole situation and offered to let me have time off if I needed. I really do have some really great leaders and I love some of them bunches.

I was starving when I got home and decided to make myself an egg and cheese Boboli pizza, but I kept forgetting to hit 'start' on the oven so it took me forever to get it cooked. Silly me. I ate my late dinner and chatted with Adriana until bedtime.

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Thursday, Feb 12, continued....

After breakfast, Dianne and I headed to the Magic Kingdom.
We hadn't received our "main gate", or cast member pass into the parks yet, so we had to stand in line at Guest Services to get a day pass every day we wanted to go into a park. This morning the line at the MK was crazy! The lady in font of us in line had just found out her uncle had passed away, but was trying to just go on with her trip and not let her (very young) kids know she was upset because, she said, it was all about them having a great time. What an awesome mom. I hope she managed to have some fun, and that her kids had the best time ever.

 

We were there to buy things and to meet princesses that day, so we stopped at the first FP+ kiosk and made some fast passes.

I was still feeling pretty homesick at that point, and when Rapunzel asked how I was doing, I told her. I didn't really mean to, but it just came out. "Do you ever miss Pascal?" I asked her. "Not really," she said, "he always turns up everywhere and is never gone for long." She was great and I was greatly cheered.

 

Cinderella was also amazingly good that day! Between the two of them I was in a pretty good mood before we left Princess Fairy Tale Hall.

 Adriana was on her way to meet us so she could shop too, so while we wait we stopped into Castle Couture where I found the BEST present for Hannah. But I'm not going to tell you about it because I haven't given it to her yet.

We all met up at the Emporium and spent way too much money. I was done a little before they were and they had one more shop to hit on Main Street, so I rushed back to Momento Mori (the Haunted Mansion store) and bought way too much more stuff for that child of mine.

Dianne and I tood the monorail back to our cars at Contemporary with plans to meet Adriana at Downtown Disney, but as we got to our car Dianne realized she didn't have her phone. Oh no! I tried to call it and someone answered and said it was at the Magic Kingdom monorail station. Fantastic! She went back to get it and told me she'd meet us downtown.

 While Adriana and I waited for Dianne, we got ourselves some Mickey Bars! It was my 3rd of this trip and tasted just as good as the first!

We did even more shopping, believe it or not. And then we were done. I was so, so done. I haven't bought anything but food since.

Dianne and Adriana headed off for Epcot that night, but I had dinner plans with our friend Adam! I headed to his apartment to pick him up and drive us to the Animal Kingdom Kidani Villas for dinner at Sanaa.

We were really early, but we checked in anyway. We got our buzzer and went out back to check out the animals. There were several giraffes. This is one of the best parts of the Animal Kingdom Lodge.

 

There was a fire burning so Adam and I sat in some of the giant chairs around the fire and waited.

 

It really wasn't long before our buzzer buzzed, and we were led to our table.
It's super gorgeous inside of Sanaa. I was loving it.

The bread service is the best part about this restaurant, imho. We got 3 different naans, pickled garlic, red pepper hummus and some raita. It was all incredibly delicious.

 

I had the basmati rice with butter chicken and chicken vindaloo. The chicken vindaloo was a little too spicy for me. I told our waiter that when he asked how it was so he took that back and brought me more butter chicken, which I thought was some super fantastic service.

 

This was Adam's pork something. He liked it a lot.

We were way too full for dessert, so after we were finished I drove Adam home. I came back to my apartment and called it a night.


 

 

Breakfast at The Wave

 

 

 

Thursday, February 12

Another day off, and another breakfast buffet with my friend and roommate Dianne.

Eating breakfast at The Wave was on my bucket list, so I was excited to check it out! I had read about their sweet potato pancakes and I was ready to check it out.

The Contemporary resort, where the Wave is located.

 

The entrace to the restaurant.

 

My first plate. I always need to have savory before I have sweet.

 

And then the pancakes! They were just as yummy as I was hoping. I loved them.

 

When we were as full as we wanted to be, we headed out.
But first a stop in the restroom.
One of my favorite things about a Deluxe resort like the contemporary? Real towels to dry your hands in the bathroom. Nice!

 

We left the Contemporary and headed for the Magic Kingdom to do last minute shopping on the last day of our big discount. And to catch a couple princesses. 

 

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The adventure begins.

Wednesday, February 4