Resort Hopping and Traditions!

I am SO sorry for not posting lately!! Training has started and it's been absolutely all over the place. However today is my last day of training and I have the night shift so I have some free time this morning to share with all of you what's been going on! I'll start with the first week after I left off with a tour of my new apartment in Patterson.

At the Polynesian Resort beach with Sarah and Sara!

After checking in and a few days off to use for shopping and getting settled, we had our housing meeting at The Commons (the international apartment complex). A lot of people were warning us that it was boring, but it really wasn't that bad. They mainly just went over the policies with what items you can't you can't have in your apartment, if you want to bring guests into your apartment, etc. After this, my roommates and I decided to go resort hopping for our first adventure together! We really wanted to check out where we were working (for those of us not in the parks like me), so we hopped on a bus and made our first stop at my work location, the Polynesian Resort. Let me just say, my resort is breathtaking! It's like the people who placed me there saw all of my tropical photos on my tumblr and decided "Let's put her somewhere like that." Okay, maybe not, but still it's really a perfect location for me. After we spent time on the beach and exploring the location more, we hopped on the monorail and went to the Contemporary, where my roommate Briana is working in merchandise. We spent so much time in the gift shop! After the Contemporary, we needed to somehow find a way to the Wilderness Lodge, where Sara is working. It's kind of awkwardly in a different area without a monorail, but still close to Magic Kingdom so we decided to just take a stop at MK and go on a bus to the Wilderness Lodge. I am absolutely obsessed with Sara's resort. My family would go camping at least once or twice a year during the summer, so it really reminded me of home. It also reminded me of Lake Tahoe, where my grandparents live and where I've been able to visit many many times.

Where I work!

The Wilderness Lodge was the end of our visiting journey for exploring our work locations for the night, so we decided to head back to the Polynesian and eat dinner at my work location, Captain Cook's. I don't know if it was this day exactly, but this was where I had my first ever Dole Whip! SO good! After dinner we needed to head to the bus stop and go back home because Briana and Sara had early morning Traditions the next day.

Which brings me to my next important event: Traditions!!

Traditions is the ever-famous Disney orientation where you finally become an official Disney cast member. I'm honestly not going to explain too much about it because most of it needs to be kept a secret for future cast members, but I'll tell you a brief bit of what to expect.

Many CPs are pretty nervous about being able to dress appropriate to "The Disney Look" for traditions, but honestly just make sure you're presentable and wearing clothes that are conservative and business like with closed toed shoes and you'll be fine. I just wore one of my few outfits I would wear to scholarship interviews when I was in high school. I don't have a picture right now but it was just a nice shirt and black slacks with flats. Pretty simple! I would NOT recommend wearing heels to Traditions because you will be doing a lot of walking. Traditions lasts around four hours, and yes there were some boring moments where a lot of people almost fell asleep, but overall it was a good experience and we finally got our Disney IDs and name tags!! (I might actually order a new ID with my hometown on it, since I don't technically go to the college on my name tag anymore.)

Many people know that after you go to Traditions, you can officially access the Disney parks for free whenever you'd like. Since our class was in the afternoon and finished after six and the park closed at around eight, we decided to just go back to the apartment and relax to get ready for going to the parks the next day. Some people rushed home and rushed to MK within the same day as Traditions, but honestly we weren't in any hurry because we knew we had five more months to visit them whenever we felt like it!

If you have any more questions about Traditions or the like, let me know. I'll do my best to answer them!