Week #4 - The Adventures Continue!

Hello everyone! Here is my recap for last week, which was Week 4 of being at Disney World. It's crazy that a few weeks have already passed!

Sunday, February 2,  I had to work most of the day, but that night I went along with my friend Malari and some of her friends, Colby, Nick, and JD, to Jellyrolls. It was nice to go with a bigger group, and we had a fun night!

The next day, I went to work, but since I only had to be there until 6 pm, I thought it would be a great night to change clothes and then re-enter Animal Kingdom as a guest to experience the park at night. It was awesome being able to wander around and see the different areas of Animal Kingdom, and I was able to ride Dinosaur with a Fastpass and then end the night seeing the show Rivers of Light for the first time. It's a really pretty light projection show on the water, and it was relaxing getting to watch it while eating a delicious Simba pretzel! 

Tuesday was an exciting day because Hannah and I both had the day off and were able to go hang out at Magic Kingdom! We got to finally get some pictures in front of the "famous" Main Street casting door and some classic purple wall pictures. We rode Space Mountain and Jungle Cruise (my first time riding both of them during the DCP) and went to Enchanted Tales with Belle, which neither of us had done before. After eating lunch at Cosmic Ray's, we were able to meet Gaston and the stepsisters from Cinderella, which of course were both funny interactions! Then we left Magic Kingdom and came back to rest at the apartment and to wait for Audrey to get off work so we could drive over to the Polynesian resort. We mainly wanted to get the special Cinderella 70th anniversary Dole whip and watch the Magic Kingdom fireworks from the beach there. Plus, Rebecca, a girl Hannah and I had talked to in the past because she also applied unsuccessfully last application season, had just moved in the day before. It was great finally being able to meet her in person and to meet some of her friends that had been resort hopping with her that day!

                      

  

Cinderella Dole Whip

Electrical Water Pageant

Wednesday was just another work day in Africa! Then on Thursday, I had the day off, and all of us roommates had a rare event of us being able to match up our schedules to go out for a fun breakfast buffet meal. The place we went to was called Trail's End at Disney's Fort Wilderness resort and campgrounds. They had basically every breakfast food you could think of, and the best part was that we got our 40% cast member discount there! The restaurant was not crowded at all, and we had an amazing server who had been with the company since Disney World opened in 1971, so it was interesting talking to him.

 

When we finished with breakfast, Courtney, Hannah, Audrey, and I all decided to go to Epcot for awhile. The day was extremely windy and hotter than we expected it to be, but we powered through! We enjoyed exploring more of the Festival of the Arts stands and got to do a lot of the photo ops set up around the park for the festival. Plus, we walked through most of the countries; it's s always a good day when you get to travel around World Showcase! 

Helping paint a mural

and backpacks!

matching ears...

The best friends I could ask for on the DCP

3D chalk art

My favorite princess, Belle!

That night, Shelby and I went to check out Cowboys, which is a country line dancing bar that a lot of college program participants go to for their college night on Thursdays. It was a great night being able to meet some new friends! We both found out we need a lot more work on our dancing skills, but hopefully we'll be able to go to a lot more Thursday nights coming up and will get some practice in!

On Friday, I had some special visitors at work from back home. :) It was great to see the Wendt familiar faces, and it was so nice of them to stop by and see me while they were on vacation!

After I got off work, I met up with my friend Shelby, who also works at Animal Kingdom and had just ended her day at work too. We had tickets to go to the Villains After Hours event at Magic Kingdom, which was from 9 - midnight. Since we could go ahead and enter the park early though, we headed straight over to Magic Kingdom just in time for the fireworks and then once the normal day guests left, the crowds really went down and there was not a lot of traffic around the park at all! This meant we were able to ride all of the rides that usually have high wait times, such as Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Big Thunder Mountain, with hardly any wait. The coolest part of the night in my opinion was riding Space Mountain with the lights completely off and with villains voices yelling throughout the ride! Also, Pirates of the Caribbean had live actors throughout the ride, so that was pretty cool. At the end of the night, we watched the villains stage show, which is only presented at these special events. Oh, and a bonus was that the whole night we were able to go to snack carts and pick up free popcorn, sodas, and Mickey ice cream bars/sandwiches! As cast members, we got discounted tickets for this event, so it was totally worth it! 

We can't escape The Lion King even when we're not at work! :)

Space Mountain in the dark!

Pretty cool seeing an empty Main Street

Love this sweet friend!

Finally, on Saturday, I just had another day of work at Animal Kingdom. And with that, another week of the DCP was over. Weeks really do fly by here! Thanks for reading, and I'll talk to you again real soon!