I'm here!

Well ladies and gentlemen, I am HERE! I'm in my room in The Commons (apparently in the part known as the 'ghetto' because it's so far from the clubhouse and bus stop!), with my lovely new roommate Grace. We've only just unpacked because we kept getting sidetracked by the internet, haha.

My journey here was relatively smooth. I met Bryony and Bradley at the airport and our flight to Atlanta was good. I'd never flown Delta before but I was actually quite impressed. Comfy seats, decent choice of films, all right meal, can't really complain.
Our flight arrived early so we didn't have as much of a rush as we were expecting to have when we got to Atlanta, which was good. We all went through immigration with little trouble (Bradley's immigration officer had never done a Q1 visa before so that took a while, but besides that no problems!), but then our plane to Orlando had mechanical difficulties so we had to get off it and get on another one! This meant we were 2 hours late getting into Orlando, but the rest of our arrival group had still waited for us, which was so nice of them!

We all piled into a Mears shuttle and got to Vista Way where we assigned our housing, which turned out really well. The 2 boys were put as roommates, and Grace, Emma, Laura and I were put into an apartment altogether, with Bryony in an apartment just across from us.

We went on a late night shop to Wal-Mart, which basically consisted of us sleepily wandering around as quickly as we could and trying to remember all the necessities. We all wayyy overbought and trying to carry it all was quite tricky! Luckily Ben somehow managed to carry both his and Bradley's stuff so Bradley helped Emma and me with ours.
Back in our rooms, we made our beds then just passed out!

Today we didn't have to be anywhere til 12.50 so we spent most of the morning trying to fix our wifi. Laura and I unplugged every single wire in the vicinity of the modem and the router and somehow this made it work! Success!
Then we went to Vista Way to do loads of paperwork stuff, came back to the Commons for a video presentation on stuff not to do (apparently we can't have toy guns. 5 year olds in the parks can have them, we can't. That's cool), then got the bus to Downtown Disney for some FOOD.

The 7 of us, plus another UK guy called Simon that we'd found, ate in Planet Hollywood. Good times. Honestly felt like SO LONG since we'd have a proper meal! Afterwards we walked through Marketplace (with detours into Ghiradelli and World of Disney, obviously!) to the bus, and went to the Polynesian to watch Wishes on the beach. We couldn't hear the music as well as I'd thought you could, and the Electrical Water Pageant kiiiinda got in the way, but it was a lovely way to end the day so I'm definitely not complaining!

We got a bit lost trying to find the cast member bus stop to get back, and were on the bus for an hour because a road was closed, but eventually made it back here!

This is actually the longest entry I've done, pretty sure. Let's see if I can keep this up ... (don't hold your breath kids!)

Last night at home.

Tomorrow my parents and I will be spending my last night in this country in a hotel by the airport, so tonight is my last night at home for a year. Such a strange feeling.

I'm almost all packed, but there's still some things to sort out. It's been coming for so long it still hasn't quite clicked that I don't have ages to pack any more and tomorrow is actually my deadline!

I've had a busy weekend, which has helpfully taken my mind off the impending move, but now it's really hitting me and I'm struggling to get any kind of motivation to do that last bit of packing. I'm trying to pump myself up by thinking about the weather and free entry to Disney parks and Lucky Charms but honestly? None of it is working.

This will probably be my last post from Britain so the next time I blog I will be in Florida and hopefully having an amazing time that will have kicked this aching feeling miles away!

One week tomorrow!

I'm back home in Cardiff and I'm happy to report that now the sadness of leaving my job behind has passed, I'm actually starting to get excited! I have a massive list of things to pack, which I should really get started on buuuut ... na. Well, I have already started packing but in a more 'I can't be bothered putting this dress away, might take it with me, into the suitcase it goes!' way than with any actual strategy to it.

I've got a list of things to do and I'm managing to tick them off quite successfully. I've printed out everything I need (still need to photocopy my passport and birth certificate, though), got myself some dollars, cancelled my phone's contract type bolt on thingy, asked for my phone to be unlocked (whether that'll actually happen, though, we shall wait and see!) ... etc.

The 7 of us Brits in our arrival date are going to all meet at Orlando airport to get the shuttle to Vista Way together, and I'm really looking forward to meeting everyone! We've been chatting on Facebook for months, in this GIANT thread, so it'll be lovely to finally meet these people face to face!

2 weeks.

This time in 2 weeks I'll be ... either on a plane or in Florida. Time zones make it a bit confusing to work out! But yeah, it's coming FAST.

I had my last day at work on Sunday, and I'm moving back home tomorrow. I'm hoping that once I'm back home and have started packing and sorted out the last bits of paperwork things will feel more real because at the moment I'm STILL in denial. This can't be healthy. I want to be excited, I really do. I'm struggling. That's why I haven't updated this blog much - I don't want this to be a negative space, but I can't muster the enthusiasm to make it not. Soo ... slightly abandoned. Soz.
Don't worry, I'll get into the swing of it when I'm actually there because it'll be all 'OH MY GOD I LIVE IN FLORIDA WHAT IS MY LIFE' and everything will be okay.

42 days to go.

Since I last posted I've got myself a visa, hooray. Haven't actually had my passport back yet, though, so let's hope it's redelivered on Wednesday as it's supposed to be.

The whole visa experience was as confusing and tedious as when I did it for Colorado. You have to ring up the American Embassy with their extortionate premium rate phone number to book your appointment, then you pay a ton of money for the privilege of potentially having a visa, then you fill out a ridiculous online form (the DS-190) that takes ages and gets a bit stressful when you worry you've not put exactly the right thing. Then you go to London and sit in the Embassy for 3 hours, to only speak to 2 employees for a grand total of about 3 minutes. Fun times for everyone. On the positive side, the girl at the first window I went to had actually done the CRP program herself and had actually just reapplied! It's a small world etc.

I've still got a load of things to sort out:
- Insurance
- Contacting tax and student loans people
- Organising a leaving do
- PACKING

Thing is, this would all be much easier to sort out if my brain were actually in gear. As it is, it still feels ages away (it's not. It's 42 days away) and I'm not even a little bit excited. I feel as if I should be but I'm just not. Hopefully I'll feel better when I manage to get a few more things sorted out.

Flight booked!

This time in 3 months I will be in Florida! Hard to believe. It still feels like so far away.

I have finally booked my flight! I'll be flying from Heathrow on October 16th with Bryony, yay! I've never flown with Delta before but it was by far the cheapest flight, so I went for it. Hopefully some more of our arrival group (which is now 7 people strong!) will join us on that flight.

Next thing on the list is insurance, but I'll deal with that when I return from my Midwest road trip ...

99 days to go!

It's now 99 days until my start date, and I'm still yet to book my flights or sort out insurance. Somehow October still seems like a long way away, but it's only 3 months now, eek!

One of the girls that I met before the group interviews and had meals with after both the group and F2F interviews, Bryony, has just been given the same start date as me, which I'm really excited about! There's now 5 of us all going out on October 16th so hopefully we'll be able to sort something out so we can all fly together.

Things are all a bit all over the place in my life at the moment - I'm living at the house of one of my work friends so I can stay at work for an extra 3 months before I leave (the tenancy on my flat down here ran out yesterday and since I'm obviously moving to Florida it didn't make sense to move somewhere else for such a short time).
I'm going on holiday with my parents next week, to Colorado and beyond, so I'm pretty excited about that!

I'm starting to mentally plan what clothes and shoes I'll be taking with me, because that's obviously the most important thing.

I'll hopefully get some things sorted in the next month or so and keep you updated!

I DID IT.

Congratulations!

You have been offered a position on the Disney International Programs – Cultural Representative Program.

Your role on the Cultural Representative Program will be in Food & Beverage

Your program arrival date will be October 16th 2012

Your program end date will be October 11th 2013

Yes, that's right. I GOT A PLACE!

I'm so ridiculously excited and happy and just ... relieved, to be honest. Almost everyone else who applied has been put in that same horrible not-quite-waitlist limbo that I was in last time, and I'm so ridiculously glad I don't have to go through that again. I like to believe that maybe my previous waiting is the reason for me being one of the few people to actually be given a date. Whether it's true or not, I'm not sure, but I'm choosing to believe it for now!

We were supposed to find out on Tuesday, but Tuesday came and went without any word. On Wednesday someone on the Facebook group got a reply from Becky saying that we should find out by the end of the week. And, thankfully, we did!

I'm yet to find anyone else with the same start date as me, so I'm hoping that means that some of the people I met at the interviews could still be coming out there with me. I really hope for their sake that the waiting is short and sweet.

I'm so happy that I FINALLY know what I'm doing. I feel as if my life has been on hold for the past year and a bit, and all that waiting has paid off. I get to go to WDW for a whole year. Actual dream come true, right there.

F2F ... again.

I survived my second face to face interview! Fingers crossed it's also the last one I'll have to go through ...

As last year, everyone with interviews on the 14th from our lovely Facebook group arranged to meet up at Costa beforehand. It seemed as if most of the people there were from the Manchester pre-screens, so there were lots of new faces! We all chatted about our various pre-screen interviews, filling out the forms etc before making our way round to Disney HQ where we all had our pictures taken and were given our guest passes.

The presentation was different to last year's - no Valerie! I was half disappointed, because I was looking forward to her ridiculous over enthusiasm, but it was also a bit of a relief!

I managed to win one of the prizes (another screen cleaner wipe thing!) for answering a knowledge question at the end of the presentation, oh yeah. It was Jeff*'s 'I'll be very impressed if anyone knows this' question, so obviously I'm still mentally applauding myself for knowing that useful bit of Disney trivia.

After we were all given our interview times, a bunch of us made our way to Wetherspoons to wait for a couple of hours. We all got food and chatted about ... well, Disney and the interview process, mostly! My interview was at 2.20 so I headed back to HQ a bit before 2, then was finally let back upstairs by the Dragon Lady Gatekeeper. Seriously, this woman was so reluctant to let any of us go upstairs!

For some reason, there were only 3 people there for the interview at 2.20 (there are supposed to be 4; 2 people per interviewer), so Chantelle, who was supposed to have her interview at 2.40, was bumped up to partner me. We both thought this was funny because she'd joked about wondering if we'd be interview buddies again - and we were!
We had Jill, and although she was lovely, she was really hard to read! The interview was over so quickly - I felt as if I was just settling in when she announced, "Well, that's all the questions I have for you". Oh, okay then!

We don't know when we'll find out the results, which is a little frustrating. The Monday interviewees were told next Monday, but Jill said 'in three weeks' to us, so who knows! I find waiting a lot easier when I actually have a set date in mind - I can put it out of my head (or try to) until that day. But not knowing when we'll hear back might drive me a little mad ...

To finish this post, have a picture of me with the original Iron Man suit:

*weirdly, a different Jeff from last year!

Through to the F2F!

HALLELUJAH!

Many thanks for your application and time taken in the pre-screen interview for the Walt Disney World International Programs. We were impressed by your performance and are delighted to invite you to the final interview stage.

Thank goodness for that! I was honestly terrified that I wouldn't get through.

I checked Facebook on my phone and saw everyone posting saying they'd got through, but I hadn't had an email come through on my phone and I had a horrible sinking feeling. So I got on my laptop to check and, thank God, there was the lovely wonderful email telling me I've got an interview!

Most of us in the Facebook group have got through, and I think all of the lovely ladies I met before the pre-screens did too, which makes me really happy. Everyone deserves this.

Only 2 weeks to mentally prepare myself. Eek.