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.

Pre-screen group interviews.

Yesterday was the day of the London pre-screen interviews. I'm really not sure how it went! I keep thinking about it, but I really don't know.

Nine of us girls who had been chatting on the Facebook group met up for lunch in Pizza Express beforehand. That was lovely. Definitely a good idea, as it meant we had people to chat to to kind of burn off the nervous energy we all had! It also meant we had people to walk into Chez Gerard with, so there wasn't that awkward 'oh God, so many strangers all looking nervous' moment!

We all signed in, then went and watched a Yummy Jobs presentation (they must save Valerie for the F2F!), which lasted about 40 minutes. It was different from any of the videos and presentations I'd seen before, so that was good. It was really informative, too - they told us things that, although I already knew most of them from being a WDWIP forum and blog stalker (!), we didn't find out until the F2F last year. So I think I approve of the new way of doing things.

I won some mini Creme Eggs for answering a question, yay! It was the simplest one - name all the WDW parks - and then Nick wouldn't let me answer the one about Aulani because I already had a prize, boo hiss.

At the end of the presentation Becky read out the names and times of what group everyone would be in, and we went and sat outside and waited. I was in a group with one of the girls I knew from the Facebook group, Chantelle, so that was nice. After waiting for what felt like AGES (the interviews were supposed to be half an hour to 40 minutes but most of them went on for almost an hour), the 4 o'clock groups went in.

Most of the questions that Nick asked were pretty similar to the ones we'd have been asked if we'd had a phone interview. I think I answered the questions themselves fine, but with 7 other people in the group it felt difficult to get my personality across as much as I'd have liked. Sometimes I wanted to join in with what someone was saying, but didn't want to seem as if I was interrupting them. I'm not feeling great about it, but I just keep hoping I did enough to get to the F2F.

We were told we'll find out by the end of Monday, which is so close! Definitely need to keep myself busy until then.

Pre-screen interviews!

YES. SCORE.

After review of your CV the Yummy Jobs Team is delighted to invite you to the next stage of recruitment for the Cultural Representative Program.

This next stage will be a pre-selection event where the Yummy Jobs Team will conduct a full program presentation and group interviews.

We found out a couple of days ago (by 'we', I mean all of us in our lovely Facebook group) that instead of phone interviews Yummy Jobs would be holding regional pre-screen events. I've no idea why they've decided to do it this way, and I'm not sure whether it's a good or a bad thing! All I know at the moment is that it's different to last year, which puts me feeling very much out of my depth! They've not done interviews this way for the CRP before (as far as I'm aware) so all those blogs and video blogs I've read and reread and watched and rewatched about the phone interview are suddenly useless! Well, no, I imagine the questions we'll get asked will be quite similar but the scenario? Totally different. I've never been to a group interview before! I've no idea what to expect!

Still, I'm so excited and glad to have got through. I had this horrible feeling of 'what if I got that far last time, but this year I'm just rejected straight away?' This is a good start! Really gutted for the people who didn't get through, though. I just kind of assumed that everyone in the FB group had the kind of enthusiasm that would show through in their application and that we'd all at least get through to the first interview stage.

I'm also excited by how much more quickly this year's applications are going than last year's! The applications only closed 2 days ago, and we've already found out the results! The next round is the 25th/26th, with the F2F interviews in mid February. So much quicker! I approve of this. Let's hope this bodes well for me, shall we?

Starting again.

Just received this email:

After reviewing the possibility of additional positions arising, I do regret to say that today we have been informed that they do not anticipate further positions to arise at Walt Disney World before September 2012 that you may be considered for.

Not all that surprising, really - I didn't expect them to suddenly find a bunch of places for us remaining Opportunity List-ers. But it still hurt to see that. You always try to hold out hope, don't you? (well, I do).

I've already reapplied - I did it last week, after emailing Yummy Jobs about the applications reopening earlier than expected - so I suppose it's time to focus on that. The email that I got after applying says that:

We will be contacting you in mid January 2012 with more information regarding your application and the next step of the application process.

So hopefully this whole process will go a little more quickly than the last one. And maybe - just maybe - this time I can go the whole way, rather than falling at the final hurdle.

Uh, what?

So, um, this has happened:

UK Applicants: Applications are now open with an anticipated deadline of January 10th, 2012 at 3pm GMT

Yes, that's right, the applications have opened early! Instead of opening on January 4th, as Yummy Jobs told us they would a while back, they're now closing on January 10th! Which is fine, groovy, great. Except ...

Except that I'm still on the Opportunity List. And haven't been contacted by Yummy Jobs to let me know what's going on. Obviously I've just emailed them, since we were told that if we hadn't been given a place by the time the applications reopened (this was when the applications were to open January 4th) we'd be released to reapply. As it is, I'm not sure what's going to happen now. Part of me hopes this means they have at least a vague idea of dates and that we (I say 'we', as far as I'm aware it's just me and another girl who are still waiting!) will be given one - or at least assurance that we'll be given one - without having to go through the application process again. Actually, a lot of me hopes that. But somehow I feel that's a little optimistic!

Oh well, nothing I can do about it at the moment. Que sera sera etc. It's just so frustrating still not knowing what's going on when it's been almost a year since I applied :(