New Year's in Disney

I thought Fourth of July was pretty busy. I thought Food and Wine Festival was very busy. I thought Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were insanely busy.

New Year's Eve was an entirely different story!

Our predicted crowd level at Epcot for New Year's Eve was incredibly high, so I knew it would be busy, but I had no idea just how many people came to Disney on New Year's Eve! I started out at Epcot that morning at 6:00 AM, helping to tape down extended queues for the booths, because the lines would definitely be going past our already extended chains! We then went over to the Ticket and Transportation Center for our HERA pilot shift which began at 8:00 AM. After only being at the TTC for about an hour, the Magic Kingdom hit it's first capacity phase close. When this happened during the pilots, we were sent to other parks.  

Happy New Year from Epcot!

Magic Kingdom Vacation Planning HERA Pilot

One of the things I loved the most about my role was all of the opportunities that I had. Near the end of my program, I had the opportunity to be involved in a Vacation Planning pilot test. One of my managers told myself and two other Epcot CPs that we were going to be part of the Magic Kingdom HERA pilot. The three of us, along with 3 CPs from Hollywood Studios, 3 CPs from Animal Kingdom, and the Magic Kingdom CPs were going to be trained on HERA -- which stands for Handheld Entitlement and Recovery Application. This is an app on the iPad which would allow us to sell tickets and redeem will calls.

I loved being able to use the iPad to walk around and help guests!

Tourist Day

My roommates Stephanie, Tess and I had been talking about dressing up like total tourists and running around Magic Kingdom, so on our last day off all together -- that's exactly what we did! We went all out with our matching shirts, Mickey ears, MagicBands, pin trading lanyards, backpacks, fanny packs, 1st visit buttons, and upside down maps! I dragged them out of bed early in the morning so we could get there at rope drop to see the park opening Welcome Show! We met characters, rode some of our favorite attractions, and just had so much fun! We offered to take pictures of families, and even witnessed a castle proposal! I had my DSLR camera with me and took tons of pictures of this couple, and then emailed the photos to them later! We had SO much fun in the kingdom and it was a perfect way to spend the day together! Here's some of my favorite pictures from our Tourist Day!

Tourist Day in the Magic Kingdom!

Graduation Day Photo Shoot

After the DCP Graduation, some of my friends and I went to Magic Kingdom to celebrate! We had our own little photo shoot in the Rose Garden, which is one of my favorite places to take pictures in the Magic Kingdom. I absolutely love how the pictures turned out and will treasure these photos forever!

Travel and Pre-DCP Disney Day

My dad and I left Houston bright and early yesterday morning for a very long day of traveling! We were expecting a lot of traffic since it was Memorial Day weekend, but the roads were empty! We made great time the entire day and it was a very easy drive. We stopped in Gainesville for the night and we were only 2 hours away from Orlando.

We stopped at the Florida Welcome Center!

This morning, we drove from Gainesville to WALT DISNEY WORLD!! It was so exciting to drive under the welcome gate and know that I didn't have to leave for 7 months! After checking in at the Pop Century, we headed to Magic Kingdom. 

I had to get an "I'm Celebrating" button!