Pluto and the Parade

Today I was back a Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. It has been so hot here. It's not hot like Georgia, but low 90s can be killer. I was parking strollers, pin trading, telling people we don't have FastPass, and handing out maps for most of my day. Nothing too exciting.

Toward the end of my shift I was sent to help with guest control for Mickey's Soundstational Parade. I love helping with the parade. My main job is to make sure people are in the viewing area so they don't get ran over by one of the floats or stepped on by a dancer. Kids get so excited when they see characters go by and sometimes dart up toward the them. There was a girl today that kept doing that; she would run up and her dad would try and take a picture IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MOVING PARADE. The parade stage manager and I had to keep moving her back to her spot. Safety is the number one key!

I always make it a point to wave to the characters in the parade. They normally laugh and wave back. They remember me now and play around with me. Things like Pluto running over and asking for a churro, Tinker Bell telling me to 'go back to work', Princess Tiana waving at me until I see her, or Chip coming over to mess up my hair makes me smile every time.

I ment to post this yesterday, but when I went to the OC Fair they had a bunch of old white women who were performing a hula. It made me laugh, so of course I had to stop a watch.

 

I'm going to the and post again tomorrow. We have our Disney College Program graduation/party thing tomorrow night at Disney's Grand Californian Hotel & Spa, so I'l have a lot to talk about. Only about 10 days left in SoCal now.

Work and a Visitor

It seems like all I do is work these days. I am getting sort of burnt out. But I did have a little mini break the other day.

Texts between Alex Yebra and I-

Alex: Hey are you still at Disney?

Me: Yep.

Alex: Cool we are on our way there right now!

Me: I'm at Disneyland, are you in California?

Alex: Yeah! 

Me: SHUT UP! Come to Finding Nemo when you get here!

Then she shows up at Nemo! I was so excited to see someone from home! She was visiting family here so I let them cut the line and ride in my submarine.

Look how happy I was Alex was there!

When I got off I met her family at the park, we rode a few rides and then watched World of Color at California Adventure. 

Alex and I on Toy Story Midway Mania

I loved hearing all the updates on people from home. I seemed to have missed a lot this past semester. I hope more people come and visit to help bust up all this working I have to do.

Cute Kid vs. Mean People

For Sunday, April 11, 2011:

I worked today and I was unloading the submarine. I asked a kid about two years old, "Hey buddy, did you find Nemo?" and he looked up and and then came and give me a hug. He barely reached my knees, he was super cute.

On there hand, there are those guests who are really rude and yell at you for no reason. We just have to keep smiling and think of the cute kids that you make happy.

I Missed One

For Thursday, March 24, 2011


Nothing new on Thursday. I missed Sandra Oh from ABC's Grey's Anatomy came to the ol' Submarine Voyage. I'm sure the Grey's fans out there would have loved to see her.

I'm started to get sick again on Thursday. I have a new nasty cough and my head hurts all the time. I hope this goes away soon. Someone told me that all the sicknesses of the world come to Disneyland, so I will be sick a lot. Can't wait.

Another Manic Monday

For Monday, March 20, 2011

Monday was nothing special. Just another day at work.

I forgot to tell you about something that happened a few weeks ago. It was about 8:15am and I was working greeter in front of Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage with another cast member named Emily. While we were standing there we saw a group of  people walk to the entrance and the guy asked the rest of the members of the group to take a picture of him and his girlfriend in front the the Nemo sign. Once they started to pose the guy got down on one knee and proposed to her right there. Emily and I had to step out of their proposal pictures. The girl said yes and everyone in line started cheering for them. While there are normally countless proposals at Disneyland, most of them happen in front of the Sleeping Beauty's Castle, not at the Submarine Voyage! It was pretty exciting if I do say so myself.

While it was pretty cool, it was not near as cool as this Disneyland proposal:

No Fireworks Tonight

Today I had what is called a slit shift. I was supposed to work for 4 hours at Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, then do 4 hours of fireworks crowd control. However today was gross outside. It was windy, cold, and worst of all, rainy. So the first 4 hours I worked on Nemo in the rain.

Due to the nasty weather Disneyland canceled the fireworks by 3:00pm so I got off early. It's nice to have half the day off, but I really need to be working because I'm soooooo poor.

Chris Colfer who plays Kurt on Glee was rumored to be in the park today. As much as I hate Kurt I would have liked to seen him.

Chris at Disneyland last year. He looks like a baby.

Way to Early

For Tuesday, March, 15, 2011

I had to be at work at 6:45am and we opened at 7:00. I much as I hate waking up early, I love working in the mornings because I have the rest of the day free. After I got off I watched Fantasmic with some people from work. That show never gets old.

For dinner we went to a restaurant at Disneyland called Big Thunder Ranch. It was like a barbecue that has country singers performing in a out door wooded setting. It was a lot of fun and the non-meat versions of the food was delicious. 

Blah Blah Blah

I didn't do a blog last night because I didn't have anything to talk about...

Got to work later. Weekends are sooooo busy at Disneyland. I don't know why people would want to come on busy days.

Yesterday there was a kid that was about three that stopped me before he got on the submarine because he was scared of crabs and wanted to know if there were any mean crabs on Finding Nemo. He was so cute. I told him we had 2 nice crabs and 3 sharks. He said he liked sharks. After he rode it he came back and found me and said he likes crabs now. Precious.

Nicolas and Nicholas

PS- I didn't talk about the Oscar's! I was at work for most of it, but I was able to catch the last hour. Disney had a few wins with Costume Design and Art Direction for Alice in Wonderland and Original Song: "We Belong Together" and Best Animated Film for Toy Story 3! I'm going to have to see The King's Speech (which won Best Picture) to judge it for myself. Oh, I'm glad Natalie Portman won Best Actress for Black Swan. She was amazing in that.

30 Day Check In

Today our counts were down to only about 600 people per hour when I came in. I was placed at the job of Grouper, which is the person that makes sure there are 40 people in each submarine. Normally there are two people to do this, but today for some reason there was only me. I was given the task of raising our count up to 700 in the next hour. With that goal in mind, I was a counting machine. I was movin and groovin and got our count up to 700 people per hour all by myself. I even got compliments from other Cast Members! 

After you have worked for the company for 30-45 days you have a 'check in' with a manager to see how things are going. So before I left today me and another girl that started when I did went to the Tomorrowland Attractions office that's behind the Space Mountain show building. We waited a while before the manager was able to talk to us. Neither one of us knew him, but he was nice and just wanted to see how we were liking the job so far. He said Disney does these check in so no one gets lost in their big company.

Here is a fun picture from the sub. No other pictures to post...

Tomorrow I am planning on getting up early and going to see Aladdin - A Musical Spectacular at Disney California Adventure before work. We'll see how that goes.

Nothing New

Still sick. I'm thinking about writing every other day... thoughts on that?

I have started telling funny, stupid jokes on my submarine to make it more interesting for myself. This is my normal spiel: 

"Good day Explorers. Please remain seated at all times and no flash photography. After all we want to find Nemo, not blind Nemo. 

At this time reach down to your left, pull up your seat belt, and buckle up..... just kidding. We don't even have seat belts.

How many first time Voyagers do we have today? Probably all those who just looked for there seat belts. Yeah, all right folks we will begin our journey through liquid space shortly."

It normally that makes people laugh.

Sometimes if the sub in front of mine is taking forever to unload I'll say: "Alright everyone! There is a huge whale in front of our submarine and we have to ask him to move! So does everyone know how to speak Whale? Good. Lets ask him to move in Whale on the count of 3! 1-2-3! WHOOOOOAHHHHHH!" 

It's funny because even adults do this.

Mr. Big Daddy Himself

Due to the fact I'm tired and have to work early tomorrow morning I'm going to keep this short. Today started as a normal work day. I left and went to on my break. When I came back I noticed someone in plaid from Guest Relations hanging around the que. I know what that means; a celebrity is here.
"Guess who's in this sub coming in right now."
"No idea."
"Adam Sander. Adam Sander is in that submarine right now."

About 2 seconds later out steps Adam Sander with his wife and kids. I thought it was cool because he walked out of the main exit instead of the side exit that most celebrities use to avoid crowds. The guests in the line went CRAZY! They started cheering and clapping. Everyone was talking pictures. As we was walking out he was smiling and saying hello to fans. He even stopped to talk to a small child. He was really down to earth. Most definitely the coolest and most down to Earth celebrity I've seen so far.

Stroller Heck

Yesterday I got a call from Tomorrowland Attraction Scheduling. The conversation happened as followed:

Scheduler: Nic?

    Me: Yes?

    Scheduler: This is __________ from Tomorrowland. I have two times you could work tomorrow; 2:00 to 7:00 or 2:00 to 9:00. Which wold you prefer?

    Me: I'll do the 2:00 to 9:00.

    Scheduler: Wonderful. See you tomorrow at 2:00.

    Me: Thanks!

I hung up the phone and wrote down my work times on a sticky note so I would not forget.

Well... when I'm sitting at the bus stop at 1:00 I get a call from the scheduler asking why I'm not at work. She said she told me to be there at 12:30. I disagreed with her, but could tell she was convinced that she said 12:30. Once I arrived at work, not 1 hour and 35 minuets late, the Lead of Finding Nemo (which is kind of like a shift leader) suggested I talk to one of the Tomorrowland Stage Managers (which is a normal manager) so I did not get penalized from being late. Needless to say, my manager was completely understanding and said she would adjust the time so I did not come in late and would not get points on my record. Phew, glad that is settled and glad the managers are there to help the Cast Members.

Ok, so once I was at work I was placed at greeting people that come in the line. Basically I check people's height, tell them how long the line is, send them in to the correct line (handicap line, normal line, reentry line), and tell them to park their strollers before getting in line. There are always at least two people doing this job. The other person has to park and rearrange strollers, which is harder than you think. People just stick them anywhere. Here is a bad example of stroller parking:

Mess mess mess

You have to constantly move people's strollers into a straight line so it does not cause traffic jams and they all can fit. It's pretty funny when people have to search for their stuff when they come out because I moved it around. Here is an example of good parking:

See how they are in a straight line

What I did learn today is that three wheeled strollers are horrible. They only move in a 2 directions instead of every direction like other strollers. For people with small children: DO NOT BUY A THREE WHEELED STROLLER!

Goin to the Store

All I really did today was go to Vons, the grocery store around the corner. I needed to buy Cokes to pack with my lunch for work. Here is a video I made while walking there:

After going to the store I went to work today. Nothing exciting really happened today. I had one sub full of kids that got really excited when the found Nemo. It made me smile at them screaming, "There he is! I found Nemo!"

Oh I got my Disney Main Entrance Pass. This is the card that lets me get up to three people in up to 16 times. So it's a first come, first serve basis. If you come visit me I can get you into Disneyland and Disney California Adventure for FREE! Please come visit?

No Way. Another Celebrity?

I had a later shift today on at the old Submarine Voyage, so I got to sleep in. Then I went to work, I drive a sub for a while, then switched to loading guests into them. There was a rumor going around that a celebrity got into one of the other subs. So I waited to see who would be getting of the sub in front of ours. Guess who it was! Lauren Conrad from MTV's The Hills! It's definitely weird seeing famous people all the time, but I'm not complaining.

Well after arriving back to the apartment I found that one of my roommates, Matt, cleaned the whole apartment! It is now cleaner than when we checked in. 

Look how clean the kitchen floor is!

Tonight I went to California Pizza Kitchen around the corner from Disney. This was my first time going to one in California. Tastes the same as in Georgia. After that Jase and I stopped by some mall so he could go to an Apple Store. There was also a H&M, however I'm poor right now so I couldn't shop like I wanted to.

I have tomorrow off with nothing to do. I need to find something exciting to do....

Just Another Day in the Celebrityland

After you pass your training at Disney you have to call in to get what time you work each day (for the first week or two until they officially put you on the schedule). So I called the Tomorrowland office this morning around 8:30am and they asked me to be at work by 9:45. Because I take the bus, I had to rush to get ready and make it to the bus so I can get there on time. The worst thing to see is the back of the OCTA bus when you are in a time crunch.

Once I got to work I had to count people into rows for each sub for the first few hours today. What did I learn? I can't divide guests into 4 rows of 20 without losing count. It's harder than you think people. 

Anyway, as I was counting people I saw a woman in plaid come up the exit ramp with a family. When ever you see someone dressed like this:

You know that they are from Guest Relations escorting a VIP. Who was the family with this escort you ask?

Rainy Day in LA

It was gross out today. I started work at 12:00 and about that time it started raining. Not the good kind of downpour, but a misty, gross, cold kind of rain. I had to go by costuming to pick up my clear rain suit. After it stopped raining I did get to wear my cool costumed blue peacoat. I love that thing.

In other news, I am no longer a trainee! I had my final test that covered radio commands, hand signals, opening and closing the sub hatches, greeting and sorting people entering the line, counting people for each sub, and most importantly driving the submarine with precision and speed. After I was tested of all of this I got the verdict: I passed! I am now able to work all by myself when ever they need me, starting tomorrow.

Well, I didn't do too much more today. I also didn't take any fun pictures, so here is a picture of my new TV. Sitting on the floor. In our bed room. Yeah, classy.

Also here is a picture of myself while writing this blog...

Yeah, I'm bored. Anyway, talk to you guys tomorrow!

I Can Drive the Sub

I know a lot of you have not seen me in a whole so here is a video I made walking to the bus today:

Good news! I passed my driving test. While I won't be driving a car while I'm here, I have my license to  drive a real submarine! I had my driving test and I passed so I can now drive all alone. I have had to drive the different subs (there are 8 in total) to learn how each of them handle. Each one drives a little different; some go super fast in the lagoon, some go slow in the waterfalls, all kinds of things. I still have one day of training left on Sunday. I'm not sure what I'll be working on that day since I'm pretty much the best submarine driver ever.

One pretty exciting thing that happened is Heidi Klum, Seal, and family came to ride Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage today! I didn't even know it was them until someone told me. In training we were told a lit of celebrities come into the park. I can't wait to see more famous people!

Here they are last June

No plans for tomorrow. Maybe something exciting.

Rides That Make Me Scream

I had to drive the submarine. It is much more difficult than I would like for it to be. Most of the time it made me want to yell because the joystick was so sensitive. According to my trainer, Frank, I am ahead of most people that learn the subs. I thought I should give you a little history of the attraction, since Disneyland is like a huge history lesson.

The original Submarine Voyage attraction was built as part of the "new" Tomorrowland in 1959. The Submarine Voyage featured fish and other sea creatures all underwater. A major portion of the ride simulated the voyage under the Arctic Ocean's polar ice cap. After 39 years of this the attraction closed in 1998. At one point I'm told that they were thinking of re-imagineering it as Atlantis: The Lost Empire. But when Atlantis failed at the box office the attraction remained closed.

Then after months of speculation in 2005 the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage was officially announced. With this the entire original ride was gutted so new effects and elements could be built and added. It opened in 2007 and then I started working there in four years later.

After work I went to hit up some attractions I've not rode before at Disney California Adventure. I rode Toy Story Mania. This is a 3D attraction (with some cool CD glasses) where you play fun fair style type games with Toy Story characters. We also rode Mickey's Fun Wheel as seen below, which for some reason was terrifying.

Then we got to ride front row on California Screamin', the park's big roller coaster. It was so much fun. Zero to 60 in 4 seconds. It's the second longest roller coaster in the US! My eyes were watering so bad on the front row I looked like I was crying. This one makes me scream for real.

Before we left we rode Grizzly River Run. It's a normal raft ride. Nothing too special, but the setting was nice.

I work tomorrow which will include more driving the sub. I have to pass a test, which should conclude on Sunday. Other than that, I don't have anything exciting to do.

Shark Bait & Little Tokyo

I have a great trainer named Frank for the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. Frank has worked for the company in the 60s through the mid 70s then went on to be a professional musical theatre musician.  After he retired he came back to do what he loves; making people happy at Disneyland. I met with him this morning around 7:00am. We arrived early before the park opened so he could teach me how to do the opening check list for the attraction. It was pretty cool because I get to see behind the scenes of how the attraction is built. I know so many secrets now some people would die to know.

Anyway, I started to go over how to drive the subs. It's much more completed than you would expect. They say  Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage is one of the hardest attractions to learn at Disneyland because of this reason. It's important to know how to speed it up and down so you keep the show elements consistent and you don't hit other boats. Not only will I be driving around million of dollars worth of equipment, I am also responsible for the safety of the guests and fellow cast members. Safety is Disney's most important key to success. Tomorrow Frank will actually let me practice driving before the park opens. I must say I'm a little nervous. When I'm not driving, I'll be loading and unloading guest. I like this because I can say silly things like "All aboard Shark Baits!"

After work Jase and I went into Los Angeles to meet his friends for dinner in Little Tokyo. We met in some sort of weird Japanese mall. It was like we entered another world. At dinner I was nervous to try anything so of course I just ordered some white rice. After dinner we left the restaurant and went to an Asian grocery store in the mall called Woori Market. They had all kinds of different foods, mostly noodles. They even some real shark bait. Jase's friends bought some interesting desserts that we tried, one being melon ice cream covered in frozen dough!

Sorry my posts have not been that exciting lately. I'll work on being more interesting. :/