Disney Traditions

I know I'm a day behind already, but I had a long day yesterday. I went to the Disney Traditions class, the very first thing you do as a cast member. When I got there I had to check in and wait in the cafeteria with another 100 people. Some of those went off into another class and then a small group of us were called. We then attended a union presentation, because a lot of the positions at Disney are union. I joined, I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing, they do take some money, but it also offers me some protection. Who knows, only time will tell.

Then they brought in the rest of our class. I had chosen the seat in the very front of the classroom, this time I didn't know that I had, but I was glad I did. I enjoy being next to the teacher, I think i get the best experience this way. We talked about the Disney Company and their values, beliefs, standards all those things. Then we played a game where your table had to name as many animated Disney characters as we could in 2 minutes. Well my table should have won, me and another girl (Teresa) spouted them off like nobodys business, but our writer was concerned with spelling and wanted to know who they were. We lost by 3, but we should have one by 15. :-( Boo.

They gave away prizes like I had heard, they're little plastic figures. I got Tigger and Minnie. She refused to give me anymore. We also went over the history of the Walt Disney company starting with the Walt era and then everything after. Well I kicked butt, and then had to explain to my table mates who thought that because they were alive for some of these things they knew them better than me, that they were indeed wrong and here's why... Frustrating, but I won when we watched the video that gave us the answers. Turns out I was one of the few people who knew what EPCOT stands for Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow, or for the guests Every Person Comes Out Tired.

On lunch I decided to sit with a different group than who was at my classroom table and it was the best decision I made. I got along great with the people and we connected over the next few breaks to chat. I spent the whole time laughing, just having a great time. We decided to go to the Magic Kingdom together once class was over. We apparently did it the wrong way, we went through the utilidors to get in, which is a big no-no as we were told by security on our way out if you're not working in the park that day. Oh well, it was fun and pretty entertaining to watch everyone else (mainly Mike) freak out about where we were. When we got into the park we went on a few rides. There was a lightening storm that was coming into the area so all of the outdoor rides closed down. Was a little bit of a pain, but we just stood and talked for a while. We ended up in the forecourt area of the castle doing the electric slide, the hokey pokey, and some breakdancing. Then we decided to skip to mainstreet. If any of you have been in Magic Kingdom you know what a smart idea this was. We made it about 10 feet before we had to disband because we were going to run into a slew of other people who refused to move. It was fun while it lasted. We ended up sitting on a bench on one of the side roads off mainstreet and just chatting, it was really nice. Then we all went our separate ways, but the text messages continued. I am confident that this is a good group of people and hopefully we'll have many fun times in the future.