Safari So-Goody

Hello again! You're probably shocked to be hearing from me again so soon! 

Now I'd like to insert here that there is going to be a lot of mentions of boats in the post you are about to read. At jungle, we spell boats "botes" because of a certain joke. I will not be doing that because auto correct does not like the word bote. 

I decided to make a list of weird things that happen quite often at jungle that you wouldn't expect to happen very often. So here it is. 

Five things that happen at the jungle: 

1) Somebody comes up to me and starts speaking fluent Spanish thinking I understand them. Now you probably aren't too surprised at that, but it is surprising how many people ask if I'm from Brazil. Apparently Julia is a very popular name there. 

2) I get a boat full (or at least half full) of people who don't speak any English. The whole time they just loudly point out all the animatronics, especially "Elephante, elephante!!!" All. The. Time. 

3) I get a boat with a person who thinks they're funny and either finish my jokes or respond weirdly to them. This doesn't happen to me as much as it sounds like it does to others. But it does happen and a couple of times it's been a fun person that I can joke with, but other times it's just annoying. 

4) So this one calls for background information. When we load or unload people from the boats, we hold our hands out so people who need help can just grab our hands. When little kids get in or out of the boats, I lower my hand so they can grab it easier. Kids always think I'm offering my hand for a high five. Always. I've also had an old Italian man kiss the back of my hand. People are weird. 

5) One of my favorite things is entering the temple. I don't speak in the temple because it echoes too much, so I think people feel awkward with the silence and decide to point out what's happening in there to their kids/parents. Well, the tiger is the first thing we see in there, and at least once a day I hear someone say "look! A lion!" It happens all the time. It makes me laugh every time.  

Now here's a list of really good things that have happened recently:

1) I got two "you're fired" slips in one day! I don't know if I've explained those to you, but if someone gets off your boat and tells someone that you did a good  job, we "fire" the skip. The joke is that you're not supposed to be funny or good on the jungle cruise so they need to be fired. It happened twice in one day though! I do have people tell me personally that I did good while they're getting off my boat, but they usually don't say anything to someone on the dock. I was just really happy about that. 

2) Sometimes people who were sitting in the back of the boat will get out and walk around to the front to talk to the skipper in the boat. These two little kids came up to me and said "thank you captain skipper". It was SO cute!

3) After one of my cruises that people laughed but not that much, this little girl who was sitting right next to me gave me a hug. It was so sweet. 

4) My roommate Holli came and rode my boat the other day. She could not stop laughing at my joke in the hippo pool. That made things hard for me because I couldn't stop laughing at her laughing at me which made it hard to spiel. But now she keeps talking about how funny my boat is which is relieving to me that she wasn't just being nice. 

5) There were these girls who seemed like they could have been cast members on my boat the other day and I overheard one of them saying "I love her" after one of my jokes that they laughed quite a bit at. I like to listen to what people say on my boats while I'm spieling. 

6) I did park clear last night which means that I stood in a spot and sent everyone without wristbands for the Halloween party out of the park. I had been hearing horror stories about people being really rude and angry and yelling at you. As you can imagine, I wasn't really look forward to that. Well, I had no problems. It was actually kind of fun. Not like a treat shift, but it's just fun to be in the Halloween party atmosphere. Everyone was really nice and understanding and usually, they already knew and I just sent them to the fastest exit. Well there was a group of black ladies who looked like they might get angry at me when I told them they couldn't stay in the park. Here's the interaction I had with one of the ladies: "hi guys! Are you going to the Halloween party tonight?" *insert worry about their answer* "no we are actually just leaving" *relief* "great! Well your fastest way to exit is actually going to be this way" "thank you! I like you" *even more relief* "I like you too!" I think that might have actually been one of my best interactions of the night. There was a little more to it than what I wrote, but that's basically what happened. 

7) There was a great boat a had a couple of days ago. This was probably the best boat I've ever had. I think there was only like one group that wasn't laughing. And there was one particular group who were all loud laughers (which is the best). At the end two of them told me that they had never seen someone do all of the jokes I did and it was great. Now, the boat I was in was one of our slower boats which allowed me to use most of my jokes. But it was nice and they liked it.

8) Probably my favorite thing that has happened here was after a great cruise and an older man came up to me and said that he's been on the jungle cruise quite a few times and I was the best skipper he's ever had. I don't think I was able to convey my gratitude to him well. It meant so much to me. 

These things are pretty little, but they make my day every time. And I definitely have plenty of bad boats, but I've found that at the jungle, if you stay positive and fun it is much better, more easy, and more fun for everyone. I have coworkers who hate jungle, and I think it's because they're always looking for the bad and not having fun with it. They also don't like interacting with guest which I love. One of my favorite things to do is stand on dock and say goodbye to everyone leaving. I also like being at load because we get to talk to the guests while the next boat is pulling up. I also love greeter because your whole job is welcoming people and talking to them. I really just love interacting with the guests. 

So earlier this week Chloe texted us and said that she got audited at work and Dannah texted back and said "wait, what did you audition for?" It was HILARIOUS to me, and I got a little carried away... here's what I said: "I think it was an audition for the hit musical "Safety: it begins with us" it's about a band of resort custodians who have a self discovery and realize that if they want to stay safe, they need to look outside themselves. It's truly inspirational. I tear up a little just thinking about it. I hope you got the part Chloe!" And then Chloe said "I think my rousing rendition of "This Is More Than Just A Code V" got me the part!" Killed me. 

Annie's birthday was on Saturday which makes this week birthday week. On Thursday (I think is was), Annie had a rough day at work and texted us to come get ice cream with her. I was the only one who was able to. It was a lot of fun. On Friday, we went to the Polynesian and had pulled pork nachos. We were on the bus at midnight, so we had the whole bus sing happy birthday to her. On Saturday, Annie and I went to magic kingdom and met Cinderella and Elena. Then we went to Epcot and ate at this Italian place that she had been wanting to go to. They had really good pizza and pasta. Then we met Snow White. After that, I had to go to work. After work, Annie and I ate cake and watched emperors new groove. Tomorrow we're going to Tony's for lunch as roomies. We might do something for dinner too. On Friday (the last one) Chloe decorated the apartment with streamers and balloons. She also made a delicious cake and then shaped it like Mickey Mouse. Annie loved it. Can we also talk about how fantastic Amy did on that picture for Annie. I'm going to go pick it up now and give it to her tonight. I'm so excited for her to see it!! Thanks again Amy! 

My friends are coming this week and I am so excited to see them. Shayla, Jasmine, Diana, and Robyn are coming. It's going to be so fun! Speaking of Robyn, did you guys hear that she got her mission call? She's going to Chicago, Illinois English speaking! She is going to be such a great missionary. I'm so excited for her!!

I am having a great time here. I'm eating and drinking (mom and dad) and partying (everyone else). I am still so excited to be an aunt! I see little babies and think "hey we'll have two of those soon." I love you all and hope you're all doing well!

Now get out. 

Oh sorry that was rude. 

Please. Get out.

PS-  this post was from October 17

No Rules at a Hurricane Party

(This is a post from October 11 that I copied onto here)

Hello all of you beautiful people on the dock! Great news! Your post's here. Bad news, I'm the one who's writing it. But that's ok, read it anyway. (In case you're confused, this is what I say about fifty times a day but with boat words)

First and foremost, can I just say how excited I am to be an aunt? I tell everyone. I shout it from the rooftops: "Hey everyone! I'm going to be an aunt times two!!" I'm just so excited. 

So the hurricane. Was that crazy or what! There was a lot of "everyone be prepared this is going to be really bad." Annie and I went to Walmart on Thursday and it was CRAZY busy. There also was basically no food. There was no bread, no canned foods (except the gross kinds), and very little snack foods. While we were in Walmart, they announced that they would be closing Walmart at one o'clock. That's right CLOSING WALMART. Were we going to make it through this storm? Was anyone? If the two world powers of Walmart and Disney were closing, you knew it was going to be horrific. Annie still didn't know if she had to go to work or not and we were thinking if Walmart closed, why would Annie still go to work. We found out later that she didn't which was very happy. So Chloe works at the Grand Floridian and her boss asked her to be a part of the hurricane ride out crew which meant she stayed at the hotel for two days and helped over there with whatever they needed. That was sad because it meant she wasn't with us, but the rest of us were home for two days. 

Our first step was getting everything ready for this horrendous storm. People had made a big deal about not taping the windows because it wouldn't help anything, and because they had made that big of a deal over it, we expected the windows to shatter at any point. We moved pictures and some furniture into the bathroom and closet so they wouldn't get ruined when that happened. Then we were ready to party. Hailee still wasn't back from work which was making Holli pretty worried, but don't worry, she made it back before the windows shattered. 

Now the first rule of the hurricane party is that there are no rules at the hurricane party. This mostly pertained to the hurricane snacks. And yes we did say hurricane in front of basically everything we said. 

Before Hailee was home, we started our hurricane party off by playing this game that Annie and I got at the Vista Way library. Then we played hot lava throughout the apartment. Annie even put on intense music while we were doing it. Then we switched over to lava monster and had Holli try to tag us with her eyes closed. After this, it was time for the fort. 

We were very into making this fort amazing and it payed off. I think that this was the best fort. Ever. About halfway through building our fort, Hailee came home and was kind of surprised to find our apartment so beautiful. So after our fort was finished (complete with Christmas lights) we entered with our hurricane snacks and watched Monsters University. We were also expecting the power to be out for like three weeks, so we were charging all technology and using it while we could. There were a lot of hilarious memes on Facebook about eating all the hurricane snacks before the hurricane came and things like that that we were relating to perfectly. After our movie, we decided to get ready for bed.  

Now you're probably thinking that "get ready for bed" means brushing your teeth and getting into bed, but you'd be wrong. Let's go back to the fact that our windows were going to explode in the middle of the night. When this happened we didn't want to be in our beds that were right next to the windows now did we. Especially because the worst of the storm was supposed to hit from two to eight. So we decided to sleep in the closets. We were going to be so safe in there. Three of us went into one closet and two in another. And just to be extra cautious we had food and water in the closet with us. As you can imagine, I did not sleep great, but that's ok because I wouldn't wake up with glass in my face right? Well I woke up in the morning and decided to go see the damage. I wasn't sure if I should wait until the others were awake or not, but I needed to get out of that closet. Well you can imagine how surprised I was to see how TERRIBLE EVERYTHING.... wasn't. That's right folks. I slept in that super safe super uncomfortable closet for nothing. I looked out the still intact window and it wasn't even raining. It was a little windy, but not even that bad. 

When everyone else woke up they felt the same. What? The windows didn't shatter? Are you sure someone didn't just fix them in the middle of the night? As you can imagine, there were many regrets. At least now we never need to wonder what it would be like to sleep in our closets. Annie and I talked about how we were sad that we didn't stay up to see the storm. In our fort we could kind of hear the wind but not super well. And as you can guess,  we could not hear anything in the closet except our fear of broken windows and tears of unrest.  

On Friday, we just chilled in the morning, but later that night, Annie and I walked to the store to get brownie mix. We came back, made the brownies, made another simpler fort, and watched titanic while eating our brownies. It was a beautiful hurricane party. 

But can we talk about how awful the timing of this lovely hurricane was? Thursday was the day the park closed early, and that was the day that we were going to go to the Halloween party and Be Our Guest. Then on Friday I was supposed to have a treat shift. But the good news is that Chloe and I switched our tickets to a different day, and Chloe was able to find a Be Our Guest reservation for that night which is insane because you can never find those reservations. Tender mercies. 

Jungle is going well. My coworkers are great and the new rotations are working better now. I love interacting with the guests and making magic for people. There was this little girl on one of my boats today and at the end she told me that I was funny (it was a lot cuter than just reading it). I just love knowing that for some people, they're going to be making a list of their favorite parts of their trip, and I'll be on that list. I like what I'm doing and I like who I'm doing it with. 

If you enjoyed your post today my name has been Skipper Julia and this has been the world famous Julia's blog. If you did not enjoy your post... well names don't matter that much now do they?

Safety, Skipping, and Spiels

WARNING: The post you are about to read was written approximately two days ago but was not posted until now. There will be a much better written update to come.
(Imagine that going across the screen like a weather warning with that obnoxious noise going mmk?)

Hello to all of you beautiful people! Hello to the rest of you too. 

I apologize for my lack of blogging this week, but I'm ready to catch all of you up on my life if you're up for it, if not, too bad.

So, the day after the last time I posted was traditions. This is where we went into a classroom and talked about safety and stuff. Then we got to go through the tunnels to one part of Magic Kingdom! It was my first time in the park and it was great! Then at the end of that Mickey came and brought our name tags! It was official! After that, Dannah, Chloe and I went to Magic Kingdom. Dannah had some friends meet up with us, and there ended up being eight of us. But then half the group wanted to eat food instead of going on rides (crazy right? The first day too), so Dannah, Chloe, this other kid, and I went and rode on rides till the park closed. It was so great! Just so everyone knows, Pirates is much better in California, like a ton better, Space Mountian is rad here, but I think I prefer Cali. Don't worry though, Main Street is still insane during a parade. 

Saturday morning I had another class about safety. I had stayed in the park till close, and then it took the bus forever to get home, so I went to bed pretty late. Then, I had to get on a bus at six o'clock, so I was running pretty low on sleep. I was having a really hard time staying awake, but I made it through! Then I went to another class that was park operations people. In that class we got to walk around all of Magic Kingdom. It was great. Then I went home and Chloe, Annie, and I went to Magic Kingdom again. We watched the Friendship Fair, which is this cute show that they have in front of the castle with Mickey and friends, Tiana Naveen and Louis, Rapunzel Flynn and the ruffians, and Elsa Anna and Olaf. It was a really cute show. We also watched another parade that was like a dance-along. It was cute. Then we rode on rides and started home. To get home however, we have to take a monorail to a resort and then get on a CP bus from there. So we just so happened to be waiting for a CP bus at the Polynesian resort which just so happens to have... You guessed it DOLEWHIPS! So I may or may not have gotten another one. For you folks keeping track at home, that's a total of two whole Dolewhips

Sunday morning I had another early start time where I needed to take the six o'clock bus. This time we met in the tunnels. We then got a tour around the entire park. After that we split up into smaller groups and that's when I found out that I was going to be a skipper! There was a group of I think seven girls who all found out at the same time. My name was of course at the bottom of the pile. So after hearing three jungle cruises, two haunted mansions, and a pirates, I was wondering which ride mine was going to say. I was so so so ecstatic when he said JUNGLE CRUISE! I was shocked actually. After that, we met up with other Adlib (Adventureland/Liberty square) attractions people and got our costumes. Then we got another tour, but this time it was just through Adlib. After work, I went to night church with my roommates.

Also, when I got home from work, Annie had made cookies and got balloons to celebrate that fact that I'm a new skipper. It was really sweet.

I'm having a little bit of a hard time remembering what days I did what and what I did in general last week, so I'm just going to sum it up a lil bit.
I had training Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday. Early mornings all of those days. I was off Thursday, Friday, Sunday, and Monday. I learned how to do the fast pass kiosk, how to drive the boat (just in back), how to load and unload the boat, and started to learn the spiel. I went to Animal Kingdom, Typhoon Lagoon, and Magic Kingdom. I had a great week.

Now, to be specific.
On Sunday, Dannah drove Annie and I to church. Dannah had to leave for work after Sunday school, so a nice lady gave Annie and I a ride home. Then Annie and I just chilled for the rest of the night. I started working on this blog post and mostly tried to memorize my spiel. On Monday, Annie and I went to Magic Kingdom in the morning and then to Animal Kingdom. It was such a fun day. We had a blast.

This morning I had work at 6:45. We started out doing dead trips around the jungle. Now you may be thinking, "Is this some kind of zombie boat ride?" Well no it is not. A dead trip is where there are no guests on the boat, so it's just my trainer and the two trainees. I feel like I didn't explain that very well, but I feel like you get the point. So that was the first time I did my whole spiel. I feel pretty good about it, but I don't know if I'm ready for a live trip, and that's what she said we would be doing tomorrow. Eek!

I'm sorry I haven't been in better touch. I'm hoping that I get into a better schedule soon and I won't be memorizing my spiel every free second.

Here's a huge bundle of photos for you friends to look through.

Before I knew I was on jungle cruise/first night in the park

Saturday in the park with Chloe

Castle show

Dole whip numba two

Roommate picture on Sunday

Another roommate picture

First day in costume

Best dessert at animal kingdom

Expedition Everest at animal kingdom. Chloe and I went on it four times that night

I hope you can see this but it's a really cool harp player we saw in animal kingdom

A delicious cinnamon roll and oddly amazing concoction at Lefou's Tavern in Magic Kingdom

Waiting for fireworks

Fireworks!

Splash mountain!

Typhoon Lagoon!

Rock'n Rollercoaster at Hollywood studios. Chloe and I loved it in the front, Dannah (in the blue) doesn't look too amused

Picture of Lefou's Tavern. Isn't it great! 

Chloe and I have matching swimsuits. Basically the same person

Isn't this our last name?

Finding cats at Patterson

YASS!

Animal kingdom with Chloe!

We got the FLIK card!

More animal kingdom

JUNGLE CRUISE SKIPPER HERE

Peace out my home dawgs. I promise I'll be better at communication in general.
(Insert me tryna look gangsta here) 

Heaven and Hotel Hopping

First of all, sorry those pictures didn't want to be seen on here, I guess they're just a little camera shy (buh dum ch). Also, I know you were left on a cliff hanger last time, so to ease your troubled minds, the AC was fixed! We can finally feel the difference between inside and outside temperatures. Hallelujah! 

So last night (which feels like it was last week at least), it was raining, so we went to Disney Springs, which is the new name for downtown Disney. It's huge and we definitely didn't see all of it. There are a bunch of super cool stores and food shops. There was a Cupcake place that had a cupcake atm in front of it. This means that you order a cupcake from a machine and it comes out of this magical door. The cupcakes were delicious. Like, extremely good. 

After Disney Springs, we went to one of the Disney resorts called key west or something like that. It was really pretty. There was a boat that took us there from Disney springs which was fun to take. I really liked looking around it. Afterward, we went back on the boat and then to the apartment (on a bus not boat sadly). 

This morning Dannah, Chloe, and I went to Walmart (in Dannah's car!) to get some things. After that we went back to the apartment and had lunch. Then when everyone got back from their classes, we went with two new friends to look at more resorts. We saw the Grand Floridian (which was so pretty), the Polynesian (which I think would be our family's favorite of the ones I've seen so far), and walked around the Boardwalk. There are those cute bike cart things that I think we'll come back and try sometime. There was a person playing piano in the Grand Floridian, and he played Clair de Lune while I was there! It made me super happy. Speaking of happiness, at the Polynesian I got...

A DOLEWHIP!!!

Which isn't the only reason it's my favorite. It was just really nice and had Hawaiian music playing and the atmosphere was just the best. It's actually the only one I took a picture of, the other pictures are from my roomies.

These are from the Grand Floridian. Ain't it pretty?

And this is a view from the beach of the Poly

There's a water light show that you can only see from some of the resorts, not even from the park, so we stayed at the Polynesian to watch it. It was really cute. After that was done, we decided to go back to the apartment. So, we went in front of the Polynesian to wait for the bus, but then we went sure where we were supposed to wait for it, so we walked around and asked a bunch of workers and security guards. After a while of that, the security guards figured it out and took us back to where we had been waiting before. Luckily this all happened before the bus came. Once we got back, we had late dinner and went to bed.

It was such a fun day! The Dolewhips have already begun and I haven't even entered the park!

Peace out homies

  

Adventures and Air Conditioners

Well hello everyone and welcome to my blog. Before I begin, I should warn that this blog might end up being like Mr. Ratburn's:

And you know that's the truth.

So I did arrive in Florida, my Fitbit said that I slept 2 hours and 25 minutes with 12 minutes of restlessness on the flight. I think that I slept more, but it must have been too little to count. Then when I got to the airport I awkwardly laid down in a semi-uncomfortable chair with my legs over my bags and my ukulele on top of me. I'm sure I was quite a sight. Especially since I would fall asleep and then jolt awake and look around for terrorists or something, I don't know. So I decided that I wanted to be out of the airport, so I got my huge bags and started to go find the taxi. We all know how weak I am, and I had to stop a couple of times on the way down. But to be fair, it was my biggest bag that the airport had to mark heavy with my green bag on top of it. I got a taxi and took it to the hotel. I had the hotel check in my bags and asked where I could walk to get food.

I ended up walking forever to get to McDonalds and had some food. Then I walked back to the hotel and was able to check in early! I was so happy! The room was really nice and I stayed in there the entire night. I took a little nap that was very needed and then watched a chick flick on TV. I ordered room service and got some very adult food

As you can see. It was delicious and looking at the picture just makes me want to eat more of it. After I ate I needed to sleep more so I went to bed. I forgot to mention that total rager of a party I had with everyone in the hotel. It was quite the party. (Chris-there was a poke stop outside my room and you can bet I used it all the time. Also, you would love playing it down here because there are so many Magicarp you wouldn't believe.)

Anyway, Monday morning I got ready and then had Mickey Mouse waffles for breakfast. I was getting so dang excited. I got an Uber driver and headed over to the check in. The place I'm staying in is so pretty. When you drive in, the street is lined with trees and the different buildings are different colors. It's pretty cute. I got my ID and my room number and headed over to my apartment. I was really happy that my building was so close to check-in because I didn't have to carry my bags so far. Then when I arrived at my building, I found out that I was on the third floor... So I shoved my big bag under the stairs and hauled the rest of my stuff up. When I got to my door, I couldn't get the door unlocked, but Hailee was here to save the day. She then came down with me and helped me carry my beast of a suitcase up those stairs. Hailee was the only one home, so we visited until I had to go to Casting.

The bus stop is happily close to our apartment. I walked over there, and while trying to figure out where to go I made a friend who was also trying to figure out where to go. We rode together on the bus and were able to stand together in line at the casting building. The casting building is amazing. Look how cool it is. And it has the Alice in Wonderland door handles. It also had a couple statues in this round room that we waited in line in. It was great. When we got in the building, we stood in a line for a different room while they gave us our areas. They didn't give the exact rides or locations yet, just the general ones, so mine said Adventureland and Liberty square. After that, we went and finished up our I-9 paperwork, got our traditions schedule, and got fingerprinted (it was just a scanner, I didn't have dirty fingers all day). Then I went and got on the bus to take me home. When I got back, I met the rest of my roommates. I LOVE them. They are all so great and we all get along really well.

I had another thing to go to around 6, so I worked on unpacking until then. Then I went and did the drug test and came back to the apartment. We ordered pizza to be dilevered and unpacked some more. When the pizza got here, we ate, did some get to know you questions, and the had a little FHE. After that, Holli, Hailee, Annie, and I went to Walmart and got a couple things. We didn't make a huge trip because Dannah's car gets here tomorrow so we won't have to carry everything on the bus. Annie got ice cream at the store, so when we got back, we all ate ice cream then went to bed. It was a really fun night.

Our air conditioning does not work, so we got a fan for each room at Walmart. It was pretty hot, but I was able to get to sleep. It was cooler in the morning which was nice. We thought it was just the batteries, but we changed those today and it's still stinkin hot.

This morning I got up and worked on this masterpiece of a blog post before I had to go to the housing meeting. Holli and Dannah came with me to mine so they wouldn't have to worry about missing there's tomorrow (kinda long story). It was a lot of fun with them. Right now it's raining hard, and we're sitting in our living room with our two fans and back door open trying to get cool (Just kidding, we all know we're already cool). After Chloe gets back from her meeting that started at 3 we're going to go on an adventure and pray that our AC gets fixed tonight.

My adventure has been so much fun so far! I'm so happy I'm here and can't wait to be able to get in the park!

Until next time then friends!
PS-Sorry the pictures are all weird sizes, I hope you can see all of them.