Someday my prince will come...

So, my day off with Katie was fun. I met her at Magic Kingdom at about 12.30pm in the end and we ended up spending the whole day there - we went to Adventureland first (standard!) and did Pirates. In fact, we actually got stuck on Pirates - right underneath the dirty foot of the man sitting on the bridge, which apparently is Katie's worst part of that ride - much amusement!! We said goodbye to her friend Colin who had to go to work, he works at the Grand Floridian, and then we headed round and did Philharmagic. Had lunch at Pinocchios and then headed over to Frontierland in the hope of doing Splash Mountain (her favourite ride) but it had gone 101! Thunder Mountain is also down for a big 5 month refurbishment so we couldn't do that either. Instead, we headed over to Haunted Mansion and did that before going to the Hub and watching the afternoon parade (which I love of course). The weather was really hot and I was wearing jeans - mistake! I was boiling! After that, we met up with Katie's friend Becky and headed over to Tomorrowland where we did the TTA, Carosel of Progress and Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin (I got an amazing high score somehow of about 350000!). We had fastpasses for Space Mountain so we did that... I got a cream cheese pretzel which is one of my new favourite Disney snacks (I can thank Steffie for that one) and we eventually did Splash Mountain as it had reopened! We did Pirates again without getting stuck this time, and then went back to the Hub to watch 'The Magic, The Memories and You' as Katie hadn't seen it. It was only the second time I'd seen it without the Christmas bit in the middle... I do love it. I really didn't think I would after seeing bits of it on You Tube before I got here - but the song gets me every time! And the effects on the castle are incredible!

Then, of course, we watched my ultimate favourite Disney thing which is Wishes. The park didn't close for another hour afterwards so we went back to Adventureland and did Jungle Cruise which was quite amusing. After that, we went to Main Street USA where I bought a Mickey balloon! I've wanted one for a while but the combination of having to request Commons on the 'A' bus (you get evils) and also taking a balloon on the 'A' bus is not something I'd like to do!! Katie was driving me home so I took the opportunity and I bought a pink one :D I can't upload a picture because I'm using my old camera and am lacking the abililty to upload pictures right now!

The next day was my second day off and I really didn't feel that great to be honest. It was hot weather again so I dressed appropriately this time and I headed off to Downtown Disney to sort out my Stubs card (the loyalty card for AMC Cinemas where they hadn't added any of my points to it - amounting to $70-worth!).  I got an Earl of Sandwich and then came home. I just bummed around for most of the day feeling rubbish because of my cold... I ventured to Walmart for a few things and then declined meeting the rest of my arrival group at Jellyrolls and instead just got a good nights sleep because....

On Sunday I did my pre-service test!!!! And I passed!!! With 93% I should add. Hell yeah. This means that as of March 4th, I am going to be in a tipped role at the Rose and Crown. I will no longer be doing stocker, seating/greeting or chippy shifts and instead will spend two weeks 'food running'. This is basically taking food from the kitchen to the tables. After that I will have 4 days of Server Training and I have to pass my Service Test on March 22nd... then I will be a Server! My pay rate drops from about $8 an hour to about $4 an hour but I can accept tips which obviously helps the money situation. It's ironic that on March 22nd was the last day of my Major film shoot for my degree but two years ago in 2010... it seems that date is one for important things!

So, apart from passing my test, it was a pretty normal day. After work I ran into Steffie and we went back to her apartment and had pizza which was nice, plus watched half of Grease that was on TV. I went back to my apartment at about 1.30am and went to bed. On Monday, I worked - I think I was closing stocker again - and then I saw Nick after work. We watched a film about a girl whose arm got bitten off by a shark (it was actually quite good, called Soul Surfer) and then half of a film called Sanctum which was pretty disturbing - about a group of people that go cave diving and get trapped! We were both tired so went to sleep and decided to finish the film the next day. On Tuesday, I was closing stocker AGAIN! So after that, I saw Nick and we watched the end of the film. We had a conversation which ultimately ended in my discovery that some of the reason I've been grumpy recently is because I'm missing home... it's not something I actively thought was a reason for my mood but now I've discovered that it is I am actually feeling a bit better. I am really glad my mum is coming out in 3 weeks (3 weeks exactly actually!) and I've also realised that I have to start planning things to get done throughout this year because otherwise it will be over and I'll have run out of time. There's things to do and places to see - especially outside of Florida so I need to get on it!!

The next day, Nick dropped me off at Commons and went to University. I had a shower, got changed and realised it was Wednesday so the Florida Mall bus was running - yay! I hadn't been since before Christmas and seen as I didn't know anyone else that wasn't busy that day I went on my own... bought a dress in Charlotte Russe as well as 2 tops, a dress and 2 vest tops in Forever 21 (a new favourite shop!!), a Pooh Bear in the Disney Store (he was only $8) and of course, some shower gel in Bath & Body Works. It was great retail therapy. I got back, put my stuff away and then got the bus to Epcot to meet Tyler when he finished at 6pm.

We met up with his friend Daniel who I've met before, and another guy called Michael who I hadn't met before. We did a mini drinking around the world - I had a cider in the UK, a margarita in Mexico (they are STRONG!) and an Orange frozen drink in France (again, pretty potent!). Then we left just before the fireworks and Ty came to mine for a bit to watch my new TV which my roomate bought (excitement much). He went home at about 11 and I went to bed shortly afterwards.

Which brings us to yesterday... I went into work thinking I was on a chippy register shift (which I was excited about because I'm never on chippy registers... literally been on it once since the epic New Year shifts) and when I got in, I discovered I was stocker. TRAINING STOCKER. It was a bit mad but basically someone who started two weeks before I did... never got stocker training and if she ever wants to work in the bar, she has to have had stocker training. Sooooo... I was the trainer! Whoop! It was a bit weird training someone who has more seniority than me but it went pretty well and we were done by 9.45pm. I also saw Katie again and let her watch Illuminations from our Beer Garden area which she enjoyed... after work, I ended up at TGI Fridays with Paul, Emily, Sophie, Dan, Steffie, Ty, Sam and a load of other Canadians. We ran into Nick and a couple of Soarin' people which was random as well. I just shared food with Sam because I wasn't that hungry... we didn't get back til about 1.15am so I was quite tired.

Today I am front of house yet again... it's Extra Tragic tonight but I'm only in until 1030 I think which is good. I think I'm either a closing seater or closing greeter... who knows!

Obamarama!

Well, it's been a bit of a busy week since I last posted! I haven't had any days off for 8 days so really it's all just consisted of work, work, work! On Friday, after I posted, I went to work early as I had an interview with my manager at 3.45pm... so it's official - I'm going to be a Disney Trainer!!! :-D So anyone reading this who is coming out on Jan 31st or Feb 14th - I will probably be training someone in your group! I think we have the 'train the trainer' day at the beginning of February so that's exciting. After my interview was over (which was pretty intense actually), I was crossing back across stage and got called over to a woman in an ECV. Apparently the battery had died although it wasn't a Disney ECV so we couldn't replace it for her - cue me running over to International Gateway (across a hill from the UK pavilion) to ask the wheelchair people there if we could recharge it for her, going back to the woman, recruiting my friend Daniel to help me push the ECV up and over this hill and then pushing the woman on the ECV right into the wheelchair place so she could get recharged. The result was a Guest Service Fanatic card for me (and I wrote one for Dan) for going above and beyond... good times. After that it was a pretty standard day although as it turned out - a good Friday 13th! Worked Extra Magic Hours and went home.

Saturday I had to open chippy on my own which was a bit of a nightmare - one of the soda machines was playing up and we ran out of hot cups/lids because the weather had turned cold again and all we were selling was tea and coffee! So that was a rather stressful start to the day - I really don't like opening chippy especially by myself! However, it did mean that I got to end the day early... me and Steffie decided we needed to go to Walmart so once I got back at about 7.30, I got changed and we headed out to the bus. Which didn't exist. This was because I read the timetable wrong and therefore we ended up getting a taxi to Walmart (rip off) and back... but I really needed food and it was the only opportunity I had. I literally had nothing to eat in my apartment. So once we'd got back... we went to Clare's apartment and bummed around drinking wine and watching crap American TV which was fun.

The following couple of days were pretty standard... seating, greeting, chippy fill and a bit of stocking thrown in there. On Monday, I finished at 8pm and after avoiding getting extended, I left work, got changed and then walked back to International Gateway (via the Rose & Crown for a cheeky Pear Cider). Walked to the Beach Club Resort (which is literally 5 minutes away - cannot WAIT to stay there in Feb!!) and got the bus to Downtown Disney. I went to the opposite end of DTD to get an Earl of Sandwich (it's been too long!) and then back to AMC to meet Steffie where we went to see Beauty & The Beast 3D which was totally awesome!!! I loved it!!! We got out at about midnight and got the bus home. Met Tyler outside the Commons and went for a late night McDonalds, fun times.

Tuesday I had Panera Bread for lunch with Steffie and Ani then I worked, then saw Nick afterwards - we went to McDonalds (again, oops!) and then watched an awful film from RedBox with Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman in it. On Wednesday, we went to Panera for lunch (see a pattern emerging?) and then he dropped me off at work... it was pretty boring and I felt like I was getting sick so I didn't have a great day really. It was also pouring with rain for most of the day so it was cold and generally a miserable day -  this picture below definitely applied!! After work, I went to Appleby's with about 9 other UK people -  apart from the service kinda sucking, it was a  really fun evening. The food was really good actually and not that expensive.

On Thursday I woke up and my fears were confirmed that I was ill... hello nasty cold. So I ended up on Beer Cart as David didn't want to do it so we'd swapped... but I strugged through periods of coughing fits and the worst headache known to man. Amazingly, my till was spot on (apart from the 75 cents tip I'd somehow ended up in my till, I gave it to Mickey) and in the end, I got to ER because originally my shift finished at 10pm.. and I got out at 9.20pm. We had Extra Extra Magic Hours because Obama was visiting Magic Kingdom yesterday and Disney wanted to push the guests to be visiting the other parks so there were fireworks at DHS (we heard them and they sounded awesome) and EMH at EPCOT... luckily I got out of there early as I said and I was home, showered and in bed by 10.20pm.

This morning I feel a little bit better and I'm meeting up with a friend from my last program - Katie who worked at Mission Space! I'm excited to see her and play in the parks today!! Just gonna take my painkillers and tissues with me haha!

Tax Fun!

Well obviously not much has happened since I last posted... ummm I went to Steffies for a bit on Wednesday night then went to bed. Then on Thursday I had a pretty sucky day because I just got into one of those bad moods where I missed home and I didn't want to be at work, basically I was just unnecessarily grumpy and sad. However, I feel much better today and hopefully there wasn't too much damage done by the way I was yesterday... on the up side, I did do closing stocker again yesterday and it went brilliantly - I was clocked out at 9.35pm with everything stocked including the kitchen fridge, the empty kegs were across the road, all rubbish in the appropriate bins, water stocked in the chippie fridge and even napkins at the beer cart. Boom. Never thought I'd say I enjoyed a role called 'stocker' haha.

Anyway, with a bit of downtime today before work, I've investigated the tax form which  you have to do to reclaim your US taxes - seen as we're not residents of the USA we can get it back, yay. Extra $150 for me. So listen up people - you need to print off the 1040NR-EZ form from the IRS website (click here) as well as the W2 form which Disney should have emailed you... fill out the form and send it to the address listed in the email (it's in Texas somewhere) by April 15th. You can only use this form if you have no dependents in the USA... which presumably the vast vast majority of CRPs and ICPs don't.

So yeah, have fun with that! Extra Tragic Magic Hours tonight... woooo!

Ohana means family!

Well Saturday didn't plan out as I expected it to... turned out that Animal Kingdom closed at 7pm and by the time Nick got back and we were ready to go out it was already past 4pm... plus I didn't feel that good so we decided to give DAK a miss. Sad times. We went to Panera Bread and got some dinner then watched a movie called 'Another World' which was odd but pretty interesting... bit arty farty though!

Sunday, I was up bright and early because Nick had work at 8.30am so I made the use of being up at the crack of dawn  to get the K bus to the All-Star Resorts and show my ID for a room discount for two friends I knew back from my program in 2008 who are on vacation for a few days. As it was the Walt Disney World Marathon weekend, I gave myself plenty of time but this meant I was actually done showing my ID by 9.30am and so I sat in the sun by the hotel pool eating a snack for breakfast and then got the guest bus to Epcot... bummed around for about 2 hours reading my book/sunbathing/watching the marathon runners come through the park. It was awesome. Then, I was back at work and it was supposed to be a nice and easy 12.30-6.30pm seating shift. Well, this turned into a 12.30-9.30pm seater/STOCKER shift! Finally, I actually did the role of stocker! And surprisingly, I actually quite enjoyed it - it can be challenging and you have to move quickly. It can get very tiring and dirty (the female UK costume really isn't practical as a stocker!) but time went fast and then I had the challenge of closing Beer Cart on my own. Thanks to some instructions passed from Joe to Craig to me, it wasn't too hard but it took me ages so I ended up extending further and finally clocking out at 10.15pm. The up side to this was an extra 3.5 hours pay (some of which was overtime!) for my pityful 32 hour work week. Another up side on that shift was the fact I managed to change several kegs without getting remotely sprayed with beer and didn't even really get shouted at which I'm pretty proud of as a new stocker! Everyone was heading to the Polynesian for some drinks as it was Dan's birthday... I went to cast services and got changed, got a guest bus (as the monorail had stopped running - that's a giveaway that you're late out of the park!) and finally got there just as last orders were being called! Nevertheless, I got a 'Magical Star' which is my current favourite Disney cocktail, it comes complete with a glow cube :P

On Monday, it was my Friday again! That's a pro to having split days off in the week! I was on Chippie Registers from 2.30-9.30pm which is pretty standard - my till was spot on and I even did my coupons right. Go me! Then I helped to close chippie before meeting Nick after work. We were going to go get food but I was late out and didn't make it to Cast Services until after 10pm so we ended up just going home and having some more of the pasta we made the other day which was really yummy! Pretty standard day really...

Tuesday and today were my weekend. So, yesterday I slept in and then Nick and I went to this yummy Chinese place for lunch. It was like a fast food restaurant in that you went to the counter and ordered but then they brought you your food... I had 'caramel chicken' and it was soooo good! Best Chinese food I've had since I've been here! Now, to find a decent curry...! After that, Nick dropped me back at Commons because he had work again and I tidyed up, did my laundry etc. Then I got ready and headed to Magic Kingdom to meet a load of UK people as we had dinner reservations at the 'Spirit of O'Hana' show at the Polynesian Resort. I walked around MK for a little bit - saw the end of the MiSiCi Parade and about half of the Dream Along With Mickey show before getting the monorail to meet the others. We got a massive discount on the show (paying about $38 instead of $72) and that included the appetiser (coconut/pineapple bread, fresh pineapple and salad), entree (pork ribs, roasted chicken and vegetable rice) and dessert (chocolate volcano!) plus unlimited wine and beer. The food was unlimited too. And then there was the show which mostly consisted of tropical dances (hula etc), fire eaters/spinners and singing. It was good fun!! The others then stayed on the poly beach into the night but I had an early morning coming my way so me and Clare made our way home.

Today, as I mentioned, I was up at 7.15am to get to the Hollywood Studios for 8.45am to meet Hillary and Matt who were the people I got into the All-Star. I had my Christmas main gate pass which was going to expire on Feb 15th so I used it for those guys... we got into the park before 9am and had done Toy Story Mania, Aerosmith and Tower of Terror before 9.40am! Ironically, the longest line we stood in all day was Star Tours!! I got to be the Rebel Spy (again!) and we went to Hoth, underwater and saw Yoda... was much fun. I then had to sit through the Muppets Show for the first time - yeah, now I've done it, I don't have to do it again... Then we did a spot of shopping before getting the bus to the Contemporary and then the monorail to the Magic Kingdom. I got a cream-cheese pretzel and we bought a couple of things in the Emporium (which is where we all did out 2008 program...)  before I said goodbye to them and got the guest bus to Animal Kingdom to meet Clare. So, by 1.30pm I'd been in three Disney parks!

Animal Kingdom was EMPTY. We headed straight to the Nemo show because Clare hadn't seen it then went to the Restaurantosaurus to get chicken nuggets... then we walked to Expedition Everest. And then we rode it again. And then again! We did it three times!!! It had a 5-10 minute queue! Crazy! The first time we went on it, it got stuck at the top of the mountain and we sat there for about 5 minutes just listening to the sound effects of the wind... very disconcerting!! After thoroughly exploring Everest, we went over to Kilimanjaro Safaris and walked straight onto that as well. After a truly hilarious and amazing safari - featuring LOADS of animals including close up lions, giraffes, hippos and Okapi having a "fun" time ;) - the park was about to close so we headed home. Since getting back I've finished my laundry and eaten, caught up on the new episode of Casualty on YouTube and I'm now just chilling ready for my 8 days straight before another day off!

Celebrate You

So Fork and Screen was really fun! The theatre only has about 100 seats in it and you pay slightly more for the ticket... we went to see Sherlock Holmes (which is a sequel even though I didn't realise this) and I actually managed to understand it despite my lack of knowledge. Once you get into the theatre, you have a menu and a 'call' button, rather like being on a plane. So when you're ready to order, you call the server and they come and take your order. You sit on these really comfy seats with a table in front of you but it isn't obstructive which is good. I ordered Thai Coconut Chicken Tenders - soooo good. Towards the end of the movie, the server brings you your check and you pay it as you would in a restaurant. We didn't get out of the cinema until after midnight so we got a taxi home and went to bed.

On Wednesday, I was covering Heather's shift because it was her birthday (and I have saturday off in exchange) so I was chippy registers all day. We were inside because it was sooooo cold outside so that was good even though it means it's more of a squish in there and its slower because we can only process and fill one order at a time. I finished at like 6.15pm so that was good... I met Nick outside Cast Services and we went to Mall of Millennia and had Cheesecake Factory! That place is so awesome and the mall is really nice as well - rather reminded me of Cribbs Causeway actually because of all the glass ceilings and fountains everywhere. After that, we went back to his via Target and getting lost in downtown Orlando somewhere (where we saw the muchly hilarious 'Pres Barack Obama Parkway'...!) and then we watched a movie called Taken on Blu-Ray which was really good.

Thursday, Nick dropped me home and I got changed before heading to work. The shift was okay, you can tell the park is a lot quieter now so it goes a little bit more slowly... and then after work I got changed and a load of us went to TGI Fridays which was pretty awesome. I had Parmesan Chicken... nom. I am, by the way, aware of HOW MUCH FOOD I've eaten this week - feeling pretty unhealthy it has to be said! Anyways, got Kojak's cab home and went to bed.

Friday morning, I walked to the premium outlets and bought myself a pair of Vans because my trainer shoes from Primark have really seen better days. I also got a couple of other things over there before going back to Commons and then meeting Steffie and Ty for a cheeky Panera Bread before work. Ty has the use of a car this weekend so he drove us to work - luxury! Work was great - I tasked for almost an hour to start my shift and then was a seater for the rest of it... whilst it was still slow, I bussed my ass off which kept me busy and then did the rope for the fireworks. After IllumiNations was finished, they played Celebrate You out of the speakers which totally made my day!!! I haven't really heard that song in a park since 2010 and the days of using our lightsabres as pretend microphones... so it made me happy! Then helped to close Chippy and then got a text from Nick saying he was bored so I ended up meeting him and we went to Walmart for some food before watching Marley & Me (traumatic) and then sleeping.

And that brings me to today - Saturday! I slept in, washed my hair and am just waiting for Nick to finish work before we go to Animal Kingdom for a bit. I have some exciting things happening this week so watch this space for my next blog! :P

Living the 24/7 lifestyle...

Well work yesterday was rather boring... and really cold! I had mentally prepared myself to be a stocker all day but when I got to work I found out that Tom was doing it instead. Sooo... I was just breaking people - i.e. sending them on their breaks. I went to seater firstly and did that for quite a while. It was annoying because it's cold when you're standing at podium but then when you have to seat people and bus tables the big coat just gets in the way! Either way, I seated people for a few hours. Had a bit of an incident at beer cart because the Stella tap was leaking.. so Amelia suggests twisting it to the left a bit to see if it would tighten and stop leaking - well the opposite happened and the Stella pretty much started exploding everywhere out of the tap!! There was beer everywhere! It filled up the whole spoilage tray  underneath it (probably a couple of pints worth) and there was a slight beer flood on the floor... my hands were FREEZING holding onto the tap because if I'd let go I worried that the whole thing would explode! This was all to much amusement of the guests who were watching the whole thing happen and giving useful suggestions such as "Can I put my head under the tap - we don't want that Stella to go to waste!". Ha ha. So Amelia gets underneath the beer cart and undoes the keg... luckily this stops the leak instantly of course. I was covered in Stella and probably smelt like an alcoholic for the whole day but it was quite amusing.

After my break I went to greeter and stayed there until I went home at 8pm. It was very non-exciting. Had lots of grumpy guests because we took so many walk-ins that it was taking a while to get everyone seated... especially as people didn't want to leave their seats in the warm to go back out into the cold park! Somehow I managed to get off work at 8pm even though it was extra magic hours and so I tried to track down where people were to see if we could go and get food but they were all at Hollywood Studios and then were heading back to the Commons... then Nick text me and it transpired that his mom was in town so I ended up getting picked up by him at Chatham and we went and met his mom and his mom's friend at Chevy's (a really good Mexican place). This was awesome because I didn't have a chance to say hi to his mom when she was down here last time (due to my awful shifts) and then we all headed back to his and watched a movie about a horse called Secretariat which was good too. After that, Nick needed to drop me off home but we went via Walmart (it was about 2am by this point)  so we got a few things there.... including I finally got a kettle for my apartment!! :P

This morning I slept in until midday. I finally got up and did some tidying and laundry before doing the trek to the post office. I had to mail my digital camera home (I know, shock horror!) because it's developed a fault when I use it for filming! Gutted! So my mum's going to take it back to Jessops and get it sorted out as it's insured there. Lucky for me, I have my back-up camera - you didn't really think I would go without for 6 weeks did you?? Hahaa! Talking of which, I'll add the links to my latest photo albums to the links page after I've finished this post. Then I headed home and here I am! I'm going to the cinema later and doing "fork and screen" which is dine-in viewing - excited!

Believe in your wishes... and they may come true!

WOW. Is all I can say to yesterday! Happy New Year everyone - it's 2012!!!! I'm very excited about this because I get the feeling this year has so much more potential to be awesome than 2011 which sucked a bit at times for me... obviously it does help that I'm going to be spending the vast majority of this year at Walt Disney World. YAY! As some depressing person pointed out in the taxi back from work at 2am this morning - we're all going home this year too :( But nevertheless, best wishes to everyone for this year!

SO YESTERDAY! Well, I already got a sneak peak at the schedule for the day when I was at work on the 30th and I was disappointed to see that I was not on Chippy Registers because it's really where I wanted to be. Soooo... I was put down for Chippy Fill. Still - better than seating! So, after work on the 30th, a load of us got changed and headed straight for the monorail to go over to Magic Kingdom to see the NY fireworks there (they had them on 2 nights)... MK was pretty packed but it wasn't at capacity so we got in no problems. Fought our way up Main Street and went to Casey's (the queue was like 25 minutes long - we're much more efficient!) because we were really hungry. Once we'd got our hotdogs, we found a space near the center of the Hub... there were very effective markings on the concrete showing where you could stand and keeping open walkways - this really helped keep the traffic moving and there were lots of cast members enforcing it. Also, there was a DJ in front of the castle which was awesome - playing loads of dance music (totally unfitting to the magic kingdom but soooooo much fun!) and then at 11.50pm the lights darkened and they showed 'Fantasy in the Sky' which were really cool perimeter fireworks - it had lots of park music in it and it generally was pretty impressive! Then there was a countdown which was funny because obviously it wasn't actually New Years yet but it was nice  for us to celebrate it as guests on at least one night! Impressively, we got out of MK, onto the Resort Monorail, through the TTC and back to Commons on the A bus in 1 hr 15 minutes! I was in bed by 1.30am!

I got an early bus on NYE, getting to work like 1.5hrs early because the buses were going to be packed later on and the traffic would suck. So... I hung around the GT desk, helping out and chatting until it was time to start work. I went down to Chippy and it wasn't busy so I did some guest interaction - taking pictures and the like. Then the queue started building up at about 11am and there was a constant line until 11.30pm! It was pretty manic in chippy! At about 2.30pm, one of the co-ordinators came in and told me that my wish was going to be granted! YAY! I took over one of the chippy registers from one of the newbies because they weren't as confident on it (it was their first solo day poor thing!) and that was me sorted until midnight!! :D
I got a break at 4pm which was supposed to be an hour but it was so busy that I cut it short and had 45 minutes (increasing my later break to 45 minutes from 30) and then back on it until joyfully I got my second break at 6.30pm!!!!

Why is this so good?! Because New Years in the UK was at 7pm!! So I got to talk to my mum at midnight their time :) The co-ordinator grabbed everyone out of chippy and me off my break to go out into the pavilion with party poppers and do some shouting and screaming for New Years! Then Illuminations was on anyway which was cool because it was almost like it was our celebration - I stood out the back of the restaurant with my manager's manager and HER manager who I'd never met before last night! Back onto registers for the next 5 hours after that... but at 11.55pm we all abandoned ship (with permission!) and went to the VIP area next to Chippy to watch the New Year come in! It was AMAZING! They did fireworks for each pavilion that had already celebrated New Year (we got a bit of Rule Britannia and some red/white/blue fireworks) and then the main display which was totally incredible.

I took an obscene amount of money in my till - and was only 81 cents off!! More than twice what I've ever taken before! So impressed with myself. It was like an endurance test with the standing, the cold, the NOISE and the fireworks, not to mention the language barriers!! We banked out and I ended up finishing at 1am... we got a taxi home (all 16 of us) and I was thankfully in bed by 2.30am. Sooooo tired! And now it's off to work to do it all again! Happy New Year!