So, whilst trying to organise everything I thought I'd make a couple of notes about things which I didn't realise needed so much thinking about when moving away, and you might need to think about as well if you're going on the CRP!
1) Phones. The never-ending nightmare of phones. Basically, whilst this is the cheating method of writing a blog post, I thoroughly recommend you check out Dan@Disney's blog post about phones because it's the single best advice I've ever seen about buying phones for the ICP and CRP programs... you can check out the post by clicking here. Personally, I've opted to get my blackberry handset unlocked (cost me £15 from a dodgy man who couldn't speak English outside Tescos) and I'm going to buy a SIMple Mobile simcard when I arrive ($13) which will give me a rolling month contract at $50/month and provide me with unlimited calling, texting, international texting, BBM, blackberry email and web access. Then international calls are $0.02/minute to landlines and $0.10/minute to mobiles in the UK. I'm also going to get a webcam for the computer at home so my family can skype with me.
2) Contact Lenses. This is my latest kerfuffle I've had to sort out... now, I've been with Vision Express for about 10 years now on a direct debit scheme and I've had monthly lenses that whole time aside from my two ICP programs when I just bought 3 months worth of daily lenses from them, no questions asked. But that's because I didn't realise there WERE questions to ask! Now, I was under the impression that if I just got a copy of my contact lense prescription, I could take it over to the USA and buy lenses in Walmart or wherever with no problems.... WRONG. It transpires that when they give you a prescription in this country, it details what type of lenses you have, and another optician cannot give you different ones - for example, in my case my prescription is for monthies and therefore they couldn't give me dailies. Lucky for me, I realised this before leaving and so have opted to go and get a new prescription from Specsavers for daily contact lenses. I will probably buy 3 months worth in this country and then get the rest from Walmart... but make sure that the brand you use in the UK is actually sold in the US. You can go to the Walmart website to search for your brand and see if they're sold which I found was the easiest method. They're also cheaper over there, just sayin'.
If you are willing to just risk it without a proper prescription, there are websites like getlenses.co.uk where you can order online and get them delivered without a prescription (it goes through their Dutch website as the rules are different there) and you can even get international postage although it's quite expensive. And whilst we're talking about prescriptions - make sure you have stock of any medications that you take or find out where you can get them from whilst in the US.
So yeah, that's what my last couple of days have been spent sorting out. Oh, and I went to see The Lion King 3D at the cinema which was pretty awesome... I definitely want the DVD for Christmas! So... I have 10 more shifts at work, 4 meals out, my leaving party and quite a bit of shopping and packing to do and then it's time to go! I probably won't post until a couple of days before I leave so goodbye for now!
This is my favourite thing about seeing a Disney film at the cinema!
Hi Catherine! I found your videos on google whilst researching the ICP and just watched pretty much all of them so I thought I'd say hi. I'm a 20 year old Australian and from what I've gathered the Aussie ICP goes for a year, so it's a bit different from what you've described about the UK one but your advice has been SO incredibly helpful! I probably won't be heading over until 2013, provided I get accepted etc etc but I get excited about these things and research very early like crazy =]
ReplyDeleteI just read through your bucket list, and one of the questions I had about that was in relation to the trips you want to take (i.e to Disneyland and Las Vegas). Basically, I was wondering if WDW gives you more time off while you're there for the whole year to travel a bit (or just time off in general) around the US, or whether you plan to do that maybe after you're doing the program.
Anyway, I'm extremely exited for you and I can't wait to hear more about your disney adventures!
Olivia
Hi Olivia!! Thank you for your comments! I'm not too sure on the Austrailian ICP programs tho it sounds exciting!
ReplyDeleteDisney don't theoretically give you time "off" but you get 1-2 days off per week and you can request additional days off... so if you're clever you can end up with 4-6 days off in a row but it just takes a bit of planning!!
I promise to blog throughout my program because I love reading back on it so stay tuned haha, Cat :)