IT'S 6 IN THE MORNING! A 24hr, SWW,Birthday Adventure--Updated 1/25x3!!!-FINISHED

I'm joining in!! Can't wait to read more.

Love the view's from BLT and I would love to stay there with a MK View. Watching Wishes from my room would be so cool!!

Thanks for sharing your TR :)

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards
 
Just joining in...

Thanks for sharing!

Hi!! Glad you're here and enjoying the adventures so far!!

I'm joining in!! Can't wait to read more.

Love the view's from BLT and I would love to stay there with a MK View. Watching Wishes from my room would be so cool!!

Thanks for sharing your TR :)

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

Hi! :wave: thanks for coming!!

An MK view would be the way to go! I do really want to stay there again with that, wishes from my personal balcony would be fantastic!!

Your welcome, glad you're enjoying!!

 
We left off with Jenna & I leaving the wedding planning area and heading over to the DVC section of the GFlo....Obviously, I WISHED we could have taken a look inside a suite, specifically the Grand Villa, but I didn’t really think about asking, and wasn’t too concerned, so we gawked at the chandeliers and “awwwwee’d” at the penguin fountain!







Jenna & I wandered back down the pathway towards the main building of the GFlo and discussed what to do next, we could monorail back to Magic Kingdom, bus to AKL to check out that resort and have lunch there, or have lunch at the Grand and then see how much time we had left. Jenna opted for the not so African tasting food, and we ventured into the Grand Floridian lobby where we got distracted immediately, duh. I’d always loved the Peter Pan mural, but wans’t sure WHERE it was!



Jenna also wanted to fly through Neverland with them!



With a mission of lunch on our mind, we ventured through the resort, and eventually had to ask a few people where the counter service place was, but eventually found it and debated over what we wanted to for lunch. I ended up choosing a “make your own steak salad” and Jenna went for a kids veggie wrap!





We even had a LOVELY view of the castle while we ate, as you can see in the pic stich above! The salad was good, I’d chosen blue cheese, and Italian dressing, and the two weren’t mingling together very well at all (and it was kind of drenched in dressing) BUT aside from that the salad was SUPER tasty. Jenna enjoyed her wrap, but I think more enjoyed the fact that her milk was so teeny tiny! Lol. Lunch was more than enjoyable, we spent the morning relaxing, and some time while we were now sitting down taking a break to post some photos to instagram and the like, and then finished up, put any leftover snack type foods into our bags, stopped at the washroom, and headed over to the bus stop, where I decided to make my first pressed penny!



I kinda chose to do it simply because we don’t use the penny anymore in Canada (we just round up or down) so I always come home with so many that I can’t use until the next time I’m down there, and the pressed penny’s are cute, and cheap, and this was definitely the start of that obsession!

Soon enough, our bus came and where were we off to today?! Animal Kingdom! Although we weren’t stopping to go into the park today, this was just a pit stop on our adventure of the day, and the closest place to catch a cab! All of this took no time and all and before we knew it, we had arrived.

For those of you who have no idea where we were headed, or if I’ve completely forgotten to mention it, and you haven’t figured it out, we were now at the Animal Kingdom Wardrobe & Rehearsal Facility. Aka, where Disney hosts all their WDW Entertainment Auditions! Originally we had been due to arrive the night of the Thursday, but I figured we may as well arrive a day early, and hit up the audition, right?!

New readers should probably get some background, and know that I do apologize as the rest of this update has no pictures, and is pretty word heavy, but people always like to read about the audition process, so I like to include it in the TR’s when they occur. First off, I have been performing my entire life, gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, cheerleading, dance, went to theater school, went to film school, and have been working at a dinner theater for the past 6 or so years. When we first went to Disney in May 2011 I was intrigued by Disney Entertainment, but aside from the FOTLK bird there wasn’t much that had a pull for me. Clearly that changed, and while that bird is still the ultimate dream, there’s restrictions on the role I might not make, and I realized I would totally be happy having ANY performing role for the Disney company.

Fast forward to this day, and I’ve completed MANY auditions for Disney, last year I’d almost given up hope, but got looked at for a decent amount of time at an audition, and that continued over the course of the next few, so I realized there was still hope!

When we were planning the trip, Jenna expressed interest in going to an audition with me just for fun, and to experience it all, and she’s been performing her whole life as well, so it seemed fitting.

The two of us paid for the cab, and headed into the hallway, where I immediately recognized the girl we were sitting down beside, we’d auditioned a few times together in the past so we got to chatting, and as of earlier in the week, she got the call to start her Disney adventure!! We waited about 45 minutes before sign in started and the rest of the audition went as this:

-Signed in, bare feet they take your height, and then you wait until everyone else has signed in, or there isn’t enough space left in the room. They then pulled the first 50 of us into a smaller room (where I noticed the walls had pictures of a lion, an elephant, a warthog & a giraffe on them…hello FOTLK rehearsals….) and arranged us lined up in order in lines of 5 and waited for the casting director to come in.

Today the casting director was one that has yet to take a look at me, so I didn’t have high hopes when she was the one that walked in. She gave us the usual spiel of “you’re at a character audition, you’re auditioning for Disney entertainment, you will do fur no matter what, and if you don’t get it, just keep an eye on the posting, it might not just be your day today”

Meaning that pretty much, Disney is VERY strict on how they cast their face characters, and today was casting for that, they look at everything from your height (specific height ranges each character has to adhere to) who they’re looking for that day, your build, face shape, everything, she’d look at the first line of 5, then the line would split and move to the back, and this would continue until all 50 were looked at.

Once completed, she called around 6 or so numbers, and it included Brooklyn, (the friend we’d made) so we wished her good luck, and headed out. No luck today, and no worries on that at all! Jenna joked on the way out that she REALLY wanted to see someone crying, I mean, it was all part of the experience, right?! BAHA! Love her!

We called a cab pretty quick and despite waiting what felt like forever, we were arriving at our new home pretty quickly!



Pretty basic check in, we lucked out with our luggage already being at Pop, and our order of groceries were already in the room! BONUS! We were building 10, in the 70’s and close enough to the parking lot we could jut across it to get to the bus stop, perfect!



 
I'm joining in! Didn't know you'd started this one. I've been lurking in quite a few of my current TR subscriptions but I'll try to comment!
 
Your trip report was outstanding! I loved following along and reading all of your adventures. The theme park view from Bay Lake looks magnificent and all of your pictures are absolutely phenomenal. Thanks for sharing your experience!
 
I don't think I have ever seen the penguin fountain - it's awesome!

Sorry the audition didn't go better - but exciting for your friend and must give you some hopes that it just takes the right day with the right casting director
 
I am in love with that fountain and would love to have that in my backyard. :)

Love the Peter Pan floor.

I have to admit I have no idea where the GF counter service place is.

I loved hearing about the audition; sorry you weren't called but glad your friend from previous auditions was.

Yay for you room being ready and convenient to the bus stop.
 
I'll really never tire of hearing about the audition processes. You know I'm pretty obsessed with anything "backstage" about Disney!

I'm sorry you weren't cast, but now that you'll be working there you'll have the chance to go to all of them!

I've never been remotely interested in staying at the GF, but I do love the look of the VGF. That fountain is adorable.
 
You know I love that the ritzy looking GFlo still has so much Disney theming like those beautiful murals. And hey, if you're going to lay on the floor, the always sparkling clean GFlo floor seems a good choice. :thumbsup2

Haha, yes, pressed pennies for us take on a whole new meaning and specialness now.

I ALWAYS love hearing about the auditions. And even though it hasn't hit... yet... just think of all the wonderful friendships you've made along the way. I think that's pretty special. :goodvibes
 
Haven't been on Dis lately but had to come check and see if you had a TR going and you do! Yay! So when do you think you might move there? I hope when you do you will do a continuous report!
Can't wait yo hear more about thus trip!
 
I love reading about the auditions! I used to have dreams of auditioning but I never did go to one.

Glad you enjoyed!! It definitely is an interesting process!

I'm joining in! Didn't know you'd started this one. I've been lurking in quite a few of my current TR subscriptions but I'll try to comment!

Haha, I feel like I always have multiple TR's going on bahah! Glad ya found it!

Your trip report was outstanding! I loved following along and reading all of your adventures. The theme park view from Bay Lake looks magnificent and all of your pictures are absolutely phenomenal. Thanks for sharing your experience!

Thank you so much!! Glad you're here and have been enjoying coming along on the adventures, they're always a blast!! BLT was great, I definitely want to check out a theme park view one of these days!

 
I don't think I have ever seen the penguin fountain - it's awesome!

Sorry the audition didn't go better - but exciting for your friend and must give you some hopes that it just takes the right day with the right casting director

It's super cute! There's tons of Mary Poppins touches in the DVC unit over there!

Meh! Lol, it was one of those "we're down so we may as well go" kinda things, I didn't really have to much sitting on it. It really is all about timing, and I know the timing isn't perfect for me right now. I'm just hoping it is come fall! Lol

I am in love with that fountain and would love to have that in my backyard. :)

Love the Peter Pan floor.

I have to admit I have no idea where the GF counter service place is.

I loved hearing about the audition; sorry you weren't called but glad your friend from previous auditions was.

Yay for you room being ready and convenient to the bus stop.

Right?! All of it is actually perfect and I'd very much like to have it in my house! Hahah, it took us a while to find it, same with YC later in the trip, like, I know there's cs places at all the resorts, but some are dang tricky to find! Lol.

Thanks!! They're always interesting that's for sure! I'm sure my time will come eventually!

And yes! It was wonderful!

I'll really never tire of hearing about the audition processes. You know I'm pretty obsessed with anything "backstage" about Disney!

I'm sorry you weren't cast, but now that you'll be working there you'll have the chance to go to all of them!

I've never been remotely interested in staying at the GF, but I do love the look of the VGF. That fountain is adorable.

Ahaha, well hopefully one day I can give ya a little more than on here lol! It was a good day, but just not my day, and that's okay, I wasn't too concerned about it that day. And I WISH! Because of the visa/program that I'm working on it's not actually allowed for me to audition for WDW while I'm on the program. I'm hoping that right before I start I'll hit up an audition and get into the pool (the "list of potentials" essentially) and then within 6 months get a call & transfer lol!

RIGHT?! The villas look amazing!!

 
You know I love that the ritzy looking GFlo still has so much Disney theming like those beautiful murals. And hey, if you're going to lay on the floor, the always sparkling clean GFlo floor seems a good choice. :thumbsup2

Haha, yes, pressed pennies for us take on a whole new meaning and specialness now.

I ALWAYS love hearing about the auditions. And even though it hasn't hit... yet... just think of all the wonderful friendships you've made along the way. I think that's pretty special. :goodvibes

I really do appreciate that they keep the "disney" themeing throughout all the resorts, it's a nice touch, but doesn't leave it feeling to "kid-like" all the time! Bahaha, I will sit/lie on the ground at Disney pretty much anytime, cleanest ground there is!

It was JUST THE BEGINNING! I made a heck of a lot more throughout the trip just because I knew I couldn't use them lol

I'm very happy to know that I've made such great friends already through the process, and gotten to see them work their way up until they are entertainment cm's, and making magic. I know my day will come it's just a matter of time!

Haven't been on Dis lately but had to come check and see if you had a TR going and you do! Yay! So when do you think you might move there? I hope when you do you will do a continuous report!
Can't wait yo hear more about thus trip!

Hahaha, I feel like I always have one going on lol! I move down to start my program in October, and definitely plan on doing some sort of semi live trip report while I'm there!
 
Yay caught up on this TR too! I don't know how you have time to keep up with your reports when I have trouble keeping up with reading them :rotfl2:

OMG Katt 21 trips in 3 years?! I'm amazed and pretty jealous.
 
Jenna & I were checked in at Pop and ready to roll, we had a relaxing day so far, and were off to our first official Dismeet of the trip, so it was off to Downtown Disney for us!



Throughout the day I’d been texting with Danielle (IheartD_Duck here on the disboards, check out her TR here: http://disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3286234 ) with plans to meet up that evening. We’d met once before down in Disney, and had been keeping up over the past year or so since then and were super excited to be in Disney at the same time again! We’d been talking about potential plans, and I mentioned we’d probably be at DTD & Jenna had expressed interest in the “hot air balloon” ride there and after Danielle brought it up, her Pop got super excited about it too, so we decided to meet up that evening as well!

Danielle & her parents were waiting for us outside of Wolfgang Puck Express when we got there so we met up outside the restaurant, ordered, and grabbed a seat in the dining room, where Jenna & I were splitting the Margherita pizza!



It was SUPER tasty, although not as grand as the 4 cheese pesto pizza, but we were both impressed with it and enjoyed dinner while we caught up with Danielle’s crew! After dinner we began to head out to our destination, but not without a few distractions along the way, after all, this was Jenna’s first time in Downtown Disney!





Her love of Grumpy shone through today;





and she deemed that Dopey was in fact, Yoda in his lego statue….bahaha!





Our journey came to a pausing point once we’d reached the Pleasure Island side, where Characters in Flight is located, and we were excited!





It was relatively cheap for tickets, and there was a DVC member discount that Danielle & her Pop got before they sent us down the ramp. We stopped briefly and took some pictures to occupy ourselves!











One of the three of us! See! Proof that we actually did all see each other on this trip!



The cast members then called us to board into the balloon’s …..cage? lol, and I’m going to have to pause momentarily here since I have a TON of pictures!
 


Jenna was super pumped to get up and FLYING!!! The captain had us board beside where he was station and walk all the way around the circled in “cage” like bottom until we had the required amount of people in there. He then explained how the situation and flying would work and not to be worried about a bump here or there, and we were off!











Jenna did a great job of the selfies, and made sure to take a picture of me up there too, see I promise you I was there!





We’d arrived at our top most destination, where we would hover for a bit and take in the sights of the surrounding area for the next little bit.





I took a shot of the beautiful sunset we were getting up there!



And then had a hilarious moment where I wanted to get a good angle of the balloon itself from lower down, and any mediocre photographer knows you yourself have to get down lower to get said angle properly. However instead of simply crouching down, I for some reason decided it best to slide down the side of the wall slowly to grab the next couple of shots.



Which prompted Danielle to BURST out laughing and go “Katt’s FREAKIN OUT” and we all had a good laugh over it, and then she photobombed me.





Upon the non existent freak out ending, I jumped back up and took a couple more shots outside the balloon before we descended.



Overall, the experience was seriously amazing, a nice, short, sweet and much cheaper way to discover what a trip in a hot air balloon would be! The four of us all enjoyed it so much, and would definitely do it again! I could definitely imagine it being awesome right at sunset, or during any fireworks show that would be close enough to see! Along the waiting ramp, they had taken our professional picture which were displayed up at the ticket booth. Jenna took a picture of the picture, which prompted a cast member walking by to rudely go “thanks for taking a picture of the picture” Jenna’s response: “your welcome!”



She cracks me up. Now, on our adventure over to our flight, we had seen a little booth outside of Paradiso 37 that had $5 maragaritas, and had these GIANT fishbowl cups displayed…uhm…..THAT’S FIVE DOLLARS?!?! I’LL TAKE TEN PLEASE!!

Yeah…turns out the $5 ones were the itty bitty ones, but Jenna said she’d help me drink a big one, and Danielle was AMAZING enough to say that she was going to buy my drink, so we were all getting the BIG ONES.







PARTY CENTRAL!!!!

Really there were only 3 margaritas between the 5 of us, which was a nice balance. We headed back over to the front of World of Disney where we took a seat on a ledge and hung out for a bit longer. It was a super fantastic evening, Danielle & her parents are just as hilarious as you think they are through reading her TR’s, and they are all seriously amazing and such great fun for us to kick off our Disney vacation with!!







Eventually, the parentals were starting to feel the length of the day, so the other three decided that it was time for them to head back to the resort. None of us had made very big dents in our maragaritas, but enough to not feel bad about “accidentlally spilling” them into the bushes we were sitting beside! #WHOOPS.

We all said good bye, gave some hugs, said “see ya tomorrow” and made our separate ways! Jenna & I stopped in TrenD and Basin on our way out but found nothing worth buying, so it was back to Pop for us, where I WAS FINALLY ABLE TO GET THE ELVIS CUUUUUUPPPPCCCAAAAAKKKKKEEEEEEE



Chocolate cupcake with peanut butter frosting, banana custard inside and with some candied bacon on top. And spoiler alert….it wasn’t that good….I don’t know if it was because it was the end of the day so it wasn’t fresh, or if I just wasn’t feelin it, but you’d think after that margarita it’d be tastier! Baha. Jenna showered, and I took a picture of the lovely present Danielle had given me earlier!



SUPER huge thanks again going out to the family for everything that day, we had such an amazing time flying around and drinking through Downtown Disney that day, and it was such an incredible way to kick off the actual first day of the trip and I couldn’t be happier to experience it!
 
Katt, what an awesome and fun update!

I am so happy that you got to hook up with Danielle and her parents over dinner and then the balloon ride. Mark and I have always wanted to do it, but the price tag kept us away most times and then the one time we were going to take the plunge it wasn't going up because of the weather. :(

Those are some HUGE margaritas...and how sweet of Danielle to treat you girls.

I liked the cupcake until you said peanut butter...I'm not a peanut butter fan so I'll be skipping that one.

What a great way to start your vacation!
 

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