Moving, Check-In, and Casting, oh my!

If you have read my blog before you may know that by now I have indeed begun my Disney College Program! I had hoped to write a blog about packing and driving down, but because of a few reasons, I decided to combine it with any information about check-in and casting that I have to share!

The night of January 10^th I stayed up packing the things that I had piled up in my room with the intention of taking with me! As time was passing and evening became morning, the time before I was leaving disappeared. So word to the wise, don’t procrastinate on packing if you are preparing for your own program! I thought I was all good and would be fine, but instead I pulled an all-nighter and was a bit stressed :/

It was all good and well a few hours later when I began the long drive down with my mom.

This is little me all packed up and clearly pretty proud of myself! I was probably going to school, but the sentiment 

works here because it's a Mickey Mouse backpack, and well..I'm at Disney World now! 

(I know that you're thinking, "what a succinct photo caption!" haha, right?)

We arrived on January 12, which also happens to be my birthday! Being in a car for half of my birthday could be seen as a disappointing way to spend it, but I knew I was on my way to Disney, so I was very much okay with it! That night I finally met some of the girls that I will be living with for the next few months!

Maggie, Amanda, Me, Ela, and Connie

Check-in was the next morning and I stood in line with my roommates at 7:45! This is when I met Chelsea, the final roommate of our 3-bedroom apartment!

This is where I would insert some good ole pictures from check-in, but this girl in all of her excitement, forget to put her camera into the bag that she took with her! Whoops! I bet you can picture it though: long lines made up of hundreds of college students, moving from outside inside, finding out their housing assignments (yay Chatham for me!), taking ID photos and getting lovely housing IDs, and then getting the keys to apartments!

I did manage to take this picture from check-in

which I posted on my Instagram. It was just to show my

first Disney name tag! (Even if it was just a temporary sticker!)

I found out that I will be working in…..drumroll please…. I hope your anticipation is building….haha, okay for real though….. ANIMAL KINGDOM. Even more specifically I learned that I will be working somewhere in ASIA!

All of my roommates had casting this same day, but mine wasn’t until Tuesday, so after completing a few more things at check-in I was off to Chatham to begin moving in!

Most every other girl had already moved in by the time I arrived so my roommate Amanda and I are in bedroom #2! I realize that information doesn’t do much for you, but I wanted to inform :)

We all went to Downtown Disney to hang out a bit and get what ended up becoming my dinner, Ghirardelli’s ice cream!

Picture from Ghirardelli's with some of the roomies!

Photo taken from my Instagram.

The next day was Tuesday, the day of my casting, but also the day of my housing meeting! Casting was super easy and short for me because most everyone went the day before, so there were not many people to wait in lines behind. Some obligatory pictures I took of the Casting building:

Please notice the other excited CPs taking Pictures in the bottom of my picture :)

After casting, I took the bus back to Chatham and walked over to The Commons with two of my roommates for our housing meeting! The meeting only lasted about an hour and a half to two hours, maybe! Not bad at all! Plus, while he scanned my ID to go into the meeting, a cast member told me I looked like Merida, so yeah, that was fun! I love Merida!

Wednesday is my day off to run around and do errands and such, and then Thursday is my day for Traditions!! My park orientation is Saturday, and I just can’t wait to get started! I will post more soon! Have a magical day! :)

x Lauren