Hi ho, Hi ho, it's off to Disney we go!

So the night before I left to start my magical Disney year was spent packing and unpacking, desperately trying to ensure all luggage was within the required weight limits to avoid having to pay any excess weight charges. I was one stressed out chick, I can tell you that! We had an Indian takeaway for my last meal because I had heard a good quality Indian meal is hard to find in America apparently? But we shall see. 

When leaving your family for a year it is so hard to know what to do about leaving gifts/cards. I decided in the end to personalise a plate with a message that read 'See ya real soon' a quote Mickey Mouse often says. I felt this was appropriate as it wasn't a goodbye but rather a positive note about being able to see them again in January when they come to visit me :).

I'm super proud of how this plate turned out!

Then came the morning to leave, it was really weird sitting in the car thinking I'm not going to see any of my family for 6 months! Crazy. I was dreading the goodbye bit at the Airport, but once I had seen people in my arrival group already there, all looking pretty chilled my nerves chilled out and I suddenly decided right that's it, time for goodbyes and because it was all so quick I ended up having no time to really think about it so definitely helped and I wasn't left a blubbing mess. I just tried not to look too much in my family's eyes or I probably would have been a mess.

Ready to start my magical Disney year :D

My flight was scheduled for 11:30am but we were delayed several hours and didn't end up leaving until around 2:16pm. We spent the time though at the Wetherspoons in Stansted chilling out, some people grabbed breakfast but due to the anxiety I felt I couldn't eat a thing so stuck to the good old British staple, a mug of tea!   

Ready to board the plane!

Finally time to depart, I got a window seat - yay for photography but I was sat next to two strangers and separated from the group. BUT I was in luck there was a spare seat available near my arrival group so once we were in the air I was quick to change seats. 

Let's do this!

I was also happy to change seats as my screen in front of me was broken. Now that would be okay if it was a 4 hour flight, but 9 hours...hell no! Also I really want to know why was there a penguin on my screen?

Random penguin...why?!?!

 The flight was pretty bad, I won't go into all the boring details but let's just say at one point a 15 rated film was put on that was not suitable for kids. And the screens didn't fully work, but what did was the music selection so hello Britney Spears and Annie Lennox!

The plus for the flight was the food though. I haven't had the joy of plane food for ages, so this was a nice treat.

  

Yum!

Then we arrived at last, hello Orlando, Florida!!! 

 

 And at last we arrived at our hotel!

We arrived!

 Then of course the first American meal we had was a McDonald's...no judging please :P

Watch this space for my next post about the hotel and our first full day in the US of A and a post about moving in will be coming shortly.

Housing/DORMS Registration Completed

So on Tuesday evening the July 21st Arrival team received emails from Disney Housing to say housing registration is now open and we have 3 days in which to register our preferences to guarantee us a smooth moving in day. Now rather unfortunately this was a day when the internet at my house had cut out. Yikes! But thankfully it was back up and running and I could complete my registration on the Thursday.

It was a really tough decision as to what to place where. However, I knew exactly what my bottom choices would be which included, any apartment which only had 2 people in and bunk bed options. Other than that I'll make it work. They all have the good and bad bits, so all you can really hope for are wonderful flatmates and a lovely room mate. Because let's face it, we will still be living our dream so we can't be too picky as to where we get placed to live. To help me keep track of where I was placing my options I rather sadly printed them off, cut them up and put them in order. I felt like I was back at Primary School or something but it really helped me to visualise it better.

Once I have arrived there I hope to write a more detailed post about housing, as whilst I have read many blogs about housing I am by no means an expert. So keep your eyes peeled for that one.

and so the goodbyes have begun :(

I've known since November 25th that I will be going and obviously knew that when the time came to leave, goodbyes would be said. But no one can prepare you for this. Even with all the time I have had when it has come to saying bye to the people I love, most of whom I won't see again for a whole year, it's been tough. 

The goodbyes began about a month before I was due to get on the plane. It was a dual celebration for myself leaving for America and for my Auntie who has now retired. It was a lovely day, we went to this quaint little pub in the middle of nowhere, had wonderful food and my Dad had even gone out of his way to surprise both my Auntie and I with cakes for our celebrations! Also the waiter serving us told us that back in his youth he used to be a taxi person in the Tampa area of Florida and would drop people off at places such as Universal Studios and Walt Disney World. Small world hey! All in all we had a lovely time but surreal to think that will be the last time in a whole year where I'll be sat with the whole family...emosh!

My Family Leaving do :)
(I have blurred out my family's faces because I haven't asked their permission to be featured on my public blog).

Then it was time for the mini Canterbury/Trampolining reunion on the last weekend of June!! I say mini, because not everyone could make it unfortunately :(. So for those of you who don't know me, I went to the University of Kent, of course the best University there is ;) and whilst I was there I was part of the trampolining club. Go UKC Trampoline Team! We became quite a close knit group of friends at Trampolining and due to this we all make sure to keep in touch with one another on a fairly regular basis. We got to stay on campus as the students have all moved home for the summer, and we stayed at the brand new accommodation which was quite special. 

We had a fab time having cocktails and eating chocolate, a lotta lot of chocolate. If anyone has yet to visit Canterbury, be sure to check out the Chocolate Cafe! It's a firm favourite of ours!

Soooo good!

Also the lovely Tara and Sam bought me the best leaving present, six books of the Happily-ever after Stories of the Disney Princesses, haha I loved it! Also Tara has recently got back from a year studying in the U.S.A., so in my card she provided some useful hints and tips for my travels. Thank you Tara :D

Thank you Tara and Sam for this amazing gift!

Then came my last day at work. I have had the delight of meeting some lovely people whilst working there and most importantly I met the wonderful Jade. Jade has literally been my rock whilst I've been there. I don't care how cheesy that sounds because it is true. Whenever there was a tough day at work or a stressful situation arose, Jade would come to the rescue and always know the right things to say. Not only is she also the loveliest and hardworking person you could ever meet she is a fantastic friend and I am going to miss her a crazy amount. She's been with me throughout this whole application process for Disney and her confidence and belief in me that I could do this has certainly been a major help and support to me. 

   So because she is so lovely, she made sure I had a lovely last day at work. She organised for my pod/the admin team to provide some treats for us to munch on and I was not expecting there to be so much food, not that I was complaining ;P. Also thanks to all my lovely colleagues for contributing towards my leaving gifts and writing such lovely things in my card, it means alot, so thank you everyone, you know who you are ;)! We finished the day with a few drinks at the local and Jade and I had dinner there too.

Last but not least my best University friend Laura surprised me with what will be one of my most treasured memories ever, Afternoon Tea at The Ritz. There are no words to explain how grateful I am to have Laura as my friend and for her providing me with the best send off anybody could ever ask for. Laura has been there since I first applied for this once in a lifetime opportunity back in 2013 and I got rejected for it. She has now seen me go through the whole process this time and get accepted and she has been one of my biggest supporters for me doing this program. So big shout out to my friend Laura! We had a marvellous day and I welled up so much when the piano player who suddenly played a different tune and out came the waiter who presented me with a cake which said 'Good Luck in America' and he then proceeded to ask me whereabouts I was off to in the US. It quite literally was the icing on the cake on what had already been an amazing (and very British) experience to take away with me on my travels.

But really the goodbye I am most dreading is the Airport one with my parents and sister. I know that what will get me through that goodbye is knowing in 6 months time they'll be coming out to see me.

There is no better Disney quote that sums this up than from Winnie The Pooh:

My camera has arrived :D!!!!

Omg did I have problems with this being delievered or what? But I shall not bore you with all the details I promise. I am just over the moon that it is now here :D!

This also means if and I emphasise the if because, if I am feeling brave I may try to vlog my time out there. Obviously it won't be every day/week but I will try to do one a month, but going from previous people's experience this might just not be possible due to how busy I will be out there. Also I've never vlogged before so I'm currently somewhat camera shy and hate the sound of my own voice so we'll see how it goes. As they say, watch this space ;)

Two weeks to go!!