A chipmunky couple of days!

Yesterday (Thurs) I was Dale in Park 2 (the Studios). There were quite a lot of us in the Monster breakroom (where Sulley is) so it was quite fun - much better than my lonely day as Winnie the Pooh! Chip and Dale are quite fun to play because you can be really mischievous and play around together.

In the breakroom we played a few games and things to take our minds off of the cold, although I wasn't too bad in my furry costume. A really tall Aussie guy named Drew, who was playing Baloo, put on Chip's costume, which was really funny. The legs were too short but he got it on and put on the head, and then I really realised why Disney are so strict about the heights - he looked terrifying!

I realised on my lunch break that I had forgotten to clock in in the rush to get my costume, so I went to tell Character 1. I got told off and he said 'why did you forget!?', but these things just happen sometimes. I think he sorted it for me though so I should get paid.

On my last set, one of the ACCs came up to me and said (in French, but luckily I understood) 'come on Tac, it's time to go and have tea with Mickey!' and then put her arm around me and led me away, so I knew something was wrong. Backstage, she told me that all of my hair had fallen out of the back of my character head, so it must not have been in my balaclava! Hopefully nobody saw and I didn't ruin the magic for any little kids! I thought she would just sort it out and send me back into the park but instead she sent me and my Chip back to the breakroom so we missed most of the set.

Today, I was Chip in Fantasyland. There were looooads of us in the breakroom and we were all out on set together, including Chip and Dale, Suzy and Perla, Tigger, Eeyore, Pluto, Frolo (from Hunchback), the Queen of Hearts, King Louie, Pinocchio, Gepetto, Gideon, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and possibly even some more. This meant that the sets were quite fun because the naughty ones and the villains, like Tweedles and the Queen of Hearts, would come and stand in front of out photos and things and we could chase them and tell them off.

We only did one 10 minute set and one 5 minute set I think (instead of the five 20 minute sets we were scheduled to do), so we went on lunch early. I think it is more that the ACCs are cold, because most of the characters were fine. This meant I had over 2 and a half hours for lunch. At lunchtime I went to Jessica's Boutique, which is a shop backstage where they sell loads of damaged or end of line Disney stuff really cheap. There are so many cute kid's clothes!

I checked parade sign in after lunch just to see if I was rope carrier or anything, but I wasn't so I had a free hot chocolate and got back into my costume. In the afternoon I was still in Fantasyland but on the other side. It was only me and Dale, Suzy and Perla, and Gideon, Gepetto and Pinocchio in the afternoon. Again I ended up only doing one 10 minute set and one 5 minute set so all in all today I did half an hour's work!

Once I'd changed and taken my costume back, the new rotas had gone up. I have two REPs next week which means I'll be learning two parade parts, and another REP the week after so I am quite pleased. I hope that at least one of them is a dancing part instead of a character part. Because of the cold they have taken some of the characters and dancers off of the parade, like the Octopus dancers, so I can't do that which is a shame. I also found out that I am too short to do Flower Girl, so my only hope on DOUD (the afternoon parade in the main park) is to be a Can Can girl with the pinocchio float. It could turn out that all of my REPs are for character parts though, like Chip and Dale or Jessie. It would still be really fun to do those on parade. I also found out that in Christmas week I have two Special Events. This is when something unusual happens like a VIP visits the park (celeb or royalty or something) and you have to greet them as a character, or if they are shooting for a new TV ad or next year's brochure or something similar. It could also be a private meeting with a Genie Lanyard child, who are terminally ill children who come to Disney with the Make a Wish Foundation, so that could be quite emotional. The Special Events are still on the provisional planning though so I will find out for sure next week. I also have the 23rd and 24th December off, and I am working 10-6 on Christmas day as SPP (spare parade). In fact my entire schedule is pretty much SPP! I am going to request my shift on Christmas Day to be changed to a proper parade shift, because I think it would be so lovely to do the parades on Christmas Day, especially Fantillusion so I hope that one of my REPs is for that.

Lots of people have gone out tonight (I'm writing this at 11.41pm), but I decided against it to save money, and it is just so cold! Instead I went downstairs to Puja's, and Alicia and Jen came too (they are all girls from my formation). We had planned to watch Toy Story 3, but we ended up chatting so much that we didn't get a chance, as the others have work tomorrow so didn't want to be up too late. We had such a lovely girly time, doing eachother's hair (I have some really nice French fishtail plaits now courtesy of Puja), showing eachother pictures of our boyfriends and doing ballet - it probably couldn't have been much more girly if we tried! It was loads of fun though and I really feel like I've made some friends now and have somewhere to go if I'm bored or lonely.

Anyway I'll probably get some sleep now as I want to go Christmas shopping tomorrow in Disney and at Val d'Europe!

I'll update you on Monday probably - I am down to do parade so I may get my first experience of rope carrier or Pont Romance (I will explain all then).

Much love

xxx