Daisy & Donald In The Sun

This photo was taken on Christmas Day. Here I made friends with Daisy up on Deck 12. She is catching some rays with her handsome boyfriend Donald.

Here is my first time making friends with Stitch. He took a stroll into the kids club while they were having a dance party, he is so much fun!

Pinocchio

Here is my first time making friends with anyone in a guest area! Here is Pinocchio playing Simon says some children. The video is just of Pinocchio dancing around the area called Preludes just before the Walt Disney Theater.

We Are Sailing

The Disney Dream finally set sail for its big crossing over the Atlantic ocean on Sunday December 19, 2010. I slept great without any notice of the moving ship. It wasn't until I went to brush my teeth the next morning that I felt the ship moving. It was a new feeling to me since I have never been on a cruise ship before. It felt very strange, but I was happy that it didn't make me sick. My returning friends said it was a very smooth sail. I continued to notice it all day it surprised me how much we are always rocking. Our cabins and the theater are all the way forward so we can feel the movement of the ship a great deal. I can't deny that for the rest of the day I was so perplexed that people actually live and work in these conditions. I guess I just didn't really know what to expect. I just hoped my Dad was right in saying "It's a gigantic mall, you won't feel a thing." Well Dad…I wish you were right.

The afternoon of day 3 is when the rocking really took a turn. I was eating dinner at the crew mess on deck 2 and the waves were about 18 feet high. The waves were so big when they crashed they covered the entire port hole window; it was awesome to watch. The captain explained that they were expecting to hit waves up to 30 ft high. It was the rockiest that evening around bedtime. A few of my friends did not take the rocking too well, but I was surprisingly feeling okay throughout it all. It helps to keep your knees bent and your muscles engaged to stay strong with the way the ship is pulling you. I also made sure to keep eating and drink sprite to ensure my stomach would be fully prepared. Sea Calm is the pill they give out at medical for sea sickness. They make you drowsy, so I have only been taking them at night before bed. But overall I found that it is completely mind over matter. I kept saying that to everyone. It was funny because a couple days later I was telling my parents about the rocking and the first thing that came out of my Dad's mouth was "It's really just mind over matter". I guess you could say I'm Grant's daughter alright!

The rocking eventually slowed down by the next morning on day 4. We finally saw the sun and the temperature was climbing. It was about 55 degrees here in this photo, it felt like spring! Since then it has been a pretty smooth sail.

Drills on the Disney Dream

In Germany we had a series of drills in case of an emergency. Here is my roommate Emma and I getting ready for the drills in our Disney Cruise Line coats and our handy dandy lifejackets!!!

A CHRISTMAS SURPRISE FOR MY FAMILY

Merry Christmas!!!

This video is dedicated to my family!

I wish I could be home with "Bells On"

Love you all!

Kaleigh

xoxo

My Cabin

Here are some photos of my cabin up on deck 4! It's really nice. Everything is brand new! :) It is located forward of the ship and it is right next to the theater. I sleep on the top bunk, and Emma is on the bottom. Notice the mickey mouse head in our desk chair?

Bremerhaven, Germany

This is the cute town of Bremerhaven in Germany. There is a free shuttle service that takes us from the shipyard to this town. These photos were taken in the Christmas village they have set up outside. It is so cute! The snow hill in the last photo is where you can rent a tube and take a ride down the hill! My friends and I did it, it was so fun!! Maybe I can get my hands on the video that was taken of us doing it! ;)

Merry Christmas :)

We Met the Dream!

THE SHIP IS BEAUTIFUL!! Oh my gosh, it's the coolest thing! I have never even seen a cruise ship, let alone live on one. It is massive and it's even crazier to see icicles hanging from the "Disney Dream" sign because it's so cold here. There is ice all over the deck. My friend Morgan actually slipped on the deck as soon as we walked on board. whoops…we were a little excited! :)

Unfortunately I cannot post any pictures of the ship until Disney has declared it finished. They do not want pictures of the ship unfinished to be public. Don't you worry, I will post plenty of pictures of the finished product!

December 9th is the first official day that Disney holds ownership of the Disney Dream. When we first arrived on the ship, Disney did not own the ship yet; the company from Germany still held ownership. That company is still doing work all over the place. There are still many things that are unfinished. It feels like a full on work zone in some areas. It has improved a lot since of first arrival, but they still have lots of work to do. There are boxes, stacks of metal, rolls of carpets and much more all over the place! The first week was so overwhelming. Sometimes I felt like I was totally in the way because everywhere I would turn a German guy in a royal blue jump suit was painting a wall, drilling some part of the floor together, or carrying a long metal rod down the hallway! Everything is covered in plastic; most of the carpets, railings, auditorium seats and just about anything that could have bubble wrap on it! Even the tables, chairs, couches and countertops in our crew bar is still covered in bubble wrap; it's hilarious! For the first week the gigantic lighting fixture in the main lobby which they call the atrium is split into 3 separate pieces, hanging from the ceiling because they are still working on it. Sometimes you try to walk somewhere and a hallway will randomly be closed off because they are painting the floor or something so you have to figure out how to get around it. Getting around the ship is very difficult because there are no direct routes, you always have to change direction to a different hallway or through many, many doors. It's so confusing! But, I am starting to get the hang of it.

Due to the construction we don't always have space available for rehearsals, so we have had our share of time off here and there. In our time off we have actually been able to go into the town of Bremerhaven. It's so cute! Germany really neat. There is a free shuttle service provided for us so we able to go to town whenever we want. In Bremerhaven there is a huge mall as well as an outdoor Christmas Village with craft vendors, a few little outdoor bars, carnival like rides, and even a man-made hill of snow for sledding in tubes! My friends and I did it; it was so much fun!

My cabin is super cute. I share with my friend Emma, I absolutely love her. All of us characters are in one hallway which is so fun! I can knock on anyone's door and find a friend to go to dinner with! Our crew cafeteria (which we call the crew mess) is for the German workers at the moment, so the crew has the privilege of eating in one of the guest dining rooms. The food is actually pretty good, but all the returnees say that it will most definitely get worse once we move on to the crew mess food. yikes…not looking forward to that!

The Walt Disney Theater is amazing! It is so beautiful and it is also so incredibly high tech it's almost scary. We have three lifts, which are parts of the stage that elevate down below the stage to move props and to transport people. They move so fast!!! It's scary!! But also very cool of coarse. I have never worked on such a technically advanced theater. I am really looking forward to performing on this stage. :)

Our phones are not working yet, and we have very limited internet privileges right now. We are only permitted to use it from about 9pm-8am. It is not at all consistent, sometimes it's just not working at all, and it is extremely slow when it does work.

I have almost no concept of what day or time it is. I have to wear a watch because I would never know what time it is. We are also 6 hrs ahead of you which is terribly confusing for when I want to contact my parents.

We leave on December 19, and I have no idea if I will be able to contact anyone. But, we are scheduled to be in Florida on January 4th. Once we get there, I can use my phone and finally make contact with the real world!!! yay!

Okay so that sums up a lot of my life right now, and it will be changing everyday. There is so much going on here, it's crazy. But, I am having so much fun I have made a lot of new friends. I am totally enjoying myself and I am so happy I took this job.

Gronigen, The Netherlands

On Monday we had the afternoon off and a bunch of us took a cab into the happening city in Gronigen. It was quite chilly, and the streets were filled with bikers. They would come at you in every direction and they did not care if you were trying to cross the street. The second photo here is some sort of bike drop off station. The third photo is of the Martini Tower, a few of us took the tour and climbed up the tower. The brick spiral stairs were very narrow and we climbed all the way to the top where you can see over the city. The fourth photo is a view from the top of the tower. We shopped and explored until dark, as you can see in the last photo.

Travelling to the Ship

We left Toronto Saturday November 27th to fly to Amsterdam, The Netherlands. It was a really neat airport. The first five photos were taken at the airport in Amsterdam. The flight was not too bad, about 7 hours. We left at 6pm east coast time and then we flew into the central european time zone (6 hrs ahead) and it was morning time there about 7am. Then we took a bus to the first hotel, still in Amsterdam. We checked in with the Disney people there and ate breakfast until we got onto another bus that took us 2 hrs to the middle of nowhere in The Netherlands, to a town called Zuidbroek, Gronigen. We had to stay there a few days because the ship was doing sea trials. Sea trials are tests the limits and capabilities of the ship at sea, so the ship did not dock until Tuesday night. So we stayed at that hotel until Tuesday morning.

On Monday we took a cab into the happening city in Gronigen and spent almost the whole day there. I'm not too sure what it was called, we all just called it Gronigen. The next post will have a description and pictures from that little outing.

On Tuesday all the new hires had to go through what we call "wet drills". It's a safety course on water survival. As you can see in the sixth photo, we had to wear red dry suits. That is my friend Morgan pushing all the air out of her dry suit. Obviously the idea is that the suits keep you dry. They were all extra large and it was obviously not tight enough for me, so I was unable to stay dry. The last photo was taken at the marine school where the wet drills were held. The indoor pool was freezing! But, I guess we were lucky to have it there instead of the waters the ship is sitting on now. We had to practice certain survival positions in the water in groups. Then we had to practice getting into a life raft, helping others into the life raft, and also practice flipping the life raft right side up if it were to flip over. It was really fun, besides being cold, but we were able to meet a lot of new people in other departments on the ship.

After our wet drills we took a 3 hr bus ride to finally get to the ship in Bremerhaven, Germany.

Wrapping Up In Toronto

We are wrapping up here in Toronto; we are in our final week. Sunday we started with some HR classes called "Traditions." Everyone in the company has to go through "Traditions"; it's learning about the history of the company and the company policies.

We had our final runs of the shows Monday-Wednesday. Woo...what a relief! It had been awhile since I had ran Golden Mickeys and boy, was I tired from it!

It's Thursday and it was our official last day because they gave us Friday off! We had a few meetings about our departure plans and such. The ship was originally planned to be in Eemshaven, The Netherlands, but the ship is now in Bremerhaven, Germany. We fly to Amsterdam on Saturday. They told us at the beginning of the week that we would then take a 7.5 hour bus ride to Bremerhaven. We were just informed today that we may have to stay in Amsterdam for time that it not yet determined. We were not provided with any reason behind that. Should be quite the adventure!!! :)

Our cast is having another Thanksgiving tonight!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

These photos are in honor of the holidays! The first three photos were taken in our apartment building lobby. There is Tara, my roommate :), and I with our beautiful Christmas tree! The last photo is the tree at the Mall, which is called the Eaton Center. It rotates and it's decorated with Swarovski crystals; it's pretty incredible.

Golden Mickeys

Golden Mickeys went really well. It turned out to be quite an exhausting show for me to perform in...which I like :)

I gave a brief description in my last post about Golden Mickeys, but here is a break down for the roles I play in the show.

1. PAPARAZZI - The first scene which we call the opening, I play a paparazzi. We wear cameras around the neck. We run around pretending to take pictures of the stars arriving to the show. It's the show opener. Not too much dancing for me, but it's an exciting number :)

2. MONKEY - Next I play a monkey in the tarzan scene. We wear black velvet unitards, some sort of wig, and a monkey mask that covers our whole face. I do a little dancing on the floor, and hanging and jumping on bungee ropes. We will get to practice on the bungees once we get to the ship. Then we climb up the ropes, get into loops at the top and our partner spins us like crazy as we go through about 5 positions including no hands position!!! It's scary, but really cool!! The music is intense too, it makes the whole tarzan scene quite impressive. We call the rope tricks, Spanish Web, "web" for short. My web partner is Ashleigh, she is much taller than me and I am still working on making my "set" (rope circling from the bottom). She and I feel very confident with our web performance when she is setting and I am flying. My stomach has gotten much more tolerant of the spinning! Thank the lord!

3. SEAWEED - Under the Sea is the next number I am in. I am a show-girl-like seaweed and Tara my roommate here in Toronto is the only other seaweed. We wear lime green unitards with accents on our hips and ruffly pieces coming from our back and this huge show-girl hat with more ruffly seaweed pieces coming off the top of the hat. We partner with 2 guys who are dressed as coral. My partner is Justin, he is so much fun. He is hilarious and I love having him as my partner! This is my big dancing number. One of the lifts is crazy. We jump into a split in the hair slightly over their head, then they throw us down into a split on the floor! eek. It's fun though! There is a lot going on besides the dancing too, a lot of other characters are in it. Sebastian, goofy, huge goldfish, jellyfish, and waves too. So much color!

Here is the link to a video on youtube of them performing it in Hong Kong http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOBtYfxFFjE&feature=related. Ours is a little different, and the video cuts off, but you get the idea!!

4. ROMANCE SCENE - The next scene I am in is called the Romance scene. It is the final scene of the show, and Beauty and the Beast is the last part of the romance scene. I get to make friends with Belle in this beautiful scene. She wears the gorgeous gold dress! She and the Beast dance to Tale is All is Time, while 4 couples waltz around us in the big ballroom set. The Beast is going to look huge up on that stage! Wait until you see pictures! The two of them waltz in the center of the ballroom as the Beast hands Belle a rose. Then, the Beast steps back, fire bursts at the peak of the music at the back of the stage, and viola the spell was broken and he turned into a human again as a prince. Belle and the prince unite at center stage, the prince lifts her and then they kiss and then hug as their final pose.

So the kiss situation....

At first, Belle and the prince just pretended to kiss. They did that in rehearsal for about a week. They thought we were off the hook! Then one day, the director decided to work on the scene with Belle and the prince. He said, Belle and the prince should kiss in the scene now, like really kiss. What a lovely surprise for the couple!

5. FINALE - Last is the finale, Mickey and Minnie make an appearance to present all the characters in the show. I get to make friends with Minnie in this scene. Minnie wears a gold evening gown, how pretty! :)

That sums up Golden Mickeys for me. I am totally winded by the end of the show, so I am happy about that. It will be performed on the first night of each cruise. Since we have 3 and 4 day cruises, that means we will perform it twice a week. And also 3 shows per night!

Mom & Dad Visit

Good 'ol Viv and Grant came to visit this weekend! What a nice treat :)

We were able to visit the CN Tower on Saturday night. As you can see in the last photo, Mom is going through the security dome. It searches for bombs by blowing air on you! It's very weird!

On Sunday night we went to a comedy club called The Second City. It was a line-up of local comedians. Dad was so excited to go there because of the famous people who have been through that club. Including....John Candy, Dan Aykdroyd, Martin Short, Mike Myers, and Catherine O'Hara who was the Mom from Home Alone. My roommate Tara came with us, that is us in the fourth photo.

I definitely have the best parents in the world! I am so happy they came to visit me here in Toronto :)

Saying goodbye was torturous as usual...I am really going to miss my family this year at Christmas :(

But, I feel so lucky to have seen them this weekend!

Love you Mom and Dad! <3

Halloween In Toronto #2

Here are some photos from Halloween Night! I was Wonder Woman!

Two of my roommates are in the first photo, they are ninja turtles. Look at the pizza in Michelangelo's hand!!

The second photo is of Kelly-Marie and I. She is from Ireland and was my first friend on facebook before leaving for this contract.

The green crayon in the third photo will most likely be roommate on the ship. Her name is Emma, she is from Canada :)

The fourth photo is Wonder Woman in front of the famous CN Tower!

The last photo is a cast photo of all the people who dressed up as super heros!

Halloween In Toronto

These are photos from the rehearsal space here in Toronto with Halloween decorations!!! They make me happy