My Last Day

Well, this is it. Today is my last full day in Michigan. I get to say goodbye to the chilly weather, the bad roads, and all the farm land. However, I also have to say goodbye to the fall colors, the night bonfires in shorts and sweatshirts, my Detroit Tigers and Michigan Wolverines, my dog, my friends, and my family. It seems as if that list displays more cons than pros, but it'll be the adventure of a lifetime. Tomorrow my mom and I hop on a plane (or two) to Florida and start this wild ride. I can't believe it's almost August 11th already. It still hasn't hit me yet that it's that late in the year.

Disney College Program: DORMS

I JUST finished filling out everything on the DORMS website! I am so so so excited now! As promised, I will go into detail about DORMS.

DORMS is how the participants of the DCP pick their housing and flatmates. You may choose to go random or you may pick who you live with (although nothing is 100% guaranteed). To link with your roommates, you must get their roommate ID numbers that are enclosed in the two emails provided. ONE person must go into DORMS before the others. After the said leader fills out DORMS, an email will be sent to each flatmate asking to confirm the rooming arrangement. After everyone fills out their DORMS, the process is complete! It was a very simple procedure!

These lovely emails came through this morning:

The second email came in less than two seconds after the first email, however, in the email it states the second email may take several hours to arrive.

 This is what the first email looks like, it just goes over some important points about filling out DORMS. You may see "you are eligible to link with up to 5 other participants" in that third bullet point. Either there are no 4 bedroom options for our arrival date, or if you're put into a 4 bedroom, Disney may put you with randoms. I'm not sure. Usually you can link with up to 7 other people.

 

 Yay, finally linked!

This time around, DORMS is a little different. The rooming preferences now look like this:

 

These were the preferences we picked!

You rank your preferences from the top (being first choice) to the bottom (being last choice).

Each arrival date may have different housing options. These were the options available for my arrival date and they cannot be expected to be the exact same for the other arrival dates.

After finishing up everything in DORMS, you'll receive your boarding pass! PRINT THIS OUT YOU NEED IT FOR CHECK-IN!

 

So, overall, DORMS was very easy to fill out. All but one of our flatmates received our emails, but after a quick call to recruiting, she was able to get her roommate ID to link with the rest of us! 

If I hadn't made this obvious already: I'M SO EXCITED! I can say I leave for Florida NEXT WEEK. That's awesome and crazy! Check-in is in 13 days and I leave in 10 days! I'm almost in the single digits!

Meetup and More Waiting

This past Monday I met another girl who is doing the DCP! We've been talking for months now and a few weeks ago we realized we only live three hours away from each other. So we picked a town halfway between the two of us and we got to hangout for a few hours! We had a really random day but it was so fun and I'm so glad I got to meet her! She was super nice and funny and I'll definitely be hanging out with her in Florida!

More waiting. It seems like most of this program consists of waiting! The August 4th arrivals received their DORMS emails a couple of days ago and I am now anxiously awaiting mine! DORMS is the system Disney uses to pick roommates and apartment complex preferences. You're not guaranteed anything, but they certainly try their best. I'll try to remember to screenshot some things and give more info. on DORMS once I get the email. I'm the designated team leader for our group of six, so I'll be going into the system first and sending the other five girls their request. Hopefully nothing goes funky and there won't be any problems!

Three Weeks...

In exactly three weeks from today, I'll be on a plane to Florida! Today I received another DCP email - one I didn't even know we were getting!

 I started packing a couple days ago, but I didn't pack much. Since it's summer it's not like I can pack all of the clothes I would wear in Florida - because I wear them now. I've got my bedding set aside along with some warm clothes. I'm using Ziploc Space Bags for all of my clothing and bedding, which cause extreme wrinkles, so I won't be completely packed until the night before I leave. I'm stressing out about packing; I'm afraid I'll forget something!

Tumblr, Packing Lists, and More...

So I decided to make a Tumblr and then added a second account onto it. My personal Tumblr is: here, and my DCP Tumblr is: here. I still don't fully understand Tumblr, but I'm doing my best! Leave me your Tumblr links and I'll do follow-for-follow!

Also, please give me links to any packing lists that are helpful! Yes, I have my own packing list, but it's always good to compare to others'!

I finally finished my NH paperwork last night! I had waited to finish the last form - the W-4 - until my dad got home to make sure I filled it out correctly. I also received an email from Southwest last night saying our trip is right around the corner! I don't get to print out boarding passes until the day before our flight, which is stressing. Hopefully I don't forget!

New Hire Paperwork

Well, a couple hours ago I received these lovely emails:

I was so excited to finally get these documents - until I started filling them out. There's a TON of paperwork you have to fill out (online). I can't post any pictures of the Portal or the documents it contains, but I did take a quick screenshot of this: 

I got really giddy when I saw that. It feels official now, I'm going to work for WALT DISNEY WORLD. Aaaaah I'm so excited!!

The New Hire paperwork is exactly what it sounds like: paperwork for new employees. These are things like a W-4, emergency contact info, company policies, etc. It's a long and tedious process filling out the paperwork; it took me about an hour to finish most of it. I'm just about done, I only have the W-4 left and I'm waiting until my dad gets home to complete that.

Post - Course Registration

I just finished registering for my classes! Let me tell you, it was CRAZY. The webpage opened up right at 00:00 (midnight), only we were faced with a problem...the dreaded orange circle. What is this orange circle, you may ask? It's the loading screen, and it stayed like that for a good 10 minutes. We overloaded the site! We all went a little crazy...

 

That's just a SMALL portion of what went on. And is still going on, on the DCP Facebook page! It's CRAZY. 

 So, what did I get?? Drum roll, please...

 

YAY! I got the two classes I wanted!! I knew I had to take Exploring Marketing, but I decided to try for Exploring Leadership as well on a spur of the moment decision this morning. Luckily, you can drop the Exploring Series classes without penalty if need be. I'm also in classes with my some of my roommates! I have a couple in one and a couple in the other! How cool! 

After all of the worrying about what classes we were all going to get, I think I can safely say we're all now feeling like this:

Pre - Course Registration

Right now it's June 22nd, 02:07 (Military time!!) which means course registration opens in about 22 hours. I absolutely need to sign up for Exploring Marketing because I'm undecided on major and this will be how I will choose whether or not I will go into business! I've thought about taking Exploring Disney Heritage as well, but I would really like a 100% free day without work or class. I honestly think I'll just skip out on EDH so someone who really wants it can take that spot.

Wish me luck!!

Progress!

There's been a couple more steps leading towards my DCP this week! On Wednesday I received this lovely email:

Yay for finally getting more emails!

And today we FINALLY bought plane tickets! I checked the airline website this morning and discovered the flight I wanted had filled up and all of the prices went up. I had a small panic attack and immediately called my mom and told her we need to get tickets today! So after some bickering and one mental breakdown later (on my part), our flights are booked! Unfortunately the airline we picked did not offer any non-stop flight options, so we have a connecting flight in Chicago. I haven't been to Chicago in a few years, so I'll be excited to stop there, even if it's just in the airport for an hour!

My mom and I have also decided that her, my brother, and I need to invest in a passport for the each of us. My dad does international travel with his job and if there were ever a reason for us to need to get to him, a passport would certainly be helpful. Plus, we really don't want to take my social security card to Florida!