SPONTANEOUS PRE-HURRICANE DISNEY TRIPS AND HALLOWEEN COSTUME SHOPPING | DAEP UPDATE #9 & #10

*ALL VIEWS ARE MY OWN AND NOT OF THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY, CENTRAL MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY OR YUMMY JOBS*

Hey there, pals!

Since I last left you, a category 4 hurricane was due to make landfall in central Florida very soon. This hurricane now had a name: Hurricane Dorian. Having watched the weather forecast for Hurricane Dorian, I discovered that Dorian was moving incredibly slowly - even we walk faster than the rate Hurricane Dorian was moving towards central Florida. Because of this slow movement, Dorian's path had changed drastically. Instead of making landfall directly in central Florida, Hurricane Dorian was actually going to drift up Florida's east coast (around 50 miles from landfall) at a Category 2 hurricane rather than Category 4.

Despite some sense of relief from these forecast changes, I still had no idea how to prepare myself for what was about to come. And so, I had been frantically messaging my American friends for advice on how to prepare myself for the hurricane. This involved stocking up on cases of water, tinned food and a lot of time spent preparing meals, just in case my apartment lost power. Let’s just say my shopping cart was full of the good stuff 😉

In the awakening of the Hurricane Dorian, many Guests had already begun to cancel their vacation plans. Additionally, the Walt Disney World Resort had adjusted its operation hours ahead of the storm to ensure that all Guests and Cast Members were safe. The day before Hurricane Dorian, I spontaneously did a trip to the Magic Kingdom because literally all the queue times were on less than 30mins - not bad for the end of August/beginning of September before a hurricane!

When the hurricane eventually arrived on September 3rd, my roommates and I had made a roast dinner and we set up a movie night in our communal area to ride out Hurricane Dorian watching the clouds circling around. The storm itself was not as bad as the forecast made it out to be. In central Florida, we only experienced a lot of rain, large gusts of wind and a couple of thunderstorms here and there. In the end, my housing complex did not lose any power or have any water shortages, so I was safe all-round, but I do know a lot of my friends and family from home were concerned for my safety.

I have been maintaining my fairy school field trips and this week I went to Island Mercantile at Disney’s Animal Kingdom! By far, this has been my favourite fairy school field trip that I had ever been on! Despite my shaky start and unclear directions from the other Cast Members, I found my feet and became super confident. A highlight from my fairy field trip was being publicly recognised by the leaders for the way that I made Guests feel good about themselves when they donated to Disney’s Animal Kingdom's conservation fund!

Back at fairy school, us Fairy Godmothers in Training (FGIT) have not been able to practice our sewing, accounting, or transformation classes because of Hurricane Dorian. Although, there was one day this week where myself and another FGIT got loads of practice throughout the entire school day! It was total madness, but it was a real taste of what to expect during the busiest periods at fairy school. Some other exciting news from fairy school included welcoming a brand new FGIT to fairy school! I am so excited to share loads of magical, pixie dust-filled memories with them in fairy school!

I've been getting on really well with the new FGIT in fairy school and we decided that we wanted to hang out outside of the fairy classroom. We both wanted to go to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party together and dress up as our favourite villainess or non-villainess characters!! One afternoon, we both went thrift shopping for my Halloween costume, as I had not got any pieces together. Whereas, the new FGIT had already got all of her outfit sorted out! I was so so pleased with how my costume turned out. In fact, everything put together cost less than $50, which I felt super proud of! Any guesses as to who I dressed up as for Halloween? Maybe you distinguish from the film my fairy friend and I were replicating from this blurred photo?

Comment your guesses below the post or on my social media (@onceuponhannahsdream) and I’ll reveal the answer in the next post!

Thank you so much for reading and have a magical day!

-Hannah

DISCLAIMER: this blog is my personal experience on the Disney Academic Exchange Program (DAEP) 2019-2020 and may not reflect everyone’s experience. Other programs and future participants on the DAEP may have slight adjustments to their programs that may not be featured in any of my blog posts. That being said, if you do leave any questions, I will try to answer them as best as I possibly can 😊