*ALL VIEWS ARE MY OWN AND NOT OF THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY, CENTRAL MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY OR YUMMY JOBS*
Hey there, pals!
If you have been following my blog for a while now, you know that last year I created a bucket list for my Disney Academic Exchange Program (DAEP). I have been home from my adventure in the United States for about four months now and I thought it would be interesting to go back through my bucket list and see how many things I successfully ticked off.
Get Traditions ears decorated at Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe in the Magic Kingdom ✔️
Not only was this one of the very first purchases that I made while I was at the Walt Disney World Resort, but it was one of the best ones! The image certainly does not justify how pretty my ears from Traditions really are. In fact, my Traditions ears are proudly sitting on top of ear headband collection from my program!
Get Graduation ears embroidered ❌
Now I'm sure you heard the news that Disney did decide to suspend all programs back in March, including my own, due to the COVID-19 pandemic which has taken the world by storm. For a moment, I was very concerned that I was not going to receive any graduation ears, even though I had successfully completed my program. With the Disney parks already closed, there was no way that I was able to get my graduation ears personalised with my name, year, and program type embroidered on the back. Nevertheless, I was very grateful to receive a Disney program mortarboard (Mickey ears with a graduation tassel) while checking out of my accommodation.
Ride EVERY single ride at the Walt Disney World Resort ❌
With such a busy schedule throughout the nine months that I was in the United States plus my sudden return home from my Disney adventure, I did not ride every single ride at the Walt Disney World Resort. Nevertheless, I managed to experience over 60% of the attractions at the Walt Disney Resort, including the water parks but excluding Disney Springs, which I thought was pretty good going.
While working towards ticking this goal off the bucket list, I discovered some hidden wonders like Tom Sawyer's Island and becoming a Wilderness Explorer!
Ride Tower of Terror in Hollywood Studios ✔️
I may not have experienced every single attraction at the Walt Disney World Resort, but one of the attractions that I did get to ride was the Twilight zone Tower of Terror.
I'm not usually scared of rides, but I was very apprehensive and had a lot of adrenaline for this one, I must admit! But, I had so much fun! In fact, the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror is now my second favourite ride at the Walt Disney World Resort, just behind Expedition Everest!
Do the four parks in one day challenge - the rules: must ride one ride, meet one character, eat one snack at each park and take a photo in front of the Tree of Life (Animal Kingdom), Sunset Boulevard (Hollywood Studios), Spaceship Earth (Epcot) and Cinderella's Castle (Magic Kingdom) all within the park's operation hours! ✔️
I decided to go one step further and do 6 parks in 1 day! Yes, you heard me correctly. All four theme parks and both of the water parks. If you haven't read the full shenanigans of my crazy challenge, be sure to go and check out my blog post in my program update series! For now, I am just going to keep it short and sweet. I had many hiccups and had lost my timings multiple times throughout the day, not to mention that I did not take into account how long it would actually take me to travel from park to park using the transportation at the Walt Disney World Resort. For a moment, I thought I wasn't going to complete my challenge and that I had pushed myself too far. But, it was a complete SUCCESS! Plus, I will remember all the memories from this day of total madness.
Collect a number of Disney pins for each iconic moment i.e. '1st Visit', 'I'm Celebrating' ✔️
I have a lot of novelty, as well as some serious, less silly Disney pins, which I am totally proud of collecting. My Disney pins ranged from my 1st Visit as a Cast Member, to celebrating my very first Thanksgiving and not forgetting Hurricane Dorian haha!
Buy a Disney Christmas bauble/ornament for the Christmas tree ✔️
One of the Christmas presents that I decided to buy for my family was a Christmas bauble for our Christmas tree at home. As a family, we have many Christmas decorations that have some sentimental value. And so, I wanted to add to that sentimental value by having something to replicate my Disney program.
However, my family had a completely different idea of what to do with the decoration I bought them. While I was away in the United States, my family had completely renovated our kitchen and dining room area. Situated off to one side is a glass cabinet and my family decided to place the decorated bauble on one of the shelves for everyone to see.
Buy my family Disney-themed Christmas presents ✔️
This was a no brainer... With the majority of the transportation buses heading straight to various locations at the Walt Disney World Resort, Christmas shopping for my family was a lot easier with the happiest place on Earth right on my doorstep.
Buy a Disney spirit jersey ✔️
After completing my program, I own a grand total of... two spirit jerseys.
I know, I'm shocked and disappointed at that too! Nine months at the Walt Disney World Resort and I only came away with two spirit jerseys... disgraceful. Guess I'll have to vacation more to the Disney parks to add to my collection 😆
Eat a meal from every country at the World Showcase in Epcot ✔️
I will forever thank Epcot's Food & Wine Festival for giving me the opportunity to sample many different foods from across the World Showcase. Worth the investments though I have to say!
Eat at Be Our Guest restaurant ✔️(sort of!)
This one does need a little bit of explaining... So, when I initially wrote my bucket list, I wanted to surprise my family with a dinner reservation at one of Disney's most popular dine-in restaurants. Initially, I thought Be Our Guest at first... However, I came across a character dining reservation at the Crystal Palace Restaurant at Magic Kingdom, which I thought was perfect for my family. When doing my research, I heard so many amazing reviews about this place and with a limited number of reservations, I took zero chances waiting for something that could potentially be better considering it was the Holidays.
When I revealed to my family on Christmas Eve that we were going to be having a special family dinner at Crystal Palace, they were incredibly excited beyond what words can say! And our experience did not dampen our Holiday spirits either, despite both my sister and I being unwell at the time! All in all, as a family, we had the most wonderful time and some of our fondest and favourite memories are from our character interactions at Crystal Palace, especially with Eeyore!
Have a meet and greet with my favourite Disney characters ✔️
If you know me, you know that I’m not really a character meet and greet kinda gal… I’m there for the rides and the thrills! However, when you’re at the Disney parks, there’s that little piece of you that wants to be in the living fairytale or within the magic. Across my program, I met a total of 18 characters. These were:
· Mickey · Minnie · Donald · Daisy · Goofy · Pluto · Stitch · Winnie the Pooh · Piglet · Eeyore · Tiger · Olaf · Mike Wazowski · James P. Sullivan (Sulley) · Princess Tiana · Princess Rapunzel · Queen Elsa · Princess/Queen Anna
Some might say that’s disappointing considering I was out there for so long. But, I say that’s pretty impressive considering character meet and greets aren’t really my thing.
Take a photo at EVERY Instagram wall in the Disney parks ❌
I think I underestimated actually how many Instragram walls there are across the Walt Disney World Resort because you could easily include walls within some of the resorts that are Instagram-worthy, let alone the parks!! One of the main disadvantages that I found was the fact that the majority of my time in the Disney parks was spent alone and it’s kinda awkward asking a stranger to take a photo for you...
But, I’m definitely going to set a mission on my next trip (whenever that may be) to hunt for some more ‘Fichwa fellow’ (‘Hidden fellow’) Instagram walls!
Be the last person on Main Street USA at the Magic Kingdom ❌
Just like the last goal, this one was a lot harder than I had anticipated… After a couple of attempts at this goal, I realised that I could not be the last person on Main Street USA unless I either worked at Magic Kingdom or had the energy to pull an all-nighter. Obviously, I had neither! Nevertheless, I did get some awesome photos when the crowds were less busy on Main Street USA and that was hassle-free and worth it!!
Have a solo park day ✔️
Now, when I was on the Disney Academic Exchange Program, I found that I was spending a lot of my days off twiddling my thumbs because all of my roommates and other coworkers either had other plans or simply had work that day. And so, I found myself to be enjoying my own company more than what I had bargained for before starting my program, which is no bad thing! I swear, the ratio of my Disney park trips were more solo than with somebody else… that makes it sound like I had no friends, but I promise you I do aha. One of the advantages of taking a solo park day or solo resort day is you can explore, ride, eat, and shop wherever you want!
Watch EVERY parade at the Disney parks ❌
I was SO CLOSE to ticking off this goal, it’s not even funny! At the Walt Disney World Resort, there are a total of four parades – two that run annually and two that perform seasonally. I was able to see the seasonal parades without any issues and they were both awesome! However, because I typically went to the parks in the evening, I actually missed the parades that run annually or I would only catch snippets of the parades as I entered the parks!! These were the Move It! Shake It! MousekeDance It! Street Party and the Festival of Fantasy Parade, also known as the 3 o’clock parade. I’m not going to lie, I’m kinda let myself down for this one 😕
Do a behind the scenes tour with my family ❌
Sadly, I didn’t get to spend as much time with my family as I would have liked to. Throughout my program, signing up to backstage tours has always been a challenge due to the limited availability. To further add to this difficulty, it was extremely challenging to arrange a couple of special surprises while my family were in the United States. It was such a shame that my family couldn’t see the behind the scenes, but I’m sure they’re enjoying hearing my stories!
See my friends at work ✔️
When I set out this goal, I was intending it to be UK friends who were also on the Disney Academic Exchange Program. Not only did I see a couple of Disney Academic Exchange Program friends at their work locations, but I paid so many visits to fairy school to say “Hi” to my former fairy classmates because I consider them my closest friends too!
Go to the Disney water parks ✔️
Surprisingly, I only visited the water parks twice throughout my entire program and that was during my six parks in one day challenge! Whenever I got some free time, my friends and I would usually hang out at one of the theme parks instead of the water parks – that was just personal preference. Nevertheless, I still succeeded in ticking off this item from my bucket list!
Visit Universal theme parks ✔️
As a fan of Harry Potter, the Ravenclaw in me was curious to see what has changed at the Universal Orlando Resort since my last vacation in 2016. To some people, it may seem Riddikulus and Slytherin-like to rebel against the Walt Disney World Resort for a day but sometimes a trip to Universal was exactly what I needed 😏
Of course, one of the attractions that I was desperate to do was the new Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure and I was able to tick that off too!
Attend a housing event ✔️
This was once of the very first bucket list goals that I was able to tick off. As addressed in one of my early updates from my Disney Academic Exchange Program, I attended a pool party housing event with a DJ and lots of free food. The housing event was within my housing complex and, at the time, my apartment was right next to the pool where the housing event took place - it was a no-brainer to not take part with the entire event happening near my apartment!
Surprisingly, the pool party was the one and only housing event that I got to go to. However, what I have heard from other program participants was that the DJ played the same playlist at each housing event, so I wasn’t missing much! Many of the housing events took place at the other complexes and I found that a lot of these events clashed with my busy schedule.
Eat and shop in downtown Orlando and Go on the Orlando Eye ❌
One of my biggest regrets from my program was restricting myself to the Universal and Disney theme parks. I really wish that I used more of my free time to explore the local area that I lived in for the best part of nine months.
Eat with an astronaut at Cape Canaveral ✔️(sort of!)
Again, this one did not go to plan, but I had a very good alternative instead! While my family visited me in the United States, on one of my days where I was doing fairy accounting classes and turning pumpkins into royal carriages, we travelled to Cape Canaveral to visit the Kennedy Space Center. Unfortunately, there was no availability to eat with an astronaut on the day that we visited, but we took a two-hour private bus tour all around the different launch pads.
I thought that this was quite a successful substitution for eating with an astronaut… tick, tick, tick.
Watch 4th of July fireworks ❌
As well as celebrating my very first Thanksgiving, I was really excited to witness another major US holiday celebration: fourth of July. Because of the chaotic events in 2020, sadly, I had to depart the United States very suddenly. But, it is still on my bucket list to watch a fourth of July firework celebrations.
Make loads of new friends ✔️
The bucket list goal may sound very cliché, but it is 100% true! You meet loads of new people, who soon become your friends. Not just that, but these friends soon become your lifelong friends that feel like family and you will start planning to visit one another – I know I have and I’ve only been home for four months! I honestly cannot imagine life without my lifelong friends, so this is a special shoutout and thank you to you guys, my friends from across the globe, for making my program so special – y’all know who you are! ❤
Hang out with home friends from the UK ✔️
Back in August of 2019, I was able to meet up with one of my flatmates and her boyfriend from my first year of university who were vacationing out to Florida. Though our time together was short, it was so lovely to have had the chance to hang out at a vacation destination instead of in university accommodation!
Buy an autograph book and get my housemates/co-workers to write a message in it ✔️
So, this one turned out not quite how I planned out when writing my bucket… Nevertheless, the way it all worked out was perfect! I had purchased a $5 notebook from Walmart and used this as a Fairy Godmother in Training graduation yearbook for my classmates at fairy school to write a message in. I was beyond overwhelmed at how many messages I received and they were all super sweet too. So much so that I just wanted to keep my signing book just for my time in Fairy Godmother school. Plus, because my departure from Avatar’s Flight of Passage and the Pandora Conservation Initiative (PCI) meant that I couldn’t say kiyevame (goodbye in the Na’vi language) to my fellow PCI technicians.
Have fun making amazing memories of the most magical year of my life ✔️
It sounds so obvious, but I really have had the most fun making amazing memories from this magical and life-changing adventure to the United States. Many, many, many years from now, I will be able to look back on this time and cherish every single memory that I made on my Disney program!
I hope you enjoyed taking a trip down memory lane with me looking back at the bucket list I had created over a year ago. I definitely expected to be much closer to achieving everything on my bucket list and there were so many more things that weren’t listed on my bucket list that I would have loved to do. But, it just means that I have another excuse to go back and visit the Walt Disney World Resort, and maybe even do another Disney International College Program. If you had a Disney bucket list, what would be on it? I’d love to know your thoughts!
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 😊
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