The Norway Pavilion Epcot

Since my I started this blog in september 2010, the numbers of unique visitors to my site (from different IP-adresses) passed the incredible 10.000 today!

Im really impressed that so many have visited my blog through this year, its incredible and nice to see that a lot of people come back regularly to check whats new. Thank you so much, and comments and feedback is appreciated on my comment fields or on email: vallhall@gmail.com.

September: 65 views
October: 300 views
November: 385 views
December: 995 views (the month I left Norway)
January: 1181 views
February: 669 views
March: 698 views
April: 1089 views
May: 1051 views
June: 640 views
July: 1240 views

So, its hurricane season here, and the hurricane “Irene” is coming towards Florida and might hit us on friday.

Earlier this year, I signed up for being a part of the “Hurricane Ride Out Crew” in Epcot, today I had to sign papers regarding clothes and shoes I needed for the work, which might be happening on friday if “Irene” don’t slow down.

I never seen a hurricane before, and Im a little exited about it actually.
Being a part of the ride out crew means I have to prepare the park before the storm hits us, and clean up after.
We have to move everything that might be blown away onstage and backstage, tape stuff and things that need to be done before a hurricane.

Im looking forward to see what happens on friday.

I have been thinking of more ways to interact with Guests and share more about Norway´s history with them. I know that the UK pavilion usually have someone out there chalk-coloring the streets with children, and thought it would be a good idea to do it in Norway as well, but try to get the children to describe Norway and our history and fairytales…

So I bought some chalk-sticks and when I had some minutes Iwent out in front of the pavilion where we could draw on the ground and started off making a forest and some mountains…. Didn’t take more than a minute before a Guest joined me and we started to make a little Viking village, with trolls hiding in the mountains…

A lot of people stopped by and looked for a while, and I got everyone joining in, kids, youths, parents, grandparents. Everyone wanted to draw… I made people make scary trolls, nice trolls, vikings, churches, water, longboats etc… I had to go back in for a while to continue my work, when I came back like 5 minutes later, all the chalksticks was in use and a lot of kids were on the ground and drawing on the ground… It got a little out of hand considering Norway theme, as people were making butterfliesnames etc… But they had fun!

First some facts:
The Carousel of Progress is an attraction located at the Magic Kingdom Park at the Walt Disney World Resort, currently operating under the name Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress. Created by both Walt Disney and WED Enterprises as the prime feature of theGeneral Electric (GE) Pavilion for the 1964 New York World’s Fair, the attraction was moved to Tomorrowland at Disneyland Park inAnaheim, California, remaining there from 1967 until 1973. It was replaced in Disneyland by America Sings in 1974, and reopened in its present home in Walt Disney World Resort’s Magic Kingdom in 1975.

The Carousel of Progress holds the record as the longest-running stage show, with the most performances, in the history of American theater. It is the oldest Disney-built attraction not only in the Magic Kingdom, but the entire Walt Disney World Resort. It is the only attraction in Walt Disney World to have a direct physical tie to Walt Disney.
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I went on this attraction for thefirst time yesterday, and absolutely loved it!

Its located in Tomorrowland in Magic Kingdom, sort of hidden away, cause I never really seen it before now. You can just see that the whole building is rotating aroundand that there is a sign saying “Carousel of Progress”, I had no idea what was inside it, but I was really amazed to take part in what was one of Walt Disney’s most devoted projects and understand more about Walt Disney and the visions and dreams of Disney…

So you sit down inside this theater and thinks there´s just going to be an animatronic show about mankind’s progress and development (at least thats what I though) and I was somehow right. Then the whole room suddenly started moving and I was like what is this?? (I know I maybe should have figured by seeing the building wall rotating before I went on, but thought it just was for show) The audience hear the “Theres a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” song playing as we rotate every time.

You follow this one family throughout the times and changes in the world. First scene is from just past the 1900-century, where the family father tells about the world today and what achievements mankind have done and what people are trying to achieve, which he is not so optimistic about. We get to see more about the technology they had in the time and how it helped their normal day.

The rotating continues through different times until we reach something that seems to be a few years into the future/or now.
The show was last updated in 1994, so pretty good description of how our normal day is today.
They had a oven that responded to speaking, they had tv games with virtual glasses, lighting that adjusted with the help of a computer etc…

The song is genius, and it really describes mankind’s progress and Walt Disney dreams and visions:
Man has a dream, and thats the start, he follows his dream with mind and heart.
When it becomes a reality, its a dream come true for you and me!
Theres a great big beautiful tomorrow, and tomorrows just a dream away!  

So this is going to be a long week…
The week thats going to be crucial for what happens further in my life.
I have been here over 8 months now (time really does fly by!) and need to start thinking about whats next…

Hopefully this will be the week I get to learn more about that!
1. I applied for an important job back in Norway, and will hopefully know if I get it by the end of the week.
2. I will know if I get to transfer to the ride Maelstrom.

The Olson family visited Magic Kingdom for their first time on wednesday, and wanted to do everything in the park, as they only could afford one day in each park since they were traveling all the way from Europe to have their vacation of a lifetime and hoped that all their dreams would come true…

Magic Kingdom was overly crowded on wednesday, and there was a very long wait time for everything in the park, so they decided to do the most crucial rides, shows and events. They waited 30 minutes to get on “Its a Small World”, they waited 110 minutes to get on “Peter Pan”, 25 minutes to get on “Laugh Floor” etc… The day disappeared pretty fast with waiting in a line.

Towards the end of the day, they were going to use their Fast Passes on Space Mountain, which broke down, so they couldn’t do it. They went over to Splash Mountain in the other end of the park, which they also had Fast Passes for, and did that one in stead.

After Splash Mountain, they saw that they had 2 minutes before the park closed to get on Thunder Mountain, which they haven’t done and thought it would be nice to get it done since it was their only day there. They asked the person in the Fast Pass entrance if they could enter there, since Space Mountain broke down and they couldn’t do it, but he said no. Well, into the regular stand-by entrance.

The Olson family loved fast rides and adventure, and definitely roller coasters, they therefore wanted to be on the last rows, because thats where they felt the energy of the ride best. They asked the Cast Member that assigned them to the front of the train if they could be any further back, the answer they got was: “No, we´re closing so this will be the last and only train…”

Is this a good experience for the Olson family?
I think no, first of all, the guy at the Fast Pass entrance should be a little more nice when they had valid Fast Passes for another ride that broke down. Secondly, since it was the Olson´s family only day in Magic Kingdom, the Cast Member should let them be on the back of the train if they really wanted to, would cost her two more minutes at work, but a good experience for the family.

Thats at least how I believe Disney should be. This family had been traveling all the way from another continent to go to the happiest place on earth.

As a sign of appreciation, Disney and our managers gave us free dinner at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall today, because we were the top contributor for Disney´s Back To School Drive!

We gathered 87 backpacks for children thats going back to a new school year… Total Epcot gathered around 550, which means Norway was outstanding in many ways.

Tonight me and my roommate, Eirik, went to Flippers Pizzeria on Crossroads after working, I was running food today in the restaurant.

We were nearly finished eating, when a kid and his mother entered, they sat down on the table behind us, and we heard that they ordered as little as possible. It made me feel really bad because I sort of realized that this was maybe a big thing for the kid, going out on a restaurant eating, the mother didn’t order anything to drink for herself either.

So me and Eirik decided to pay for their meal, I went up to the server before we left and paid for their pizza and ordered the mother soft drinks as well. When I got back the mother actually started to talk to us and asked us where we were working (since we were still in our bunads) and told her son a little about Disney and Epcot, she haven’t been to Disney for over 10 years… So we talked for a while as well.

As we walked out we just looked in the window to see if the server did what I asked her to, and when she got to the table, I saw the mother reacting by lightening up a lot and being pretty shocked, she looked out the window and her face was indescribable. I just held my thumbs up and waived goodbye,  I knew then I did something good for these persons, and it made me feel really good….

Yesterday I participated at my 3 volunteeringover at Give Kids the World Village, this time on my own initiative on my day off.

I was signed up for being a pizza driver, so I was driving around in a golf car to all the residents and delivering out pizza.
It was, as it can here in Orlando, raining insanely with thunder and lightening. 

Disney focuses a lot about giving back to the society, in forms of giving their Cast Members opportunity to volunteer at events and charity, donating stuff and having campaigns to do something good for the people in our area.

Im a member of the Disney VoluntEars team and have participated in some of the events organized by Disney.

For the last couple of weeks, Disney have a “Back to School Drive” campaign, where we donate money or buy schoolstuff for children who´s starting the school again after the summer. Its sort of a competition as well as we know we give a lot back to the society and help out children who might not have parents that can afford everything their children need for going to school. Some of my volunteering have been at a school, and I know that some children can’t afford what everyone else can because of a tough economical situation. USA have a unemployment rate of nearly 10%, this also affects a lot of children…

So the campaign ended today, and the Norway Food and Beverage was either number 1 or 2 in collecting supplies for the children!!!! Our department managed to gather 87 school packets!!! We will know in the next coming days if we were 1 or 2 of all Epcot departments… Personally I donated around 100 dollars (120 or 140 if I remember right)… But no matter what, we surprised the managers and broke all records together! Our managers said if we got 10 packets, we were going to have a ice cream party, if we got 20; pizza party, 40; cook out. We broke 40, then they told us if we get 75; all F&B Cast Members will get breakfast and dinner in our restaurant for free. We managed to get 87!

Ofcourse its nice getting something back from donating, Im really proud that we managed to help out so many kids and giving them a good start at their school year!