WDWCP: Living the Disney Way

This is the true story... of six strangers... picked to live in an apartment ... and have their lives run by a mouse... to find out what happens... when people stop being polite... and start getting real... Disney style!

*If you didn't understand the above reference... I'm not sure if we can be friends. ;)

September 12, 1997. I landed at the Orlando airport early in the morning, with no idea how much the next few months would influence my entire life. My best friend and I eagerly hopped off of the plane and rushed to get our bags. From there, we had NO idea what the heck we were doing. We grabbed some shuttle passes to get us to our new apartment complex. There was another girl our age, alone, waiting at the same shuttle spot as us, She ended up in our little van and going to the same place. Crazy! Along the drive I was taking in everything I could. This was the biggest city I would ever live in, I wanted to see what it was like. The thing I remember from that ride? The road kill. We had no clue what we were seeing. Being lifelong Oregonians, we were used to seeing animals like deer, possums and raccoons. This strange thing we couldn't figure out was an armadillo!

It didn't feel like that long of a drive and we could tell we were near Disney. The billboards, the tacky knock-off souvenir shops, the freeway signs telling us where to go... all signs point to the house built by a mouse. Our driver slowed down, took a right turn by Walgreens. It was like a beam of light shining down on this fancy gated apartment complex. (Trust me, back in the day this was where it was at!) On the other side of the security gates, there it was... Vista Way!

The three of us girls got out of the airport van, hauled all of our luggage up to a holding area and went through the doors of THE Clubhouse we had heard all about. It was like checking in to the college dorm, stopping at one table after another to get all processed with work assignments and ready to see our apartments. This is when it all got real! Sure enough, it seemed that apartments were assigned according to the order of your arrival and check in. Wouldn't you know it, that girl on our shuttle, my college roommate and I all ended up living in apartment 3101 together!

Ours is the bottom left apartment.

After finishing the whole check-in process we got our luggage and took the short walk to our ground floor apartment. A woman answered the door. She seemed a lot older than us and had the heaviest accent ever. We thought she must be someone's mom and was acting as a welcoming committee. We were wrong. That was Zaira, one of our new roommates, from Puerto Rico. She had the master bedroom with Brenda, also from Puerto Rico! Danielle arrived shortly behind us. She was the girl on the shuttle and from Swanton, Vermont - although she never pronounced the T in either word. Sarah was the sixth roommate we met. So tiny and petite, and she, too, had an accent! She was from Louisiana, so that was much easier for us to understand, versus the Splanglish Brenda was always giving us. Sarah and Danielle ended up sharing a room while Marcy and I, roommates from OSU, were now roommates again. I shall enclose a floorplan I had drawn and sent to my mom while living there... since this was before the days of cell phones and email!

Our day was pretty much spent getting unpacked, taking inventory of what all we actually had in our apartment, and then getting some of the basics to get us started in life. Here's the rundown on a Vista Way 6 person apartment back in the 90's:

Sarah is showing the small
area 4 of us had to share

• 2 normal sized bedrooms. 1 master bedroom with attached bathroom. 
• The attached bathroom in the master only had a shower.
• The other 2 bedrooms shared a bathroom, which had a bath and toilet.
• There was a small communal sink with minimal storage areas next to the bathroom, between the two bedrooms. You can see that in the photo to the right. -->
• There was a walk-in pantry area for food and cleaning products, none of which is actually supplied, so basically we had an empty pantry area. And a garbage can.
• The kitchen had a table and chairs. I feel like maybe we didn't have 6 chairs though? My mind tells me that during our 1 group dinner some of us sat on the coffee table.
• We were also supplied with the minimal basics... pots, pants, dishes, cups, silverware.
• Our bedrooms had twin beds. Each person had a small nightstand (which I got a concussion on!). Then there was a bigger dresser for the two roommates to share.
• Each bedroom had a walk in closet with two half lockers so you could lock up anything you felt like actually locking. I know Marcy and I never locked anything up. It was just more storage for us.
• The living room area had a chair, couch, coffee table and 2 end tables.
• At the entry was a closet that was only used for all of our suitcases. It's not like we really needed tons of space for Winter jackets or snow skis!

And that's it. No TV. There was a phone, but basically if you wanted to call anywhere it would be long distance, so it was mostly used for calling other apartments. OR we would all be using calling cards to call our family since, again, this is before cell phones! Nobody had computers. We didn't have pagers. No laptops. Sarah's parents were beyond cool and got us a TV!! But it isn't like we had cable. We pretty much only watched the Weather Channel. Cameras? Yeah we used film. Regular old school film. So any photos you see, aside from the floor plan above, was taken with a regular camera, developed at Walgreen's, carted home in my photo albums and scanned in years later. This is where most of my paychecks went - on film and photo developing!

The unofficial International pool.

Outside on each floor were some washers and dryers that you, of course, had to operate with quarters. There was a dumpster area as well. Oh and if you needed to vacuum, take a quick walk to the Clubhouse and you could check one out. At the Clubhouse was a pool - which all the International students seem to take over. By the bus stop was another pool, with the infamous hot tub. The Pavilion was by the basketball court, which was right outside of our apartment. We had a pretty good location in ol' 3101!

After we were all settled in, to start off our internship we had a big spaghetti dinner. This is the only time all 6 roommates would actually share a meal together! And to really get this going, after dinner we started what would become a weekly tradition.... we went to Pleasure Island, which will now be referred to as PI. Ah man, those were the days! (Rest in Peace, Rock'n'Roll Beach Club.)

Danielle (Vermont), Brenda and Zaira (both Puerto Rico),
Sarah (Louisiana), Ronda and Marcy (Oregon)

Now that we have met all of the roommates and know the layout, I will conclude this entry. I have no idea what the next post will cover... But I can say, in the words of Mickey Mouse,

See ya real soon! °o°