Disney World!

*CAUTION LONG BLOG POST*

Before I go on about my amazing Disney World experience, I need to explain the reason I went to Disney World and the club that brought me there. So the reason behind me going to Disney World was Beta National Convention. To most people in this area, Beta Club is a complete mystery. Beta Club was started this year by Mrs. Easterday (a Texan woman who teaches Biology at Eastside). Beta Club is much more prominent in the Southern United States (Ex. Texas, South Carolina, Louisiana, etc.). Beta Club is a leadership and community service club that competes at both State and National levels. When competing, Beta Clubs are competing against each other. My Beta Club went to our State convention not really knowing what Beta Club was or how we would do (as it was our first year). To my surprise, at State Convention, we completely killed it, with several students (including myself) qualifying to compete at Nationals. This club led me to Nationals, which happened to be hosted at Disney World this year, where I was to be competing in Math.

June 27, 2017
On Tuesday, after driving from Indiana to Florida, we arrived at Disney's Allstar Music Resort. When we arrived, it was pouring rain (no surprise considering it was Florida in the summer). This wouldn't have been a big deal, but we had to drag out luggage through the rain to get to our hotel rooms (the rooms of the hotel weren't in the same building as the lobby). We also didn't know where the building was which led to lots of confusion. Whilst we were trying to find our hotel rooms, I slipped and fell on the wet pavement (no surprise if you know me). After falling, a guy offered to help me carry my bags, which I did decline, but it is still nice to know there are nice people in the world. We eventually did find our hotel rooms, after I put on my poncho and I took off my shoes to prevent slipping and falling.

After finding our hotel room, my roommates and I unpacked and gathered all of our now wet possessions to take to the dryers. After Lauren, Keely, and I figured out how to pay for the dryers (which didn't take cash). We ended up getting all of our possessions dried and going to Mrs. Easterday's room to eat pizza and discuss which park we would be going to the next day. After the Beta Club discussed our options, we decided to go to Magic Kingdom or Hollywood Studios. Most kids, including myself, decided to go to Magic Kingdom. After dinner, we all went back to our rooms to go to sleep. It was in short, not the Disney experience everyone was looking forward to.

June 28, 2017
Wednesday was our first day and only full day to spend in the Disney Parks. Lauren, Keely, Cassie, Evan, and I all walked around Magic Kingdom for the day. The first thing we did was take a picture in front of the infamous Cinderella's Castle

From Left to Right: Cassie, Keely, Lauren, and I. Evan was taking the photo :)

After our castle picture, we went and got our fast passes and got in line for the Snow White Mine Cart Ride (totally not its real name but oh well). That was a total mistake, as we stood in line for 3 hours. Despite this, we managed to have a great rest of the day wandering around the park. We went on the Haunted Mansion Ride, met Peter Pan (which was very awkward), and had some great ice cream. 

A more memorable part of the evening was the Mike Wazowski Joke show. The show features jokes submitted by the audience, and because we are from Indiana, Lauren submitted a cow joke that made it onto the show! Additionally, Lauren got featured in the show (meaning her face was projected for everyone to see on the screen). She was asked basic questions, such as who she was with (her Beta Club) and if she brought them (which she said she did). The comedian behind the show was joking that the Beta club was simply fish, and asked where her fish were. Since Lauren didn't have any fish, she made a fish face on the screen (which was very comedic if you know Lauren).

And while all of Disney is magical (don't get it twisted) the most magical part of the entire day was the firework show. I originally wasn't going to see the show (as I was going to have dinner at a nice Disney restaurant) but decided that because I wasn't hungry, I was going to skip dinner and watch the fireworks. So while the rest of my entourage had dinner, I met up with Hailey and Bre to go watch the fireworks.

Castle before the fireworks

After the fireworks at the castle ended, my group met back up and went to go enjoy the rest of the park until 1 am (because the park had extra magic hours that day). We used our last fast pass at space mountain before we headed out to go enjoy the rest of the park we had skipped over. We ended up getting back to the hotel very late (or very early depending on how you look at it), but it was okay considering we didn't have much to do the next day. 

June 29, 2017

Thursday was the first official day of National Beta Convention 2017. However, I didn't have anything to do except for the General Session. This meant that I got to spend the day at the Swan and Dolphin Disney Resort's pool. This pool was leaps above our own resort's pool. In all honesty, it wasn't really a pool, but a series of 5 pools connected so that you could continue to swim from one end to another. There was also a water slide, several hot tubs, and a waterfall that you could swim under.

Poolside Pic taken by yours truly. L to R:
Riley, Lauren, Keely, Ashlynn, Bre, Matt, and Hailey

Our group swam for several hours until part of the group left to go compete in meeting of the minds (this left Hailey, Bre, and I). We enjoyed the pool until about 5 p.m. when we went to go to the large convention hall for our First General Session. In this session, we had a parade of states, listened to speeches for our Vice Presidental Candidates, and watched scholarships be given out (one of which was for the Indiana State President and was $15,000). After the session, we went back to the hotel room and went to bed knowing we were going to get up early for our next General Session.

June 30, 2017
Early morning Friday, everyone got up to save seats for our first General Session. That is, everyone but the boys, who didn't set an alarm and made everyone late. Nonetheless, we made it to the session in time to get decent seats. In this session, we had the speeches and skits of the secretaries. I can't remember much of the skits because they were early in the morning. After the skits, the girls of our Beta Club went to hang out by the pool (but not really swim). We went ahead and booked our fast passes for later in the evening at Animal Kingdom, before we headed inside so I could take my math test. Overall, the math test didn't go that great but I wasn't really concerned because I went to Nationals for the experience. After the test, I met up with Lauren and we went to her Agriculture Test. Before the test, we talked to some people outside the room waiting to take the agriculture test. From this, I learned that the farm kids were much more approachable than the math kids. While I waited for Lauren to get done with her Agriculture test, I charged my phone and recharged so I would be ready for Animal Kingdom.

After Lauren got done with her test (to which she admitted she only knew two questions for sure), we met back up with Keely (who had gone to go watch show choir preliminaries). We wandered around the Swan and Dolphin Resort until we found the shuttles that would take us to Animal Kingdom. Once we arrived, we took photos by the entrance.

After that, we booked it to go see a show about Finding Nemo. Being a theater nerd, I can attest that the show was very amazing, mostly due to the way they were able to recreate the costumes. For the main fish, the humans had sort of puppets that they moved as they were singing. Characters went up and down the aisles, making the show even more memorable. The vocals were stellar, and Disney's method to recreate the story was simply amazing. Photography and videotaping were prohibited within the show, so I sadly don't have any photos.

After the show, we headed to the Mount Everest ride because the line was very short. However, as soon as we got to the front of the line, it started to thunderstorm and the ride was shut down. Afterward, we got out of line and decided to start walking toward places to go for dinner. However, we didn't make it very far before it started to downpour. We took refuge under a stage that was usually used for bird shows and waited for over an hour for the rain to clear up. After a while, we all grew hungry and I decided to venture out into the rain (which had let up) to go get dinner for all of us (Why me? Because I was the only one with a poncho). By the time I had got the food, the rain had stopped, and Keely and Lauren came to join me for dinner. After that, we went on to enjoy the rest of the park (which was now much cooler). We went on the Everest ride a total of three times, did the River Rapids, watched the Tree of Life light up, and went to an It's a Bug's Life show. We also waited in line for the Avatar Ride for a total of over an hour, all of which was totally worth it. The ride was brand new, and the line leading to the ride was very realistic and like the movie.

Here is a very low-quality picture of Lauren, Keely,
and I waiting in line for the Avatar ride.

Tree of Life from afar

Tree of Life from afar part 2

Tree of Life after the Bug's Life Show

We ended the night the right way, aka with ice cream :)

July 1, 2017
The next morning (Saturday) began with the Third General Session bright and early. To start off the session, there was a fashion show of sorts. All of the dresses or outfits featured were made of recycled products, making the dresses even more intriguing. After that, we had awards, to which Eastside didn't place. After that, we watched the top five show choirs, most of which didn't impress me in the slightest. Finally, the session was concluded with the President Campaigns.

During the General Session, Lauren, Cassie, Ashlynn, and Hailey and I all left early to start working on makeup for living literature. Living Literature can be compared to real wax figures, with people standing in place frozen for several minutes amongst a set assembled. After doing Cassie and Lauren's makeup, we headed to go get lunch instead of going back to the campaigns because we were over listening to speeches. By the time we were done with lunch, it was time to go help set up for Living Literature. We had 30 minutes to set up the entire set, which we quickly realized was harder than it sounded. After setting up, we had to wait 40 minutes before the public could view the rest of the Living Literature sets. Once we got a full look at the rest of the Living Literature sets, we quickly realized our set couldn't compete.

Our Living Literature set

This scene took the top prize.

After Living Literature was done, we quickly tore down our set and waited until the bus drivers got to the Swan and Dolphin so that they could take us back to our resort. Eventually, we got back to our hotel and freshened up for our last Disney adventure, Disney Springs. Even though we knew it was going to be raining, we weren't going to let that stop us.

Once arriving, we went straight to the Rainforest Cafe to make reservations for that evening's meal. Originally, we were just going to have dinner with Lauren, Keely, and I, but we ended up changing our reservation to 6 so that Lauren's family could join us. After making the reservations (which weren't until an hour later) we headed out to go get some souvenirs. I ended up buying some pins for my Rotary jacket and my friends' Rotary jackets, while Lauren got a sweatshirt and mug.

We also poked around the Lego Store... 

After our poking, we listened to some live music before heading to our dinner reservation... 

My fish tacos and steamed veggies :)

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel so we could sleep in our beds before our 24-hour bus ride home.

July 2, 2017

Sunday was the official last day of Beta National Convention. It was an early morning session (once again). The final session included the induction of our new national officers, a group talent competition, and a final awards ceremony. The group talent had some great acts (including one that brought tears to my eyes), but the most exciting part of this session was the awards. Eastside placed 2nd in Meeting of the Minds, the one competition we weren't prepared for. The team won with a card game they created (which centered around farming). After we got our award, we took some pictures and booked it to get home.