May27Orlando, Day EightPosted at 02:02 in My Work

I flew back to Prague on Friday via Atlanta, but before going to the airport in the afternoon, we went to SkyVenture for two skydives in winds up to 145 mph (234 km/h). The instructor is a top notch guy, who really masters that sports, and I eventually got certified for my jumps (stability, left & right turns, up and down). This was a fantastic experience to finish this week in Orlando, and I was quite happy to take some rest before my flight in the Delta Crown Club Room.

May26Orlando, Day SevenPosted at 02:53 in My Work

Thursday morning, we had a very interesting meeting with Mike Melhorn (Technical Services), Jeff Lind and Phil DiPaula, about the design of the audio systems across the park in Dubai. Another first for me, as I never went that deep into this aspect of technical discussions. Michelle McKenna took us to lunch at the Mythos restaurant (Best theme park restaurant for the fifth year in a row, click here for a full review). Two great meetings in the afternoon gave us an overview of the technical services software (work orders, assets management, etc) and of the datawarehouse project.

Meetings for the week finished, information overload ;).

May25Orlando, Day SixPosted at 11:01 in My Work

On Wednesday, we had a deeper look at the PMO processes and framework (they are PMI aligned as well). Rod Schrag and Roxana Castillo took me through their PMO intranet, and I'm quite happy to have changed my mind about Sharepoint as a CMS, as this implementation is quite nicely done.

We took a break and did the Fury of Poseidon before having lunch at Thunder Falls Terrace, with a view on the splash zone of the Jurassic Park River Adventure.

After the lunch break, we met with Jeff Lind, from Creative Team, and visited the old Nickelodeon studios, and the Blue Man Group studios. We then met with Marcus Lopez, their ticketing systems guru.

In the evening, Tim Arnst (VP of Human Resources) took us to dinner at Seasons52 (very nice modern american cuisine) after a quick handshake with Tom Williams (chairman and CEO, Universal Parks and Resorts). Here I discovered the traditional Key Lime desserts of Florida, before going to the Première of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at midnight. Definitely not worth it, and this time would have been better spent sleeping...

May24Orlando, Day FivePosted at 09:49 in My Work

Tuesday was another busy day. In the morning we went with the Infrastructure team, across the Parcs, the Back of House and CityWalk to understand how they built their network, and see how they answered to business requirements. As it is the season for lovebugs and thunderstorms, we got showered right before going back to the office. Despite still being wet, we had lunch at The Enchanted Oak Tavern, in one of the most fabulous decor I have ever seen, where I enjoyed a delicious smoked turkey leg.

In the afternoon, we met with Rita Sanchez and the TRM team, and Jackie Diaz and the PMO team (very instructive, and I'm glad to have the opportunity of interworking with them in the future). We had dinner at Shooters (quite close from where it all started in 1983), and after some very hot shrimps and chicken, and a huge hamburger, we enjoyed a couple of billard games in a nice typical bar, listening to country music.

May23Orlando, Day FourPosted at 09:47 in My Work

On Monday, we met with Meeting with Supra Dey (CTO) and members of his team; Rita Sanchez and Greg Walker, for a couple of very interresting meetings. These guys do have a wealth of knowledge to share, and are extremely helpful for people like me who are brand new into this business. It was a very busy day, and I ended up close to information overload, but an easy night watching Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian at the CityWalk Cineplex (not a bad movie, but way to many similarities with some scenes from Lord of the Ring), after which we had dinner at Bubba Gump (the Viacom franchise restaurants inspired by Forrest Gump).

May22Orlando, Day ThreePosted at 06:05 in My Work

Sunday was pretty much a day off, we went to see SeaWorld, but there is not much to say about it. It is an old parc, where you get lost easily, and where there is not much to see apart from Shamu the killer whale, so we had some rest at the hotel, enjoying the pool and spa.

May22Orlando, Day TwoPosted at 01:01 in My Work

Today, Jeff took us to visit both Disney Parcs (Magic Kingdom, and Holywood Studios for a complete walkthrough to understand the guest experience from our main competitor, and I have to say that, as much as I enjoyed The Twillight Zone Tower of Terror, I have to say I was a bit disappointed by the overall quality of the finishing, and by the staff's service. We did a couple of other rides (Pirates of the Carribeans, Splash Mountain, Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, Space Mountain, The Haunted Mansion, and The Muppetvision). We then went back to Universal Studios to do Terminator 2: 3-D Battle Across time, as it was built at the exact same time as Disney's Muppetvision, with the same technologies available, and there is simply no comparison possible. This was just an amazing mix of show, stunts, pyrotechnics and 3D, serving a very good scenario. The 3D movie was directed by James Cameron himself, with a budget of $60 million.

May20Orlando, Day OnePosted at 02:51 in My Work

The marathon started after a really short night at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress (very well located between all of the parks), when our colleague Jeff Polk took us for a walk in both Universal parks. We started with Universal Studios Florida, where we gave The Simpsons Ride a try (I'm a big fan of the Simpsons, and now got a picture from me with Homer in Universal's offices) on it's first day of operations after Grand Opening. One thing I can say, this is great, if you have a chance, give it a try, it is unique!

We then met with Michelle McKenna, the CIO, and then I had a tour of Islands of Adventures with Dan Cuffe, whith whom I got a view of The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man 3D simulation ride, from the visitor's perspective, but also from the Command Center, which was very interresting.

May19Universal StudiosPosted at 03:06 in My Work, Project Management

I have completely neglected my blog since more than one month. The first and major reason, as usual, is the amount of work I had recently, as the Interoute PMO is running almost full speed with some major programs started and a full team recruited. The second reason is that, since two weeks, I have started a major change in both my personal life, and my career, as I have accepted a new challenge at Universal Studios in Dubai.

I know, sounds quite a big move as I'm completely new to this industry, but they are building a new theme park over there in Dubailand, and I will be creating and running the Program Management Office for IT/IS. I will be moving out of Prague by end of June, and starting in my new role on July 1st and I have to admit that I'm quite excited about that. I had the opportunity to meet and greet with our colleagues in Orlando, Florida where I landed on Thursday night after quite a long flight and finally getting my passport stamped. There will be a series of posts about my stay in the sunshine state in the coming days.

All content (433 posts since 25/06/04) published on this weblog is © Frédéric Casagrande, unless stated otherwise and published under Creative Commons licence. This weblog is hosted by Sixapart.

This weblog uses third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit it. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.