I Moved Across The World During The Pandemic…Here’s What Happened.

It was 11:55 p.m. on December 31, 2019. My husband and I were having a cozy evening at the Park Hyatt in Melbourne, Australia to ring in the new year. We ran up to the top floor lounge so that we could see the fireworks shooting off of the buildings, a controversial event at the time as the bushfires had already begun. Midnight hit, the fireworks sparkled directly in front of our eyes, and I thought to myself “This is going to be our best year yet.”

I’ve never been much of a realist. My mind is always somewhere in the clouds dreaming up my next adventure or thinking of unnecessarily exorbitant ways to enhance my life. And I love change.

2020 didn’t begin like any other year. This was the start of a new decade! A renewal of hope in the world, and a sign of new and exciting things to come. It wasn’t long after that carefree evening at the Park Hyatt that I woke with an oddly orange sunrise to find my apartment smelling of smoke.

It was one of those moments where I thought I understood how bad the fires were getting, but in that moment, I realized that I had no idea just how bad they were. We lived in Melbourne, about two hours from where fires were raging. We weren’t even in the midst of it and we were reaping the repercussions so intensely. There were days when I would wake up and couldn’t see beyond our street. We were told to buy N95 masks, a term I had never even heard of until the smoke came. But apparently, I was late to the game as they were sold out nationwide and only available on those sketchy scammer websites.

The fires lasted for months, and we watched as our beautiful country burned to the ground. The smoke was thick. Opaque.

But the world came together. Donations started flowing. Queen played. And the flames subsided. It was right around that time that I received a call from Disney offering me a spot in the March rehearsal process to relearn the show that I had left three years prior. And that call was all I needed.

In short, I was coming home.

Home has so many different meanings to me. I am always at home when I am with my husband. Our life together is such a crazy unconventional one. A life that we’ve very consciously chosen for ourselves. But she still crazy, lol. In this circumstance, coming home meant not only coming home to my country, family, and friends, it meant coming home to what I believe to be one of my greatest purposes in life: performing.

Just as our move from Florida to Australia happened quickly, our move back to Florida from Australia happened just as fast. My husband gave his work notice the day that I received my call and we decided we were going to just go for it. Another adventure!

We sold nearly all of our belongings (it’s difficult to ship things across the world) and I headed to the US first to have a bit of family time in Pittsburgh before heading to Florida. My Qantas flight was pretty normal. I was able to get top deck of economy which probably won’t even exist if and when those A380’s even fly again after the pandemic. A middle aged gentleman in front of me was wearing an N95 mask, which I found somewhat extreme, but I assumed he had it leftover from the fires. The coronavirus was being mentioned on the news, but not to a great extent. I drank my sparkling wine and carried on watching Disney movies (getting myself excited for the weeks ahead when I would be in rehearsals and back with my Disney family).

My time in Pittsburgh was beautiful as I was able to reflect on my Grandma’s recent passing. She passed in November, and I wasn’t able to come home for the funeral. She would’ve been absolutely tickled to know that I had moved back to the US.

Before I knew it, I was back on a plane heading to Orlando, Florida! There was nothing unusual about this flight at all even as the coronavirus was receiving more attention and focus. The flight was filled with happy families heading to the sunshine state for a vacation of a lifetime! My dad had urged me to take sanitizing wipes and wipe down my seat and hands. So I did, I think. I can’t remember. I was too focused on the excitement of my adventure ahead, and I wasn’t going to let some little virus rain on my parade!

I landed at MCO and was overcome with emotions: excitement, hesitation, bewilderment and surprisingly, unease. I had three huge suitcases filled with, well, my life, and I headed to the desk to pick up my rental car. I assumed the rental car process would be a breeze. But there were issues with the reservation, I had a heated argument with the guy at the desk, and I ended up walking away sans keys and with tears running down my face. I sat in a chair with my trolley of luggage absolutely sobbing and texting my husband in Australia who had just woken up to catch his flight to the US. He calmed me down a bit and told me to just call an Uber. I lugged my bags upstairs to the Uber pickup spot, got in the car, and cried the entire way to my friend’s house.

Something wasn’t right.

Of course, I am not crazy enough to believe that I am, in any way, psychic. But I fully believe that there have been times in my life where my energy has shifted right before a major event occurred. Kind of like how the wind changes and you can smell a difference in the air when a storm is coming.

A castastrophic storm was on the way. And the trees were just starting to blow ever so slightly.

I arrived at my friend’s place and threw myself into her arms with mascara pouring down my cheeks. She couldn’t understand why I was so upset and to be honest, I couldn’t quite figure it out myself. My husband’s flight had been cancelled, rebooked, then he missed it, then his phone died. So, yeah. I was a mess for many reasons. But truly, something just felt “off.”

I got a bit of sleep and woke the next morning feeling hopeful. I had my appointment at the Disney Casting building to do background check/boring legal stuff. My appointment went well (this is now the 4th time I’ve done it, lol) and I walked across the bridge to spend the afternoon at Disney Springs. I felt like I could relax a bit now that my husband was safely on his way to the US and I was one step closer to performing again. I let myself enjoy a little glimpse of my new normal.

My husband arrived and we spent a few days apartment hunting in Orlando. The virus was definitely getting more coverage on the news as it had appeared on a cruise ship, and we had heard that there was a chance the passengers wouldn’t be able to disembark as planned. This was all very interesting because in the next 48 hours…

…we would be on a cruise.

We had booked a Disney Cruise months prior to celebrate our new adventure! My husband and I met while working onboard a Disney Cruise Ship. Needless to say, it’s our favorite place to visit. Many say that Disney World is the happiest place on Earth. I daresay those people have never been on a Disney Cruise. : )

A few of our family and friends urged us not to go. I’ll say this. After working onboard a Disney Cruise Ship for nearly four years, that ship is and was one of the cleanest places I have ever experienced. Sanitizing and washing hands have been embedded into my SOUL after working onboard that ship. The ships are kept immaculately clean and have the highest of standards when it comes to cleanliness and sanitization. Also, keep in mind that at this point, we knew very little about this virus. We were told that everyone would have their temperature checked prior to boarding and we would have to fill out extra questions on our questionnaire. Taking all things into consideration, we decided that we were still going on our cruise. We repacked our bags with only cruise essentials and off we went to Port Canaveral. The terminal was filled with excitement! We checked in, had our temperatures checked, and stepped into the beautiful atrium to embark on a seven day much needed getaway.

Little did we know that we would be the last passengers to board that ship for a very, very long time.

Needless to say, our cruise was amazing. Oh, it was so much fun! The crew members went above and beyond to care for the ship and maintain its cleanliness to a standard that I didn’t even think was possible. You couldn’t touch a railing without it being wet from having just been sanitized. The interesting and quite enjoyable thing about being on a cruise is the fact that you are pretty much cut off from the rest of the world. Internet is extremely limited or nonexistent, your phone must be on airplane mode, and though the news channels are usually available, who wants to watch the news when you have Disney movies on demand?!

They call it “the week the world fell apart.” Seven days with new reports unveiling by the minute with information spreading like wildfire. One of the most unimaginable and unthinkable circumstances was evolving on Earth and we were quietly sunbathing on deck, completely unaware as to what was happening on land. I looked up at the sky and saw this incredible ring around the sun. I had never seen anything like it. I remember turning to my husband and saying, slightly jokingly, “Um, is something happening that we don’t know about? It literally looks like the world is ending.”

The storm had erupted. And the Heavens, or should I say, hell, had opened and began vigorously and unapologetically pouring down invisible drops of doom.

It was Thursday, March 12. Covid-19 (this was the first time I’d heard the term) had been officially labeled as a pandemic the previous day. We were onboard a cruise ship and news travels a bit slower so we found out the next day. There was whispering around the ship, and if you listened in on any given group of guests, it was the only topic of conversation. And at that point, a dramatic shift took place onboard. Self serve buffets were now manned by crew members in gloves serving us our food. Drink stations, ice cream stations, any self serve area was now roped off and being controlled by crew members. The cleaning procedures became even MORE apparent (I think those crew members literally worked through the night sanitizing the ship). But I must admit, we felt safe, very safe. Guests were turning on their phones and tvs and hearing more and more buzz. Around 9:30 p.m. that evening, the captain’s voice came through the intercom during the second dinner seating. Now, having worked onboard a ship, I know that it is incredibly rare to have the captain speak throughout the entire ship at this time of day.

I was standing in the atrium at the time. The space went silent as he spoke. And my stomach dropped.

The Captain informed us about the pandemic and what preventative measures were being taken onboard. He then told us that Walt Disney World and Disneyland were shutting down. I couldn’t believe it. Disney World shuts down for two things…9/11 and massive hurricanes. I was shocked that another unforeseen circumstance was being added to that already horrific list. He informed us that we would be visiting Castaway Cay and, most importantly, we WOULD be docking and disembarking in Port Canaveral.

I think I held my breath throughout his entire speech because I felt slightly faint when his voice ended and “A Whole New World” began playing (looking back, it was a song weirdly relevant to the now current climate in which we live). But, even amidst all of the craziness, our final day spent at Castaway Cay was absolutely lovely.

I remember laying on the beach seeing the teenage girl next to us looking at her phone and then yelling to her parents, “Oh my God, volleyball practice has been cancelled indefinitely!” She was shocked. I quietly pulled my sunglasses back over my eyes and enjoyed the last moments of what I knew, very well, would be my last vacation for quite some time.

We woke the morning of disembarkation to an eerily silent ship. Normally, on the morning of debark, the officer stateroom announcements start around 7:30 a.m. to remind you that you need to be out of your stateroom by 8:00 and off of the ship shortly after. You’ll hear the busy stateroom hosts outside in the hallway working quickly and efficiently to prepare the rooms for the next group of guests embarking in a few hours. They start knocking around 7:55 a.m. if you’re still in your room just to kindly make sure you know that it’s time to go, LOL.

8:01 rolls around. Nothing. No knocking. No announcements. No noise. Nothing. The sun was peeking through the clouds and I walked out onto our balcony to see a port full of ships. I felt chills run up my spine. I took a video of that moment because I knew that those ships would now sit empty at that port for, quite possibly, a very long time.

We left our room and entered a bare corridor. All of the guests were gone and the housekeepers were nowhere to be found. I assume they were in a meeting probably discussing a plan of action. But the rooms were vacantly loved. The doors were open, and we could see the beds unmade, room service trays on the ground (somebody ordered a Mickey bar for breakfast. Solid choice, my friend). One room had a “Happy Birthday” sign still on the door and balloons that were already deflating. And all I could think to myself as we watched everyone leaving the atrium and disembarking was, “God, I hope no one gets sick.”

We said goodbye to our friend that works onboard and gave him a shoulder bump. We heard through gossip on the ship that we weren’t supposed to hug people anymore. We passed through immigration and headed straight to a coffee shop to research places to stay. We could no longer stay with my friend as the intensity of the virus had grown. Hotels were already shutting down and airports were labeled as “dangerous.”

We felt stuck. I was scared.

We’d found that the Disney resorts were still open as the park hadn’t yet shut down. We quickly booked a few nights at the All Star Music Resort (which was newly remodeled and absolutely lovely, btw) and headed to the grocery store to stock up for our stay. As soon as we pulled up to Publix, once again, I was hit with another wave of a “holy shit” moment.

Panic shopping. Growing up in the North, I’d experienced panic shopping when a big blizzard was on the way. People would stock up and hunker down. And that is exactly what was happening…except this time, it was panic shopping times 1,000.

A Publix worker frantically wiping down carts to give to customers. People fighting over pasta sauce. Stockpiling toilet paper. Cases of water were already limited to one per family and the paper products were gone. I actually took a video of the madness and sent it to my mom. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I felt like I had just come out of living in a bubble for seven days and was being thrown out to the wolves. I wanted to go back on the ship.

We spent nearly two weeks at that hotel, making our daily trips to the front desk asking if we could extend just one more evening. Things were so up in the air and changing by the minute. The staff was lovely and incredibly accommodating.

One of the weirdest experiences happened at midnight the early morning of March 16th. Disney has channels on the resort room tvs to give guests the park operating hours and bus schedules for that day. And at 12:00 a.m. on the morning of the 16th, the screens were filled with red banners across the screen that read “Closed,” as the magical Disney music continued to play in the background. It was a surreal moment.

At that point in time, the All Star Music Resort was our home. The housekeeper probably thought we were insane because our luggage was taking up half of the room, LOL. We had all of our belongings with us. The resort was empty. We spent our days either in our room or at the pool by ourselves. We actually snuck over to the Animal Kingdom Lodge towards the end of our stay just to be around humanity (there were a few guests still staying there). The animals were so calming. We stood there and just watched as they ate their lunch and went about their day. I found it absolutely fascinating that these beautiful animals had not an ounce of an idea as to what was happening in the world. I never imagined there would come a day in my life in which I would be envious of a giraffe.

Each day, there were less and less people at our hotel. For some reason, they put us in the last building at the back of the resort. I didn’t like coming back at nighttime because there wasn’t a single light on in any of the rooms. We were the only guests staying in our building. And it felt apocalyptic. Surely we were characters in some crazy new Netflix series. Sometimes, we just had to laugh at how insane it was. At least in the daytime you could pretend that people were there.

It wasn’t soon after the parks shut down that we received word that our resort would be closing, as well.

I was panicking.

We now had a deadline. We had to be out of that resort and we literally had no idea of where to go. I cried, a lot. I called my parents and my friends. Of course, my parents offered for us to stay at their place, my childhood home, in Pittsburgh. I was terribly concerned not only about flying but about possibly contracting the virus and giving it to my parents that are considered high risk.

The day before our hotel shut down, we decided we would take up an offer to stay at a timeshare that my friend belonged to. We were thrilled and relieved that we’d made a decision and it was within a reasonable budget.

And at the last moment, that fell through.

It is now 6 p.m. the night before our hotel is shutting down and we literally had no other choice but to book flights for the next morning to head to Pittsburgh. We booked our flights, went to the Animal Kingdom Lodge gift shop, bought a bottle of champagne, and drank the entire bottle sitting by the pool as we watched the lifeguards finishing up their last shifts. At that point, I just had to laugh. Champagne seemed like the sensible option.

The sun rose and we went to the front desk to check out and thank the staff for our wonderful stay (we were on a first name basis at this point). The staff at the All Star Music were so incredibly kind and made up Disney gift bags for us filled with goodies and a card signed by each of them (that goes to show you how little occupancy there was, lol). It was filled with an apple, water and Easter treats that they must’ve known were going to go to waste otherwise. It was incredibly kind of them and I’ve kept the card.

We put on our gloves that we’d scored from the hotel pool tie dye session (in which no one attended) and went through the airport to our gate. We were two out of about ten passengers.

We wiped down our seats and trays and the Southwest attendant came around immediately to collect any dirty wipes that we wanted to discard. There was no drink service, however, we did receive a bottle of water. Our flight went well and we arrived in Pittsburgh safely.

I would’ve never imagined that we were going to spend six weeks locked down in my parents’ house in Pittsburgh. Soon after we arrived, our state and county issued a “Stay at Home” order in which we took very seriously. So we did what everyone else in the world was doing.

We stayed at home.

We watched everything unfold on the news as we developed our little daily routine that we followed. I learned very quickly during my time in Australia the keeping a routine is key in times of uncertainty and unemployment. I took whatever grocery pick ups I could get but scoring a grocery pick up slot at that time was like winning the lottery. It was nearly impossible. So, I did bi-weekly shops for the family.

We celebrated three birthdays during that lockdown including my 34th! My husband so sweetly got balloons and little noise makers for my birthday and we reused them for his birthday, and then again for my mom’s birthday. We made the most of the celebrations with takeout and homemade cakes (and Prosecco, LOL. Lots of Prosecco).

We watched the news closely and watched what was happening in Florida. I couldn’t believe that it took them so long to issue a stay at home order. When things seemed as if they were letting up a bit and the numbers were slowly going down, we signed with an apartment complex, packed up a car and a minivan, and made the 17 hour drive to Orlando.

We had to stop on our way and spend the night in a hotel. I wasn’t thrilled about it but there was no way we could both drive straight through without breaking. The hotel felt eery to me. There was one person working at the front desk, the common area was closed and dark and the only other people I saw were a group of kids having a Covid party and clearly not social distancing. I couldn’t wait to leave.

As we crossed the Florida border the next morning, we were immediately directed to a Covid-19 screening area. I had to giggle because it was an unnecessary amount of cops directing you into the line, a group of people standing there as you rolled down your window, told them what state you were traveling from, and then continued through. I don’t think they were exactly taking any extra precautions. I could’ve been coming from New York City and just said that I was coming from the Carolinas. They didn’t care. My how the tables have turned.

We pulled up to our apartment complex and got out of our cars to stretch. We made it! We put on our masks and walked to the front door. It was locked. We knew that the complex was closed due to Covid-19 but were told that someone would be there to hand us our keys. Once again, what a surreal experience. I made a phone call and someone eventually came to the door to give us our keys. With no clue as to where our apartment was located (we didn’t get a chance to see if before we signed our lease) we pulled into the parking lot, entered the building, and followed the signs to our new home.

So, that’s our story. Our 2020 agenda gone wild. We’re mostly settled into our new place (buying furniture during a pandemic when every store was closed proved to be interesting, lol). We slept on an air mattress for weeks and were using cardboard boxes as furniture up until just a few weeks ago (thank you, Ikea click and collect)!

As for my job with Disney, I will continue to wait. If I have learned anything throughout this experience and throughout my 34 years on the Earth, it is that we must always, always have hope. Hope for a better tomorrow, for opportunities, for numbers to lower and people to be sensible with their decisions. There are days where I cry, a lot. And days where I’m calm. I have days that are quiet and days where I dance.

When the world came crashing down, all I could think of was, “Why?” “Why did we choose right now to move across the world? Why didn’t we stay in Australia where we had a bit of certainty and stability? Why is this happening to us?”

But that’s the thing about life, my friends. Some things, most things, are completely and utterly out of our control. Life is a gamble. You win some, you lose some. When this all began, I felt as if I had rolled the dice and lost everything. My hopes of performing were diminished and back I went to sitting on the couch, dreaming of a past life that was so close within reach yet completely unattainable in this current world in which we live.

But you know what? I refuse to give up. And you should, too. The light at the end of this tunnel is already shining through and I know that you can see it, as well. Do yourself a favor and try not to look back. Keep your eyes peeled on the light, that glimmer of hope that things will get better. We will have setbacks (we’re having a major one in Florida as I type this) and we will be frustrated beyond belief. Be thankful for your health, for your family and friends and most importantly, for your strength. We will get through this. We’ve already come so far.

2020 may not be the year I’d hoped for. But I have the utmost amount of hope for what’s to come beyond this moment, this now, even this year. We moved across the world during a pandemic. And if we can do that, well shit…we can do anything.

“Happiness is a state of mind. It’s just according to the way you look at things.” -Walt Disney

Love and light, Carrie xo