Beach Blog

During the spring semester, I was wondering where I would be working over the summer. I didn’t want to work another boring remedial job just to make extra money. I preferred to work somewhere I could gain knowledge and skills beneficial to myself, while also having an exciting experience. I found all these criteria and some with interning at Myrtle Beach Tours. Having the opportunity to work there created some of the best summer memories from not only the experiences brought along with the job, but the people I worked with.

Each week would start with checking in a plethora of high school and college students from all over into their houses for the week. With a substantial amount of these students being from Ohio, where I am originally from, it always gave me the joy of talking to people from my home state. I think by the end of the summer the fellow interns were sick of hearing me say “What part of Ohio are you from?”, “That’s cool I’m from Akron, Ohio” and yelling out the ritual “O-H” to anyone wearing any Ohio State apparel. Over the course of the week each intern would keep in contact with each group leader to inform them of all the fun events occurring in the duration of their stay. From beach games on 2nd Ave South, free lunch and dinner, and all the night life events happening.

Every day the beach would be flooded with all the students to partake in our volleyball, cornhole, and spikeball tournaments. With a free trip on the line, each team relentlessly played diving in the sand after every loose ball. With every point gained by each team the intensity would grow among the teams. I have never seen people play fun beach games so vigorously. After an exceptionally fun day running beach games, we would all head to whatever location the night life event was being held at. By far the best event was the Waka Flocka Flame concert. With us getting VIP treatment, we all got to hangout backstage for Waka’s walk up. Once he started rapping on stage, we all got a front row seat to watching his electrifying performance. With being someone who has seen many hip-hop artists in concert, I have never seen someone interact with the crowd as much as Waka did. Grabbing phones and taking a video of everyone getting hype, and even taking the drink of one intern and pouring it in their mouth, it was an experience I sure will never forget.

Although all the activities with the job brought along many great experiences, none will exceed working with all the fellow interns Shaun, Nick, Karla, Rachel, and Maura. From hitting happy hour after work to all hanging out on the beach and continuously blasting the song of the summer “Gravy Train”, I have created immense bond we each one of them. By far the best memories with them was Sunday family dinner. If you’re familiar with the hit TV shore “Jersey Shore” then you’ll know where we got the inspiration from. With me being labeled as the dad of the group (my senior superlative was Mr. Mom so made sense), I would always be working in the kitchen each Sunday to provide a delicious meal for the family. From grilling out with some burgers and brews to flipping flapjacks and sipping mimosas, it was always an enjoyable family bonding experience. Although after the summer some of the interns will be states or even a whole country away from me, no amount of mileage will be insurmountable to keep the bonds we have made while working here at Myrtle Beach Tours.

When reflecting on the time I’ve had while working at Myrtle Beach Tours, I can honestly say it has made this past summer the best I have ever had. Imagine getting paid to live at the beach for 8 weeks with people who you value as family and working fun events each day. If that doesn’t sound like a dream summer internship, then I don’t know what is. I can’t thank Myrtle Beach Tours enough for giving me the experience of a lifetime!

Josh Gardina, Akron OH, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Accounting

When I first came here, I was super excited to be in Myrtle Beach, but I was not expecting too much. I just thought we were going to be doing office work all day, sometimes going to the beach, and then work a night shift once a week. I also knew we had coworkers but I did not think we all would get that close due to professionalism. 

However, after the first week all these thoughts completely flew out my head especially the last one. When I met all my coworkers I knew we had a special connection and were going to get along very well. After these 8 weeks I can easily call these people my family. 

This internship is built for one to get very close with your coworkers. From the early mornings to the late nights, we are together all day. The three different  shifts to work are beach games, lunch, or dinner. Beach games, we were on the beach with another coworker from 10 am until the end of your shift and this shift requires a lot teamwork because we needed to run various games at the same time as well as brackets. This teamwork brought us closer together and creates so many memories I will never forget. 

Lunch shifts are made so 2 interns are making sandwiches while the other 2 are at the beach. The lunch shifts are so much fun because there is nothing better than making some sammy boys with your friend and talking about the nba playoff game the night before. Once the lunch shift people get on the beach it really helps out the beach game people because now there are 4 people to help instead of 4, and again teamwork takes into play. If many kids want lunch then maybe all 4 people on the beach will help while it there are not as much only 2 hand out lunch and the other 2 go on a lunch break. These decisions brought us closer together because sometimes I would sacrifice my lunch break to help and as did my co workers.

The dinner shifts were my personal favorite not only because I get to sleep in because the shift started at 2, but this is where you had to do the most communicating with kids. Also the nightlife is a lot of fun. While 2 interns are communicating with kids to see who is going to the night events, you also need to collect and serve dinner at night for whoever signed up.  The night events however are the most important parts of the night shift. Going to venues and making sure kids who purchased the myrtle maniac card get to skip the longgg lines. Night events included foam parties, glow parties, and concerts from Waka Flocka and Travis Porter.

No matter the shift, beach games, lunch, or dinner, after some time we just felt the need to help eachother out, and that’s something about this internship they tried to instill. In any work place, If you and your coworkers do not get along then the company will probably be less efficient, the same goes for this internship with Myrtle Beach Tours. However We had a very efficient summer because we all cared for each other as friends not just “coworkers.”  

In January I was given the opportunity to accept an internship with Myrtle Beach Tours. Two of my best friends also accepted the internship, so what more could I ask for? An internship at the beach and I was going to be sharing the experience with my friends. As the anticipation grew throughout the spring semester, I became more excited every day and it got me through all the hard work from school. I was extremely excited for this internship and somehow it still exceeded all of my expectations. After just a few days of being here and getting to know the other interns, I quickly realized how fun this summer would be. During the past seven weeks I have gained some amazing friendships and created memories that I will cherish forever. 

Each week the interns were paired up and worked one of the three shifts; beach games, lunch, or dinner. I typically worked dinner shift most often with the occasional beach or lunch shift. Some of the tasks we had to complete for dinner shift was preparing the newsletter and sending it to the students for the next day. Dinner shift also picked up dinner each night and served it to the students on The Catalina patio. After we were done serving dinner we would go to the night events to help with the line skip, which allowed the students who had a Myrtle Maniac cards through our company get into the night event faster. My favorite night event of the summer was the Waka Flocka Flame concert. All of the interns went to the concert and we were able to go backstage. We were able to stand by ourselves away from the crowd and got to be right next to the stage while Waka performed. 

After spending every single day with the other interns for the past seven weeks we have all became extremely close. Although we all worked together we chose to hang out everyday which helped us become so close to each other. There are too many inside jokes and memories together to even count. If it was just watching a movie, family dinners, or hanging out at the beach or pool, we all did everything together. I can’t help but feel extremely lucky and grateful for being able to share this experience with my fellow interns. Not only did we get to share this experience with each other but we all had people come visit throughout the time which gave us the chance to show our friends from home around our summer home, Myrtle Beach. It was great to be able to show our friends our favorite spots around town or just hanging out on the beach. 

Through all the hard work I can honestly say this was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had the privilege of doing. It has always been one of my dreams to live at the beach and Myrtle Beach Tours made that possible. Not only was I able to work at the beach during the summer but I got to experience it with some people that I consider my closest friends now. I can’t thank MBT enough for all of the amazing memories this summer! I will always cherish this time in my life! 

Rachel Hooker, Mooresville, NC, UNC Charlotte, Health Communications 

  After graduating from UNCC this past May the thought about what I will be doing after college was always on my mind. I thought a lot about my last summer and the memories and amazing opportunities I had made at Myrtle Beach Tours. I told my friends about the internship and how it had given me my best summer living at the beach. They were so intrigued by the opportunity to live and work at the beach for seven weeks that they decided to apply for the job and got it.

        I decided to reach out to Myrtle Beach Tours and see if I could return this summer. I knew that spending my summer one last time with MBT would be the perfect way to end my last summer until the real world began for me. And sure enough it certainly was.

        I began my summer kicking off with moving to North Myrtle Beach the day after my graduation. My roommate/bestie Rachel and I packed our cars and drove down. My other good friend Josh had already arrived a couple days before us and my other friend Maura was driving down later that day. Instantly it was great to start off the summer in May with three of my close friends and I was so excited to meet the other two interns.

        The next day was the first day at work and we got to meet Shaun another one of the interns and later that week we met the last intern Nick. We instantly all became very close and if it hadn’t been for the bond we all shared I don’t think this summer or this internship would’ve been the same. That was one of my favorite parts of this summer, not only working with friends but getting to explore the city of North Myrtle Beach with them.

        Beach games, lunch, and night shifts were so fun and enjoyable to do when you get to do them with people you can have fun with. I will never forget all the Broadway trips we made (even the though the uber was never fun), the beach days on and off the clock, the poolin’ and boolin’ seshs after days of work, spending every waking second at the boy’s condo (yeah sorry boys), and dancing our nights away at Ducks even though, yes, we were alway the youngest people there. It wouldn’t had been the same without my fellow interns.

        So, to my fellow interns thank you for making this summer and internship and experience one for the books. I have memories that I will never forget and that I will forever cherish and look back at (thanks to snapchat memories).

        And as I said before in my last tumblr blog post and will say again; to all the future MBT interns: Make it the best out of it, live it up, work hard, and enjoy the time you have down here because it will fly by.

Thank you MBT for the best summer ever.

Karla Brun, Asheboro NC, UNC Charlotte, English Major

It was a sunny afternoon in quaint Blacksburg, Virginia when I had just finished my 1:15 Finance class. I was browsing the internet while watching my favorite show Impractical Jokers when an email notification popped up on my laptop. It was an email from Myrtle Beach Tours who I was very familiar with as my fraternity has stayed with the company in the past two years for our spring formals. I read through the email while sipping my hot chocolate and saw that the company was looking for interns for the summer. I took a second to think “what would jesus do?” then I promptly submitted my resume and the rest is history.

I came into the internship not knowing any of the other interns but by the end of it all I gained some amazing friends. We became such a tight knit group as we would spend most days together whether that was while working or outside of work. All of us would get together on Sunday nights to have family dinners which included pasta night, breakfast for dinner and taco night. I am so glad I had this opportunity to meet some amazing people from different parts of the country. Being from New Jersey and a long way from home these friends that I made surely made me feel at home.

There were many different aspects that went into this job including communicating with the high school groups, creating new marketing techniques and serving dinner to the kids staying with us. My favorite part of the internship was running and operating the beach games. We would have a tournament set up each day consisting of spikeball, volleyball and cornhole. Volleyball was my favorite tournament to watch because there were some really good teams that participated and the games would get very intense. The winners of the tournament would get koozies and myrtle beach tours t-shirts. Nothing gets people more excited than free t-shirts trust me I know. Beach games was by far my favorite shift to work because I got to work on the beach and operate fun tournaments. This job is a lot better than working 8 hours in the warehouse with Roseita, Fernando, Shaq and Mo.

Another awesome aspect of this internship is that we get to go to nighttime events to promote our company and run a line skip for students staying with our company. These night time events were held at various locations such as Senior Frogs, Myrtle Beach Raceway and my favorite venue Status NightClub. One of the most memorable nights was working at the Status NightClub Mardi Gras party. The place was absolutely packed with crazy high schoolers looking to rage the night away. The other interns and I were stationed in a VIP section right next to the stage preparing to toss glow sticks into the crowd after a major beat drop. After we threw the glow sticks it was time to toss out beads into the crowd to see who could get the most beads at the end of the night to win a free trip back. As we started to throw the beads out the crowd was going absolutely insane, it was like a group of seagulls going after a fry on the beach. People were yelling and screaming for me to toss them a bead, I felt like I had so much power. That night was absolutely absurd and I couldn’t have gotten to do that at any other internship.

Myrtle Beach Tours has given me the opportunity of a lifetime by living and working at the beach! I got a sweet tan, made some amazing friends and got to make all my friends back home super jealous of my job. I would 1000% recommend this internship to any of my friends or anyone in general. As the great Pauly D once stated, “Cabs are here!”    

Nick Manuelli, New Jersey, Virginia Tech Business Management and Marketing         

Maura Carroll, Wilmington, NC, UNCC, Psychology/Sociology.