Wordless Wednesday ~ July 4, 2010

Good times...great friends...great race thru Magic Kingdom ;)

Wordless Wednesday - Project Whisper

A perfect post for Wordless Wednesday!

Thank you to my many friends ~ :)





And a special thank you to the other half of the dynamic duo for my late night encouragement ;)

Crashing the Disney SM Moms Celebration

Lets just start this off with "I *so* should have been there".

Disney hosted a first ever Social Media Moms Celebration (SMMC). And for reasons that make me the mommy that I am, I did not sign up to go. With that being said, I watched the Twitter-verse in envy the weeks & days leading up to the conference. A lot of mommy-bloggers that I have grown fond of...yes, shameless shout outs will be posted at the end ;)...Jen, Debbie, Lynne, Jackie, JL, Traci, Amanda..all were going to be there. How could I *not* have signed up to go & meet these fabulous people??

*cue "light bulb going on" type music*

I have an annual pass. These mommas were going to be in the parks enjoying some down time. I can go to the parks whenever I want....so, maybe, just maybe, I'll go on one of the days they are there..SCORE!!

*Ok, so it didn't take rocket science to figure that deduction out. Maybe a little of it (ok, maybe most of it) was slightly embellished for the purpose of interesting reading..but you get my point ;)*

In a completely unrelated coincidence, another Twitter friend of mine, Ali, was having a “tweet-up” Thursday night at the Polynesian. The SMMC itinerary had listed most of Thursday afternoon free. Perfection-Thursday it was! As the day grew closer, I realized just how important Thursday was. Disney was gearing up for a major press event for this conference & Thursday was the main event day. Yay me!

Just a few days before, I found out that another Twitter/blogger friend, Aurora, was also going to "crash the party". How exciting!! Now, I wasn't the *only* one to not be attending the conference!! I was so excited, but nervous too. I mean, online everyone got along fabulously, but what if we didn't "click". What if they had all bonded so much over the course of the first day of the conference, I was just an outsider? What if they thought I was an over-zealous nut just showing up & crashing the party? Oh, the things I put myself thru!! Still, it felt good to know that I wasn't the only one just "showing up".

We set out Thursday morning. I followed the Press Releases (ßDisney Blog Posts) all the way up. Things like

• 600,000 people already signed up/volunteered hours thru Hands On Network
• Ty Pennington was there
• He said "Move those balloons"
• The picture of the largest can sculpture does not nearly look as majestic on your cell phone as it does here
• Demi Lovato & Joe Jonas were at the park
• Did I mention Ty Pennington was there?

I think I am still floored that 600,000 people have volunteered already..and the program had only been in effect for 6 weeks. That is an incredible amount of man-power & community fellowship. But, we'll save that for another blog post.

My Give A Day, Get A Disney Day Adventure

In 2010, Disney will celebrate the efforts of 1 million people by giving away a 1 day park ticket in exchange for a day of volunteer service. Kicking this event off on January 1st, the site was *flooded* by people all looking for volunteer events they could sign up for. I will admit that I was one of those..desperate to find something that my entire family could participate in. Needless to say, I was very disappointed the first few days, not being able to find anything local. Even more disappointing was notes I was reading from others on Twitter, expressing the same frustrations. :( So close to giving up, I decided to wait a week.

Going back to the site a week later, I did some "in-depth" searching & stumbled upon the Gus A Stavros Institute Finance Park & Enterprise Village events. (Enterprise Village is a real-life, job & financial learning experience for 5th graders & Finance Park is geared for 8th graders) Well, just so happens that I have an 8th grader & that I was already signed up to volunteer for this event. Talk about luck!! Granted, this didn't accommodate my whole family, but I was excited to get in!! I called a friend of mine who also wanted to do a volunteer event & we were signed up together.

Having all the kids that I do, I have been to these field trips many times. I was given a group of students and was there to help them budget their finances & buy a house & car and try to experience some of the monthly financial budgeting we have to do as adults. I was lucky enough that Future Headache allowed me to eat lunch with her & even let me get my picture with her! What a lucky mom I am...lol.

There were a few other volunteers there as well, volunteering for Disney tickets :) These people were excited, planning on using their tickets for the Flower & Garden Festival, Star Wars Weekends & just regular visits.

After this, I decided I needed to find a volunteer event for the rest of the family. The Boy was lucky enough that his play group, Actors Reaching Out, signed up to act out The Little Mermaid for an after school care program. The rest of the family is signed up to help clean up after a ADA fundraising race. Of course, I will be participating again, but thats ok. We are just happy to be a part of this experience!

If you have not yet signed up for something, I encourage you to keep looking! It really is a rewarding experience..especially when you can do it together as a family!

Downtown Disney & the Annual Passholder Sale

Can you say excitement?

This Saturday, my Disney-Sister & I will leave our homes at 3am & head for Downtown Disney(DTD) in search of some great deals at the Annual Passholder Sale at World of Disney(WoD) or Disney's version of Black Friday. Are we crazy...possibly. I'll be sure to let you know after we get back home!

We went to WoD last weekend to "scope out the joint". We made lists of things we wanted & what room they were in. Mapping out our plan of attack included speaking to a manager about the event as well. In doing some research on previous annual passholder sales, last year was reported to have been crazy...selling out of $3 mouse ears in no time. The free give-away last year was reported to be insane, with CM throwing the items into the crowd instead of handing them to people as they walked in the door.

Of course, being ever so politically correct, the manager could not confirm or deny anything. But, when asked the right questions, for example-instead of "when you hand out the free vinylmation dolls" use "If you were to hand something out", I got some answers! While they will not confirm or deny the free VinylMation dolls this weekend to the first 1000 people, I was told that IF something were to be given out, it would be in an orderly fashion. I was also told that there will only be 1 entrance into WoD Saturday morning. Of course, which entrance was not stated yet, but was promised that it would be a crowd controlled environment and in place before people were lining up that morning. Another thing to remember is that this is an event for passholders ONLY. You must have your annual pass & Gov't issued ID with you.

So, in hopes of getting my 1st VinylMation Doll (yes, my 1st...and wondering if this will be the first of many), I will be there! I am also hoping to see some of the 2009 Mom's Panel ladies at the sale (@beautygirlsmom, @MomsPanelErin & @mefries). Although, I am hoping to see you in line. I'll be too busy shopping once we get inside ;)

Birthdays last for a weekend, right? Part 1

Yay..me :)

Since it was my birthday, and we were lucky enough to have a bye-week that weekend, that could only mean one thing.....Disney for the weekend!!

Just so you know, I am a slight bit OCD. My house must be clean before we leave & all laundry must be done. So, with that being said & after being at Disney on Thursday, there was a lot of work to do on Friday before we left! Needless to say, left later than I thought but oh well. We'll still be able to get an early start on Saturday!

The major excitement of Saturday was the fact that Magic Kingdom was open til 1am! This meant that after 10 pm, most of the lines die down. No Florida sun & heat to beat down on you. 

Since we are true theme park people, we also have Universal Passes as well. We decided to get up early & hit Rip Ride Rocket. What an incredible ride. I personally did not ride that, but the 3 older kiddos did. Basically, they waited 70 minutes (which was a short wait according to many people I spoke with) which gave me plenty of time to take Princess Peanut on some rides for her. Highlight of the day..pictures with Shrek & Donkey & riding ET for the first time! She is getting so big. *sigh*  Got some great pictures of the kids on R3. They basically gave it 2 thumbs-up & 1 "it was okay". They liked picking the music track for the ride, but said it was hard to hear.

The afternoon adventure was great, although it was about 100 degrees..no joke. Time for some pool-time back at the hotel :)

Celebrate.....ME :)

picture taken by Maria Elkin-not bad for a camera phone ;)

OK….
How often do you take time out of your day to celebrate the things you need to? Or do you just celebrate when it’s convenient? Most of the time, life is so busy & hectic, we tend to push off celebrations until it’s convenient for everyone. But, thanks to Disney this year, we will stop and celebrate when we have to!

I have lived in Fl since 1973-74-ish. For as long as I can remember back, we always went to Disney twice a year. We always went at some point over the summer & for my birthday in October. For quite a few years, my dad’s company gave out tickets for Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. That’s quite a few trips. And since we have had passes, we average a trip every 2 weeks. But I can honestly say, in all of those years & trips, we never went to Disney on my actual birthday.

This year, I did.

We didn’t get as early of a start as I would have liked, but we did arrive at the Magic Kingdom at about 12:30...just in time for the Move It Shake It Celebrate It Party. We skipped down Main Street & danced in the street with Baloo & sang along with Mickey. Even though I have seen this before, it was different because it was MY birthday this time J I think just about every cast member between the entrance & the castle stopped to tell me Happy Birthday. It was so neat!

Only having a few hours in the Kingdom, we hit a few of the standard you-can’t-go-to-the-MK-and-not-ride rides...Haunted Mansion & Pirates of the Caribbean. By naptime, we had successfully danced, sang, spooked & swaggered all over the land.

Even though I only had a few hours to play, this was definitely one of the most magical birthdays ever. Celebrating with me was The Boy, Peanut & Peanut’s friend. I have to admit, this was a great promotion. I never would have stopped everything to celebrate on a Thursday under any other circumstances. So, Disney, I say thank you. Thank you for forcing me to stop & celebrate me. I had fun.

TTA PeopleMover...where is Mr Morow?

picture taken by Maria Elkin-not bad for a camera phone ;)

WEDPeopleMover
Tomorrowland Transit Authority (or TTA)
TTA PeopleMover
Everyone is familiar with this popular Tomorrowland Attraction. You know the one…the little blue cars on the track above that circle Tomorrowland. When I was younger, this ride was awesome because it took you inside Space Mountain without having to ride Space Mountain. Tomorrowland has seen many changes throughout the years, but the TTA really hasn’t changed much.
Until now.
The actual ride itself is the same. Disney has decided this past week to update the audio track. And the blogsphere has gone wild. Since I was going to be visiting Disney on my birthday, I decided to see if it was really as bad as everyone said it was.
It was as bad. It was almost worse. L There was no more Mr. Morrow.
“Paging Mr. Tom Morrow. Your Party from Saturn has arrived. Please give them a ring.”
The ride was never a thrill ride or even a flashy ride. It was a simple ride, narrated by a futuristic woman. There was a theme to the ride. You were riding the Blue Line of the TTA. The woman spoke as you went around the “town” as if it were a real transportation system. It was cheesy, but cute. I know there were a few other jokes, but none as memorable as Mr. Morrow. The ride is now narrated by a guy in a very blah tone. It’s more like a talking park map.
Now that Mr. Morrow and future lady are gone, they did add in character voices as you pass by the appropriate area. For example, Mickey Mouse speaks as you pass thru Mickey’s Star Traders. Buzz Lightyear as you enter Buzz’s Space Ranger Spin. Roz has a laugh as you pass the Laugh Floor. These additions were cute. Well, at least the 2 toddlers I had with me seemed to enjoy it.
There is a petition out to save Mr. Morrow. Apparently, the ImaginEars (I think that’s how they spell it…lol) are looking to see how the general public takes the change. So, if the Disney powers that be see this, please...PLEASE…bring back Mr. Morrow.
Have you heard it? Tell me what you think….

Examiner article by Peggy MacDonald

Petition Link

We are *Disney*

"It's a world of laughter...a world of tears.  It's a world of hope & a world of fears."  

Go ahead, feel free to sing along.  I am sure you know the words.  We are Disney people.  By "we", I mean myself, my other-half & our 5 children.  We are starting our 2nd year as Annual Passholders, and couldn't be happier.  

I have always been a Disney fan.  Living in Florida makes that easy.  Living less than 90 minutes away makes it even easier.  As a little girl, we visited the parks at least twice a year.  Since becoming Passholders, or "Disney People" as we call it, we visit more than that.  Waayy more.

So, I bet you are saying to yourself, "how can someone go to Disney that many times & not be bored?"  I have been asked this question so many times.  Each time a different answer.  After so many times & so many different answers, I decided it's time to document all of our memories & adventures.

Consider this an "additional adventure."  

I hope you join us!