Disney Wake-Up Call

When you sleep at a Walt Disney World resort, be sure to take advantage of the wake-up call and let your little ones answer it.  The last time we visited, we had calls from Stitch and Mickey.

Vanished Disney

I just stumbled across a youtube site with videos of now-extinct Disney attractions, brought to us by Cristel Video.  As a girl whose first visit was 30 years ago, I am completely enthralled with these!

Check them out:

Magic Kingdom

Skyway (awesome pics here from Yesterland)

Dreamflight (Tomorrowland, sponsored by Delta)

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Adventureland)

Enchanted Tiki Room (Adventureland)

Legend of the Lion King (Fantasyland, now Mickey's Philharmagic)

EPCOT

Horizons

World of Motion

Old-school Journey into Imagination

Food Rocks

PARKS

River Country

Discovery Island



The site also includes several old school parade videos.

Follow the links and enjoy!

(taken at Discovery Island around 1994)

Cast Member Appreciation Cards

We love those little special touches that give our vacay that little extra extra.  Last year, we really enjoyed handing out cast member appreciation cards.  I assumed that with all the hardcore Dis fans out there, the cast members would be used to getting these, but they all seemed excited and surprised.  When we were a specific pain in the neck at the custom mouse ears shop, I sheepishly pulled out one of my thank you cards and gave it to one of the mouse milliners, who showed it off to everyone else in the assembly line.  I stuck a stack of them in my fanny pack and pulled them out every time I was served a drink or dinner, received assistance getting around with the bot by myself in the morning (cast members seem to pop up all the time with stickers for babybots as we wait in line), asked for help at the front desk, etc.  They were a hit.

Definitely the top cast members to appreciate are your maid and concierge, even if you don't give these cards to everyone you see as I did.

We printed ours from Tagrel.com, where there is an amazing selection, and I did some scrapgirl ninja action on them...glue sticked those babies to card stock in an array of colors and signed the backs of them, "Peace and Love, Arthur and Kristi, Tulsa, December 2009."  With last year's experience, this year I am going to type our info on them and laminate the whole card (December in Florida = wet fanny pack = soggy card casualties).  The laminated card could become a bookmark for sentimental hoarders like myself who keep everything anyone ever gives them if they can in any way rationalize it. 

Now it's your turn:

Tagrel's extensive collection of CMACs (colorful images of Disney characters...includes Halloween and Xmas cards)

CMACs of the more plain Jane variety

Some nice cards for maid or concierge for purchase via zazzle

Have fun!  Please let me know if there are any more CMACs online I should link to!  Cheers!

Keeping the Little People Occupied

One of my favorite web pages is www.oneprettything.com, which posts tons of amazing daily craft blog links and more.  Since I have been searching for ideas to make the trip more fun for kids and adults, I was super stoked to see this link from JodiMichelle.com.  It's a super adorable "I Spy" game to play and I thought immediately, "I know a place with twinkles and fairy dust and kitten whiskers."  Follow the link and enjoy playing with your mouseketeers.

  .

MouseMom also has a terrific downloadable monorail game in PDF format here.  

Halloween Tips Via Explore the Magic and All Ears

Explore the Magic has some pretty comprehensive info on the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party.  Here is the original link.


The original post includes a jpeg of the 2009 party map, link to a forum on the topic, guidelines, attraction deets, and other 411.  Here is a map from 2008 from All Ears.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hyku/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Our first Disney Halloween

For those who have been to Disney World more than a few times, you know that the countdown really, really starts at six months.  Although we usually go at Christmas time, this year we're headed there around Halloween.  I am starting to put together our schedule and will try to keep everything up to date here.


Visiting Disney World at Christmas has taught us that it's very much en vogue to decorate one's hotel room or camper.  This year, since my folks are going down early (Mom is on dialysis and carries all her equipment and the machine with her in the camper), we can send our luggage ahead with them as I have done the last two years, which means that since we don't have to worry about traveling light, we can send ahead decorations for our hotel room window and door.  I have a couple of Halloween Winnie the Pooh toys that were given to Arthur by Becca, Mia and Nathan and I am thinking about lining them up in the window and maybe decorating with some lights.  I also think it would be cool to put some Jack Skellington decs in the window. Please comment if you have more decorating suggestions for our Disney trip. 


Additionally, we plan on sending our costumes ahead of time.  Our super amazing Halloween costumes are tba as of yet (we still need a super amazing idea), but I also will send "light" costumes to wear to the park...e.g. Arthur has a lion shirt with hood and mane, and I plan to wear the Flaming Lips March of 1,000 Skeletons suit one evening if it's not too warm (the weather should still be about 65 to 85 degrees...a little less dreary hopefully than our last Christmas time trip, although it was still a nice change from frigid Oklahoma!).


Please post additional ideas if you have any thoughts on making our Halloween visit special.