Adventure In The Great Wide Somewhere

Hello FastPass to History Blog Hoppers! Thank you Frontierland Station for hosting this blog hop! As Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party wraps up, I would like to take the time to look back and remember two other hard ticketed events that have gone the way of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. E-Ride Nights From 1997-2004, this hard ticket event, available for purchase by resort guests offered an additional three hours in the Magic Kingdom "after hours." Replaced by evening Extra Magic Hours, this offered an experience of many of the most popular rides while getting to experience a much roomier park. Think evening Extra Magic Hours, for a fee, but capped out at 5,000 guests. Disney's Pirate and Princess Party  Offered on varying dates between January and June starting during 2007, this party featured an emphasis on classic Disney princesses and Pirate of the Caribbean. In 2008, it underwent a rename as Mickey's Pirate and Princess Party, but after 2009, sa...

In looking back at October, it seems like a whole lot of changes have been going on in the Disney Parks! So without further ado, here are the highlights Guest Assistance Card program changed to  the Disability Assistance Service Card. Show your Disney Side! Disney launched a new social media site, Disney Side encouraging people to get Goofy, be a princess and just embrace the fun side of life. It's pretty fun to surf around and remember my old trips. To submit your own photos or videos, see the website or just #DisneySide your post. My favorite commercial for this promotion features a mom playing Ariel at an aquarium. Artwork for Avatarland release at the D23 Expo in Japan. The stunningly beautiful artist renditions encourage me that Pandora will be a beautiful addition. I'm really excited about the nighttime show aspect. Glow with the Show Ear Hats come to Walt Disney World. Currently active at Fantasmic and Wishes we can look forward to a holiday ...

Welcome Wordless Wednesday Blog Hoppers! My little heroes:  Faith, Trust and Pixie Dust! Any Happy Little Thought Villains? Well that might be a problem. What I do during the scary parts. Even as a grown-up, being a scaredy-cat is totally acceptable. 

Welcome Tiggerific Tuesday Blog Hoppers! Thanks again to Jodi from  +Magical Mouse Schoolhouse , Heidi from  +Heidi's Head , and  +Mike Ellis  for co-hosting! On to the trivia!   The odds of becoming a lightning victim in the U.S. in any one year is 1 in 700,000. T he odds of being struck in your lifetime is 1 in 3,000. Odds of dying (in the event you are struck by lightning) reduce to 1 in 10. What are the odds of making it onto the Disney Parks Moms Panel in any given year? Almost all adult guests are eligible to apply for the following year's panel (some restrictions apply). A published average 47,000 Magic Kingdom park guests daily , (source here ).  This doesn't include the guests visiting Epcot, Disney's Animal Kingdom, Disney's Hollywood Studios, Disneyland or Disney California Adventure. They're eligible as well.  That is quite an applicant pool.  I think I'll stick with Han Solo on this one. The ...

I think that the magic of a Disney vacation exists in three wonderful parts: the dreaming of planning, the pixie dust moments during trip itself and the memories you take with you for years to come. Since I can't live in the Cinderella Castle Suite or even on property year round, pictures help bring a bit of the fairytale back into my everyday life. In my enthusiastic pursuit of remembering the Magic, I take hundreds of my own pictures every vacation and hope to share a bit of my experience with you. As we all know a rainy day at Disney is better than a sunny day at home, but sometimes we forget to take pictures of anything that isn't practically perfect on vacation. The sad part is that all these little imperfect moments make up the most magical memories!  Rainy days. Falling asleep on the Magical Express. Cloudy days. Tired out after running in and out of the lagoon at Castaway Cay's Family Beach. Waiting for the start of the Pirates in ...

Our countdown chain started at a measly 42 days. Our darling children bounced all over the house when they found out that our cruise meant that they could expect to eat whatever their heart desired and enjoy unrestricted grandma time for five glorious days. Our FEs sat alone in our luggage and waited impatiently by the front door. Our Facebook group reached a pitched excitement culminating in this: Do you hear the people sing? (Sorry, couldn't resist.) Then slowly during the day before the cruise all the fun anticipatory Facebook and DISboard posts went silent. Everyone, too busy in the excitement of last minute preparation and travel to bother updating their virtual lives, headed excitedly toward port. My father in law drove my mother in law (Mom, as I call her) over the morning before our cruise, so we took some time to settle everything while the children enjoyed their morning in school and preschool and Ben enjoyed (probably not the proper word, but we’ll go with that) ...

  Welcome Blog Hoppers to the first ever "Shorts Saturday" Blog Hop!     This week's question: "Favorite Park or Ship and Why <50 Words" From the royal suite for our anniversary to stateroom 2515 on our first cruise, I’m even happy sleeping on a lounger if I’m on the Wonder. Like Ariel in the lobby, my spunky side loves her sense of adventure and grandeur while my girly side loves her grace and intimacy. Giveaway time! Each blogger who links up in this week's blog hop is eligible in a drawing for a random Disney Trading Pin. Winner will be selected at random on or before November 1 from the pool of all linked blog posts available. Winner will be contacted and announced.   get the InLinkz code

Shorts Saturdays Inspired by the Disney Shorts, this is a "question of the week blog hop" with each prompt using a limited number of words. 1.) Answer each week's question or prompt. 2.) Include the short takes button (grab the code below) in your post.     3.) Link up! To celebrate this new blog hop, we will be giving away a randomly selected Disney Trading Pin to one of the people who links up on tomorrow's kick-off for the blog hop. Ready for that writing prompt? Prompt for October 26, 2013 For the Next Month's prompts, check back HERE . Join up and link in!

Welcome Foodie Friday Blog Hoppers! Better than a what? Better Than a Mickey Bar Location: Room Service, Disney Magic Cost: Included in Cruise Fare I know, I know. What on earth is better than a Mickey Bar? Aside from the iconic nature of this snack, which has featured on t-shirts, magnets, pins antenna toppers and even air fresheners, it also is big in the allergy free community. This prepackaged frozen treat is relatively safe for kids without severe allergies. The bars are (per Disney) free of egg and soy but may contain traces of peanuts, tree nuts, gluten or wheat from possible line contamination. As always, check with Nestle for the latest on allergens in their products. Now let's make some magic!  Nothing is better than a Mickey's Premium Ice Cream Bar! Except This. I'm not going to debate Mickey Bars v. Dole Whips v. Churros. I'm merely letting you in on a little plus it up action that we on the cruise boards tend to keep on the quiet,...

Hans Christian Anderson's 1837 tale of "the little sea lady" or "Den lille havfrue" in the original Danish, is well known as a tale that, during adaptation into a Disney film, lost it's original grizzly ending where the little sea maid lost her life to save her prince.   The Little Mermaid statue, Copenhagen In the classic Hans Anderson tail, er, tale, the Little Mermaid (in the Danish, she is only called the Little Mermaid) finally gets to satisfy her curiousity about the human world when, on her fifteenth birthday, she is allowed to explore their world for the first time. Like the movie, the mermaid spots a prince out at sea, falls in love and rescues him from a storm. He is found by a temple maiden and taken inside. The Little Mermaid after discussing human souls with her grandmother, strikes a bargain with a sea witch involving her transformation to a human in exchange for her tongue. She will gain a human soul only on true loves kiss an...

Welcome Wordless Wednesday Blog Hoppers!   Pirates Panoramic Ocean Views Porthole Palo   And self Portraits of the Photographer in reflective surfaces...one is in each of this week's Photos! 

Welcome Tiggerific Tuesday Trivia blog hoppers!  Think that the Disney Cruise Line only visits the same ports week after week? While most closely associated with Castaway Cay and the Bahamian and Caribbean itineraries, that isn't the complete story. Stranded on Castaway Cay, Please, DO NOT Rescue! Over the last fifteen years, Disney managed to take guests all over the western hemisphere. Ports of Call (an incomplete listing) Acapulco Ajaccio Aruba Barbados (Bridge Town) Barcelona, Spain Cabo San Lucas Cadiz Cartagena Castaway Cay Catania (Sicily) Civitavecchia (Rome) Copenhagen Corfu, Greece Costa Maya, Mexico Cozumel, Mexico Curacao Dover Dubrovnik, Croatia Ensenada Falmouth, Jamaica Florence and Pisa (La Spezia) Galveston, Texas Gibraltar Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands Guadeloupe Halifax Helsinki Heraklion, Greece Hilo, Hawaii Honolulu, Oahu Ibiza, Spain Juneau, Alaska Kahului, Maui Katakolon, Greece Ketchikan, Alaska Key West, F...

"What's the Sitch?"      We need to take our first family vacation to Walt Disney World in under a day Background: Several days after the pixie dust settles a Disney Parks survey appears in the junk filter. After the obligatory evaluation questions, I peruse the options and rapidly select seven and eight night itineraries leaving from my home state of Texas. Months later, Disney Cruise Line reveals Western Caribbean Galveston itineraries. I feel like Belle, yearning for the adventures yet to come! The fireworks at the end of that magical day? A little pixie dust as our itinerary transformed into a Bahamian cruise, complete with a single day in Port Canaveral including Walt Disney World Park Hopper Tickets and Disney Cruise Line Bus transfers. But just like Cinderella with her pumpkin carriage, I need to respect that this trip to WDW had a strict curfew; if I return to port after the clock struck midnight, the Magic would be quite ...

Time passed exceedingly slowly, as it always does when I’ve got a secret. I made sure that I filled out medical release forms for my dear mother in law, just in case she needed to get the kids treated for anything while we were out of the country.   Casey and Chris got their cruise details nailed down and called to double check that they could stay with us the night before the cruise. Ben plopped on the couch and asked about which cruise they were taking.   I told him that some of the eight night cruises in spring 2013 got split into four night cruises to Cozumel. I also let him know there were some really good deals on them.   Ben replied in a way I never expected from my calm predictable husband. “Hey, maybe we should do one too!” Now realize at this point we only needed to wait six weeks until our Thanksgiving cruise. In another six months after that we would be cruising on our eight night cruise to the kingdom and that we’d always been extremely conservative w...