Adventure In The Great Wide Somewhere

Welcome Wordless Wednesday Blog Hoppers! This week's wordless Wednesday is brought to you by Disney History!  The Flying Dutchman harbored at Castaway Cay back in the day. The history of Castaway Cay can be found in Fastpass to History ~ REAL Pirates of the Caribbean. Thank you to Focused on the Magic for hosting! 

Welcome Tiggerific Tigerific Tuesday Trivia blog hoppers. Thanks again to Jodi from  +Magical Mouse Schoolhouse , Heidi from  +Heidi's Head , Jenn from Disney Babies Blog  and  +Mike Ellis  for co-hosting! Did You Know... Michael Eisner and other Disney executives originally believed that "simply seeing animals would not be exciting enough for guests." The imagineers disagreed and to prove the point, Joe Rohde brought a 400 pound tiger into a meeting with the top brass (or at least Wikipedia says so.) I've never brought this good of a visual aid to a presentation. My own photo, Houston Zoo. Animal Kingdom received the go ahead. Would you want to be in a meeting with a 400 pound tiger? An InLinkz Link-up

Now that the round three emails for the 2014 Disney Parks Moms Panel search will be going out any minute:   I thought it was a good time to look back at the dawn of the panel. Back in September of 2007, a search for ten to twelve helpful Disney experts began. The 10,000 who applied during the month long application window answered three essays, one hundred word each. One introducing essay introduced yourself, one introduced your family and one last essay explained why you would be an excellent match for the panel. The reward for the lucky panelists? The joy of spreading their help to guests, a seat on the first panel and a very desired pink jacket. Easier Said Than Done. Six years later, the panel has included over forty moms (and dads). Rechristened in January of 2013 as the Disney Parks Moms Panel, the panelists now specialize to cover not only Walt Disney World, but Disneyland, DVC, ABD, runDisney, DCL and ESPN WWoS. Phew! That's a lot of pixie dus...

On October 1, 1971 as the Magic Kingdom opened for the very first time a much different park lay in wait than what we experience today. 23 attractions existed for guests to enjoy on that first morning: 1. Cinderella's Golden Carousel 2. Country Bear Jamboree 3.Diamond Horseshoe Revue 4.Dumbo Flying Elephants 5.Fire truck, Horse-drawn street cars, Horseless carriages, Jitney vehicle 6.Frontier Shooting Gallery 7.Grand Prix Raceway attraction 8.Hall of Presidents 9.It's a Small World 10.Jungle Cruise 11.Mad Tea Party  Mad Tea Party 2004 12.Main Street Cinema  13.Mickey Mouse Revue Audio-Animatronics musical  14.Mike Fink Keel Boats 15.Mr. Toad's Wild Ride 16.Penny Arcade  17.Skyway to Fantasyland attraction, 18.Skyway to Tomorrowland 19.Snow White's Adventures  20.Sunshine Pavilion attraction (also known as Tropical Serenade and later The Enchanted Tiki Birds) 21.Swiss Family Tree House 22.The Haunted Mansion and last, but mo...

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...

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 Fastpass to History Blog Hoppers! Sorry for the late posting tonight, I am finally the proud owner of a working and functional internet connection! The early posts this week either went out on their schedule (early week) or typed on my (brand spanking new) iPhone 5S courtesy of the blogger app and cellular data (last couple days). Tonight I'm celebrating with easy internet access and my laptop's full keyboard! Ahem, back to history. Back in 1983, Premier Cruise Line paired up with Walt Disney World to provide what would come to be known as a seven night land and sea package. Through this arrangement, the "Big Red Boat" licensed the use of Disney characters in onboard meet and greets. The ending of this relationship in 1993 paved the way for the formation of the Disney Cruise Line in 1994. In the midst of this era, I read voraciously. Like any other girl, I devoured each and every installment of Ann M. Martin's The Baby-Sitter's Club (or Th...

drydock ( plural drydocks, verb drydocking, drydocked   ) drydock ( noun nautical ) A dock that can be drained of water and is used in the repair and construction of ships . drydock ( verb ) ( transitive ) To place (a ship) in a drydock . Throughout the course of a cruise ships life, the daily sea salt, wind, weather and thousands of guests eventually take their toll not matter how diligent the cast members and crew. So every couple of years, each Disney ship is taken out of rotation for anywhere from two to six weeks for dry dock. The dry dock allows repairs and inspections of the hull and while those repairs are busy on the outside, the inside gets a redo as well. While a shorter drydock allows for simple upgrades such as bedding and carpet replacement and thorough repainting, longer drydocks allow for more drastic refurbishment, most recently the near complete "Reimagined" Disney Magic overhaul in drydock in Cadiz, Spain. Historically, change in the ships fo...

Welcome Fastpass to History Blog Hoppers! Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Today I had the pleasure of watching " Waking Sleeping Beauty " a beautiful, fascinating film following the evolution of Disney Animation from the uncertainty of 1984 through it's own happily ever after, the animation renaissance of the early nineties. A historical look back through press releases, archival footage and even home videos by the animators themselves, this hodgepodge approach by director Don Hahn (better known as the producer of Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King ) supports the theme of dissonance in the growing power struggle between (then CEO) Michael Eisner, Jeffery Katzenberg (brought in as chairman of the Walt Disney Studios) and Roy E Disney (nephew of Walt Disney and son of Roy O. Disney and then vice chairman of the board and head of the animation department). All three of these power players express their views in historical footage as well as more recently taped i...

As you may have guessed with a blog called "Adventures in the Great Wide Somewhere", I am a big fan of Beauty and the Beast ! Belle reigned as my favorite Disney princess for years and Beauty and the Beast the Musical goes down as one of the musicals I regret not being able to perform back in my musical theatre days. I always wondered about where this lovely story came from and after a bit of digging, and some fun with google translate, I am pleased to announce a brief history of the classic tale, La Belle et la Bête. So brush up your French and pull up a chair for the origins of this Disney classic! The fairytale storybook in the queue for Enchanted Tales with Belle is the French version of Cinderella, not Beauty and the Beast Once upon a time, in the eighteenth century a former school teacher and governess by the name of France Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont set aside her writing of popular moralistic novels to publish magazine collections of educ...

Welcome Fastpass to History Bloghoppers! My tenth anniversary comes up in January, so I'm feeling a bit sentimental...so here is the history of how I gained my very first pair of Mickey Ears. I grew up going to Walt Disney World (repeatedly) from the age of ten onward, however due to a certain affinity I had for Goofy in middle school (who isn't Goofy in middle school?) I tended to stick to the Goofy Ear baseball hats.  Chris loves trying on daddy's ears. Once I found out that Ben planned for us to honeymoon at Walt Disney World, I recalled all the beautiful bride Minnie Ears I saw over the years and decided we could definitely pick some up. Our first afternoon after checking into our hotel, we headed to the Grand Floridian, the Chapeau, and finally lucked out at Fantasy Faire in Fantasyland...but they'd just run out of bobby pins so we trekked over to Disney MGM Studios (back before it made the switch to Hollywood Studios and stopped in Villains in...

Welcome all Fastpass to History blog hoppers! Before 1982, all attractions at Walt Disney World and Disneyland required additional tickets beyond the park admission ticket. They were sold in booklets of several coupons of varying value. Disneyland Ticket Book Courtesy of Wikipedia. The original A rides consisted of the main street transportation, the carousel and a walk through Sleeping Beauty castle. If none of those appealed to you, you could always pay two A tickets for a B ticket ride like the Alice in Wonderland ride.  In the beginning of Disneyland, C tickets were your most exciting rides. A spin in the Mad Tea Party teacups, soaring with Dumbo and taking a Wild Ride with Mr. Toad all took a C coupon. As the parks evolved and grew they added D ticket and eventually E tickets. These E tickets lent their name to "E ticket rides."  Personally, I think old style tickets are a beautiful way to present surprise vacations. In 1982, the ticket books were ab...

After disembarking in paradise, many of us have enjoyed hearing the legend of the original castaways while riding the tram to the family beach or Serenity Bay.  Castaway Cay April 2013 This (Disney original) story tells of the islands supposed original inhabitants and how the various parts of the island came to look the way they do now in an elaborate and winding tall tale. These original castaways built nearly everything you see today from pieces of wreckage. Even the monstrous whale skeleton plays into the backstory. But did you ever wonder about the real history of Castaway Cay? To begin with, Castaway Cay (pronounced "Key") originally known as Gorda Cay is a relatively new discovery as far as islands go. Virtually unvisited until a chance discovery of Spanish ingots on an outlying shoal, the island played host to many in the years before 1997 when Disney bought a 99 year lease on the island from the Bahamian government. The adventures of the islands real in...

Did you know each of the four Disney ships is watched over by an official fairy godmother? While other cruise lines make due with (non fairy) godmothers, Disney designated Patty Disney the first fairy godmother at the christening of the Disney Magic in 1998 . Her husband, Roy O. Disney shares godparent duties as the only designated "godfather" of a Disney vessel. The Disney Wonder followed in 1999 with a first, as Tinker Bell became the first animated character to be the fairy godmother of a vessel. The Disney Dream launched in 2011. Jennifer Hudson , who began her professional singing career aboard the Wonder, filled the fairy Godmother slot this time around. Mariah Carey took up godmother duties at the Big Apple christening of the Disney Fantasy in spring 2012. If they launch another ship who do you think should be sprinkling the pixie dust?

Hi! I'm Lorelei; Lori to my friends. As my Passporter Bio so succinctly puts it, Lorelei is a Christian, wife, mother of two, vegan, Texan, bookworm, and terrible-though-enthusiastic photographer. She sunburns indoors on a cloudy day, but still looks forward to her next Disney Cruise in spring of 2013! I suppose that pretty well sums it up. What...I've got three hundred more words available? Okay, I might as well, then. It's late 1998 My mother and I huddle around the huge boxy monitor, waiting as the website slowly loads.  I run off to fetch sustenance as the modem complains. Loudly. We spend the afternoon ooh-ing and ah-ing over pictures of Animal Kingdom which we will see for the first time on our annual trek to Walt Disney World. As we click through the agonizingly slow loading times a notice on one page catches my mother's eye. So we price out a cruise on Disney's newest venture, the Disney Magic. After a little browsing, she decides she'd rather n...