More Questions Answered – Disney Cruise Questions

Welcome back friends!  Tonight I once again turn to the mailbag to tackle your Disney questions.  Tonights post is all about taking a Disney Cruise.  Janet W. from Tennessee wrote, “Hello!  I am loving your blog!  My husband and I are on a quest to see if we can ask you a Disney question that you won’t know the answer to.  But first, we could use your help.  We have decided that we definitely want to take a Disney cruise, especially after seeing your pictures and description of Castaway Cay last week.  Brad, what are your best tips for us as we begin to think about booking a cruise on a Disney ship?”

Super question Janet!  I believe I can certainly be of help to you on this subject as we have been on a Disney cruise once a year since 2005.  I actually have many more tips than I have time  and room to write here, so I will send you out an email with probably more information in it than your looking for, but all good information nonetheless.

To begin, I always tell everyone this, I realize that a Disney cruise is always more expensive than say a Carnival cruise will be.  Now I’m not going to pick on Carnival Cruise’s here.  I’m not about negativity, and you’ve probably already read enough about it.  But the honest truth is, a Disney Cruise will almost always be more expensive than other cruises, but there is an extremely great reason for this.  In order to to know the reason, you have to experience the Disney Cruise for yourself.  People like me can tell you all about it, but you truly have to experience it for yourself.  So Tip #1 is to start by booking a 4 night Disney Cruise on either the Disney Magic or the Disney Wonder to either the Eastern or the Western Caribbean.  These are considered the best “starter” cruises for people and families and are much more affordable than the 6 and 7 night cruises aboard the much larger Disney Dream and Disney Fantasy ships.  Truly, these 4 night cruises are the absolute best way to first experience the Disney difference.  You will get to experience how Disney magically takes your luggage at the airport, then you don’t even see it again until it arrives at your stateroom the first evening.  You will get to experience your first cruise ship buffet lunch and sail away party, but Disney makes them magical experiences for you and your family with many special touches, like huge varieties of foods with healthy choices as well.  The sail away party is a dance party for the ages.  Imagine being surrounded by 2,500 extremely happy people who are dancing and singing and waving their arms as Mickey Mouse himself starts the engines and off you go to the wide open ocean!  Even the ships horn plays “When You Wish Upon a Star” as you pull away from the dock.  Your staterooms are the first thing you notice a difference on board a Disney ship as they are many feet larger than other staterooms about other companies ships.  You have plenty of room to move in even the smallest of staterooms.  Disney has designed the rooms to accommodate lots of luggage in very small spaces.  The showers in the bathrooms actually have room to maneuver in without ramming your elbows into the walls as well.

Tip #2 – request early (6:00 pm) dining.  This is a must.  By eating first, you have time to go back to your room after dinner and change clothes to prepare for the evenings entertainment, such as The Golden Mickeys Broadway show, or The Pirates IN the Caribben party where, in a worlds first, Disney is the only company allowed to shoot actual fireworks off of the top deck of the ship.  Captain Jack Sparrow himself and his ruddy band of pirates take over your cruise ship for the night and have the rowdiest party in the Caribbean.  The party includes chocolate fountains with fruit for dipping, turkey legs, and basically any other food item you can think of.  But if you eat the late dinner beginning at 8:00 pm you end up either rushing dinner or missing out on some of the evening entertainment.  So again, request the early dining at 6:00 pm.

Tip #3 – Soda, tea, lemonade and coffee are all free for the entire time your on the ship.  Alcohol on the other hand, does not flow freely, and nor does designer coffee drinks from the coffee shop or smoothies from the theaters on the ship.  I will also tell you that these items are not cheap at all!!  So my tip for you is to ask your servers what the days specials are.  They will happily tell you and you can then expect to pay what you would normally pay in any bar for their special drinks of the day.

I’ll end on the biggest tip I have for you and I promise you I don’t work for Disney!  Tip #4 – the absolute best time to book a Disney cruise is when you are ALREADY ON a Disney cruise.  Here is why – when you book a new cruise while you are already on a cruise Disney offers you the world.  Typically they will offer anywhere from a 10 – 20% discount on the price of your next cruise.  They will also give you $200 in shipboard credit which you can use to purchase anything on the cruise, including alcohol and souvenirs.  Finally, you can actually pick where your stateroom will be, which is great if you have a preference.  We always like to have our rooms placed at the front of the ship.  The elevators at the front are quicker and the rooms are closer to the drink stations.

As I mentioned, I have about 45 other tips for saving money on Disney Cruises as well as which cruises offer you more than others, so look for your email from me soon Janet.   I can’t speak highly enough about the fact that yes Disney Cruises are more expensive, but I know you will agree with me when I tell you that it couldn’t be money better spent on a vacation.  Disney knows how to treat you like royalty and you will feel like a king/queen after your cruise is complete, you will eat some of the best food you will ever have, you will find 20 different ways to relax, you will see beautiful places and faces, and you will see the best broadway and comedy shows any cruise ship has to offer.   To sum it up, the Disney Difference, when it comes to cruises, makes all the difference in the world.

As always, thanks for spending some time with me as I yammer on about disney247.  I’ll see ya real soon on your next Disney Cruise.  You’ll find me either at the buffet or in a lounge chair fast asleep so please approach slowly and quietly!  Cheers!

Question Time – Have You Seen This Plaque?

Happy Monday everyone!  Again, I want to say a huge “Thank you!” to everyone who has taken the time to come to my humble little blog, and and even bigger “Thank you!” to everyone who has left me an email with comments, suggestions, and questions.  Tonight, I will answer a question that a couple of you asked about.

Tanya L. from Ohio wrote me to ask, “Hey Brad, my family loves all of the Disney pictures and stories that you share every day.  You have proven to us that you really love everything about Disney.  So we have had a burning question about something we saw in the Magic Kingdom park and wanted to ask you about it.  There was what looked to be a plaque that was over an entrance archway close to the train station, and I was wondering if you happened to have a picture of it or knew anything about it?  Thanks again and please keep the stories and pictures coming for those of us who can’t get to Disney World as often as we would like.”

Thank you so much for writing it Tanya.  And your in luck because of course I know all about the plaque you are referring to.  If you’ve ever been to Disneyland in California you will find a plaque reading the exact same thing and hanging in the same place as the plaque you are referring to hanging in the Magic Kingdom at Disney World.  Here is a picture of the plaque your referring to:

The text on this plaque was written by Walt Disney himself, and while it is less than a few sentences, it was painstaking for Walt to write.  You see, Walt wanted this to be one of the first things that you see as you entered his Magic Kingdom, and he wanted to get your show started properly.  Walt Disney was the ultimate showman, and Disney World, like DIsneyland, needed to be the ultimate show according to Walt.  He looked at creating his theme parks the exact same way as he took to creating his animated masterpieces.

For example, everyone who works at any Disney owned property are called “Cast Members”.  This is because that they are all a part of putting on a show for their “guests”.  Not “customers”, “guests”.  We are Walt’s guests who are invited to his theater “Disney World” to take in the ultimate show.  So for Walt, this simple plaque needed to convey what feelings he felt this show should should leave you with.  The more you learn about Walt Disney, the more you realize no one else could have written this plaque except Walt Disney, because the plaque truly expresses Walt’s own feelings about his guiding principles he shared with every single person who ever worked on anything for him – learn from where you’ve been, think about the possibilities of tomorrow, and never lose the child in yourself and always dare to dream big!  That is what this plaque means to me every time I see it.

As a bonus for you, I dig up this picture which was offered by the D23 Disney Archives, which is a picture of the paper Walt used as he wrote the text of the plaque:

 

Amazingly, Steve B. from Pennsylvania wrote and asked about the exact same plaque, so I get to answer two of your questions with a single post.  This plaque means a lot to me, especially knowing that Walt never got to step foot in the Magic Kingdom as he passed away before it was finished.  But you can still see a lot of Walt visions in the parks today, and this plaque always gets my vacations started off right.

As always, thanks for spending some time with me as I yammer on and on about disney247.  I’ll see ya real soon at the Magic Kingdom.  I’ll be the guy staring up at the plaque and thanking Walt for having the courage to see he dreams through and being a true visionary.

Haunted Mansion Board Game

Oh if I had only been smarter and kept all of my older toys (I’m looking at you Star Wars actions figures!)

I totally remember getting this Haunted Mansion board game for my 8th birthday, and immediately not knowing what to think about it.  Here is a picture of the box:

 

I have always been a fan of scary and horror movies, and it is clear that ghosts play a huge role in this game, but when I has eight, I had never been to Disney World before so I had no clue what the Haunted Mansion was.  Mom knew I love spooky things and board games, so this was an easy pick for her.  It only took a couple of play throughs in order for me to come to love this game.  Here is a picture of the game itself:

 

You make your way through the Haunted Mansion in the Doombuggy vehicles and you have to avoid the “ghost hosts” as well as the spooky black raven.  The goal is to the be the first player to make their way out of the mansion, which is no easy feat since there are 999 happy haunts inside the mansion whose goal it is to make you the “Thousandth Happy Haunt”.

I tell you, as a kid, this game was simply amazing.  It was a way for a young kid like myself to be instantly transported to Disney World and this magical haunted house.  All of the iconic ghosts and images from the Haunted Mansion were included within this game.  Here is some Disney trivia for you that this game includes.  Today when you ride the Haunted Mansion, your “Ghost Host” talks to you and narrates the entire ride, but that was not always how it was supposed to be.  Originally, a black raven was to be the narrator of the ride, and in this board game, they actually have the black raven in the game!  

To this day, the Haunted Mansion ride is only second to Splash Mountain as my favorite ride in the Magic Kingdom and I have to think that this game had a little something to do with it.  

These days you can find Haunted Mansion versions of the board game Clue, as well as Haunted Mansion versions of the board games LIFE and Monopoly.  This time around I’ll be smarter and keep a boxed version of these to sell to rabid collectors down the line.

Thanks for spending your time with me, and as always, it is greatly appreciated.

I’ll see ya real soon in the Haunted Mansion.  I’ll be that 1,000th Happy Haunt who is hanging around the attic playing video games for eternity!

 

Castaway Cay – The Reason to go on a Disney Cruise

Take a look at this view for a minute:

What you are seeing is an entire island owned by Disney called Castaway Cay and it is THE reason to go on a Disney cruise.  Sure the Disney ships are amazing, with a million things to see, some of the best food in the world in an “all you can eat” setting, tons of activities for all members of the family, Broadway style shows every night, and of course you get to go to places like Alaska, the Bahamas, and the Caribbean.  But time and again, the one thing my family looks forward to more than anything is our day at Castaway Cay.  Let me share with you why.

You will start your day with an amazing breakfast on board the ship, then you’ll make your way down the gangplank and onto the island of Castaway Cay.  A short walk away are some photo opportunities like the one pictured above, then you will make your way to a tram.  This is your first choice of the day.  Castaway Cay offers up 4 different beaches for you to choose from.  There is a family beach which is open to all ages.  There is an adults only beach for those over 21 years of age.  There is a water play area for those who are under the age of 8.  Finally there are private beaches available to those who purchase an bungalow for the day.

Here is a map of the island that shows you the many ways to enjoy your day.

Once you choose your beach you can either walk to the family beach which is the first one you come to, or you can take the tram to your desired beach.  We always head straight to the family beach and try to catch some prime real estate as close to the water with an umbrella as possible.  Here is the view we are used to:

Once you settle in, you can decide if you want to partake in the many different activities that  Disney makes available for you.  These include jet skiing, snorkeling, water tricycling (which is a complete blast to do!) or you can purchase inner tubes and rafts to use in the water.  We feel inner tubes are a must.  They let you safely reach the deeper parts of the swimming area when you will be able to look down through the crystal clear waters and see the various sea life making its way through the water.  Just last year, Disney also created a new water play area for older kids and adults called Pelican Point.  Here you can go down water slides that let you off right into the ocean, and you can ride zip lines and jump off into the ocean.  Lots of fun to be had for those who are very adept at swimming.

The island is absolutely filled with all kinds of things to find if you are adventurous.  This plane is said to have been abandoned by the first group who crash landed on the island years before Disney purchased it.  Disney loves to infuse story into everything they do and Castaway Cay is no exception.

Here’s another example of hidden story.  Notice any familiar names on this sign?  Let me help you, Bob Iger is the CEO of the Walt Disney Company, but here on Castaway Cay, he is a Captain of a shrimp boat!

Did I mention that every five minutes an extremely friendly waitperson comes around to take your drink order?!!  Oh yes they do!!  There is little better for me than a frozen strawberry margarita while my eyes are taking in this gorgeous paradise, and at the same time not having a care in the world!  Boy do I love Disney cruises!!!

Oh, did I mention the food?  Oh yes, food is absolutely everywhere you look.  Here, a fresh fruit stand entices you to enjoy some of the best fruit you will ever eat.  All kinds of tropical fruit are on offer here and you would be wise to try everything, even if you have never tried things before.  I have found new fruit that I love just because I tried it here.  There are also soda and ice cream stations all over the island for you to partake in, and partake I always do.

But the best part of Castaway Cay as far as food is concerned has to be Cookies Grill.  At lunch time, a tropical horn sounds alerting you that Cookies is open for business.  So how does this sound to you: all the steak, chicken, ribs, fish, vegetables, sides, and desserts you can fit into your stomach!  Yes, for me, the food on offer at Cookies is second to none and is not to be missed.  There are acres of covered picnic tables around for you to sit at and eat like you have never eaten before.  And I do!!!  Every single item tastes like it just came from your grill at home.  Everything tastes amazing and is made fresh daily.  The cornbread is to die for.  The corn-on-the-cob is so fresh you’d swear you just picked it yourself that morning.  The desserts range from pineapple upside down cake, to warm chocolate chip cookies.  If you have a finicky child, they also offer hot dogs, chicken nuggets, and burgers and fries.  Trust me when I tell you that I have spoken to many people who have told me the sole reason they cruise with Disney is because they get to spend a day at Castaway Cay.

I will leave you with a bunch of different pictures of various places and views on Castaway Cay for you to enjoy.  I didn’t speak a lot about the shops on the island, and that is because they are actually not that special.  They offer t-shirts, beach wear, and sun tan lotion, but nothing you haven’t seen already on board the ship.

So I’ll see you real soon.  I’ll be the guy being wheeled around in a wheelbarrow after one too many steaks at Cookies buffet!

As always, thanks for spending your time with me. Pleas leave any comments you may have below, or feel free to email me with any questions you may have.  Have a blessed evening!

I’d like to thank Beci Mahnken from MEI/Mousfan travel for making her photos available for view.  If your thinking of taking a Disney Cruise anytime soon, you should definitely reach out to Mousefan Travel.  Their service is absolutely free to you and they are the friendliest and best travel agents in the business.

Tonight I answer your Questions – Rainy Day in the Kingdom?

I have received a bunch of questions via email lately so it is time to address them for you as I promised I would.  Tonight’s question is from HappyPoohB from Minnesota.  They write, “Hi Brad!  Thanks for bringing the Disney memories back to me every day.  We do not get a chance to get to Disney World nearly as often as we like.  Given this, we are always fearful that it is going to start pouring rain on us while we are there and then we would end up just going back to our room.  What do you do when you are at Disney World and the skies open up?”

Great question HappyPoohB!  Rain is definitely something that everyone that heads to Disney World is going to encounter sooner or later.  Most of the time the rain comes in quickly, stays for about a half an hour, and then is on its way again.  In these cases it is easy to head indoors and eat or catch a great show like the Hall of Presidents at the Magic Kingdom, The American Adventure in Epcot, Voyage of the Little Mermaid at Disney Hollywood Studios, or the Finding Nemo musical show at the Animal Kingdom.  These are just a few suggestions of the many amazing shows that Disney World offers of course.  I also could have mentioned Muppetvision 3D at the Sudios, Mickeys Philharmagic at the Magic Kingdom, and the O’ Canada movie at the Canadian Pavillion at Epcot are a few other great choices.

But it’s those times when the skies turn grey and the clouds let loose and never stops when your entire day can be ruined quickly, but only if you let it.  So here are my tips for those mega rain storms and how to still have a blast.

To begin with, please, please, please, I beg you, never, ever, ever, never, ever buy one of these:

Yes you read that right – DO NOT EVER buy a poncho from Disney World and here is why. They can cost upwards of $15 dollars!!!  It is a major rip off and you can bet Disney loves selling as many of these things as they can.  You would too if you were making the ridiculous profit margins on these things.  So here’s my tip for you.  Before you ever leave for your trip, go to your nearest sporting goods store and pick up a very cheap rain poncho there for $5 – $7 dollars.  In fact buy one for every member of your family at this cheap price.  Yes you have to pack them in your suitcase, but rain ponchos are about the flattest thing known to man the way they are packaged. You can stack four of them in your suitcase and use up no more space than one normal t-shirt!  So for nearly the price of a single poncho bought at Disney, you can buy four of them at home and save yourself $45 dollars!  Not bad huh?

 

Check out this picture of the water being ankle deep as we head to the Magic Kingdom!  Not a dry eye in the house!  HA!

Ok, so my next tip for you totally will only work if you are a certain type of person.  What do I mean by that?  Let me ask you a couple of questions.  First, can you stand being wet for long periods of time?  Second, do you love very short lines for rides?  Then this tip is for you.  You see, when the rain starts pouring down and it is clear it isn’t going to stop anytime soon, the vast majority of people head for the hills.  That’s right, all of these people who paid a lot of money to be here decide that being wet is no fun, so they head back to their hotel!  Of course not everyone takes this route, as some people will head to the indoor shows in the hopes that when they come out, the rain will be gone (it won’t – I can tell you from experience).  The good news for those of us who actually like running around in the rain in our $5 ponchos is that now, magically, the lines for the best rides in the park suddenly get very short!  During one particularly rainy afternoon, my family and I were able to get on and off of Space Mountain 6 times with no wait!  Think about that for a second, most of the time you wait on Space Mountain, YOU ARE INDOORS ANYWAY!  Crazy isn’t it, but it is totally true!  So I would tell you, throw on your poncho, and run around like you are 9 years old all over again.  Get totally drenched!  Heck we even ride the water rides like Splash Mountain and get soaking wet as NO ONE ever rides a water ride in the rain!

 

“What about umbrellas”? you ask?  Leave those at home and again DO NOT BUY AN UMBRELLA at Disney World.  They normally start at around $20 and go up from there.  Again, I can tell you from experience that the $20 cheap umbrella they sell will break at the very first strong wind that comes along.  Just pass on the umbrellas all together.  When you try to go on the rides, they will make you leave the umbrellas behind, and I can tell you without fail that umbrella will not be there when you get back.  They are too easy for others to take as they get off the ride.  

Finally, there are a few hidden gems that also totally open up when the weatherman gets the best of you.  Firstly, the two putt putt golf courses that Disney owns – WInter Summerland and Fantasia Gardens get empty really quickly when the rain comes.  But my tip for you is, many of the course are covered as they try to offer shade for you.  Now a few of them are not, so you can either choose to skips those holes, or do what we do and play on and laugh your guts out at the way the ball goes all over the place in the rain!  Kids love playing putt putt in the rain as well.

Secondly, Downtown Disney tends to empty out as well, which again is a mystery to me as the stores are all indoors, but again when the rain comes, this is a great time to head to Downtown Disney and shop till you drop.

I hope these tips help you HoneyPoohB, and work for you the way they have worked for my family.  I really appreciate your taking the time to send the email, and I hope to meet you one day at Disney World.  

If you have a question for me, you can reach me at komgenick2@hotmail.com and I’ll happily help you with any question you may have about “All Things Disney”.

Thanks, as always, for spending some time with me here at Disney247.wordpress.com.  I truly appreciate it and I hope you have a blessed day!

I’ll see you real soon at Walt Disney World.  I’ll be that old man in a tye dye poncho riding Splash Mountain for the 10th time in a row in the pouring down raain and running toward the entrance so I can ride it again!

Love LEGO? You’ll LOVE Disney World’s Downtown Disney Lego Store

As with most things in my life, I tend to do things backwards.  For example, most kids love LEGO when they are younger, then tend to give them up as they get older.  Well, for me, it was just the opposite.  During one of our many trips to Walt Disney World, I stumbled upon the  largest LEGO store I had ever seen at Downtown Disney.  In case you’ve never been there, Downtown Disney is a shoppers and food lovers paradise.  There are over 75 shops located at Downtown Disney, along with over 15 restaurants.  The shops range from the worlds largest Disney Store, to D Street, which specializes in high fashion mixed with the Disney brands that we all love.  There is a Ghirardelli Chocolate shop there that hands out FREE samples to everyone walking in the door and the smell inside that shop is divine!  The newest must-see place that just arrived this year is an actual bowling alley called Splitsville.  Think cosmic bowling mixed with some awesome food and spirits in a very contemporary atmosphere.  It’s bowling like you’ve never done before.

Ok back to LEGO!  The first thing you notice as you approach this humongous LEGO store is this gigantic green dragon sitting in the water outside the store.  Apply enough they have named the dragon Brickly!  Here is a picture of Brickly:

Brickly is a true testament to the imagination and is a sight to behold the first time you come across him.  I’m convinced there is probably nothing that the magicians at LEGO cannot make.  

There are many other LEGO figures placed all around the outside of the building.  There is a Dad who is sunburnt and is sound asleep on a bench and he even snores!  Then there is this fine gentleman who is waiting to take your picture:

Then you have our old pals Buzz Lightyear and Woody from the Toy Story movies blasting off into infinity:

One of the most popular figures has to be the black and purple dragon from Sleeping Beauty and the valiant prince fighting back the roaring fire:

Hi-ho-hi-ho- it’s off to spend some serious cash at the LEGO store we go:

Finally, Indiana Jones was there to ensure no one left behind any treasures in the store:

So as you can see from these pictures, the LEGO store is a must-see for anyone who truly appreciates the though and imagination that goes into building any LEGO set.  Inside the store, there are more LEGO sets that you could possibly ever want.  As well, this store has an entire wall of open bricks, so you can grab a bucket and pick out the bricks you want to build your very own LEGO creation.

As I mentioned, I had never build a single LEGO set before I stepped foot into this LEGO paradise, but it didn’t take long to get me hooked.  Now I have to say that the very first thing I was drawn to were the Star Wars sets as I am one of the biggest Star Wars fans in this galaxy.  Once I picked up my first set, I realized what I was about to get myself into – LEGO sets are expensive!  Even the smallest sets go for around $20.  But here is where Disney World makes everything a little bit better.  Because we are annual passholders, we are given a 10% discount!  There is no other LEGO store around that gives you 10% off.  See why I love Disney so much?!

Well I ended up walking out with a couple of sets, and that is all it took to hook me for life.  Not only is it a blast to actually build the LEGO sets, but then it becomes extra fun to display them in unique ways throughout the house.  I have to wonder how I missed out on LEGO’s the first time around when I could have had other people buying them for me?

The LEGO store in Downtown Disney is a must-see even if you never plan on buying a single brick.  The figures alone with mesmerize you, but if your not careful, you’ll end up with a brand new hobby like I did!

As always, thank you so much for spending some time listening to me ramble about my passion.  I truly appreciate it, and all I would ask is that you tell a friend or two to drop on by and share my stories with me as well.

Oh and please don’t forget to stop by disneybythenumber.com for further facts, figures, and stories about all things Disney.

See ya real soon at the LEGO Store.  I’ll be the old man amongst the youngsters jumping up and down about the newest Star Wars LEGO set.

Oh Boy! DisneyByTheNumbers Chose Me!

What an amazing place this world we live in is!  No sooner do I start blogging about my passion, all things Disney, then today I was selected to be a Contributing Writer to one of the best Disney sites on the web, http://www.disneybythenumbers.com/.  Disney By The Numbers is an absolute must follow site for many amazing Disney facts, figures, trivia, and media.  They even have a very cool podcast you can listen to on your iPhone/iPod/iPad.

I look forward to contributing a ton of cool Disney content for them, as well as continuing to blog here.  Since I just got started I feel very blessed to have been chosen already to contribute to such an amazing site as http://www.disneybythenumbers.com/.  Never fear, the  content here will be 100% different than what I post there, so by all means, please continue to join me here for all your Disney247 info.  As always, I appreciate and value the time you spend with me here, and hope you will follow me to my second home.  My first post there should be available sometime in early may!

Oh Boy!  This writing business sure is something!  Ha Ha!

Your Disney Tip For Today – Saving on Food

Trying to save money on food at Disney World?  We all do!  An average trip usually costs a family of 4 $50 per person per day if you eat at a restaurant for all three meals.  Doesn’t leave much room for buying Mickey Ears now does it?  So what is a person to do?

First, always eat a later breakfast.  Breakfast at Disney World is ALWAYS the cheapest meal.  Next cheapest is lunch, with dinner of course usually costing DOUBLE of what lunch costs.  Therefore, eat your breakfast as close to 11:30 as possible.  After 11:30 it turns into lunch service.  Then you can eat a much later lunch as a dinner, then snack on something like a turkey leg or pizza for a much easier priced dinner.

Second, every hotel has a very convenient gift shop it in.  I know, most people skip the gift shops because it is just one more way to spend money.  But usually in the far back of the gift shop, Disney hides the food!  They always keep chips and dip, many kinds of fruit snacks, even bread and frozen dinners on hand.  Most rooms come with microwaves in them, so you can pick up a frozen dinner or two to help curb your meal costs.  I also always recommend for people to buy a couple of two liter bottles of soda as well instead of purchasing individual cans.  Two cans of soda can easily cost more than the two liter at Disney!

Finally, many meals at Disney World come in portions large enough for two people to share.  You should always ask your server if your food item is enough to feed two people.  They will happily tell you the portion size and will gladly bring out an extra plate for sharing. After all, this isn’t the happiest place on Earth for nothing!  

It is very hard to find any food at Disney World that is not great.  There are so many choices. so many unique flavors, and so many different price ranges that you are bound to find something that fits every member of your family.  No need to broke ensuring everyone has a good, hardy meal that they will love to get everytime you visit the parks.  Just keep these tips in mind, and your on your way to another magical day, with a little extra spending money left in your pocket!

Lazy Sunday Waiting to be King

This is how every Sunday should be spent – tummy surfing with your best buds while you wait to be king of the world!!!!  Happy Sunday!

Walt Disney – An Inspiration for Everyone

Let’s say your sitting around with your kids on a lazy Sunday, and everyone is getting bored.  All of you wish that there was somewhere that you could go and have great family together time while you make some memories.  Of course you would want the place to be clean, have great variety, be affordable, and have something for everyone to enjoy.  For 99.9% of us, the action ends with the thought, which in turn turns into a wish that something like that existed.  After all, where would you get the money from?  Where would the land to build it on come from?  The things you would want to have there, such as rides and things, are highly technical in nature and certainly not that easy to build.  Above all, even if you would be able to acquire that much money, there is no guarantee that it would be successful, which of course means you would be instantly bankrupt and your current lifestyle would be gone forever.  So we end up contented to push our dreams out into the ether and hope that someone creates the things we so desperately want.

Not Walter Elias Disney, no sir!  One Sunday, Walt was sitting at a dirty park that had a lousy merry-go-round in it, trying to spend quality time with his daughters.  Of course the girls were having fun because they were getting to see their Dad, which they barely got to see on a regular basis.  Walt wanted their time together to be special, and not spent in a place where no one felt comfortable and spent way too much money for a 2 minute merry-go-round ride.  Walt just knew there had to be better options for he and his family.  After much research he found out that indeed, no such place existed.  For Walt, that meant time for action!

Walt Disney embodied many qualities that I personally wish I had more of.  Walt was fearless, he cared very little for what others thought of him and especially of his ideas, he was a trailblazer and was never afraid to try something new, he was an innovator as he was always creating things that never existed before, he was a devoted husband and father, he cared deeply for those who worked with him (though he rarely outwardly showed it), he was laser focused on quality of his product, and finally Walt was never afraid to speak his mind to someone especially if he felt it would help them in the long run.  Walt was also incredibly intelligent on so many topics.  Business, people, foreign affairs, budgeting, technology, Walt had all the bases covered.  Not bad for someone who never finished grade school!

I’ll save Walt’s early career story or another posting, but suffice it to say that Walt had already started his successful animation business before that fateful Sunday with his daughters.  He had an entire stable of animators working for him to create all of his early successful movies, such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and Mickey Mouse had taken the world by storm.  Walt pulled out a napkin and pencil and he began to draw what his park would look like as his daughters rode the merry-go-round over and over.  He spent well over a week on that doodled-on napkin and he would come back to it for over a month, filling it things here and there and “plussing” it, or making it better each time.

Soon, that napkin had taken over Walt’s every waking thought.  He was totally convinced that the world would flock to his “park” because, in Walt’s own words, it would be a “magical place where everyone who comes there, no matter what their age, instantly becomes a child again.”  Who wouldn’t want that, right?

Walt soon showed his napkin to his brother Roy.  Roy handled all of the finances for the Disney Company, and Roy always acted as a check and balance for Walt, someone Walt could come to and find out whether his next crazy idea had any merit to it.  Roy looked the napkin over, smiled for a minute or two, then threw it back at Walt and said sternly, “Nope.  Too expensive.  Too much risk.  We make pictures, not parks.  Sorry Walt.”  So as we all know, Walt gave up right then and there, and no park was ever built.  HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Walt simply had no clue what the word “No” meant.  Walt picked that napkin up, shook it at Roy’s face and said, “You find the money now Roy.  The world is demanding this park and I’m the damned fool who’s going to give it to them!”  When Roy saw Walt act this way, he knew that Walt was dead serious about his idea, so Roy asked Walt to have a schematic drawn up and Roy would take that to the bank to try to get a loan.  Roy knew of course that no bank would finance such a large outlay of money, especially given such a high risk assessment that this “park” would have, but he loved his little brother and would give it his best shot.

Walt went to his studio and grabbed his best artist and asked him if he would be willing to work the entire weekend drawing up what his “park” was to look like.  The artist told Walt that he couldn’t as he had other plans for the weekend.  Walt, being very persistent as he always was, kept working on the artist and even told him that Walt would stay with him the entire time and bring him food and drink and entertain him while he drew.  After hours of working on the artist, he finally relented and began work on the map of the “park” late on a Friday evening.  The map was finished on Monday afternoon at around 1:00 pm and Roy took that map to the bank at his 4 pm meeting.  Here is what the map looked like:

Just as Roy expected, the bank just could not go all in on a loan for something of this size, but they believed in Walt.  After all it was Walt who went to them to finance the very first full length cartoon feature film, which they called “Walt’s Folly” because there was just no way Snow White and the Seven Dwarves could possibly be successful and make the money back.  Walt showed them then, and he counted on them now, but this “park” was just too huge of a risk.  The bank agreed to fund a large portion of it, but it would be up to Walt and Roy to find other sources to come up with the rest.  

Again most people would throw in the towel there and let their idea die a slow death.  After all, Walt only had the time the artist took to draw the map invested so far, so he could easily cut his loses and maybe try again in the future.  No sir, not Walter Elias Disney!  

Walt again went to his studio, grabbed several of his artists and told them that they now worked for a new company of Walt’s called WED, which was simply Walt’s initials.  They asked Walt what they would be doing and Walt told them they were officially working on his new “park”.  He showed them the map, assigned the different lands to different people, told them to all go away for a week and come back and tell Walt what they needed to make the thing.  Then Walt turned around and went home for the weekend.  Oh and Walt told Roy to go find other partners who were willing to help finance the park.  Walt simply would not let this idea die.  Walt had the uncanny ability to know what people wanted, when they wanted it and usually knew before the people themselves knew.  No one was clamoring for an hour and fifteen minute full length cartoon feature.  No one.  Yet Walt worked everyone tirelessly, and even mortgaged his own home in order to finance Snow White.  Walt said in an interview, “I knew we had a hit when there wasn’t a dry eye in the house after the movie.”  He couldn’t have been more right.  And once again, looking back as we do now, Walt was right that people would flock to his “park”, but somehow he had to get it built first.

Roy eventually got other entertainment companies to join in on the financing, and of course Walt got a television company to agree to finance part of the park if Walt would produce some shows for them.  This is where the Wonderful World of Disney came from of course.  Even here, Walt was a genius – he gave them what they asked for while at the same time advertising for his new “park” as he did pretty much every show.  Walt would stand in front of that map and tease people with all of the wonders that the park would hold.  And the people were eating it up!

So many viewers called into the television company and asked them when this park would be done and how could they get tickets for it early!  That’s all it took for the television company (which by the way was ABC television company, which Disney now owns!) to finance the rest of the park themselves.

So now with the money in place, all Walt needed to do was build the place.  But how in the world would someone who draws animation for a living build a robot that looks exactly like Abe Lincoln, make it talk and move, oh and ensure that it worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? (Disney247!!  Cheap plug there!)  Only one world can explain how this was achieved – Walt.  Walt inspired people to know they could be more than they currently were and he simply would not let up on them until they produced exactly what he asked them too.  There are hundreds and hundreds of stories from people who worked for Walt where they say that they simply would not allow themselves to let Walt down or tell him no.  They all loved him too much for that to happen.  They would stay with problems until they were solved.  If they didn’t know how to do something, they found someone who did and taught themselves how to do it.  Artists became engineers (imagineers is what Walt called them, and they still call them that today).  

Walt’s love for people was known far and wide.  Walt demanded the best from everyone he knew.  Walt never took no for an answer, ever!  When Walt told you that you had done a good job, it was as if you had won the highest award known to man, and that is what all his employees strived for.  Quality was job one for Walt he was never satisfied until all of his guests were satisfied.  There was no detail Walt didn’t sweat over.  The color of the popcorn containers matted just as much to Walt as the price of ride tickets did.  This meticulous attention to detail and customer service is still seen in anything the Disney company produces today, and it all started with Walt.

Walt built his “park”, Disneyland, and of course the world ate it up just as he knew they would.  He would go on to buy up half of Central Florida next.  Walt Disney World would be created without Walt as he passed away before it was created, but to the very end, no one ever told Walt no.

Whenever I personally run into a problem, or start feeling like things will never go my way, or feel like I need to be doing more to bring out the best in others, I always look to Walt for inspiration.  Many times I have found myself worked into a corner on some issue at work.  I then put on my headphones and put on some Disney music that I love.  I surround myself with pictures of Walt and of many of the things that he created that had never even been thought of before he created them, and I remind myself that Walt would not stop at the wall, he would drill the hole big enough to go through it, and doggone it, so will I!!

Thanks Walt!  In all the years since you left the world, we have never seen the likes of you again.  Your mold simply was broken and that’s a shame because, especially these days when everything is more about money than quality, we certainly could use more people like you in the world!

As always, thanks for spending your time with me and blog!  If you have any comments for me on how I can improve the articles, or the blog itself, please feel free to leave them in the comments below.

I’ll see you real soon, and have a very blessed day!