It's always fun to meet your favorite characters, and even to get an autograph, but sometimes after standing in line for so long, you get to the from and feel flustered trying to get your autograph things ready, or maybe you feel rushed, because you are the last group before Mickey "gets some cheesecake." Either way, follow these tips for a fun, and carefree experience! 1. Have your autograph stuff out and ready before it's your turn 2. Take the cap off of your Sharpie! Characters can't always remove the cap 3. Set your stuff down! Somtimes you feel so rushed, but if you can, when walking over, set your backpack down. The pictures look better, and it's easier to get a Pooh hug! 4. Play along! Sometimes Pluto wants to run around, run with him! Don't be afraid to pose how you want! Last visit an older woman, on a solo trip, posed each of the Fab 5 at Epcot's Character Spot just how she wanted them, usually in a dancing pose. 5. Pay attention! In the photo above, Smee wanted our oldest to salute in a picture and both he and I almost missed it, because we'd stumbled upon a bunch of characters in a side alley about to leave, and I was fumbling for my camera, and trying to push the youngest towards who he wanted to meet. 6. Even if you have the memory Maker, try and grab a few pictures with your own camera. While the Disney Photographers can get some memorable moments captured, they might not be capturing from the angle that you want, and they won't be capturing all of the fun details in the room you meet Sorcerer Mickey in! 7. This last time might be the most important! Enjoy being there! Sometimes we feel awkward being in a picture...and it shows. 30 years from now, you are going to think you look amazing. You aren't going to care about that spill on your kid's shirt, the frizz in your hair, how that unflattering angle make you look twenty pounds heavier, nope! You are going to remember the fun of that trip! Any other tips to make meeting a character more fun? Who's your favorite to meet?
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On our most recent trip to Disney World, we had cast members going above and beyond to make it extra special. I'll have a later post on how to make sure that they get the recognition they deserve, but today I want to tell you about these gloves. These might be the most special gloves in the world. At Hollywood Studios, we waited to meet Indiana Jones after his show. Those of you who have been there know what it is, you can click here to see pictures of the show. If you haven't ever heard of it, they have some amazing stunt doubles act out several scenes from the Indiana Jones movie and explain a little bit about how some of the special effects are done. It's all absolutely real though, real fire real possibility of getting hurt. Just amazing to see. Anyway it's not every time but sometimes afterwards Indiana Jones will go and meet his fans. The little one got terrified once again to meet his Idol, and hid behind dad on the very very top row of the theater. Big brother asked them for an autograph and pointed out his brother dressed as Indiana Jones and said he was too shy to come down. Indy and Marion said "No problem! We will go to him!!" And they started walking up the stairs. Little brother saw and instantly hid and started dragging Dad out. I apologized and said that he was so nervous. Indy and Marion just smiled, and signed the white hats we were collecting autographs on for the boys, and then Indy stops, asks Little Brother's name, looks over and picks up the gloves he'd worn in the show and said "Here. Give these to your brother." Indy laughed, and apologized, saying "You might need to sanitize them, they're a little sweaty!" Those gloves stayed on him almost non-stop the rest of the trip, and have a very special place in his Indiana Jones bag. It was such a special gift and something that we never imagined could happen. I made sure to email Guest Services with a cast compliment, and about a week later I heard back from them. It's reasons like this that though, Disney is expensive, and they make it hard to go sometimes, we keep going back. Memories like these are priceless. While at Disney, we lost a magic band. To be more specific, a magic band on the Magic Keeper lanyard clip, on a Thor lanyard. After tearing apart the room, thinking about where it was last at, we gave up and went to the front desk of our resort. There we were given a new magic band, it was activated, the old one deactivated, and the slip of paper that you see above with a URL to file a claim. On our way back to the park that day, I filled out the claim multiple times, since you need to fill it out once for each location. When we got back to Magic Kingdom, I asked the Security Guard checking our bags where something, if it were lost, might go. He pointed me me to the right direction, and we stopped by the Guest Services at Magic Kingdom after stopping by the last place our oldest had had his backpack open, a pressed penny machine at the gift shop just past security. The girl seemed to remember something being found, so we headed to Guest Services. There we were describing out lost Magic Keeper, and miraculously, it had been turned in, but also to her, the CM helping us, who had remembered the tiny little Thor hammer hanging from it. While our stressful few hours had a happy ending, I learned a few things that might make it easier for you to find your lost item. 1. File the report ASAP, but don't wait for Disney to contact you. Keep checking with them. 2. Lost items don't instantly get transported to the central lost and found area for all of Disney. They stay, until the end of the day at the location they were lost. This really improves your chances of getting your item back if you can remember where you lost it. 3. The better you can describe something, the easier it will be for them to find your item. Lost items are kept in Ziploc's, and there could be hundreds piled together in a box or on a shelf, so saying, the blue magic band on a lanyard, is going to make the search longer, and quite possibly unsuccessful, as opposed to saying the blue magic band, on a Mickey head magic keeper, on a Thor lanyard that looks like this, (showing picture) Disney has a pretty good return rate I was told, and while I hope you never lost anything, if you do, it will probably work out very quickly you get your item back, especially if you follow the above advice. This is a sponsored post. All opinions are my own, but I was compensated for giving my thoughts We just got back from Disney and like thousands of other families, we were making sure to snap a few pictures to go inside of our Christmas cards! I can't tell you how many people I saw posing by the fake snowy area near the Christmas shops or even whipping out Santa hats with Mickey! One day I'll be that organized! Meantime, we've got our winning picture, but whats the best way to show everyone how much fun we were having, and encourage them to go too? I can tell you that, easily! Don't let the name fool you. Basic Invite has more than invites, and they aren't basic! Custom holiday cards! Custom stickers! Custom stationary! I might have discovered my new favorite company. Basic Invite is one of the most amazing companies I have ever shopped at. Their customization is seemingly endless and you can preview everything instantly and tinker and play until it's practically perfect in every way! There are over 180 different colors to choose from when designing your products. Who else has that?! No one! It's not just colors, it's fonts, it's borders, it's the edges of your stationary, and the card shape! Let me tell you...I've never gotten to modify the text on a Christmas card before to make it just the way I want! It took forever for me to choose what I wanted to order because it was all so fun to explore. If you aren't wanting a large quantity, it's totally fine, you can actually order a sample of what you were thinking of, so you can hold in your hands and make sure it's perfect before you buy more. Everything ships quickly too, for those last minute needs. Enough talk though, let me show you what I got! I choose some basics, so that I could test a good variety of the Basic Invite products. For starters, I chose the note cards. There are over 40 colors of peel and seal envelopes to choose from! No licking a zillion envelopes when mass mailing for an event! You can match or contrast your cards perfectly with all of those colors! It's amazing how you are in complete control over even the tiniest of details. Next, I got a holiday card, of course! I was surprised at how I could completely customize everything. The shape, the text, the colors of the card, the colors of the text, I have never seen anything like this before, it was almost overwhelming getting to choose what – I – wanted, and not being stuck with a nice choice, but one a thousand other people will be sending. You can't go wrong with the custom holiday cards, or the Christmas photo cards that are so popular to send each year. Then, I moved over to the stickers. While doing these, I had the best idea ever (but didn't have my vacation picture downloaded yet, booo!) how cute would these be with the kids faces, to label their stuff at school, or on a thank you card to someone, maybe with your business logo (like I did my blog name!) or even, for you allergy parents, a reminder for a child's allergen, so they could wear the sticker on a field trip, or put on a desk or lunch box as a reminder to others. Lastly, I chose some thank you cards. There were so many designs, I could have spent all day choosing what I wanted, but I chose simple, in teal. There are so many fun cards to pick from, just browse, you won't be disappointed! Foil options are available too, which is really exciting and I think would be really fun to make a special occasion invite or note even more special! You can choose from gold, silver or rose gold, which all you Disney fans will agree, is a Park favorite. There's another special thing that sets Basic Invite apart. Ever heard of address capturing services? Me neither! But just by sharing a link, you can request friends and family's addresses, and those addresses can be printed AT NO COST onto envelopes for you! What a time saver! There are so many more products to choose from, like business Christmas cards, and regular business cards (think of all the non business uses those could be used for!) I hope you'll take a few minutes to browse the site! Pick a product and start customizing it. It's a lot of fun, and you won't be disappointed with the final product. Possibilities are endless with Basic Invite, and to help you get started on your own creative journey, use the coupon code 15FF51 for 15% off your order! I am excited to use my own Basic Invite products. The quality of the paper is fantastic, it's thick, beautifully printed, and it was so much fun completely customizing everything, I can't wait to go do it again! You can find Basic Invite of course, at their website, but also on They are ready to answer any questions you might have! Check out a few of their other products! Are you ready to try for yourself? Don't forget to use coupon code 15FF51 for 15% off your order! This year we decided NOT to get the Disney Dining Plan. For months we went back and forth on if it would save us money, or if we would spend more, or if would simply be a hassle handing over a gift card. I almost wore out the Disney Dining Plan Calculator, I used it so much! The three reasons we chose not to get the dining plan, were: 1. Now that our oldest is now considered a Disney adult, truthfully hes not an adventurous eater, and always wanted a kids meal, instead of an adult, unless it was pizza. 2. Now that food allergies are in our house, getting desserts are a lot more complicated at Disney. While Mr. Disney and the oldest can get anything they want, since the youngest can't have any baked good really, and was limited to churros, sort serve and slushies, I sure as anything wasn't going to be eating cupcakes without him! 3. The final reason was that we ALWAYS have loads of snack credits left, that get used on candy and treats to bring home, that often don't get eaten, or were a last minuite got to spend them unwise bang for the buck choice. With those reasons, and hours of menu research and number crunching ahead of us, we put the balance that we would have spent on the Disney Dining Plan onto a gift card, (bought discounted!!) and decided to experiment. The rules were: 1. Order whatever you want 2. Rapid Refill Mugs are a must 3. Bring home a few treats 4. No cringing at prices allowed Doesn't sound so bad, does it? Here's what happened. We swiped a gift card almost every time. Even places at Disney Springs like Wolf Gang Puck Express took out Disney gift card! I did have to use cash twice, at Epcot, when their system was down, so I was grateful I had a few emergency dollars with me. What did we spend though?The numbers are exciting! For 8 nights, 9 days, the Disney Dining Plan would have cost $1450.24 For 64 meals and a ton of snacks, including ones to bring home we spend $1068.59 That means, we saved $381.65 That's a loooot of money. There were a few times Mr. Disney wanted water with a meal, once I shared a meal with the youngest of chicken nuggets and fries and we did bring drinks inside the park, but even if he bought a drink each time, and we had chosen more take home snacks, we would still have come out ahead. Things change, appetites are sure to grow as my boys do, but this trip, we saved enough to cover most of the souvenirs we wanted! There's a good chance if your kids are now Disney Adults, you might save a bundle, too! |
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