Category Archives: Disney at Home

What if Wednesday – What New Disney Show or Parade Would You Add?

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What if WednesdayLadies and Gentlemen!  It’s time once again for What-If Wednesday!  The game show where we use our imagination to bring about Disney change.  Contestants from Twitter and Facebook go head to head and compete to invent the most popular (pretend) changes.  Get ready to let your imagination run wild!  And as Drew Carey would say, this is ”the show where everything’s made up and the points don’t matter.”  Let’s play!

This week’s episode – Bringing a New Parade or Show to Walt Disney World!

1 Min Disney Dream (@1MinDisneyDream) suggested this: “New nighttime parade at MK incorporating both Spectro (SpectroMagic Parade) and MSEP (Main Street Electric Parade) music and new floats including some more villains” My two cents:  This is a great idea!  As long as the villains replaced those creepy Spectro dolls – those things completely freaked me out.  I know it was a combination of their facial expression and how they moved.  Usually, I don’t have a fear of clowns or dolls, bot those Spectro Magic characters were just spooky!  I’d take villains over them any day  For that one reason only, the Main Street Electric Parade has always been my favorite.  If you have no idea what I’m talking about watch this YouTube video from Orlando Attractions Magazine:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv2IlwcMXaM

IMG_5212Disney20Somethings (@DisneyTwenties) was also thinking about villains and would like to see a  “villains parade at DHS in old style villain modified cars” was their idea and WOW!  Think about that!  How much fun would it be to see all our favorite villains and instead of parade floats, they were riding in their own bad-guy-mobiles!  Cruella’s roadster is an obvious choice, but what kind of cool car would Hades drive?  What about Captain Hook?  A ship-like ride?  I can just picture Professor Ratigan in a steam-punk ride!  Jafar in a snake-y ride or maybe a genie-lamp-shaped one?  Dr. Facilier from The Princess and the Frog – I picture a low riding, stretched out magical purple and black car with flames!  Think about Yzma and a funky art-deco-looking flintstone-ish vehicle – driven and powered by Kronk!  Oh, the possibilities.

Michele T Williams (@MSimbaspride) – Michele wants her new parade to be at the Studios and she said, “I would bring out the Star Wars characters at DHS all year round for a parade once or twice daily. May the force be with you”  Michele, being a huge Star Wars fan, clearly doesn’t think Star Wars Weekends are enough – and I’m inclined to agree.  If a Star IMG_4880Wars Land ever became a reality, a parade that included Jedi Mickey, Yoda, R2-D2, C-3PO, Wookies, Ewoks, Storm Troupers, Jabba the Hutt, and (duhn-duhn-duhn, dun-da-dun-dun) – Darth Vader!!!  Yes!

“Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is.” – Yoda, Attack of the Clones

A couple of members of The Fam wanted in on this What-if Wednesday…

Megan had ideas for several parks and agrees with Michele from Twitter that Star Wars needs a year-round representation and also voted for “a Star Wars parade at the Studios”.  Megan would also like to see “a parade of Disney throughout time at Magic Kingdom. The parade starts with floats and characters from Disney’s early works and ends with today’s stuff like Frozen. A parade at animal kingdom that incorporates live animals, maybe.”  My favorite of these is the Disney Through Time idea – the floats and characters could even start out in black and white (Steamboat Willie)!  The musical styles would change as time goes by as would all the costumes and characters – yes, that would be a bunch of fun to see.

Raymond, who has a lot of faith in Disney Imagineers, suggested a “Parade around the lagoon at Epcot. When the parade gets to a country everything changes to match that country. Costumes and all. If there are characters from Disney movies, they suddenly appear.”  Now, THIS idea would really be amazing!  How cool would it be to see the parade move along, morphing as it goes – flags, clothing, characters, music – all changing through Disney magic to match each of the World Showcase countries.  Oh, I give this one a big round of applause!

So, what about you?  What new parade or show would you add to Walt Disney World?

Thanks for playing, everyone!

What’s Happening with Your Favorite Facebook Pages?

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FB Save 3A public service announcement from your friends at Living a Disney Life:

What is happening to your favorite (“LIKED”) pages on Facebook?  I’ll tell you why you may not be seeing much of them these days.  If you have “Liked” pages on Facebook, but you haven’t pressed the like button (or commented) on specific posts for those pages, Facebook is going to stop sharing your favorite pages’ updates with you.

So, unless you’ve recently interacted with this very page, you’re probably not even seeing this post!  Luckily, there’s a way to make sure you don’t miss any updates from your favorite pages.  Simply go to the pages you LIKE, hover over the LIKE button – when a drop-down menu appears, check “receive notifications”…just that easy.  You can see in my illustration that I’ve completed the steps for one of my personal favorite Disney pages – Tips From the Disney Divas and Devos.  If you haven’t visited them yet, be sure to check them out either on Facebook or at the website:  Tipsfromthedisneydiva.com.

Thank you for listening.

Shorts Saturday: What Made Me Smile Today

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http://magicalfamilyadventures.blogspot.com/p/shorts.htmlThis week’s Shorts Saturday, a blog hop hosted by Adventure in the Great Wide Somewhere , is going to be quite a challenge.  The subject:  What made me smile today – is pretty easy since I smiled a lot.  The hard part is describing it in 50 words or less.  FIFTY!  Yikes.  I’ll do my best….here goes:

It’s cold and dreary out.  Winter’s still going strong, but I can always count on my husband to know just what we need.  We’re starting our evening off with a glass of wine and online shopping for Disney travel posters.  Perfect reminder of summer and our last Disney cruise.  DSCN2986

100 Days of Living a Disney Life

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1MinDisneyDreamLiving a Disney Life.com has reached a small milestone today – The blog is 100 days old.  During that time, I have written about every Disney topic from Disney cruise ports, theme parks and restaurant reviews to DIY Disney Christmas ornaments, Disney vintage vinyl, Disney Pin trading, and Disney recipes to cook at home – I guess I’ve had a thing or two to say about my love for Disney!

Let’s take a sec to ponder how this happened.  It all began with a tweet I noticed on September 4th.  It was from @WDWDisneyDiva and it said, “So you think you know Disney?  Recruiting Disney Writers!”  I thought – “I know Disney” and followed the link to find out more.  I submitted an article for consideration called The Importance of Planning, But Not Too Much – I sent it in on a whim – because we are huge Disney fans at my house, because I thought writing that one article would be fun, because I like a challenge and trying new things, but mostly because my youngest child had just left home and I was finding out first hand that “empty nest syndrome”, something I used to make jokes about, was an actual thing.  Along with my article, I submitted a silly top ten list of reasons the selection committee at Tips From the Disney Divas & Devos should choose me as an article writer.  It was for fun, but guess what?  I got the job!

It was like setting a match to very dry tinder.

My brain kicked into overdrive.  I made lists of articles I could write and I became consumed IMG_2398with thoughts of Disney – how our family had always loved Disney and how huge a role Disney had played in our lives, how our happiest memories involve Disney vacations, how we have so many Disney collectibles, Disney books, Disney pins, Disney clothes.  I started waking up in the middle of the night thinking of more and more Disney things to talk about.  There was NO way I was going to get this under control submitting two articles a month – I needed to start my own Disney blog so I could get some sleep!

I did consider carefully what I’d be getting into.  You can’t embark on something like this then abandon ship – well, I guess you CAN, but that’s not my style.  I have pretty good sticking power and have never been afraid of commitment (I did say yes when Raymond proposed to me just 6 weeks after we met!).  For about the price of a new purse (that was my justification, anyway) I bought my own website URL for three years.  So, honestly, Kristin the Disney Diva and fellow Diva, Amy get the credit (or the blame, I suppose) for Living a Disney Life.com’s existence.

IMG_2100I knew absolutely nothing about blogging other than knowing I like to read a few.  Google was my classroom and I crammed as if studying for final exams – blog hosting sites, Word Press basics, themes, widgets, pages, links, SEO, categories, tags, spam blocking, how to set up a Facebook page for a website.  Exciting stuff!  I published my first Living a Disney Life post on October 26th and this is my 102nd post in 100 days!  I still have a LOT to learn but at least the raging firestorm of Disney thoughts has now been contained to manageable flames – with an occasional flare up.

It’s like discovering buried treasure in my own backyard!  I had a twitter account purely for the purpose of spying seeing what my children and their friends had to say…today I have over 500 followers.  The number of fans that make up the Disney Community is amazing and those that I’ve met through this experience have been kind and funny and, most of all, welcoming and supportive.  Living a Disney Life on Facebook  has over 250 “likes” and I’ve been building small audiences on Pinterest and Instagram as well.  I even have a Klout score and I know what it is!  One of the most exciting things to happen so far, though, involves my love of Disney Podcasts.

Early on, I confided in Raymond a secret wish I’d been keeping – maybe someday, after a while, if my blog became successful, maybe I might get lucky enough to be invited as a guest on one of the Disney podcasts I love so much.  I couldn’t believe when, after day 69’s post – Disney Podcasts – Are you a Podperson?  brought so much attention – My wish came true!  The fabulous, gracious Disney Dream Girls asked me to be a guest on their show to talk about my Disney New Year’s Resolutions.  I’m still amazed that this happened to me!  The episode aired on January 9th – if you haven’t had the chance, please give the Dream Girls a listen.

So today I just wanted to look back a mere three months and reflect on all the fantastic thingsMed Cruise 2013 Camera 003 that have happened during that time (with The Fam’s unwavering support – I love you!).  Tomorrow’s post will be back to normal with another random Disney topic from my Disney life.

Please accept my very heartfelt thanks for taking the time to visit and read this and other posts, thank you for following me on Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.  Thank you for liking the blog’s Facebook page and for every comment you’ve left me there and here.  Yes, I would probably still tweet, pin, and post even if you weren’t here – but you are what has made this experience unbelievably magical instead of ordinary and for that, I am sincerely grateful.