Tag Archives: Disney Travel

Meet My Friend Nick from Disney Musings

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RM-Nick-and-Lisa-at-EpcotIf you happened to catch this post about how much I enjoy meeting new and not-so-new friends at Walt Disney World, then you’ve heard me mention my buddy Nick and his wife, Barbie.  Nick and I both are contributing writers at Tips from the Disney Divas and Devos, which is how we met.  Nick and Barbie live in New Jersey and have their own blog called Disney Musings.

One of the things I like about Nick and Disney Musings is that he and I are often of differing opinions on Walt Disney World restaurants and attractions.  It makes for fun debates and good-natured ribbing.  For example, Nick and Barbie consider the Hollywood Brown Derby one of their all-time favorite Disney World restaurants, me?  Not so much.  It’s also great to know, after meeting them, that Barbie and Nick are as kind and fun in person as they seem to be on Disney Musings.  It’s fun reading other Disney fans’ views on various aspects of Disney travel and entertainment.  Disney Musings also has a RM-Barbie-Nick-Lisafew other contributing writers who offer many different perspectives on a huge variety of Disney travel topics – including Walt Disney World, Disneyland and Disney Cruise Line.

Nick and Barbie have some incredible Disney collectibles and amazing Disney Christmas decorations I’d love to show you.  And I will!  Show you, I mean.  Starting next Saturday, I’ll share one of Disney Musings’ blog posts here for you to read each week.  I know you’ll enjoy following along with Nick and Barbie on some of their Disney adventures as much as I do.  Wait until you see some of their awesome Disney Halloween and Pirate Night costumes!

Check back on Saturdays for some extra Disney fun!  If you want to get a jump on exploring all the goings on at Disney Musings, click here.

Like Disney Musings on Facebook here.

Follow Disney Musings on Twitter here and Instagram here.

 

 

7 Styles of Disney Park Walking

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RM-Main-Street-USA-Magic-KingdomEveryone has a style.  I’d be willing to be that in this particular category of Walt Disney World guest, you have a style from which you rarely deviate!  I’m talking movement – how you travel within a Disney park on foot.  I’ve had the opportunity to observe Disney park visitors over the past couple of dozen years and I’ve identified what I like to refer to as….

The 7 Styles of Disney Park Walking

1. Walk OR Talk – If this is you, a multi-tasker you are not.  This type of traveler cannot walk and talk (or eat) and must stop and start repeatedly.  Walk….stop and turn to a particular traveling companion, speak…..resume walking.  No brake lights makes this type of fellow park guest RM-Fantasyland-Crowdone we shouldn’t follow too closely or a collision will most definitely occur!

2. Diagonal Walker – At first these cross-movement specialists seem as if they might be trying to traverse the crowd to reach a specific destination, but no…the diagonal path leads to the very edge of the walkway and then, like a pinball, this vacationer bounces back into the crowd in a new direction back across the path of every other visitor.  This is one of Disney vacationing’s greatest mysteries to me – If you’re a diagonal traveler, please enlighten me – Why must you walk that way?

3. Weavers – These fans of the random zig-zag seem virtually incapable of walking in a straight line from points A to B.  Not to be confused with the Diagonal Walkers, the zig-zag pattern is very narrow and repeats often – most commonly in the RM-Epcot-France-Pavilionvery center of paths and sidewalks.  It seems to me that Weavers are more likely to be pushing a stroller which makes me wonder if a faulty stroller wheel may contribute to this phenomenon.

4. Red Rovers – Remember the semi-violent playground game “Red Rover”?  The premise was to physically band together in an impenetrable straight line – the goal being to remain attached firmly enough to repel attempts by opposing team members to break the line.  The Red Rover style of park crossing involves the same principle:  Walk side by side with friends or family across as much of the walkway as possible, allowing no one to pass between you from either direction.  Oncoming or overtaking foot traffic must not be allowed to pass!  Personally, I find this to be the #1 most annoying type of group walking behavior in Disney parks.  Please don’t tell me if you are a member of this category.RM-Walkers-Walt-Disney-World

5. The Classic Mosey-ers – I admire them as much as I dislike this type of Disney guest.  They care not one whit about getting anywhere in a hurry.  The masters of the mosey walk in a straight line while their heads slowly swivel from side to side, soaking up the atmosphere, taking in all the sights and sounds, living the dream, baby!  My problem is that I always seem to be stuck behind them with a FastPass that’s about to expire.

6. Rear Viewers – This style is so difficult to execute successfully, it may be impossible – but that doesn’t keep plenty of brave souls from trying.  This method of reaching a final destination involves walking backwards to converse with other travel party members, check on offspring, or gesture in the direction from which they are moving away.  Rear viewers have absolutely no idea what they may be walking into!  Probably the most entertaining walkers to watch, these Disney tourists are missing some pretty awesome stuff in front of them – mainly the comical flight of the folks they’re about to run down!

RM-Adventureland-Magic-Kingdom7. Roundabouts (a.k.a. Dodgers or Gappers) – This is the category I call home!  We are the fast paced travelers who swiftly negotiate the other 6 types of walkers by taking advantage of gaps and openings wherever we find them.  Our ninja-like stealth allows us to flow through all the other park guests unnoticed with barely a ripple.  We are always moving forward briskly and with purpose.  Oh, okay, I’ll admit it – I just want all the non-like-minded people to get out of the way so I can be in front!  Since that rarely happens, I’ve developed what I like to believe are some well-honed skills that make me and my family members amazing crowd negotiators.

Yes, I really want to know!  Which type of Disney park walker are YOU?

 

 

Confessions from Nick at Disney Musings

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operaPlease welcome today’s guest, Nick! Nick’s got a great Disney blog with awesome photographs over at Disney Musings – be sure to check it out!

The Most Emotional Hour I Ever Spent at a Disney Park

I’m going to share a secret with you. I’m an emotional guy. When I encounter something that touches me, I lose it. A movie. A song. A bench. What type of bench would make me break down? I’ve actually talked about this very topic in my review of the Walt Disney Family Museum. I sat down on one of the benches from Griffith Park, where Walt would sit and watch his daughters on the carousel. It was on these benches that Walt envisioned a park that families could enjoy together. The act of sitting on a bench that Walt himself likely sat on made me burst into tears. But I’m getting way ahead of myself. Let me take you back to a trip I took to Disneyland back in late September of 2010 with my wife and friends, Todd, Meghan, and our Godson, Flynn. On the last hot afternoon of our 3 day stay at the Grand Californian, the group went back to the  rooms to escape the heat and take a nap. I stayed behind and decided to visit attractions we hadn’t gotten to yet, including Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, located at the Opera House at the front of Disneyland.

Upon entering, I saw this:Bench

The plaque reads: The Actual park bench from the Griffith Park Merry-Go-Round in Los Angeles, where Walt Disney first dreamed of Disneyland. Yes, I started to cry. On another plaque nearby, under a picture of the carousel:

merry

Walt Disney’s Dream “It came about when my daughters were very young and Saturday was always Daddy’s day…So we’d start out and try to go someplace…I’d take them to the merry-go-round and I took them different places and as I’d sit while they rode the merry-go-round – sit on a bench, you know, eating peanuts – I felt that there should be something built, some kind of amusement enterprise, where the parents and the children could have fun together. So that’s how Disneyland started.” Walt Disney I started to sob. As there was still 15 minutes until the next Lincoln show, I stepped outside to get air, just as the Flag Retreat Ceremony was starting! This is so patriotic and moving, my crying just intensified.

Flag+Lowering

I finally got it together, somewhat, and entered the theater to see Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln. Due to knowing that this was an attraction Walt was personally involved with, the patriotic nature of the show, and the moving “2 Brothers” Civil War Segment that people who have visited the American Pavilion in Epcot will be familiar with, I broke into tears once again. I was thankful that my family and friends were not present to see what an emotional wreck I’d become! Happy Anniversary to Disneyland, which opened on this day in 1955, and thank you Walt! -sniff-

For more great Disney stories, reviews, history and more, be sure to follow Nick in all these places:

 

 

Tweet Disney Wisdom

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IMG_5229“Do all you can to take in all the subtle details and anticipate unexpected surprises on your Walt Disney World trips.” –  Tweeted by Curtis Stone @GeekinOnWDW,  12/11/13

No truer words were ever tweeted!  Right after I re-tweeted and favorited Curtis’s sentiment, I thought about the number of times I have been awed, surprised, amazed, astounded (get the idea?) by the very special and sometimes extremely tiny (yet no less amazing) details that one can find literally everywhere at Disney World!

As an illustration, I’ll list just ten incredible Disney details here (in no particular order) – Go to Disney World and find some of your own! – there are thousands of breathtaking, magical pixie-dusted surprises waiting for you.

1.  Hidden Mickeys – you’ve heard me mention them before, but you will find them in the mostIMG_3022 unexpected places – woven into the design in carpets, on bedspreads, in bathrooms – seek and you shall find!

2.  Look at the windows on Main Street – look UP!  The names etched on those windows are tributes to some of the most amazing and creative people that have ever lived – imagineers responsible for all the amazing details Curtis was tweeting about.

3.  If I had a nickel for every special moment we’ve experienced with a Disney character, I could retire early!  Not just after waiting in line, either – my story about Donald is one example, IMG_4880but there have been so many times – even during parades when a character singles you out for one special moment of interaction – magical, surprising, SO precious – what Disney is all about!

4. The license plates on the limos in Rock’n’ Roller Coaster – a tiny detail we would never miss if those plates weren’t there, but WOW!  Cool, clever, and funny!  Check them out when you go.

5. Sound effects!  I’ll give one example – the outdoor sounds on the grounds at the Port Orleans Riverside resort.  You hear crickets and frogs while you walk among the landscaping between the resort’s buildings – those are sound effects!

6.  The smell on Main Street (baking cookies!) and other smells manufactured for your IMG_2069enjoyment – want to know more?  Go here.

7.  DON’T PULL THE ROPE!  Look for it near the Indiana Jones area in Disney’s Hollywood Studios – then PULL THE ROPE!  See what happens – fantastic!

8.  The Tree of Life in Animal Kingdom.  Just LOOK at it.  Artificial 145 foot-tall tree – looks amazingly real from a distance – then upon closer inspection, the details of every single artistic image depicted on the tree’s trunk and roots will amaze you.  I could look at its 325 carved figures all day.  Oh, and Disney’s ability to add magical touches to photographs is a nice bit of magic too.

9.  Look Down!  Details on the ground are everywhere.  One example is the imprints in the cement walkways in the Storybook Circus area of IMG_0874Fantasyland in Magic Kingdom (circus animal footprints and peanut shells) but there are lots of surprises like this all over Disney World – great fun for little ones to find!

10.  This one you might not be able to duplicate, but I experienced this bit of Disney magic once upon a time as I entered the queue for the Tower of Terror.  The solemn, gray-uniformed bellhop welcoming me, called me “Miss” and as if that wasn’t magical enough, I commented on how nobody had called me “miss” in many a year – he held out his hand to me and, on that oh-so-hot-and-humid summer day in Florida, when I placed my hand in his – his grip was ICE COLD!

What Disney details and surprises make your vacation magical?  

Follow Curtis on Twitter:  @GeekinOnWDW, follow his blog here.

You can find me on Twitter @life_of_green.