How do you get a room full of people to daydream about Disney? Get them to attend Mousemeets of course!
So most of you know that I spent the weekend of May 5 and 6 in Birmingham attending the Mousemeets 2012 event. My review of the weekend has now been published on wdwradio.com and you can read it here .
What does a Disney fan do when they’ve exhausted all attractions, shows and eateries in every park but still craves something new? Well if they’re anything like me…obsessed with Disney history, the Disney Company and the behind the scenes organisation of the parks…they’ll book up one of the Walt Disney World tours!
During my last visit to the World I FINALLY got to attend the Keys To The Kingdom tour in Magic Kingdom. I’d spoken to friends and family who raved about it…I’d read reviews that were ‘so, so’ about it. Knowing that I have a craving for knowledge of what goes on behind the magic I knew that I had to experience it for myself in order to have my own opinion of the experience.
Now I’m not going to go into the finer details of the tour as I don’t want to spoil it for any of my readers that have yet to take part but I will say that personally I thought this tour was AMAZING!!!
I understand from reading reviews that your tour guide can make or break the tour. Our guide was knowledgeable, with a fun but dry sense of humour and even strict in some places. By the way, their costumes are awesome! We had a great time with our guide and he even let us know that he used to be a ‘friend’ of Goofy’s!
We booked the first tour of the day which meant that we got into Magic Kingdom before the park opened…cue photos on an empty Main Street! As an extra bonus we were waiting outside City Hall for the tour to start when the performers turned up for the park opening ceremony and one of the male dancers stopped to make a fuss about my “awesome” hair!
You are given a ‘guest’ badge to wear on the tour and boy did I feel special walking around MK all morning showing off my ‘guest’ pass 
Other guests look at the group; you can see them wondering who you are and why you are part of a group with a guide…it makes you feel like a VIP.
There were so many highlights of the tour for me. We got to ride Haunted Mansion, but jumped the queue by using a cast member entrance! We got to go backstage; seeing the back of Splash Mountain, some of the parade vehicles being worked on and we might have even seen one or two characters on their break!
And then…the moment I had been waiting for all my Disney fan life….we went into a shop on Main Street, passed through a ‘cast member only’ doorway, descended some steps…and entered the Utilidors…..
Yes, I know they are only corridors, there’s nothing magical about them….or is there? You see to me there is….I like stripping back the pixie dust and seeing what makes Walt Disney World operate. Down in those corridors it felt like any other workplace, in any other part of the world. There were notice boards with motivational messages, staff rooms, training rooms, lockers and tired looking staff. To me it’s important that we don’t forget the effort and energy these people put into making our special place so magical….and that’s why seeing the Utilidors was so important for me.
Were there any negatives of the tour for me? At a push I would say the lunch at Columbia Harbour House…the food was just okay…but then again, it was nice to eat somewhere I hadn’t been before.
And if that wasn’t enough magic for one morning something else happened that will always make me smile when I think about this tour. When you arrive at MK for the tour you report to a cast member in City Hall who is responsible for signing you in, giving you your badge and taking your lunch order. That same cast member is also around at lunch time to show you to your tables. Well, a few days later we were walking around Epcot and I saw that same cast member walking by talking to a couple of people in smart dress. The cast member interrupted his conversation with these important looking people and went out of his way to say hello to us and asked if we were enjoying our vacation. I felt so humbled that he had remembered us from the tour a few days before and that little gesture made me feel like a valued guest.
So would I recommend the Keys To The Kingdom tour? Yes…if you want a small glimpse of what goes on behind the magic…but don’t expect to learn every secret of Walt Disney World…. because some things do have to be left to your imagination
It’s been just over a week since Walt Disney Imagineering held their press conference and shocked the Disney community with their Avatar announcement. Yes, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts will be bringing Avatar to life and it will all begin in Animal Kingdom. Disney didn’t release a lot of information but we know that it will be a long-term creative partnership with James Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment and Fox Filmed Entertainment and the construction for the “first Avatar experience” will begin in 2013.
The internet was a very interesting place to be in the hours and days that followed. I was really surprised at the outpouring of unhappiness and negativity from fans in response to this announcement.
From my personal point of view I didn’t watch Avatar when it was released as it didn’t look like my kind of film so I cannot comment on whether it will translate into an amazing land or attraction….but I do know that Disney Imagineers are pretty good at that kind of thing! Plus I love Animal Kingdom and can quite happily spend more than half a day there, anything that’s designed to develop the natural feeling of that park is a winner with me.
But I didn’t want this post to be about Avatar and what people think of the announcement as there are hundreds of blogs out there which have had that same discussion over and over again in the past week. What I wanted to share is an observation and to get other people’s opinion on that observation.
Disney fans appear to be the most dedicated and passionate fan base I’ve ever known. And this past week has made me wonder why that is. We are fans of Walt and the dream he had. We are fans of how that dream evolved and the joy it has brought to so many people all across the world. So why do we react so negatively to an announcement promising to bring yet more magic to ‘our’ world?
I thought about the Fantasyland announcement. I must admit I had mixed feelings about that but it was probably nostalgia more than anything, and I’m still excited about seeing how WDI bring our imagination to life.
I thought about my favourite attractions (It’s A Small World, TTA Peoplemover and Pirates Of The Caribbean) and how I’d feel if they closed. For the record…I’d struggle with losing them….please don’t do it Disney! I know that fans of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea or Mr Toad’s Wild Ride still feel a little glum about their favourites disappearing.
I tried to think of a film that I really dislike and how I would feel if the characters and scenery from that film had a presence in the parks. Would I not want to visit or would that presence actually change my opinion of the film?
Those who know me well know that I’m quite an opinionated person about everything in my life except Disney. With Disney I try to take the rough with the smooth. I’ve already written about how WDW is my dream place, the place that takes me away from everyday life, the place where I cry happy tears and make memories that will last me a lifetime. I also know that not everything within those park gates is perfect but I have faith in the Walt Disney Company to make it as good as it can be.
So do Disney fans see the parks as their utopia? And if so why do some react so negatively to change? Is it because we are scared of our dream place disappointing us? Are we scared of losing our love for Disney? Is it because we have to face numerous struggles and decisions in our everyday lives so we want everything to be perfect in our Disney lives? Do we feel that we invest so much time and passion in Disney that we deserve a voice and can say whatever we feel?
I don’t have the answer. I do know that I find it fascinating and it keeps me wanting to be a part of it all :)
Just outside of Walt Disney World sits another place which I like to daydream about. Its name is Celebration. And no, it is not a theme park, it is not a working version of Epcot, it’s not solely made up of Disney cast members, and Disney does not have control over every decision made by its residents.
I don’t want this category of posts to be about Celebration’s history as there are lots of websites and articles covering many true, and unfortunately false, details about this town. I wanted to share my discovery of this town, how I finally came to visit last December, and how I still daydream about owning my own little part of Celebration.
I have a vague memory of visiting WDW in the early 90′s and driving past the Celebration development. Our driver pointed over to the development and told us that this was a town that Disney was building (correct) and people could only live there if they were a certain religion (incorrect)! As the years went by I would hear other references to Celebration, mainly covering things like the residents having to have certain coloured curtains in their windows or that the blades of grass on their front lawns had to be a certain length. At that point I, like many others, did not know truth from fable.
In 2008 I started my current job at a university and this meant that I had access to the university’s library. Suddenly I had access to a lot of reference books, and after some searching discovered I had access to many books covering my favourite subject of Disney history and the Disney company. And this is where I discovered ‘Celebration, USA – Living in Disney’s Brave New Town’ by Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins.
This book covers the story of two writers moving their family into Celebration in 1997 to experience the town and it’s community first hand. The book details the designing and building of the town, the advertising campaign by the Walt Disney Company, the original lottery held in 1995 for interested buyers to reserve plots, the faith that those buyers had in the Disney company, the highs and lows of setting up a brand new community and a new way of schooling their children.
I love the detail in this book, I’ve read it cover to cover twice and referred to it on countless occasions. I’m sure that many of the details and personal stories have been ‘edited’ for the enjoyment of the reader but it still gives an excellent insight into Celebration’s history.
And I guess that’s where my interest in Celebration developed into a love for this beautiful place. I love the architecture of the public buildings and the houses. I love the original uniformity and rules imposed on the buildings and early residents. Despite my need to look a little different and stand out from the crowd I actually love the idea of people’s behaviour and public appearance being strictly controlled!! And yes….I know that sounds a little like The Truman Show but isn’t that possibly why we all love Disney so much…after all it is a very uniform and structured organisation.
So, as I read and researched more about Celebration I decided that I had to organise a visit during my trip to WDW in December 2010. It’s important to clarify here that I understand that Celebration is a REAL town, with REAL people, living REAL lives. Despite only being founded in 1994 it already has a rich history and it is this which deserves to attract the genuine tourists.
During that trip I had the opportunity to spend a lovely sunny morning in the town center, a walk around some of the nearby residential streets, and a fascinating look in the Celebration History Center, which has many examples of memorabilia and press clippings covering this town’s origins and first few years.
In future posts I’d like to share some more details and pictures of my visit, and let you know why even after experiencing the reality, I still daydream about Celebration.
I think I have an addictive personality. I will discover something and obsess about it. Obviously my main addiction is Disney but that covers all manner of things that I obsess about. I’m really fascinated by the Walt Disney Company; its past, present, and future. I really love coming across old memorabilia from the parks and how it makes me think about Disney history. The items don’t necessarily have to be specific souvenirs, it can be anything collected from a park; such as a leaflet, receipt, resort map, just anything giving me a window into a moment of time. So that’s where this category of posts come in; I’d like to share some of the things that I’ve kept, found, or been given for my collection of ‘Disneyana’. Some of it may be worth nothing but it’s all priceless to me.
The first collection I want to share is important to me because it was given to me by a colleague at work. Now this person isn’t a Disney nut but I think she just about ’gets’ the Disney thing. I think she understands my passion, understands that there are lots of us Disney geeks out there, and understands that we take our hobby and holiday planning seriously! Not only has she taken the time to pull out newspaper and magazine articles for me about Disney holidays, Disney cruises, and even Celebration (she’s knows I have a soft spot for the place) but a few months back she gave me a collection of park items from Disneyland that she had kept since her visits in the 1980′s. Even without a great deal of knowledge about Disneyland through the decades I think these items are amazing and I can’t wait until my first visit so that I can compare these items against the current ones from the parks today.
Hopefully these items will trigger memories for you if you visited Disneyland in the 80′s or remind you that you have an old ticket stuffed in a drawer some place. If not, then I hope you enjoy the little snippets of Disney history that these pictures may provide.
