Month: October 2013

A Mom’s Review of Disney’s MagicBands

magic bands1On September 13, 2013 my family was invited to test Walt Disney World’s magical tool called MyMagic+.

Before I start my review, I want you to remind you that I am in no way affiliated with The Walt Disney Company and all opinions in this post are just that, my opinions.  In this review I will tell you about my family’s experience being part of Disney’s “test”.  Now on with the review!

We received our first invitation to test MyMagic+ in an email and then another email.  Soon to follow was an overnighted invitation by way of FedEx and then another overnighted invitation.  Needless to say, we were invited.  Talk about feeling needed!  Why, you might ask, did we receive so many invites?  The answer is my family vacations at Walt Disney World by using our Disney Vacation Club membership.  I don’t want to dive deep into a review of Disney Vacation Club, but I do want you to know that while using my membership I had four different reservations during our one week vacation.    Three of the reservations were for the same resort, same room and for consecutive days.  The reason that I received two different emails and two different letters (each with different codes) was because we were invited to test MyMagic+ for two out of four of our reservations.  We curiously accepted our two invitations.

As instructed, I began our experience by going on-line to mydisneyexperience.com and attempted to complete the steps on the email I received.  The first step was to sign on or register on mydisneyexperience.com.  From there I was told I could request Magic Bands and select FastPass+ times.  For each reservation I had no problem requesting and personalizing the bands.  Since we had two different invites, I accepted both and ordered two sets of MagicBands.  Having the two different sets, I was concerned that we would confuse the bands, so I chose different colors for each reservation.  I later found out after receiving them that we only needed one band per person and it would work for all linked reservations.

Selecting FastPass+ times was a little more complicated.  I learned from this experience and I’ll pass the knowledge I gained on to you!  First, you must have tickets linked to your reservations.  We have annual passes, so we had to link the passes to our reservations before we were allowed to select our FastPass+ times.  Second, you are only allowed to select FastPass+ times for those members in your resort reservation party.  At this time (September 28th through October 5th) not all resorts were participating in this test. Since I had already registered my family on mydisneyexperience.com before the test invitation, I had included all 13 people in my family, including family staying at a different resort. For this test, I could only select FastPass+ times for our family of four.  I’ll elaborate more on our FastPass+ experience later in this post.

After completing the steps on my invitations my family received two special packages!

magic bands 2

I can not express in words how excited my children were upon opening these boxes.  Victoria, our two-year old wanted to wear her band instantly.  All of the MagicBands in the box are the same size.  To reduce the size of the band to fit a toddler or small child, you peel the outside grey lining off of the solid color band.

magic bandsOnce the grey part of the band was removed, the MagicBand fit our toddler perfectly.

Now that we had our MagicBands we were ready to go! or at least pack to go to Disney.  Here’s some additional information that I learned through this process that I’d like to pass along with you.  Yes, the initial thought that ran through my mind upon getting this shiny Incredible box was “Wow, this is cool.”  However, taking that box on vacation with you takes up precious packing space.  You don’t have to take the box with you.  I packed them in a quartz size Ziploc bag and put them in my purse.  When we arrived in the airport, we put them on.  Do not pack them in your check in bag.  You’ll need them for your Magical Express Bus ride to your resort.

Magical Express was our first experience in how COOL MagicBands really are.  As I mentioned earlier, our “test” was only for 2 out of 4 reservations.  I did not expect our bands to work until our “test” reservation dates, which were in the middle of our seven-day trip, not the first day, but we tried them anyways.  To my surprise, we approached our first MagicBand Mickey spot and lined up our band’s Mickey icon to the icon at the Magical Express location and my family was greeted and told where to wait for our bus.

After checking into the resort, the kids and my husband headed over to the Magic Kingdom Park.  Since we had linked our annual passes to the bands, they were allowed access into the park without any problems.  Since our “test” had not started yet, so their paper passes were still needed at the FastPass distribution areas.

A few days into our vacation our participation in Disney’s test began.  In the lobby, I checked back in and this time they linked my credit card with the band and I was told to enter a pin into their system.  We were then allowed to use the band for purchases, FastPass+ times and could also gain access into our room without using our plastic room keys. Our keyless entry did not work, but I never made Disney aware of this issue.  The kids liked playing with the cards to get into the room anyways.  I used the Disney Visa Reward points for most of our purchases during the test time period, so we didn’t use the band for purchases either.  We did use the FastPass+ feature.

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FastPass+ is great for those families that are very good at keeping a schedule.  We struggled a tiny bit with using FastPass+.  However, when it’s fully operational to all Disney resort guests, we will most likely love it.  Here’s why I feel this way.  In regards to keeping a schedule: if you’re a parent you already know this, it’s not easy to keep a schedule with young children at Disney.  Between potty breaks, diaper changes, feeding times, and nap times sometimes making it to a dining reservation on time is hard.  When I selected my FastPass+ times on-line before arriving at Walt Disney World, I was offered three different time frames to schedule each park’s three FastPass+ experiences.  The times were lumped together. For example, the first FastPass would begin at 9:30 and the third would be done by 1pm.  The second and third options would usually be lumped together in the afternoon or evening time frames.  Often only the morning times would work for us, due to what we thought would be our daughter’s nap schedule.  Once we were on vacation, the My Disney Experience App was wonderful in helping us with FastPass+.  I would recommend using it if you can find the time to adjust your plans while your taking care of the kids.  I found out quickly while on vacation that if you’re not going to make your time frame you can go into the My Disney Experience App on your Iphone and change those times.  For example we got out of Chef Mickey’s late the day we had scheduled to be at Epcot.  We would have missed our Soarin’ Over California ride time if I kept our original time.  I was able to reschedule just this FastPass+ experience time easily using the App.  As long as your phone is working well, it’s great!  There was one time when I couldn’t get the App to load my dining reservation times and I began to panic.  Make sure you have a hard copy of your reservation number with you.  I also recommend asking the front desk for a print out of your FastPass+ times, just in case there is a problem with your phone.  I used my copy a bunch of times.  There’s already enough potential for stress on vacation.  This is one that you can avoid by having a hard copy with you.  Also, as I mentioned earlier, we vacationed with a total of 13 family members.  This is common with our family.  We do our best on vacation to spend as much time as possible with all 13 people, especially when it comes to riding our favorite rides.  My son announced that his favorite part about this years vacation was “spending time with Billy”, his cousin.  During the days that we chose to participate in the test Billy and Gavin were unable to ride their favorite rides together, because our FastPass times did not match.  Gavin was using his band and Billy did not have a band because he stayed in a different Disney Resort.  Now, I’m not complaining.  It was AWESOME to have a reservation time in the morning for us to bypass the standby line and walk on Toy Story Mania in Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

In addition, MagicBands can be used to collect all of your PhotoPass photos too.  It’s really nice to watch your little pirate get his picture taken with Jake and not have to find your plastic PhotoPass card.  We took advantage of this and it was a nice bonus to having the bands.

You might be wondering about the physical aspects of the MagicBands. They were very comfortable, regardless of the 90+ degree weather.  Not one of us complained at any time that they were bothering us.  They’re waterproof, so no need to worry about the kids getting them wet in Dumbo’s Splash “N” Soak area or in the pools.  And if you have little Mousketeers that want to have the same band color, no problem.  The back side of the band has the owner’s first name on it. My family loved the bands.  Our six-year old suited up each morning as if it was part of a Super Hero costume.  Victoria, our toddler, always made sure everyone had them on before we left the resort each morning.  The only negative side about wearing the bands was that any toddler like mine, can take the band off with ease.  Usually within the first half of our day my husband or I would take the band away from her because she was playing with it and we didn’t want her to lose it.  She didn’t really need one anyways, so this didn’t cause any issues.

When we returned home at the end of our week, Gavin’s MagicBands were tucked away in his pirate treasure box.  Along with those shiny white boxes, I have my husband and my MagicBands packed away for safe keeping.  But Victoria, she saw the photos in this post, yelled “Disney” and wants to wear her MagicBand again!

Are you planning a trip to The Walt Disney World Resort soon?  Do you plan on using Disney’s MagicBands?  I hope my review has helped answer some of your questions.  Feel free to ask me any other questions you may have.  I’ll do my best to answer your questions or if I don’t know the answer, I’ll point you in the correct direction to receive your answer.

 

 

Classmate Halloween Gift Idea

Mike bagMonsters University Favorite, Mike Wazowski makes a perfect Monstrous goody bag.Roba's 2013 092Put these little goodies in the Mike bag and little monsters will be screaming happy.

This year for my son’s 1st grade classmates,  I wanted to make a Halloween treat that wasn’t super scary, could be for a girl or a boy and it had to be easy to make since there are 19 little “Monsters” in his class.  I made this little treat bag in less than 10 minutes and the goodies were staring at me with one big eye.

If you’d like to make your child’s classmates this one-eyed monster bag, here’s what you’ll need: white, black and blue scrapbook paper, a 3″ hole punch, a 1″ hole punch, a dime, glue stick, everyday hole puncher, twine, scissors, and lime green paper sacks.  I found these treat bags at Michael’s Craft Store.  They were only $3 for a bag of 12. The bag dimensions are 4.7″ x 2.8″ x 8.9″. Mike Goody Bag Supplies

Start the project by using hole punches.

You will need a 3″ punch in white and a 1″ punch in blue.  I didn’t have the right size hole punch for the black of his eye. I used a dime as a template. Trace the dime on the black paper and cut it out.

Mike's EyeThen glue Mike’s eye together.

EyeGlue the eye to the middle of the bag.

Glue Eye

Fold back the top of the bag.

Goody Bag FoldHole punch the corners of the top through the fold.

Roba's 2013 090

Open your bag up and fill it with Monster treats.

I chose to stay true to my one-eyed friend and purchased Monster University Juicy Juice Apple Juice Boxes and Monsters University themed Kellogg’s Fruit Snacks.  In one part of the Monsters University movie the monsters were afraid of spiky balls.  I found these mini spiky balls at Target.  They come six in a pack for $1.  The matching pencil in Mike’s lime green color was also from Target’s Halloween section, $3 for a pack of 24.

After adding all your treats, the final step is to tie each side with the twine.  I knotted each side on the back and cut the ends short.

I hope my son’s 1st grade class of little Monsters enjoy!

 

Mickey Mouse Ghost Cupcakes on The Disney Moms’ Blog

Mickey Mouse Ghost CupcakesLast week my family and I had a wonderful adventure attending Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party.

This week we are back from vacation.  To keep the Disney Halloween spirit alive, yesterday I made these spooky little Mickey Mouse Inspired Ghost Cupcakes for a special treat.  If you’d like to see the simple tutorial, stop by The Disney Moms’ blog.  This is the second time I have contributed to the site and I’m thrilled to be part of a great group of moms.  Below is a link that will take you directly to The Disney Moms blog.

http://thedisneymoms.com/2013/10/13/mickey-mouse-ghost-cupcakes/

Today we’re off to the pumpkin patch!  Hope you have an opportunity to sprinkle your weekend with some fall fun!

 

Disney Villain Cruella de Vil Cupcakes

Cruella de Vil cupcakeLook Out For Cruella Cupcakes!

From her hair to her style, Cruella de Vil is hard not to love.  Pair her with tons of sweet spotted puppies and talk about a fantastically evil cupcake!

This Halloween season on the blog you’ll find tutorials for my favorite Disney Villain Inspired cupcakes!  Here’s how to make this wickedly sweet Cruella de Vil cupcake.

  1. Start by making white cake cupcakes.  I found awesome zebra print baking cups made by Wilton and thought instantly of Cruella.  If you don’t want to purchase these, black baking cups will work.Cruela Devil 001
  2. Once the cupcakes have cooled you’ll need your leaf decorating tip and black and white icing.  I’ve never had success with trying to make my own black icing, so I took the simple route and used Wilton’s black decorating icing tube and their leaf decorating tip.  They worked perfectly.
  3. Outline half of the cupcake in black icing. Fill in the semi-circle with a base coat of icing.  This will give the icing “hair” some height.Cruela Devil 005
  4. Attach the leaf decorating tip to your icing tube, or icing bag filled with icing.  At a 90 degree angle apply icing by allowing icing to pool then release the pressure on the icing bag as you pull the tip straight up.  This will create Cruella’s crazy hair effect.  Continue to do this until the entire semi-circle is full of hair spikes.
  5. Repeat Step 4 with white icing.Cruela Deville

If you love Disney’s Villains, watch out for more Villain cupcake tutorials to appear this spooky season!

Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party Review

Disney World September October 2013 027A Mom’s Review of Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party

Let me begin by telling you that I’m a mom to two wonderful children, ages 2 years old and 6 years old.   My review is based on my experience attending the party last week with them and my husband.   I’m not affiliated with The Walt Disney Company.  Ok, now on with the review!

Before the birth of our son, my husband and I loved visiting The Walt Disney World Resort during the fall.  Between the Magic Kingdom’s Halloween party and Epcot’s Food and Wine Festival, Walt Disney World is busting with fun things to do. As young adults in our twenties, we worked for Disney and frequently spent time touring Epcot’s Lands during the month of October.  Also, during that time I had paid to go to this Not-So-Scary event with friends and I really enjoyed it. That’s right, even as “cast member” you need to PAY to go to this event.

Now that our oldest child is six, we thought it would be a perfect time for him to experience Disney in the fall.  Six years old is a perfect age for kids to participate in the fun to be had during Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. But what about taking a toddler to the event?  A baby sitter wasn’t an option for us and besides, we didn’t want her to miss out on potential fun.  To be completely honest, I was concerned about bringing our little adventurer with us.

Below I’ve broken down the event into six categories to discuss: Ticket Costs, Event Time, Event Décor, Trick-or-Treating, Attractions, Parade & Fireworks.

Ticket CostsMNSSHP brochure

Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party is a “hard ticket” event located at the Magic Kingdom Park within Walt Disney World.  This means that you must buy a special Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party ticket to attend the event and that no other type of pass will allow you entry into the Magic Kingdom during the event.  If you and your family would like to purchase a ticket to this event, I would suggest that you purchase the tickets before you leave home.  The party has been known to sell out on some evenings, especially the dates that are close to Halloween.  This year, an adult (10 +) ticket price is $62 and a child (3-9) ticket price $57.  These prices are for dates Sunday through Thursday.  Friday night’s prices are a few dollars more per ticket.

Pro:  The cost of the Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party ticket is less than the cost of a one day ticket to the park.  If you only have one day to spend at Disney, it’s perfect.

Con:  Let’s be honest here, Ouch!  Most families are already spending over a $1000 for a family of four to get into the Disney parks for a week.  Another $200+ hurts to think about spending on just one evening.

 Event TimeDisney World September October 2013 028

Pro: The event is loosely scheduled to begin after the park’s closing at 7pm and continues until midnight.  However, they allow MNSSHP guests to enter the park as early as 4pm.  That’s 8 hours of fun!  Take note that since park guests that are not attending the party will still be in the park until 7pm, the scheduled events, such as trick-or-treat locations, do not begin until roughly 7pm.

The day of our party we stayed out of the parks and relaxed at the pool during the morning and early afternoon.  Then the entire family napped until it was time to go to the party.  Without that nap I doubt we would have had such a wonderful experience.  During the school year, both of my children start their bed time routine at 7pm.  The time of this event obviously concerned me.  I’m happy to say that we arrived at the park at about 5pm and stayed until 11:30pm!  Yes, my two-year-old daughter fell asleep on the walk back to our resort but what party animals my kids are!  There was so much activity going around them, that both kids didn’t give in to sleep until Mom and Dad were ready to leave.

Disney World September October 2013 029Con: Since other guests are within the park from 4pm-7pm, Main Street USA does not “transform” for the event until 7pm.  I felt that entering the park early diminished a touch of that magical experience you get when entering the park after it’s spooky transformation .  Also, the guest traffic between 4pm – 7pm is obviously higher.  In addition, as I mentioned before, with small children that have early bed times it may be hard to stay for the entire event.  NAP is all I can say.

 

 

Event Décor

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Pro:  If you have small children, love Disney or both, the park’s Halloween décor will not disappoint.  There is no blood or gore to be found at this park!  The scariest sight for a little one to see would be the Headless Horseman riding down Mainstreet USA.  And I must say, that’s cool!  Magic Kingdom is already decked out for the fall, but once the sun goes down, guests find all sorts of creepy images lurking upon the buildings and spooky villain music fills the air.  The mood is somehow spooky and magical, only Disney can do that!

Con: None that I can think of!

Trick-Or-Treat Locations

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Pro: There are eleven different “Trick-or-Treat” locations throughout the park.  In addition, there are two “Trick-or-Treat Trails”.  Within these two trails there are multiple spots for little spooks to fill their bags.  Locations are marked with huge pumpkin lanterns, pictured above, so my goblins found them very easily.  Our toddler, whom I worried would tucker out by 9pm, was running to fill her bag at the final surprise spot we found while exiting the park at 11:30pm!  We collected enough candy that we had to give most of it away to friends and family.  This experience went above my expectations!

Con:  About 40% of the candy that the kids received was not suitable for small children.  There was a lot of hard candy that they could possibly choke on if they tried to eat it.

On a side note, Disney provides all guests with small treat bags to use at the “Trick-or-Treat” locations.  They’re really small.  It was a perfect size for our two-year old to use, but she filled rather quickly.  We decided to purchase Disney’s reusable shopping bags and emptied her bag into it after a stop or two.  Our son used the shopping bag all night.

Disney World September October 2013 321 Attractions

Pro:  Almost every attraction is open during the event!  And since this is a special ticket event, the lines are just about non-existent.  For a parent with small children, this alone equates in value to the ticket cost! When a ride ends and your child tells you she wants to ride the same ride again and you simply walk off the ride and get back on, with no wait, that’s awesome!  For example, to ride on the new Little Mermaid ride, we had to walk into the attraction and sit down in a clam shell.  There wasn’t even a line that had formed!  The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh attraction- no wait.  It was fantastic!

Con: You could find yourself missing out on some of the entertainment because you’re having too much fun riding the rides!

Mickey’s “Boo-to-You” Halloween Parade and “Happy HalloWishes” Fireworks

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Pro: The Mickey’s “Boo-to-You” Halloween Parade is outstanding.  From Mickey and Friends, to Disney Villains, to Pirates, to attraction favorite, Hitchhiking Ghosts, you’re sure to run into your favorite Disney character.  This is definitely a must see when you’re at the party.  There are two showings, 8:15pm and 10:30pm.  If you can make it to the second showing, there is a smaller crowd.

Con:  The parade is so popular that if you want to be up front, you’re going to have to reserve your spot and simply wait until it starts.  My family was too busy having fun to do this, so we stood on the bridge in front of Splash Mountain and saw everything beautifully, but not in the front row.  Our toddler rode on daddy’s shoulders for a perfect view and she was happy.

Disney World September October 2013 341

Pro: Happy HalloWishes is the name of the Halloween fireworks show.  It’s shown once during the evening and falls nicely between both parades.  This is a MUST SEE!  Yet again, my family was having a blast on the rides and forgot to go to the front of the castle to see this fireworks spectacular.  We happened to be BEHIND the castle by the Winnie the Pooh attraction when the show started.  I think we may have been in one of the best spots to see the show!  The fireworks were in front of us, behind us and all around us.  I’ve never seen a better show.

Con:  I kind of felt guilty watching them, because they had to of cost a fortune!  By the end of the show, I was convinced the ticket price was worth every penny.

I also have to mention that there are tons of character meet and greets including character dance parties! In Tomorrowland, our Monster friends were having a “Monstrous Scream-O-Ween Ball”.  We walked by the dance party where young kids were having fun dancing with Mike and Sulley.  We even danced our way onto Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin.  But as you might have guessed, we chose rides over the dance party.

If your kids like to collect autographs, they’ll be busy that evening.  For example, while the firework show was going on, the two female mice from Cinderella were next to us meeting with guests.  Just a few short steps away from them were the Seven Dwarfs.  Jake and Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas were at the front of the park.  Their meet and greet location was the only spot in the park that you could find a line.

What a fantastic adventure we had that special evening!  The memories that my family made together I will treasure for a lifetime.

If you have any questions about our experience at the party, please feel free to ask!