Wishes And Pixie Dust

Follow the journey of a Wisconsin family of 4 who relocated to the Walt Disney World area in July 2011


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Our Bucket List Revisited #1-50

On April 13 2011, at our 100 day mark, we put out a list of 100 things that we wanted to do as Florida residents.  See the original post here .  We thought it would be interesting to see what we’ve done so far- our comments will be in blue.  We’ll cover #1-50 today, and #51-100 tomorrow.

1.  Resort hop. We have only ever stayed at POR-Riverside as a family, and we really want to experience each resort on property.  So even though our current goal is to live 20 minutes away from Walt Disney World, we plan to do weekend stays at each resort, over the course of a year or two, and really take in the charm and uniqueness each resort has to offer.    Nope not yet.  This is something we still want to do.

2.  Enjoy a Dole Whip   🙂  We’ve enjoyed them at Magic Kingdom but we still want to experience them at the Polynesian where you can disperse your own.  

3.  Attend Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party  Our first time next year

4.  Attend Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party  No, we haven’t, but between the two parties we’d prefer to do the Halloween party first, as you can experience most everything the Christmas party offers on the week leading up to Christmas on a regular day in the Magic Kingdom- well except for maybe the hot cocoa and cookies!

5.  Go on a Disney Cruise!   Right now with living in Wisconsin, the price of getting to the cruise has been a huge obstacle for us.    We’re of the mindset that if we’re going to spend that much money, we’d rather spend it at WDW!    Cruises are really very reasonable as long as you don’t have to travel over a thousand miles to get to one.  Nope, not yet but still in the works!

6.  Explore Animal Kingdom Park. There are so many areas of AK that we have not discovered simply due to the intense Florida heat, or lack of time available to us.  We have done the basics, such as Expedition Everest, Kali River Rapids, Festival of the Lion King, Nemo & Friends and Kilimanjaro Safari, just to name a few.  (There are more).  But it seems that there is so much more to Animal Kingdom to take in, and we are looking forward to being able to do that in the cooler Florida months, when we have the time to dedicate to it.  We have not explored all that Animal Kingdom has to offer, but we have done more.  We find the cooler months are the best times to visit Animal Kingdom, and we tend not to even go in the hot, summer months.  Jen will be touring the backstage areas on Thursday through a special promotion with Disney Parks Blog, so check back later in the week for a special post detailing that.

7.    Go to Magic Kingdom in the evening just for the parades  We have not done this, primarily because although we only live 25 miles from the Magic Kingdom, it takes us approximately 45 minutes to reach the parking lot, and another 15 minutes or so for monorail/bag check time.  With the cost of gas prices, it is not cost efficient to travel two hours just to attend a parade.  

8.    Have brunch at Chef Mickey’s  🙂  One of Ben’s favorite spots to see his buddy Mickey!

9.    Ride the monorails, just for the fun of it  We do so once in awhile

10.  Start a new tradition of celebrating birthdays at Walt Disney World  This a wonderful perk of living so close to Walt Disney World.  

11.  Ride Splash Mountain at night during Wishes   We haven’t since moving to Florida- used to be a favorite thing to do while on vacation

12.  Ride Big Thunder at night during Wishes   See #11

13.  Listen to Lou Mongello’s audio guides while on Main Street/Adventureland/Fantasyland/Liberty Square and take the time to absorb all the details     No we haven’t but we should 🙂

14.  Have lunch at Le Cellier    Yes, one of our favorite places to eat in Epcot.

15.  Watch Illuminations on a winter’s night, enjoying the fact that it is warm & there is no snow on the ground   Yes & we enjoy the no snow fact not just at Illuminations but every month from November to May 🙂

16.  Go to Universal   Catie has been to Universal on a school trip but the rest of the family has not made it yet

17.  Go to Sea World   A few times- we especially love the new Antarctica attraction.

18.  Explore the beaches of Florida–kids have never been to the ocean before.  We plan to go to both sides of Florida:  The Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean    Yes and yes.  We’ve been to Anna Maria Island and Treasure Island on the Gulf side, and Cocoa Beach on the Atlantic side.  

19.  Dinner with Amy and Craig Petermann   No, it never worked out.

20.  Being able to meet Facebook friends who do not live in Florida but come to Walt Disney World on vacation.  Shelley Urick Jones , we look forward to meeting you!   This is another awesome benefit of living so close to Walt Disney World, the ability to meet up with our Facebook friends!  There are too many to mention here, but we love meeting up with you all!

21.  Lou Mongello’s WDW Radio Meets of the Month     We have been to some!

22.  Exploring the city of Clermont and getting to know our new home city    Yes we know our way around fairly easily.  We really like the area and enjoy living here.

23.  Spending time in the Parks with Stephen and Judy Demeritt   We always enjoy spending time in the Parks with our friends.

24.  Meeting Marilyn Johnson in person!      Marilyn and her husband Dan were extremely gracious and made us feel very welcome after we first moved to Florida.  We’re blessed to have met them.

25.  Go to Gatorland      Still on the bucket list!

26.  Enjoy the Osborne lights at the Studios as many times as possible   These are incredibly awesome and guaranteed to instill the Christmas spirit in you!  We do try to go as many times as possible during the season.

27.  Enjoy making new friendships with all our Facebook friends who live in Florida  Absolutely!

28.  Walking through the World Showcase at Epcot while our kids are in school.  We have not been able to explore all the countries because of the kids not wanting to spend time there.    Exploring the countries is still on our bucket list.   We pulled our children from the public schools and homeschool them.  Can we say field trip!  🙂

29.  The various shopping opportunities, not only at Walt Disney World, but at the many outlet malls in Orlando and the surrounding areas.  Ikea!   Yes, IKEA rocks, and we love being able to visit any store we want to within a short driving distance.  We have discovered a few Disney Outlet Stores in the Orlando Area, which can be hit or miss on the merchandise available, but definitely worth checking into it.  

30.  Just enjoying the whole adventure of relocating to a new state!    🙂  🙂  

31.  Day trips to explore Florida:  cities in particular that pop into our heads for no particular reason are Tampa, Naples, St. Augustine, and Jacksonville.    We have not yet had any day trips, but two that may happen in the next year are St. Augustine for the historical aspect of it (another field trip!) and Naples…..can we say Culver’s!    Ok, that is not the only reason to visit Naples, but it’s definitely an incentive!

32.  Shelling at Sanibel Island        We have not done this yet; we have heard it’s not as good as it was in years past, but we would still like to visit.

33.  Chuckling to ourselves in February when the temperature is 80 and sunny, knowing that back in Wisconsin it is probably blowing and snowing and bitterly cold.  Will we miss snow?  No we will not!   We apologize to all our Wisconsin friends, but yes we do chuckle 🙂

34.  Taking in Bob Jackson’s show at the Port Orleans Riverside resort!   We haven’t, but the main reason is the noise level is just too unbearable for Ben.  He has noise sensitivities and he can’t tolerate it.     

35.  Staying at the Port Orleans Riverside resort for old times sake!     Definitely on the want-to-do-list SOON!  We have eaten in the food court a few times.

36.  Christmas shopping at Downtown Disney    Every year- we love the atmosphere at Downtown Disney!

37.  Riding down the Sassagoula River from Port Orleans Riverside to Downtown Disney (and vice versa)    No not yet.

38.  Exploring the cities of Lake County    Yes, we’ve visited Leesburg, Fruitland Park, The Villages, Mt Dora, Eustis, Astatula, Tavares, Lady Lake, Minneola, & Groveland

39.  Visiting Celebration for leaf drop (to replace the Fall we will be missing in Wisconsin)  No not yet

40.  Being there for opening day of the new Fantasyland   No, but we were for opening weekend 🙂

41.  Resort hopping at Christmas to see all the different Christmas decorations   This is in the plans for this year.  We have been to the Grand Floridian, to view the Gingerbread House and the Christmas decorations, which are incredible.  

42.  Counting garbage cans to make sure the Demeritts caught them all  😉   No.

43.  Trying on every hat that is sold on Disney property    We’ve given up the practice of trying on hats, after a cast member friend of ours mentioned how everybody tries on hats and do you really want to put something on your head after hundreds of people have put it on their head?  Um, no.

44.  Food and Wine Festival  🙂

45.  Enjoy a carrot cake cookie  No, but we have enjoyed a Butterfinger cupcake.  Actually it was too rich for our tastes, would not buy it again.

46.  Visit Star Wars weekend  Yes

47.   Dinner, lunch and/or breakfast with Lou Mongello     Not yet, hoping to one day!

48.   Movie at the Downtown Disney AMC theatre    We saw Wreck It Ralph there before it was released, courtesy of a special meet-up with Disney Parks Blog.  

49.  Trying all 500 flavors in the Coke Freestyle Dispenser  Not all the flavors- that would take gobs of money & tons of time.

50.  DisneyQuest   We love DisneyQuest.  It was the main reason we renewed our premium passes this year.  


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Happy November~

Welcome to the Month of Our Blog!  We’ve been a little lax in posting here-ok, more than a little!- so we want to try to make that up in November.  One of the reasons for doing this is to show the realities of making a long distance move to Florida, the good and the bad.   It’s hard to give a honest evaluation after the initial move, because everything is just too new. With the onset of November, we are entering our 28th month of life in Florida, and it is just now that we feel that we can offer a fair look at the similarities/advantages and difference/disadvantages that we have personally experienced.

Check back every day for a new point of discussion.  Some posts will be longer than others, but when taken together, we hope that it will provide future Floridians with a long-term perspective of life in the Sunshine State.  If there’s a topic you want us to cover, just leave a comment and we’ll be sure to address it in a future post.


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Our Experience With Disney’s DAS Card

Ever since the rumours started a few months back that Disney would soon be changing the Guest Assistance Card (GAC) program to a new system or doing away with it altogether, we’ve been waiting for the official word to come.  A few weeks ago that word came and the GAC was set to change over to the new  Disability Access Service (DAS) effective October 9th.  You can find Disney’s official statement and FAQ on the program at this link.  Our first visit to a Park under the new program was this past Saturday, October 12th.  Here is our experience at the Magic Kingdom.

We started our day with a stop at Guest Services at City Hall.  The line was shorter than we typically encounter and we were met at the door by a very nice CM, Vas, who brought us inside.  He asked a few questions on Ben’s needs and began filling out a form on his iPad entering this info.  He used the iPad to take Ben’s photo and then went behind the desk to pick up the printed DAS card.  They are no longer hand-printed, they are printed out using the info supplied to the CM, the Guest’s photo, the issuing Park and the time frame the card will be good for.  Vas explained that as Annual Passholders we could only get the card for 14 days.  He told us this was due to the fact that Disney is still testing and refining the process and they want to be able to make changes as needed.  He also went over the program in detail explaining how the card works.  We take the card to the Fastpass entrance of any attraction where the CM will note the current time, the wait time and the return time on the back of the card.  The return time is based on the current wait time minus 10 minutes.  So if the current time is 3:00pm and the wait time is 30 minutes, the return time will be 3:20pm.  We can return any time after that return time, there is no time limit as with a Fastpass.  We also learned that if we are given a return time and decide to skip that attraction, we have to go back to that attraction and have the return time crossed out, even if we don’t ride, before we can get a new one at another attraction.

Next we had Re-Entry Passes (sometimes referred to as Re-admittance or Re-ad cards) explained.  If a Guest has a cognitive disability that could cause melt-downs when waiting to board or re-ride a favourite attraction, Disney will issue Re-Entry Passes to allow for immediate use of the Fastpass queue to enter.  These look like and are used just as Fastpass tickets (photo below).  We were issued 1 pass apiece for 3 attractions, a total of 12 passes for the 4 of us.

We entered the Magic Kingdom and decided to first get a set of Fastpasses for one attraction to plan around.  We got these for Winnie the Pooh and also received a set for Mickey’s Philharmagic.   Our plan was to get a DAS return time, enjoy Mickey and then go forward from there.  Jen went to get a DAS time at Under The Sea.  The CM was confused at first, it seemed this was the first one she had done, but quickly had the card filled out.  We were given a 30-minute return time and then went into Philharmagic using those Fastpasses.  After enjoying the show we walked over to Under the Sea and arrived just at our return time.  We entered through the Fastpass queue where the CM crossed out the entry and let us enter.  We showed the DAS card again at the second CM and entered in.

After riding Under the Sea we still had some time before we could use our Pooh Fastpasses so we used the Re-entry Passes to ride Barnstormer.  To use these passes we do need to show the DAS card as well, although the CM at Barnstormer didn’t ask to see it.  We were asked to see it when using the passes at Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear however.  Afterwards we used our ‘regular’ Fastpasses at Pooh and then moved to Tomorrowland where we used the Re-entry Passes at Space Mountain and Buzz and also rode TTA.  At this point my energy was spent for the day and we headed home.

Overall our experience was very positive.  The CMs were all helpful and everything worked smoothly for us Saturday.  With good planning; by using Fastpasses (and Fastpass+ once available), the Re-entry Passes and the DAS card this program should work out well for our particular needs.  We can see how this program might still need refinement for families coming on vacations and for those families with different needs.  It does work differently for those needing extra accommodations, such as using strollers as wheelchairs, etc., as well.

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Please let us know if you have any questions and we’ll do our best to help answer for you.  Please feel free to comment below or reach out to us on Facebook and/or Twitter.

Resources:
Services for Guests with Cognitive Disabilities

Guide for Guests with Cognitive Disabilities

Social Story Video: DAS vs. GAC (Courtesy of John Saccheri of BigFatPanda.com)

Disability Access Service Card Guide

Disability Assistance Service FAQ

Services for Guests with Disabilities

Guides for Guests with Disabilities
Available at Guest Relations, these guides can also be downloaded in a printable format for each theme park:
Magic Kingdom
Epcot
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
Disney’s Animal Kingdom

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Orlando Sentinel Comprehensive List of Things To Do in Central FL

By following the link below, you’ll find a list maintained by the Orlando Sentinel.   This is a very complete listing of everything to do and see in Central Florida and includes all of the current discounts available at Parks and Attractions.  This list includes everything from Farmers Markets to Theme Parks.  Hopefully you can make good use of this information when trying to find something to do.

Orlando Sentinel Listing of All Active Theme Park & Attraction Discounts, Prices & Hours