Magic Mirror's January DISNEYmoon Trip Report

Disney Hollywood Studios * Character Meet * Mike & Sulley:

Amy felt bad Mike only had one eye, so she covered her eye up

Disney Hollywood Studios * Character Meet * Toy Story-Buzz & Woody:

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Disney Hollywood Studios * Frozen Sing Along For the First Time in Forever:

We snagged a fast pass in order to secure this attraction. The waiting area for this is pretty tight. They have the fast pass line right by the arena door and stand by is across the street. They have to stop foot traffic on the street, rope it off and allow the standby line to flow thru.

While the show was good, I felt it was lacking....it just felt...thrown together...and rather uninspiring by Disney standards.

*Spoiler Alert* Basically Anna comes out looking for Elsa, says a few lines, introduces the town "historians" and Anna leaves. The town historians are out the rest of the time. They quickly fill you in on the story of Frozen, breaking it up with the sing alongs-which are basically clips from the movie, thrown up on a big screen with the words so you can join along. At the end, Elsa, Kristoff and Anna all come out for a few minutes for a final song. Snow falls in the arena and its done.

While the historians had funny lines and moments that adults will appreciate, we lost interest quickly.

I would have liked Anna and Elsa to have more floor time as that is why most children are going, perhaps some characters even having some audience interaction in the aisles and create some new videos instead of just cut and pasting the movie.

With that being said, if you have children, they are going to go crazy for this if the kids in the front row are any indication. Several young princess's (ages 2-6yrs) were out on the floor dancing and swaying to the music. But if you are tired of seeing the Frozen movie or you are going as an adult, this may not be as entertaining as you had hoped.

Disney Magic Kingdom * Character Meet * Frozen Anna & Elsa:

As much as the sing along was a disappointment for us...meeting Anna and Elsa was pretty fun!

Anna and Elsa were appearing side by side with individual meets in the Magic Kingdom. You met Anna first and went Elsa next.

I told Anna that I would love to come visit her country and make a snowman that could talk, as Olaf is one of my favorites. She thought that was a grand idea and we should ask her sister if she could make the magic for us to bring our snow man alive. Anna also commented that Amy and I were both wearing blue and Anna pointed out this was her sisters favorite color.

Elsa immediately pointed out how much she loved our blue color and how it was her favorite color...we told her about our snowman idea and she invited us to come and build a snowman girlfriend for Olaf, she had been thinking about it for awhile..that he should have a girlfriend...she thought about it for a bit and said perhaps we could name her Summer.

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Disney Hollywood Studios * Character Meet * Cars Lightning McQueen & Mater:

Neither Lightning nor Mator talk...but occasionally Mator turns his yellow tow light on and an engine revs.

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Disney Hollywood Studios * The Writer's Stop:

This is one of our favorite sweet stops.... one change I noticed since we were there last was they have added chairs to their tables where before it was standing only. They also added a TV with cartoons, a love seat and additional chairs.

Amy had the vanilla cupcake with buttercream frosting and I had the the famous carrot cake cookie..moist, large and loaded with cream cheese!

Disney Magic Kingdom * Walt Disney Marceline to the Magic Kingdom Tour:

*Spoiler Alert* I don't want to give all of this tour away so I'll leave you with a few teasers!
Thanks to MrHub for organizing our tour where Amy and I joined-MrHub, Scrappy, KenJ & JanJ.

This tour was a three hour tour starting before MK opened at 8am and lasting till 11am. It was a walking tour and our wonderful tour guide was Anna (no, not Anna of Frozen fame) who in her rain slicker, high heels (yes, heels!) and umbrella (due to the rainy morning) reminded me of Mary Poppins!

During this tour, you will learn about a young Walt Disney and how his early upbringing influenced his design and dreams for Disney World. You will also learn the history behind some of the historically important rides. It seems the rides chosen change depending on the tour guide and the amount of people on the tour (we had 18 people including Anna). We all had headsets, and Anna spoke in our ear, literally, as we rode the rides to point out facts and interesting items. There is also a great amount of information given on the Imagineers involved in the planning of the rides.

We rode The Carousel of Progress, The Transit Authority (People Mover), It's a Small World and the one ride they all seem to have in common, The Haunted Mansion. The Haunted Mansion also included a chance for us to go downstairs below the ballroom scene to see how the mirrors create the illusion you see above. No photos backstage. And No photos while onstage of anything which might not be deemed correct within the staging of the land we were in (such as delivery trucks, etc).

We loved it and felt for the very reasonable rate of $30, it was well worth it. Even though Disney advertises buses won't run until 45 minutes before the park opens, in this case that would have been 8:15am, we checked with the Concierge who said they would be running at 6:30am so we were able to take a bus and be there well before our admit time. This may change, so always check with your resort if you are depending on Disney transportation. Of course one advantage of arriving before the park opens is getting photography shots of the castle without tourists....on the day we were there several tours were running so I did not get any shots of Main St. without some people, but certainly other lands were easier to shoot people free.

So while on your tour you may find out why Auntie has matchsticks in her hair bun, notice the carriage and horse hoofs in the pavement, and why there is a doggie gate and footprints by the Haunted Mansion gate, and many other fun tidbits.

Disney Hollywood Studios * The Hat Comes Down:

The first picture is from Sunday and the second is from Thursday.

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Disney Magic Kingdom * Seven Dwarfs Mine Car Popcorn Bucket:

Available at Maurices Amazing Popping Machine Kiosk in Fantasyland, This cute plastic popcorn bucket is fashioned after the Seven Dwarfs Mine Ride. The wheels roll, the cart tilts, the lid opens and closes and the easy carry handle folds down. The price tag is $12.99 and includes popcorn. A nice size measuring about 11" long and 6" high. We were told it was also available in Tomorrowland but I do not know which kiosk.

While many people have slammed Disney for only having red and blue jewels on the lid, I read online that someone had put Christmas Lights inside. We had some battery operated red lights handy so Amy taped it in the lid to see how it would look and it is quite pretty! It sure makes the Jewels glow. We still have to tweak it with more lights and a better way to tape it up.

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Disney * Disney Florists:

This is the first time I've ordered from Disney Florist. I ordered the Disney's Villains Indulgence which is listed under the Valentines Day Specials. It retails at $110.95, plus tax and $10 delivery to the Resort. We arrived on Friday and I requested the package be delivered to our room on Monday. Monday was half way through our trip and our first day at the Magic Kingdom. I had forgotten all about it until I walked into our hotel room that night. It startled me for a second as it was sitting on the little dining table. By the time we turned on the lights and dropped our packages, Amy finally turned around and saw it. I was very impressed with the lavish packaging and the really nice silver tray it was packaged on which was not mentioned in the description. The gift store at Port Orleans was kind enough to give me two wine glass boxes and bubble wrap so I could package it for the trip home as I had neglected to bring some.

The wine glasses were fantastic.. full size goblets with sparkly silver writing, the framed autographs were lavishly framed in a special cut mat, the truffles well..truffles are always yummy and the juice was a dark berry non alcoholic sparkling grape juice based beverage-with a cap I had to uncage and screw off - with a nice popping release!

A high quality, professional package, I'm sure I will be buying more from Disney Florist in the future!

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Thank you everyone! I am back to work...but more TR coming Thursday!

KenJ and JanJ

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Disney Magic Kingdom * Character Meet * Winnie the Pooh & Tigger Too!

(Just for Dee!)

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Disney Magic Kingdom * Enchanted Tales with Belle:

While Enchanted Tales with Belle centers mostly around children (and adults who want to participate) re-telling the story of how the Beast and Belle met by using props and dancing about.... at the end you are seated on benches in front of the fireplace with Lumiere (whose technology and movement is magical and impressive) and Belle comes out to watch you "perform" the story for her. The "actors" and "actresses" are than introduced to Belle, one by one, and very officially as royalty would be, for a photo, autograph and a book mark as a thank you. This is adoringly cute, especially when you see the little prince and princesses in their finest garb, giving their all to impress the sweet Belle.

What I noticed most once we arrived in the fireplace room, was a middle aged woman sitting on the bench. She had tears rolling continuously down her face. She had an aura about her of shyness and a gentle quiet, and the look of adoration and love she had for Belle was so open and almost painful for me to witness. I couldn't help but wonder what her story was. Why was it this character that had touched her heart so much? What was her spirit going thru that brought her to this moment? As the line of children actors got smaller, this woman sheepishly approached a CM and then got in the end of the line. It was so touching to see this woman, so much taller than the little ones in front, but just as enamored with meeting Belle. The tears never stopped rolling down her face and she silently hugged Belle, posed for the photo and gingerly took the bookmark. She had a big smile on her face as she went to sit back down. It is these moments, that sometimes you get to be witness, that really explains the depth of what Disney means to many people.

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Disney Polynesian Resort * Capt. Cooks:

We finally got to the Poly for breakfast at their quick service restaurant; Capt. Cooks.
I had the Tonga Toast ($5.19) (Banana-stuffed Sourdough Bread, Battered and Deep-fried,
and dusted with Cinnamon Sugar) which included a choice of sausage links or patties and Amy
had the Breakfast Sandwich ($6.49) which had Eggs, Bacon and Cheddar Cheese on a giant
Croissant.

I had no idea the food would be so big! The Tonga Toast was awesome but it is sweet. Certainly
enough sugar that I could have shared it with Amy (who did take a few bites to sample). The Breakfast
Sandwich was also huge and took up an entire plate. They also had a bar with
help yourself hot maple syrup

A great breakfast at minimal cost- I'm sure we will go back!

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