Author: TechyDad

The #DisneySMMoms Report: Arrival

Disney, DisneySMMoms, DisneySMMoms2012, Travel

Note: To see all of my posts on DisneySMMoms 2012, go here.

Early in the morning on Thursday, April 26th, we packed the car and headed out.  Though it was chilly, we were wearing shorts and short sleeve shirts.  No, we didn’t misdress the kids.  We were boarding a plane and headed for Disney World to attend the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration.

Soon, we were in the air and, once the pilot cleared our electronic devices, I took a few "way up high" shots.  (If you look closely in the second picture, you can see the plane that passed us – with plenty of room, mind you.)

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After we landed, the phones came out and the tweeting began.  Excitedly, we monitored the #DisneySMMoms hash tag seeing people commenting on arriving and boarding buses.  I began to wonder if anyone from the conference would be on our bus.  Perhaps someone I had met before on Twitter was standing two groups behind us wondering the same thing.  It turned out that we did have social media company on the bus.  TheToySpy spotted JSL and me and tweeted at us a few times before the bus arrived at the Yacht Club.  We spoke briefly before heading to check in.

For those of you who don’t know, the Yacht Club is one of DIsney World’s deluxe resorts.  It’s very nice.  Wait, I don’t think I emphasized that enough.  It’s *VERY* nice!!!  There, much better.  Don’t believe me?  Here are some photos of our room, bathroom mirror and the view out of our window.  (I wonder if that nice couple by the pool knew they’d be blogged about.  Everyone say hi to Random Anonymous Couple!)

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Once we were settled, we checked in to the DisneySMMoms welcome center.  NHL could hardly wait and would keep running ahead to point out the signs.

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He barely stopped long enough for me to take a photo of this turtle or for us to talk to some other DisneySMMoms attendees.  Seriously, you’d think *he* was attending the conference!

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After checking in, I took some stuff we were given back to the hotel room and then caught up with B, the boys, and B’s parents.  Along the way, I saw this being set up for a party later on.

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Yes, the party was for us, but you’ll have to stop back another day for that one!  After all, if I covered all of this in one blog post, it would be about six thousand words long and the load time from the photos would be atrocious.

Disclaimer: We paid for our own trip to Disney World to attend the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration. Though we were given an incredible deal from Disney, they never asked us to blog about this event. All opinions expressed above are my own.

Aloha Friday: Lost and Found

Aloha Friday, Disney, DisneySMMoms, NHL, Travel

Packing is always a stressful endeavor.  Packing for a return trip from Disney World is especially stressful.  And what happens when you are packing some remaining items early in the morning after getting way too little sleep when you need to leave to return home in an hour and a child’s favorite stuffed animal is missing?  Apparently, that’s when my brain locks up.

NHL has a "travel buddy" that he takes with him on every trip.  It’s not something he sleeps with every night at home, but he likes taking it with him on vacations.  Unfortunately, this seemed to have disappeared a few nights ago and we only realized it as we were ready to leave.  Fortunately, when I called the front desk of Disney’s Yacht Club, they mentioned that they never throw anything out.  Unfortunately, their lost and found department didn’t open until 8:30am and our Magical Express pickup was at 7:30am.  So I left a very coherent voicemail message.

Ok, who am I kidding?  I left a semi-rambling description of the lost item followed by my name and my phone number.  Well, I tried to leave my phone number.  Remember that "brain lock" from before?  Well, that happened.  Suddenly, I couldn’t remember my number.  B tried to help by giving me her number to tell them, but that only confused my locked-up brain more.  We hung up (feeling completely embarrassed, of course) and I composed myself.  I looked at B’s phone number on my phone as I called back and left a better message.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t think we’d ever see the buddy again.  I figured it was gone for good.  But, as we approached the TSA carry-on check, Disney called us.  They had found NHL’s buddy!  They confirmed our home address and told B that they’d ship the buddy to our home.  This was a nice, magical resolution to what could have been a very sad end to our Disney trip.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Have you or your kids ever lost anything on a vacation?  If so, did you find it again?

P.S. If you haven’t already, try out my Twitter applications: FollowerHQ and Rout.

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha Friday by Kailani at An Island Life

Aloha #137

Disclaimer: We paid for our own trip to Disney World to attend the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration. Though we were given an incredible deal from Disney, they never asked us to blog about this event.

Headed Home and #DisneySMMoms Updates

Disney, DisneySMMoms, Travel

Yesterday, sadly, was our last day in Disney World.  Since I haven’t yet figured out how to earn a living by wandering through the parks, taking photos, and eating in restaurants, we need to go home.  (Once I’ve figured out how to live on Disney grounds full time and still earn a living, I’ll let you know.)

Our bags are packed and, by the time you read this, we’ll be in the airport ready to get going.  If you’re reading it late enough, we might already be in the air.

Which reminds me, I promised everyone a real photo from the air heading down to Disney World.  Here it is:

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Also, I posted a couple of days ago about my Peter Shankman/DisneySMMoms inspired quest: To get four photos taken on four rides that scare me: Tower of Terror, Rock ‘n’ Rollercoaster, Space Mountain, and Expedition Everest.  Well, I did it.  I made it through all four one piece.  I even went on one of them (Space Mountain) alone.  Now, I just need to wait to get the PhotoPass+ photos (thanks DisneySMMoms for giving us all PhotoPass+ cards) and make them into a poster or something.

As I process the 3,800-plus photos that I took at Disney World (both at and not at the Disney Social Media Moms celebration), I’ll post more about the happenings.  Suffice it to say that it was very enjoyable and informative and I met lots of great people.

We’ll be sad to say goodbye to Disney World and will immediately begin thinking of how we could come back!

Disclaimer: We paid for our own trip to Disney World to attend the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration. Though we were given an incredible deal from Disney, they never asked us to blog about this event. All opinions expressed above are my own.

Face Your Fears, A Lesson Learned From #DisneySMMoms

Disney, DisneySMMoms, Fear

At the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration, I had many "a ha" moments.  Two in particular stood out, however.  First, was Peter Shankman.  Among his points was a slide about obstacles in your way.

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(Let’s ignore for a second that I have no mascara to run if I cry. ;-)  )

Too many times, we hit a brick wall in life and just sit beside it complaining about how awful life is to put up such obstacles.  Complaining doesn’t move the wall, however.  It might feel good temporarily (believe me, I know), but it doesn’t solve the overall problem.  Instead, you need to figure out a path around the wall.

Later, Lisa Druxman spoke.  She mentioned about how gremlins will sit on your shoulder and tell you "You can’t do that."  I instantly realized that my gremlin is "High School Me."  Back in high school, I wasn’t exactly a social butterfly.  I was more like a social potted plant in the corner of the room.  Whether it was due to all of the bullying I endured, or just the awkwardness of being a teenager, I didn’t do well in social situations.  I’d stand quietly as close to the wall as possible.  Though I longed to be in the spotlight, I also lived in mortal fear of it.

High School Me sits on my shoulder, I realized, telling me that I can’t ride certain rides, can’t attend social functions, and can’t do a dozen other things.  It’s not that I actually can’t do these things, mind you.  Though I may face some difficulties (for example, remembering people’s faces and names), I can get past these and survive.

In an effort to knock the gremlin off my shoulder for good, I hope to ride four Disney World rides that scare me: Space Mountain, Rock ‘n’ Rollercoaster, Tower of Terror, and Expedition Everest.  Each of these rides raises huge red flags with me and makes me not want to proceed.  Luckily, each of these rides also offers photos of you riding the attraction.  I plan on stitching the photos together, along with some phrase either from the conference or inspired by it.  Then, when I feel that shoulder gremlin telling me to just give up over the brick wall in my path, I’ll tell it to look at my montage and then beat it.

Do you have a shoulder gremlin? If so, what does it look like?

Disclaimer: We paid for our own trip to Disney World to attend the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration.  Though we were given an incredible deal from Disney, they never asked us to blog about this event. All opinions expressed above are my own.

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