We arrived at Disney’s Yacht Club at about 9am and were greeted at the door and given our room keys and our welcome packet. Our room wasn’t ready yet so we went over to check in for the conference so we could get our lanyards, itinerary and park tickets. While I was registering Ron and the kids were able to grab snacks and sodas to take with them into the park from the hospitality table, what a bonus! As soon as we were checked in we headed out to the bus stop so we could get to the Magic Kingdom.

We had so much fun in the Magic Kingdom we forgot to take pictures!! We rode Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin, the Peoplemover, Space Mountain, Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan’s Flight, the Haunted Mansion and others. We at lunch at Pecos Bills and shared some Dole Whips before we headed back to the Yacht Club for a swim.

After a dip in Stormalong Bay it was time for me to get ready for the Passport to the World Cocktail Party which was sponsored by Disney’s Aulani Resort and Adventures by Disney. The party was the first time the attendees got to reconnect and/or meet each other and the time was filled with smiles and hugs. It was at this party that I finally got to meet my online friend Rene Syler! Rene was my favorite speaker at last year’s event and she was back this year as an attendee. I was overjoyed to finally meet her face-to-face.

When the cocktail party ended we met up with our families and headed out to the Yacht Club beach for our Swashbuckler Soiree dinner party sponsored by Disney Junior. While we waited to enter the party we were all given pirate bandanas from the Radio Disney staff who were also entertaining at the party.

Jordan donning his bandana

We found seats with our friends, the Roberts family from BrainFoggles.com, kicked off our shoes and enjoyed the delicious buffet and fun pirate themed entertainment, including the music of the Rusty Cutlass band.

The Rusty Cutlass Band

A Disney event wouldn’t be complete without Disney characters so Captain Hook, Mr Smee and Jake all made appearances to the delight of the kids and adults alike.

Jake

Once we were full from dinner and the delicious desserts (Bananas Foster with ice cream and Mickey Ice Cream Bars!) We headed back to our room to get some much needed rest because there was a lot more magic in store for day 2!

Disclosure: I paid to attend the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration. In exchange for my registration fee, I received deeply discounted rates on hotel, park tickets, free events, meals, and swag. I am not required nor was I asked to write about the events by Disney or any other brands, celebrities, or speakers affiliated with the event. All opinions are my own.

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Day 2 of Disney Social media Moms was such a whirlwind I know I’m not going to be able to do it justice in tis post. The day started off with a delicious breakfast at Citricos, where I had the pleasure of dining with Jackie Gailey and 2 of the most handsome men at the conference…Chris Brogan and Lou Mongello.

After a delicious breakfast and great conversation we headed to the Grand Floridian Conference Center, where we would spend most of the day. I was blessed to find a seat front and center with my friends Molly Gold, Amy Lupold Bair, Shannan Powell, Fiona Bryan and Shellie Ross. The conference enter was beautifully decorated and the attention to detail really helped build the excitement for what lay ahead.

First up was Meg Crofton, President of Walt Disney World. She welcomed us to the conference and shared some fun facts about what it takes to run Walt Disney World. Did you know that, resort laundry processes 300,000 pounds of linens and towels daily?  It would take you 27 years and 2 loads every day at home to finish what they do in one day!

Next, Matt Jacobsen, Head of Market Development for Facebook shared some different ways for us to utilize Facebook to get our message out. We need to look at Facebook as one way to distribute our message. There was a very insightful question  and answer time after his talk and Matt seemed very interested in the concerns we, mom bloggers, have about how to separate our personal and professional pages as well as security.

The highlight of the day for me was our next speaker, Rene Syler aka Good Enough Mother. Rene was my favorite because she is “every woman”. Rene was real, honest and transparent. Rene had us crying and laughing during her talk about authenticity and re-inventing yourself. Rene has been through a lot since her days anchoring the Early Show on CBS, but she hasn’t let her problems get her down, she has powered through and she is coming back on top. Though most of us in that room haven’t been fired from a high profile job or had breast cancer we could all relate to Rene on one level or another to her heartfelt message. I’ll admit it…I have a bit of a girl crush on Rene (grin). We have actually conversed a lot lately on Twitter partly because of our campaign to get her on Dancing with the Stars. If you haven’t signed our linky/petition please take a second to do that now.

Lunch was back at Citricos and again it was delicious! Then we had a little break before our afternoon session which kicked off with a visit from Duffy Bear! Then Chris Brogan spoke about developing a community and working together instead of tearing each other down. Then 2 ladies I had honestly never hear of took the stage, Georgia Stitt on piano and Susan Egan on vocals. I may not have recognized their names but as soon as Susan began singing I recognized her voice. I am a huge fan of Disney music and Susan was both the voice of Megera in Disney’s Hercules and she was Belle in the original Broadway cast of Beauty and the Beast. The Disney fan in me loved the Disney songs they performed but the musician in me loved the original pieces, most written by Georgia, that were true slice of life songs that touched my heart.

I headed back to the room to meet up with my family. They had spent the day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and their goal for the day was to break their record of riding Rock ‘n Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith. Their record, set in December 2010 was 10 times. I am proud to say that on March 18, 2011 they both rode it 12 times in one day! Congratulations boys!

Hidden Mickey in the Motorcycle Shop window

After freshening up, we boarded buses to take us back to Disney’s Hollywood Studios for our dinner and Disney Junior Dance Party on the set of Lights, Motor, Action! Extreme Stunt Show. It was very exciting to be down on the set and get to see the buildings. My friend Steve Barrett aka Hidden Mickey Guy was giddy being on the set because it meant he was close to a hidden Mickey he had never really seen well before. What was even cooler is, he couldn’t wait to show it to my kids! I hope you enjoy my video of the fun we had at the party.

 

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We left the house at about 8am for the very familiar drive to Walt Disney World…but something was different. We make this drive regularly, we are passholders and have been on and off for years, but something was different. My teenage boys were almost giddy with excitement, I was giddy with excitement…even hubby was excited for the weekend ahead (I’ve never seen him giddy in the 21 years I’ve known him). We were going to a familiar place but we expected to experience new things…and we did.

We arrived at the Grand Floridian by 10am and as I got out of the van I saw Jackie Gailey, who started my weekend off with a smile and a big hug, I knew this was going to be a great trip! Bell services whisked our 11 pieces of luggage away to be stored while hubby parked the van and the boys and I checked us in. Since we were so early our room wasn’t ready so we went outside to wait for hubby to make the trek from self-parking. While waiting we saw Shannan Powell and her lovely family, another big hug…my boys were counting but even the college student stopped after a while because there were too many hugs to count on this magical weekend! Hubby arrived and we headed to the Grand Floridian Conference Center to check in for the conference and get our credentials and amazing gifts! We checked the 2 large gift bags with bell services and headed on the monorail to the Magic Kingdom.

Arriving at the Magic Kingdom we came upon the largest crowds I think we have ever seen. We never travel to WDW during peak season so this was new and kind of stressful for us. We spent about 3 and a half hours in the park, rode a few rides and ate lunch at Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe before heading back to the resort.

At 3pm hubby called bell services to deliver our bags to our room. I had a 4pm reception to be at and I needed to clean up and change. Bell services said 10-15 minutes, no problem…right? Well my bags finally arrived to the room at 4:20pm! I have never dressed and done my make up so fast in my life. I quickly walked to Disney’s Wedding Pavilion but, because I was so late, I missed the yummy candy buffet and the beginning of the presentation.

I was whisked to an open seat in the back of the pavilion where Michael Shettel, Vice President of Design for Alfred Angelo was introducing the Cinderella Platinum Anniversary Gown. A model enetered wearing the dress to a chorus of “Ooos” and “Aahhs”. We also heard from Carley Roney, Co-founder and Editor-In-Chief of TheKnot.com. She spoke about community and how TheKnot grew from its humble beginnings on AOL to the mega-site it is today, because of the community it built. Next was David Tutera of My Fair Wedding on WE TV. He spoke about setting your own trends not following what is already out there. Our event concluded as we witnessed a wedding vow renewal by a couple who had been married at Disney 2 years earlier. I wished I had my video recorder running because I loved what the officiant said about renewing your vows, his words were wonderful! This September hubby and I will be celebrating our 20th anniversary, what a dream it would be to renew our vows at Disney’s Wedding Pavilion.

Next we headed to the lawn between the Grand Floridian and the Wedding Pavilion where we met up with our families and enjoyed a delicious dinner buffet, great music from Main St USA, lots of catching up with friends and even carnival games for the kids! Dinner was wonderful and it was a great time to reconnect with old friends and make some new ones. Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy and Pluto even stopped by for some of the fun! As the party wound down several of us had the brilliant idea to hop on over to the Magic Kingdom to catch Main Street Electrical Parade, The Magic, the Memories & You and Wishes.

This was not the wisest decision we have ever made. We arrived in the park by 9pm, a full hour before the parade started and there was no room to stand anywhere on Main Street. We finally found a spot on a walkway to the left of the hub and we claimed it. We didn’t have a great view of the parade, since it goes around the hub and never comes by where we were standing but…we had a great location for The Magic, the Memories & You! which is what I wanted my family to experience. They were entranced by the beautiful show and the technology behind it. They agreed with me that Magic Kingdom has the best overall night time experience with the 3 evening shows. Due to the humongous crowd, we decided to leave before Wishes started so that we wouldn’t have to wait forever to get back on the monorail to our resort.

Wishes from the monorail

Disclosure: Although we paid for our own trip to Disney World, we were given an incredible deal thanks to Disney. The conference fee included 3 nights at the Grand Floridian, 3 dinners for my entire family, 7 day park hoppers for everyone, conference/meals for me and some other items to take home. Also note that Disney never asked us to blog about this event. As a lifelong Disney fan it is my pleasure to share my experiences from the event.

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I am linking this to OhAmanda’s Top Ten Tuesday linky.

Disclosure:  Although we paid for our own trip to Disney World, we were given an incredible deal thanks to Disney. The conference fee included 3 nights at the Grand Floridian, 3 dinners for my entire family,  7 day park hoppers for everyone, conference/meals for me and some other items to take home. Also note that Disney never asked us to blog about this event. As a lifelong Disney fan it is my pleasure to share my experiences from the event.

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I am also excited as this is an event for the whole family. My husband and sons (ages 15 & 17) will be joining me at the resort and for our dinners. While I am learning they will be enjoying everything Walt Disney World has to offer for 4 whole days!

Since Disney Social Media Moms is a great networking event-I met lots of new friends last year, I thought I’d add a linky where we could all link to our blogs and we could get to know each other a bit before we meet at the Happiest Place on Earth. If you are attending #DisneySMMoms please write an intro post and link up here(use your Twitter handle as your name and a direct link to your blog hop post) and then hop over and meet the other awesome people who will be at the event.

About us…we are Disney veterans and are excited to be joining so many people at our home away from home. My boys have grown up in the parks and love to take newcomers to the parks and show them around. This is our first time staying at the Grand Floridian and we are all excited to finally get to stay there. If you have any questions before or during the trip please don’t hesitate to ask we love sharing the Disney magic!

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I was determined to be a part of the 2011 event. I knew getting in this year would be harder because there was just 1 general registration. Last Thursday I along with thousands of other Social Media Moms sat at our laptops ready for the 2pm opening of registration. Unfortunately due to high traffic volumes, we had a lot of difficulty getting registered, but finally after over an hour of trying my registration was submitted. Then the nerves really set in because we had to wait as they verified us. I’m not exactly sure what the criteria are but I am sure, based on the information Disney requested of us a) They wanted to make sure we were legitimate, active bloggers with well rounded social media presence and b) Just as with the Disney Mom Panel selection not all of us who feel we are more than qualified will be selected. Thursday evening on Twitter we were told that we would receive email notices on Friday letting us know if we would be attending.

Later Thursday evening I was approached on Facebook by Mary from MagicalVactionPlanner.com. She had visited my blog and saw that I was looking for a sponsor for the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration and she wanted to sponsor me!! If you need help planning your next Disney vacation please contact Mary at mary.davis@magicalvacationplanner.com and tell her Mom Maven sent you!

Friday I happened to be in the Magic Kingdom with my family enjoying our annual Christmas visit to Walt Disney World. While wandering through Tomorrowland I checked my email on my phone and saw that I had an email from Disney…I opened it and read with glee…I was in! My kids have always wanted to stay at the Grand Floridian and now we will be staying there in March! As our travel date gets closer I’ll be sharing more details with you but I had to share my excitement with you.

I know there has been some negativity on Twitter (#disneysmmoms) and in the blogosphere about people who should have gotten in that didn’t. I know how it stinks to be left out of the fun and learning that will take place during a magical weekend in March, that was me last year, on the outside looking in. We need to be happy for those that did get in and know that if we aren’t going it wasn’t a personal slight, it just wasn’t meant to be.

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