In case you don’t know about Winter-Summerland, here is the story from the Disney website:

Disney’s Winter Summerland Miniature Golf Course is a miniature, elf–sized golf course consisting of 2 Santa Claus–themed courses: the Snow Course and the Sand Course. Although subject to change, prices are $12.00 USD per 18–hole round for adults, and $10.00 USD for children 3 to 9 years of age.

Late one moonlit Christmas Eve, as Santa was flying over Florida on his way back to the North Pole, he glanced down and discovered snow in a place that is usually hot. After surveying the strange location, he decided to build a vacation destination for his off-duty elves—a Winter Summerland.

Seeing that the only thing Winter Summerland lacked was a golf course, the Santa Claus and his elves divided into two camps, one that enjoyed the warm Florida sun and another that preferred the snow and cold of the North Pole. The elves then built two distinctly different 18–hole golf experiences — a sand course and a snow course.

• Disney’s Winter Summerland Miniature Golf Course—Winter Course: The Snow Course invites you to participate in 18–holes of challenging fun — which, in addition to Santa and his elves, includes some of your favorite Disney Characters — as you putt your way to the North Hole. Additionally, watch out for Squirty the Snowman: he sprays water when golf balls pass beneath him.
• Disney’s Winter Summerland Miniature Golf Course—Summer Course: The Sand Course promises fun in the sun for everyone, compliments of a delightful beach theme with sandcastles, surfboards and ornaments hanging from palm trees. Delightfully themed holes include a sleepy Santa buried beneath a large sand mound and a giant sand castle.

After sinking the last putt on Hole 18, receive a special greeting from Santa Claus, thanks to the WinterNet and a computer.

Disney’s Winter Summerland Miniature Gold Course also features Santa’s “Winterbago,” a converted trailer home to the starter booth, gift shop and snack stand.

We had a great time mini-golfing and getting to know Jess & Chris in real life. After obtaining our private country club membership, we chose to play the winter course because we hoped the fake snow drifts would help us feel cooler…it was 96 degrees with a heat index of 106! We were dripping with sweat the entire game, it was crazy! Chris and Jordan will tell you that the Toboggan hole is evil! (I think they both scored 6 on that hole). You never know what…or who is going to pop up on each hole. The course was challenging enough for the 5 of us to play. I have misplaced the score card but I do know that Ron, my husband, won, Chris came in second, I was third, Jess was fourth and Jordan was last.

If you have some free time while you are visiting Walt Disney World, try a round of golf a Winter-Summerland. I’m sure you’ll have a s much fun as we did.
Myself, Jordan, Jess and Chris…Ron was the photographer. To see the rest of my pictures from our golf adventure click here.

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The resort will be themed around 4 very popular Disney and Disney-Pixar Films.

• Finding Nemo
• Cars
• The Lion King
• The Little Mermaid

Disney’s Art of Animation Resort will cater to families with 1120 family suites and 864 regular rooms. The resort is expected to open at the end of 2012, I’ll keep you posted as new information is released.

Please answer this poll question and feel free to leave your more detailed thoughts in the comments.

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The Weather Channel has extended its popular travel-planning resource, Destination Guides, in order to help the millions of consumers each year who travel to Disney parks and cruise lines. To help visitors get the most out of their vacation, the new section offers tools to plan an ultimate Disney vacation with park information, tips, suggestions and detailed weather forecasts. Using TWC’s “Best Time to Visit” patented method for climate-based “best time to” recommendations (U.S. Patent #7,212,922), visitors can see the warmest, coldest, driest and wettest months along with average temperatures and average rainy, sunny and cloudy days.

In celebration of the new content, through April 2, The Weather Channel is giving visitors to weather.com online or on mobile the chance to enter to win a grand prize of a Disney Cruise. Visitors to www.weather.com/disneycruise, also can play a game daily for a chance to instantly win more prizes. For details and official rules of The Choose and Cruise promotion, visit weather.com/disneycruise.

A Disney Cruise is on my dream list for vacations so I am entering every day! Maybe Tink will sprinkle some pixie dust my way and I’ll win…who knows?!?

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There are some great new additions to this year’s festival.

Newly Expanded Pixie Hollow Fairy Garden – Colorful topiaries of Tinker Bell and friends from Walt Disney Pictures’ latest DVD release “Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue” sprinkle pixie dust over this playful, expanded garden for kids. New characters on display with returning fairy favorites are fast-flying, sharp-tongued Vidia and charming Terence, dispenser of pixie dust.

Fawn’s Butterfly House at Pixie Hollow – Formerly known as Minnie’s Magnificent Butterfly House, the butterfly garden this year is part of the Expanded Pixie Hollow and named after fairy Fawn from the popular Tinker Bell films. Hundreds of butterflies flit among the lush foliage, and guests can wander and watch as winged beauties of multiple species light on flowers filled with nectar and as caterpillars emerge from their chrysalis in a special discovery exhibit.

Princess Tiana’s Wedding Bayou – This picturesque garden tucked into a corner of Future World near the Test Track walkway features full-size images of Tiana, Prince Naveen, Mama Odie, Louis the alligator and other animal friends gathered beneath a stand of trees. Disney gardeners created a pond with water lilies nearby, and bright bottles dangle from the trees as in the movie’s bayou scene. Coloring and rubbing stations are set up for children.

First-Ever American Gothic Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse – Topiary experts pull out all the stops to create an American Gothic Mickey and Minnie topiary scene based on the 1930 Grant Wood painting. At World Showcase Plaza.

The Flower Power concerts are back rocking the festival every weekend! Popular bands will rock the open-air America Gardens Theatre every Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 5:15, 6:30 and 7:45 p.m. Jose Feliciano kicked off the concert series March 5-7. The rest of the lineup is slated to feature pop favorites like Davy Jones; Chubby Checker & The Wildcats; Tony Orlando; Fran Cosmo, former singer of Boston, David Cassidy and other top acts.

The Epcot Flower & Garden Festival is running through May 16th so if you are visiting Central Florida plan to take a day and enjoy the beautiful flowers.

Created with flickr slideshow.

Disclosure-Disney provided 2 one day park hopper passes and a parking pass so that my husband and I could experience the 17th Annual Epcot Flower & Garden Festival. All opinions in this post are 100% mine.

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With floats and characters appearing for the first time at Walt Disney World Resort Disney’s “Main Street Electrical Parade” returns with its joyous sights and sounds. Direct from Disneyland and marking its first engagement in Florida since 2001, the cherished parade will be led by Tinkerbell waving from the basket of a magical balloon aboard a new float. Pinocchio and Snow White join the parade this summer, aboard bright new floats. Disney’s “Main Street Electrical Parade” is set for its summer-long nighttime premiere in early June at Magic Kingdom.

The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror welcomes you to drop in this summer with even more pulse-racing surprises. New lighting effects and the addition of a new drop sequence, created especially for “Summer Nightastic!”, will bring unexpected frights to guests who step into that infamous service elevator…if they dare.

Tomorrow, 2-11-10 I will be part of a World Record attempt at Epcot! The details are still hush hush but you can check out the Celebrate Volunteers live stream starting at 9:58am.

**updated 2-13-10**

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In addition to the campsites at Ft Wilderness there are also 409 cabins, including 21 ADA compliant cabins. Every 500 sq.ft. cabin sleeps 6, 2 in the double murphy bed in the living room, 2 in the double bed in the bed room and 2 in the bunk beds in the bedroom. Each cabin boasts a full kitchen and a full bath in addition to the living room and bed room. There is also a patio with a charcoal grill and a picnic table.

Living Room

Murphy Bed

Bunk Beds

Double Bed

The cabins at Ft Wilderness cost between $265-$410 a night depending on the Disney season in which you are visiting. The cabins at Ft Wilderness are on my list of places I want to stay. What about you? Have you stayed in the cabins? Tell me about your experience. Would you like to stay in the cabins? Why? Leave me a comment and let me know.

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The 799 campsites of Ft Wilderness break down into four categories starting with the tent/pop-up campsite, full hook-up campsite, preferred hook-up campsite and the 430 new premium campsites. The premium campsites boast huge 18×60′ concrete pads-big enough to bring in your top of the line recreational vehicle.

All campsites have a maximum capacity of 10 guests and include water, cable television and electric hook-ups, picnic table, charcoal grill and for an additional fee you can even get high speed Internet access. All campsites except for the tent/pop-up sites also include a sewer hook-up.

Air-conditioned Comfort Stations throughout the campsite loops feature private toilets and showers, laundry facilities, telephones and ice machines. Some campsites are even pet friendly! Walt Disney World even has a service where they will provide and set up the tent and cots to sleep 6 so you don’t have to do it! Ask about it when you book your campsite. How great is that?

As always the prices vary with Disney’s “seasons” but currently (2/3/10) the price range is:

• Tent/Pop-Up sites-$44-$84
• Full Hook-up sites-$59-$105
• Preferred Hook-Up sites $64-$111
• Premium Hook-Up sites $74-$121

Just like in many campgrounds around Florida the campsites at Ft Wilderness have their “snowbirds” that stay at Disney for several months at a time during the winter. Hmmm living at Disney World sounds good to me. Also, if you visit anytime between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day you better bring your Christmas decorations. These people decorate their campsites like you wouldn’t imagine! Unfortunately, none of my pictures of RVs decked out in Christmas lights and surrounded by Disney character inflatables came out well enough to use but I was floored by the lengths people go to decorate their campsites.

Have you ever camped at Ft Wilderness? My boys want to tent camp! Yikes! Leave me a comment and let me know how you liked camping at Ft Wilderness.

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Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party takes place on select nights in November and December from 7pm-midnight at the Magic Kingdom. It is a hard ticket event which means it is not included in the cost of your regular park ticket. For 2009 adult advance purchase tickets cost $55.38 and children’s tickets were $48.99.

I have attended Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party twice prior to this visit. In 1994 Aaron was 1 1/2 years old and I was pregnant with Jordan and it rained all night and then again when the boys were older, and it rained all night. This time it was cold but the rain had stopped a few hours earlier! After entering the turnstiles at Magic Kingdom we received our wristbands and map and headed in to the party.

Our main focus of the night was to see some of the shows that are unique to the party. When we stepped on to Main Street USA is was packed with people finding their spots for the 8:15pm Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas Time Parade. Since the parade ran again at 10:30pm we decided to catch it then and we headed toward Tomorrowland. First up we took a quick spin on Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin and for the record Aaron beat me. Next we found our spots for the 8:45pm Totally Tomorrowland Christmas Show at the Rockettower Plaza Stage. This high energy, high tech show featured singers and dancers as well as Tomorrowland residents Buzz Lightyear, Mike Wazowski and Stitch. It was a great show with a cute storyline of teaching Stitch about Santa Claus.

After that show we headed back towards Main Street USA and the hub to get ready for Holiday Wishes. Wishes is my all time favorite Disney fireworks show and Holiday Wishes is even better! Next we headed towards Liberty Square. We noticed that there were only a few minutes before the next show at the Hall of Presidents and we had yet to experience it since it re-opened in July. All political and historical thoughts aside, the new show is well done. We stopped in the Diamond Horseshoe to pick up our complimentary holiday treats-sugar cookies and hot chocolate! We enjoyed our treats as we waited for the parade to begin.

Kanga and Roo

Donald and Daisy

Chip and Dale

Disclosure: We were given tickets to the event as part of a media event at Walt Disney World Resort. Thanks s to Charles Stovall and his team for including us in this event. If you have any questions please refer to my Disclosure Policy at the bottom of the page.

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You must pre-register for the program on the website and sign up for your volunteer opportunity there also. There are tons of participating agencies and ways you can help. Children ages 6-17 must be accompanied by a parent while volunteering.

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• 737 Decorated Trees
• A wreath 25 feet in diameter adorning the Cirque du Soleil building at Downtown Disney West Side
• 10 miles of twinkling rope lights in the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights at Disney’s Hollywood Studios
• 150 tractor-trailer truckloads of decorations for 24 resorts, 4 theme parks, Downtown Disney and other locations
• 15 miles of garland strung and 1314 wreaths hung throughout the vacation kingdom
• 300,000 yards of ribbon and bows draping over Christmas trees across property
• 8.5 million lights strung throughout Walt Disney World Resort
• 98% of the lighting used for holiday decor is now LED



• 11 countries dressed for Holidays Around the World at Epcot World Showcase
• More than 800 performers each night during Candlelight Processional at Epcot
• More than 200 guest choirs during the entire run of Candlelight Processional
• A Christmas tree in the Magic Kingdom with a base 26 feet wide
• One 70-foot-tall tree takes center stage in Disney’s Contemporary Resort entrance lobby featuring nearly 35,800 white LED lights
• 6 lifesized creations cooked up by Walt Disney World pastry chefs, including: One 16-foot-tall gingerbread house at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort and Spa baked with 1,050 pounds of honey and involving more than 160 hours of decorating. One life-size gingerbread carousel at Disney’s Beach Club Resort featuring ponies made of chocolate and fondant, giant cany cane poles, handcrafted pointsettias and hand-painted portraits of famous Disney Characters
• 100% chance of snow flurries during Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, taking place on select holiday evenings in the Magic Kingdom
• 365 day of the year that guests can shop for holiday merchandise at the Disney’s Days of Christmas shop in Downtown Disney Marketplace

Source: Walt Disney World Public Relations Department

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