Calling all super heroes! Super Grover has lost his super-ness! Never fear, the fabulous five Super Heroes are here — featuring Elmo as Captain Fuzzy! Elmo, Abby Cadabby, Zoe and all their furry friends are on a quest to put the “super” back in Super Grover. Singing and dancing their way through fun lessons on healthy habits, they discover how exercise, rest, nutritious food and good hygiene can save Super Grover — and turn your children into Super Heroes, too! You’ll be feeling good when Elmo’s Super Heroes! comes to town!

Sesame Street Live is a larger-than-life, musical touring stage production featuring Big Bird, Elmo, Cookie Monster, Bert and Ernie…and more. Each performance is 90 minutes of singing, dancing and audience participation, including a 15-minute intermission. The perfect length for very young children! There are six (6) delightful Central Florida performances! Tickets on-sale at all Ticketmaster locations or to charge by phone, call 800-745-3000. You can save $3 per ticket! Use the code ERNIE online at ticketmaster.com to receive the discount. (Discount excludes Gold Circle & Sunny Seats. Not valid on previously purchased tickets. Discount cannot be combined with any other offer.)

The Central Florida show schedule is as follows:

Tampa,FL; St. Pete Times Forum-Tuesday, November 29 7:00pm & Wednesday, November 30, 2011 10:30am and 7:00pm.

Lakeland,FL; TheLakelandCenter– Youkey Theatre Saturday, December 3 5:30pm & Sunday, December 4, 2011 1:00pm and 4:30pm.

Tickets would make a great early Christmas gift for your kids and The Mom Maven has a family 4 pack of ticket vouchers to give away!
Mandatory 1st EntryTell me a favorite Sesame Street Memory. Mine is November 10, 1969-I was at Harborlight Kindergarten and we all went into Reverend Wilbur’s office to watch the first episode of this new educational television program. As a 5 year old, it was magical just to find out there was a television at church (how things have changed!). Watching the Muppets and their human friends interact was amazing.

Bonus Entries:

• Like Sesame Street Live on Facebook
• Follow Sesame Street Live on Twitter
• Like this post on Facebook using the button at the bottom of the post
• Like TheMomMaven on Facebook
• Follow @MomMaven on Twitter
• Tweet this Hey @MomMaven We want to see @SesameStLive in Central Florida! http://bit.ly/teyfJk  #win (you may do this 2x a day)
• +1 this post on Google using the button on the bottom of this post
• Blog subscribers, GFC friends and Networked Blog Followers get 1 entry each

This giveaway is open to US residents only who are available to attend a show in either Tampa or Lakeland, Florida on one of the dates listed above. The winner will have 48 hours to respond via email to claim their prize.  The giveaway ends at 9pm ET on November 19, 2011. The winner will be chosen by Random.org.

The post Sesame Street Live Coming to Tampa and Lakeland appeared first on The Mom Maven.

Tomorrow is also the day Disney ticket prices increase

• Walt Disney World base tickets will increase $3-$21 on adult tickets, $5-$31 on kids tickets, depending on length of stay.
• Park Hopper Option is going up to $2 plus tax.
• Water Park Fun & More Option is going up to $2 plus tax.
• No Expiration Option has a huge increase on some tickets jumping anywhere from $4-$30 depending on the ticket purchased.

For exact ticket pricing you can check out the Disney Parks Blog post on the subject.

It was announced last week that High School Musical 3 show at Disney’s Hollywood Studios will end its run on October 2 to make way for a new  show, incorporating a variety of Disney Channel hits, including The High School Musical franchise, Camp Rock and Star Struck. If you are looking for the latest news, start by checking this post about Jimmy John Shark.

The show, described as a “live, rock-concert style show,”  hasn’t yet been  named but will follow a format that is similar to the current  High School Musical 3: Senior Year – Right Here! Right Now!

The new show is scheduled to debut Oct. 22 at both Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Disney’s California Adventure.

That’s your Walt Disney World news for this week. For up-to-date Disney World news listen to DW:60 on Sorcerer Radio every Thursday morning at 8am ET.

The post Walt Disney World News 8-4-10 appeared first on The Mom Maven.

The Characters in Flight balloon is the world’s largest tethered gas balloon. The 72 feet in diameter balloon is filled with 210,000 cubic feet of a lighter-than-air gas. The gondola is 19 feet in diameter and can hold up to 29 guests plus the pilot.

I was very excited when I saw on my Florida Mom Blogger’s Mixer itinerary that we would be riding Characters in Flight, weather permitting. I have wanted to fly in a hot-air balloon for years and I figured this ride would be a good test to see if I was comfortable “floating” in the air.

Saturday morning was rather windy and when our group of 13 arrived we were told they could only take 4 of us at a time. So, we took 2 groups of 4 and our hosts (aka the chickens) chose not to ride. The view was magnificent! When you are 400 feet up in the air you can see for about 10 miles. You can easily see The Contemporary Resort, Spaceship Earth, Expedition Everest, Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and Typhoon Lagoon as well as the downtown Orlando skyline.

The entire ride took about 9 minutes. I would love to do it again, but this time at night. I can only imagine how beautiful it would look with all of the lights twinkling in the evening sky. Tickets for Characters in Flight cost $16 for adults ages 10+ and $10 for children ages 3-9. Everyone under age 12 must be accompanied by an adult. Characters in Flight is wheelchair accessible; guests in ECVs must be able to transfer to the gondola, which does not have seats. There is no smoking, eating or drinking allowed on the ride and they do not allow strollers or baggage.

Safety is key and the weather restictions for this attractions are very strict.

• Winds 3 mph or less they can take 20 passengers at a time
• Winds 3-12 mph they can take 10-20 passengers
• Winds 12-22 mph they can take up to 10 passengers at a time
• Winds above 22 mph or in stormy conditions they do not run

I don’t know what the wind speed was when we rode but we had 5 guests plus the pilot on my trip. On the video you can hear when I turned into the wind, it gets very loud. I felt very safe and secure despite the wind.

What do you think? Would you like to ride Characters in Flight on your next trip to Walt Disney World and Downtown Disney? Leave me a comment and let me know.

The post Characters In Flight appeared first on The Mom Maven.

Tickets to the Miley Cyrus concert would make a great Christmas gift for any young fan. We were able to see her in concert last year in Orlando at the Disney Channel Games and she puts on a great show.

This conversation  was sponsored by www.getmein.com.

The post Miley Cyrus’s UK Tour Tickets On Sale Soon appeared first on The Mom Maven.

First, I need you to answer some questions about your family’s travel habits.

1. How many full vacation days will you be spending at the Walt Disney World Resort (don’t include travel days-unless you will be arriving early in the morning or leaving late at night)
2. Is this your first visit to Walt Disney World, have you visited before but still consider yourself a newbie, or are you a veteran Disney guest?
3. Which parks are you planning on visiting on this trip?
4. Do you plan on visiting either of the Disney Water Parks or Disney Quest?
5. Do you like to jump from park to park or do you prefer to stay in one park all day?

Now that you have that information let’s move forward.**All prices quoted here are valid for non-Florida residents and is updated with the August 2009 price increase. Florida residents prices vary and are lower than non-resident prices. For current pricing go to DisneyWorld.com**

The Magic Your Way base ticket is a one day one park pass. You add how many park days you want to purchase to that to create your base ticket. Disney does reward you for longer visits. Per day ticket prices decrease dramatically when you purchase tickets for 4 or more days. To simplify things I am only quoting prices here for adult tickets, which is everyone ages 10+ (children under 3 get in free).

Magic Your Way Base Ticket Price (including tax)

These tickets expire 14 days from 1st use.

1 Day   $84.10

2 Day  $166.14 ($83.07/day)

3 Day  $233.24 ($77.74/day)

4 Day  $239.63 ($59.91/day)

5 Day $242.82 ($48.56/day)

6 Day  $246.02 ($41.01/day)

7 Day $249.21 ($35.60/day)

8 Day $252.41 ($31.55/day)

9 Day $255.60 ($28.40/day)

10 Day $258.80 ($25.88/day)

If this is your first trip to Disney World, you don’t plan to visit more than 1 park per day and you don’t plan on visiting the water parks or Disney Quest then this ticket is for you.

Now to the add-ons. If you want the flexibility to visit more than one park on any given day, you need to add the parkhopper option. This is a great value for multi-day tickets because it is a flat fee of $52+tax whether you have a 2 day ticket or a 10 day ticket.

The other add-on is the water parks and more option. This gives you “options”, which equal days you can spend at Typhoon Lagoon, Blizzard Beach, Disney Quest, Disney’s Wide World of Sports or golfing one round at Disney’s Oak Trail 9-hole golf course. The number of options is based on the number of days that your base ticket is for. A 1 or 2 day base ticket gets 2 options and 3-10 day gets the same number of options as you have days on your base ticket. This is a very inexpensive way to extend your vacation. You could get a 4 day base ticket with waterpark options for $239.63 + $52+tax and for less than $300 you can have 8 days of activities in the waterparks, theme parks and Disney Quest.

The final add-on is the non-expiring add-on. This eliminates the 14 days from first use rule and allows the ticket to be good forever, by the person whose biometric scan is attached to it.  The price on this varies between $18.00-$209.00 depending on the number of days on your base ticket. You would really have to do some serious math to prove this option worth it for most people.

It is very difficult to find any deeply discounted tickets to Walt Disney World. Do not buy used tickets with days left over on them. You can often find them on eBay, Craigslist or other sites but many, many people have gotten to the park with a useless ticket in hand. There are a few reasons for this, first-there is no way to know how many days are left on a Walt Disney World ticket without taking it to a ticket window, so you can never be sure if there are days left. Second, Disney has been using the biomtric finger scan to tag a ticket to a specific person since 1996. It is not worth the savings of buying a partially used tcket to find out that you cannot use it.

I hope I was able to simplify the Magic Your Way ticket choices for you. If you have a question about ticketing that I didn’t address please feel free to leave it in the comments or e-mail me at Cindy at themommaven dot com. I love comments and am more than happy to help you plan your Disney vacation.

The post Choosing Your Disney World Park Tickets appeared first on The Mom Maven.

A one-day ticket for Disney‘s water parks, Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon, has increased by $5. The adult ticket has gone to $45 (up from $40) and the child ticket (ages 3-9) is now $39 (up from $34). This price increase brings it into line with that of Aquatica (SeaWorld Orlando‘s waterpark) and Wet n Wild, which are both $44.95 for adults and $38.95 for children.

The post Disney Waterpark Tickets Increase appeared first on The Mom Maven.