Exploring Disney: Getting the Most Out of Character Interactions

If you’re anything like me or my kids, you get a little starstruck after waiting for an hour in line and it’s finally your turn to have a 1:1 conversation with your favorite Disney character. I go into it knowing that the awkward photo will someday become a priceless memento so we smile and nod before striking a couple of different poses and moving along. Generally afterwards, I’m left thinking, “why did we wait in line all that time and then not even say anything?” The characters are probably asking themselves the same thing. Bo-ring! Read more

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Exploring Disney: Lefou’s Brew

12698696_10101993917096224_5168436477296746411_oBefore our last family trip to the Walt Disney World Resort, I’d been lurking on every imaginable Disney-related blog, Facebook page, and forum I could find. Two words kept appearing over and over: Lefou’s Brew. Read more

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Exploring Disney: Character Breakfasts in the Parks

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Each of the 4 Walt Disney World theme parks offers great character dining experiences. Our children wake up hungry and bursting with energy, so we take advantage of early breakfast reservations that get us into the parks before rope drop. Read more

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Thrifty Thursday: Making the Magic Last

As a little girl, I spent many days at my grandmother’s house. Some of my fondest memories are of us, snuggled together on the couch, looking through her old photo albums.  I loved slowly turning the pages as she told me stories about the people in the pictures – all the way from the early 1900s up to when I was just a baby.  I am guilty of failing to print pictures or make photo albums in this digital, fast-paced age.  The ability to savor our family memories is a gift I want to give my children, minus the burden of having to convert data from one format to another or tediously sort through hundreds of thousands of photo files.  Read more

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Disney with Little Ones: Memory Maker

I’ll be the first to admit that I was skeptical about getting my money’s worth out of Memory Maker, and consequently very hesitant to pay the $169 purchase price. During past trips, I’d been more than content to bring a nice DSLR and take my own pictures or ask the PhotoPass photogs to snap one of all of us with my camera. The big difference this time was that we decided to ditch the strollers now that our kids are 6 and 7 years old. Skipping strollers was great and very freeing in many ways – but it also meant losing out on a lot of storage space for things that we now needed to carry in our backpack. DSLRs are pretty heavy so that was the first thing to go. Read more

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