Disney Archives • Page 4 of 4 • diy mama

by Shelly on May 22, 2014 4 Comments

Top Disney Attractions for Kids: Hollywood Studios

Today we’re at the third park of this series, talking about the top attractions for kids at Hollywood Studios! Hollywood Studios is a great park for both adults and kids. There’s a lot of action and adventure to be had for kids of all ages. You can easily spend a full day at HS and not see everything so I’ll be talking about my favorites if you’re visiting during busy season.

As a kid, I hated roller coasters, even once I was tall enough. If you have young children or children who are afraid of coasters, skip Rockin’ Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror. When I was in kindergarten we went and I was being SO BRAVE by going on Tower of Terror. Back in the early 90’s the ride did not have safety belts but rather a lap bar that came down across the entire row. When we dropped, I flew up in the air (at least 10 feet..in my mind) and my dad had to hold me down for the remainder of the ride. I said I’d never go on that ride again. I’ve since ridden it at least 30 times. 🙂 They’re awesome rides, but they can be scary for the little ones. If they are brave enough to go on the rides, be sure to get Fastpasses because they always have a long wait time.

The first thing I would definitely see with your kids is the Beauty and the Beast- Live on Stage Show. It’s so fun and colorful with lots of singing and dancing. The other attraction that has specific show times is Lights, Motors, Action-Extreme Stunt Show. You’ll want to check a map or get the Disney Mobile App to check out the show times and wait times for rides throughout the day. You’ll also see where to meet characters on this app, unfortunately, they no longer have the Pixar parade at Hollywood Studios. I’m hoping their planning another parade but haven’t seen anything about it yet.

If your kids love to be the star of the stage or watch American Idol, you’ll want to check out The American Idol Experience! It’s just like the show! The Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular is a definite must see! If your kids love Indiana Jones, make sure they volunteer when the time comes. 😉 Star Tours is really fun for your little Jedi masters but it may cause motion sickness. If you have any big time Star Wars followers in your family, plan your trip around a Star Wars Weekend (be warned, it will be busy.)

The next stop is another classic from your childhood, Muppet Vision 3D. It’s timeless and gets laughs from all ages. After watching the Muppets you can let your kids run around at Honey I Shrunk the Kids Movie Set Adventure. While you’re over in that area, if the Lights Motor Action show has a while, go check out The Studio Backlot Tour. It’s extremely exciting for kids!

Toy Story Midway Mania is another must! It will have a long wait time so I suggest grabbing a Fastpass, seeing a few attractions and coming back. Now would be a good time to get some pictures of the family with the giant Sorcerer’s Apprentice hat! After your photo shoot, if there’s still time, you can hop over to The Magic of Disney Animation to check out the behind the scenes of some of your kid’s favorite Pixar movies. Voyage of the Little Mermaid is super cute and I’ve never been (yet), but I’ve heard great things about Disney Junior-Live on Stage!

As always, I suggest going bright and early at opening, leaving around lunch time for cheaper food and a nap and heading back in the late afternoon to stay until closing. It is worth missing a couple of attractions to make sure everyone is happy during the time you’re at the park! You also don’t want you kids to be too sleepy to see the firework show at the end of the night! Hollywood Studio’s show is called Fantasmic and it is amazing! Fantasmic is a mixture of characters, fireworks, water, lasers and a great soundtrack from the movies we love. You should get there at least a half hour early if you want to sit together with your family because it fills up super quick. Be forewarned that they sell light up toys that your ~~children~~ spouse will beg you to buy.

Did I miss any of your kid’s favorite attractions? Any new ones you hadn’t seen yet? Some people skip Hollywood Studios because they don’t think it’s as kid friendly but it is perfect for adults and kids! Next week we’ll be at our final park of the series talking about the best attractions for adults at the Animal Kingdom!

by Shelly on May 8, 2014 6 Comments

Top Disney Attractions for Kids-EPCOT

We’re back again in EPCOT to go over our favorite attractions for kids!! EPCOT is pretty awesome because everything that’s awesome for adults is also awesome for kids (unless there’s a height requirement like Test Track or Soarin’…probably wouldn’t want to take your 6mo old on those anyways.)

First thing you ALWAYS do once you enter a park is take a picture. ALWAYS take a picture at the very entrance of the park with it’s icon (castle, hat, tree, ball) in the background…otherwise you’ll forget and they’re hard to photograph at night…especially if your kids are sleeping! By the second click of your camera, your kids will be sprinting to the giant geodesic sphere (new word for the day.) Why not start there first?! Spaceship Earth is a bit long for kids with short attention spans but it’s air conditioned and there’s an interactive screen that they’ll want to play with.

First Fastpass you’ll want to get is Soarin’. If you ever have one kid who’s wanting to go on a ride but the other doesn’t, you can do a Rider Switch. Living with the Land is also in The Land and is really cool for kids learning about growing plants. An area that ALL kids go bonkers over is Living with the Seas with Nemo and Friends! There’s opportunities to feed a manatee, learn about sharks, swim with Nemo, and talk to Crush at Turtle Talk!

We stop at Soarin’ before we head over to Test Track. Test Track is the only other ride that you’d really need to get a Fastpass for in EPCOT if you wanted to plan ahead. At this point I’d recommend to go to Mission: SPACE but I got motion sickness from it so I don’t go on it anymore. I know a lot of people that like it though! If your kids know what the moon walk is, you should probably take them to see Captain EO! Figment is also over by Captain EO but it’s right up there with Stitch’s Great Escape for me…terrible (which is sad because I liked it as a kid before it changed!) A TON of time can be spent at Innovations East and West. They’re designed for kids to learn more about technology, recycling, storm safety, fire safety, saving money and going green! There are also TONS of the newest Disney video games set up for play!

The second half of EPCOT is the World Showcase where they feature culture and cuisine from 11 countries. If your kids know Perry from Phineas & Ferb or just LOVE tasks and treasure hunts, you must get in on the Agent P’s World Showcase Adventure! Super cute and always changing! Really great activity to keep the kids interested throughout the entire showcase. There are also Kidcot Fun Stops in all of the countries which have little activities for the kids.

Every country has either a ride, gallery or act that you can watch. You will have to ask your kids what sounds most interesting to them because I think all of them are worth checking out. Especially the acts! If you don’t have a full day for the World Showcase, you won’t be able to get through every movie, gallery and act with children. Some of the acts kids enjoy most are the Jeweled Dragons in China,, Sergio the juggler in Italy, the Taiko drummers in Japan, Mo’Rockin and the belly dancer in Morocco, Brittish Revolution in the UK and OffKilter in Canada. Along the way if you want to ride the Maelstrom in Norway or eat at the Biergarten in Germany to watch the Oktoberfest Musikantan those are both very kid (and adult) worthy!

In addition to ALLLL of that, there are characters in the World Showcase that aren’t seen in some of the other parks. You can get showtimes for the acts and characters at your resort (or entrance to the park) to plan out who/what you want to see ahead of time..which I STRONGLY suggest. I always suggest to people (with or without kids) to go at the park’s opening, got to the hotel for a nap at lunch time and stay until closing. You will get a lot more accomplished with happy kids (and adults!) You also don’t want to miss the fireworks show at the end of the night. At EPCOT it’s called Illuminations: Reflections of earth and has fireworks, lasers and fire! Every kid’s dream! If they don’t like the loud noises of fireworks you could try bringing headphones or earplugs.

See anything I missed?? Did I not mention one of your kid’s all-time favorite attractions of EPCOT? Let me know because I don’t want to be missing out (or missing out on telling others!) Next week we’re headed to Hollywood Studios to check out the top attractions for adults! I hope everyone has a great Mother’s Day weekend! Mother’s day in Disney would be quite the gift (although it’s super busy right now…so maybe not!)

by Shelly on May 1, 2014 8 Comments

Disney Attractions for Adults-EPCOT

EPCOT is my second favorite place to hang out when we go to Disney. It’s the first place I recommend other people to go if they don’t have small children. It’s AMAZING and you can easily spend open to close there and still not see everything (especially if it’s busy season.) The main reason I recommend EPCOT is for the World Showcase but I’m going to go over my favorite attractions in all of EPCOT.

If you need some music to get you in the mood, here ya go! 47 minutes of the wonderful sounds of EPCOT! Just a warning…it gets pretty…interesting at minute 20.

Now I’m ready to sprint through the gates! I don’t know about you, but I always feel like running once I get through the gates of the parks. No? Ok, just me then. First stop, once we get to EPCOT, is Spaceship Earth! I like it more since they did the update a few years back. It’s a classic that sets the tone and gets us excited to be in this park!

Next, we head to The Land to get a Fastpass for Soarin’. They can sell out and we don’t want to be forced into waiting in that line but it’s so worth it to smell those orange groves! I always have to go on Living with the Land. It’s different every time we go because they’re always growing a variety of fruits and vegetables. I’d love to go on the behind the scenes tour of their facility someday. After getting inspired to grow a garden, we head to chat it up with Crush at Turtle Talk in The Seas with Nemo and Friends. We also always stop there to learn about sharks with Bruce and feed the manatees. Now is a good time to remind you that I never go with kids. This is fun as an adult!

We stop at Soarin’ before we head over to Test Track. Test Track is the only other ride that you’d really need to get a Fastpass for in EPCOT if you wanted to plan ahead. At this point I’d recommend to go to Mission: SPACE but I got motion sickness from it so I don’t go on it anymore. I know a lot of people that like it though! We usually walk through one of the Innovations buildings just to see if anything is new but it’s mostly for kids. Every few years we’ll go to the Smart Home that they have to show the latest technology for your home. If you’re a Michael Jackson fan or had gone to Disney growing up, you have to stop at Captain EO!

NOW for my second favorite part of Disney World (after the Castle). World Showcase!!! I can, and do, spend an entire day just at the showcase. Every single country has something interesting to do, see or eat and it’s nice to take it slow to take it all in. We usually start in Mexico and work our way around the world watching shows and eating…everything. 😉 I’ll save the food suggestions for another post. This area is also where you can meet some of the Prince and Princesses who aren’t in Magic Kingdom.

The Gran Fiesta Tour in Mexico is pretty cute but I’d recommend just going into the pyramid. It’s set up like a bazaar and they often have a mariachi band playing inside. Norway is next where you HAVE to go on the Maelstrom. It still scares me and I don’t think it’s supposed to be scary. China is next where we always watch the Jeweled Dragon Acrobats.

The Biergarten restaurant in Germany has a very fun Oktoberfest Musikantan but you have to eat in the restaurant to see the show (which we do every time we go). Italy has a super awesome juggler named Sergio who is super talented and funny! Italy also has some great shopping. If you like a cappella singing, you should definitely stop in America to see Voices of Liberty. The acoustics in the room they sing in are amazing.

Japan has super huge, loud Taiko drummers that are a must see! They also have a fun store where you can choose a clam and buy the pearl to be put into jewelry! My favorite part of Japan is Miyuki who molds liquid candy into animals. We dance into Morocco to see MoRockin and the belly dancer. She actually encouraged me to take two belly dancing courses in town because I loved watching her dance and I wanted to get a skirt like hers (as well as her stomach). 😉 We head over to France for some fragrance and jewelry shopping.

I really enjoy the UK and Canada, which is why I leave them for last. I’ve always loved the bands in the UK. Brittish Invasion first and now Brittish Revolution. The music is always so happy and I usually know all the songs. They encourage singing and dancing and it’s always a good time. This last time we were there it started pouring so we stepped into the Rose & Crown for a drink. The Hat Lady was performing and was hilarious. Unfortunately, she stopped performing there last year and I’m not sure what is there now. Off Kilter is in Canada and they’re my very favorite thing to see in the World Showcase. I even have their CDs. They’ve been performing there since I worked there in 06′ and are super nice guys and great performers.

Last, but certainly not least, you must stay for Illuminations: Reflections of Earth. It’s an awesome nighttime show with fireworks, great music and lasers! You can see it from any country but will want to get a spot against the lake early if you’ve never seen it. Everything at EPCOT is worth seeing if you have enough time. The things I’ve mentioned are my favorite things to see and do! What’s your favorite attraction at EPCOT? Anything you love that I left out? Have you seen the show that’s replaced The Hat Lady? I’m going to go watch Illuminations on YouTube now… who’s with me?!

by Shelly on April 16, 2014 54 Comments

Magic Kingdom Attractions for Adults

Sorry if the title was misleading, this is not a risque version of Disney attractions. You can stop reading now if that’s what you were looking for. This is the first post of my 8 week Disney Attractions series! Each series I’ll discuss one of my most asked about topics regarding Disney World. The first 8 weeks I’m going to go over the top adult and kid attractions at each park in Disney World. If you’d like to know more about a topic or have different questions to ask, please don’t be shy!

I feel that I’m able to give my two cents regarding Disney World because I went there as a child, worked there in college and have been back nearly every year since. Some people may call it a problem but I call it a ~~obsession~~ passion. I am extremely passionate about very few things and Disney is one of my top 3. Everything about Disney makes me get butterflies in my stomach. Writing this series will never seem complete to me because Disney is always changing and there’s always so much to discover, but I will do my best!

**Biggest tip I have for getting to see the attractions you are most interested in: get the Disney Mobile App to check on wait times for rides as well as make reservations for ANYTHING!**

I will break this down by park and REALLY try not to get too wordy! The first park we’ll visit is Magic Kingdom because that’s where I worked and feel most sentimental about. 😉 I worked in Fantasyland as a ride operator (best job in my opinion) for Snow White’s Scary Adventure (no longer there), The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and Mad Hatter’s Tea Cups. *Proof that I wore that ridiculous costume (they call them costumes instead of uniforms because we’re ‘on stage’ when we’re in front of guests.)

On to the rides! I’m going to go through them as if I was going through the park, rather than in order of my favorites, because there are different categories of ‘favorites.’ Whenever we go to the park we stroll straight up Main Street, get a few pictures with ~~my home~~ the castle and turn left to knock out Adventureland and Frontierland. Those are my least favorite lands because there are only a couple of attractions and good food places (in my opinion.) First, we get a Fastpass for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and get in line for Splash Mountain so we can air dry through the day. We only visit the parks in September and October when it’s still warm and the longest wait time is 20 minutes. I understand they have an MagicBand system now that you can get your Fastpass times before you arrive at the park but I haven’t been there since they started using it (earlier this year.) After Thunder Mountain we head for Pirates of the Caribbean where we usually end up getting a little wet.

The next must-do attraction is the only attraction we like in Liberty Square- Haunted Mansion. Going through the ‘fun que’ will actually put you behind by a couple people but we always go through it anyway! By this time we’ve already technically seen almost half of the park! Every few years we go back to see some of the attractions we skipped like Tom Sawyer Island, Jungle Cruise and Swiss Family Treehouse but we never stop to see them until we’ve been through the entire park and enjoyed our favorite attractions. By the way, I still get scared during the Haunted Mansion and have to close my eyes at certain parts. Some day I’ll grow up.

Since the Haunted Mansion is right next to Fantasyland, we head on over to Peter Pan’s Flight to get a Fastpass and go ride It’s a Small World while we wait. I know. NO ONE likes Small World but it has air conditioning, has small lines, is full of glitter and lets you rest your feet!! All great things in my book. Once we wave adios at Small World we hit up Peter Pan (ALWAYS get a Fastpass for this ride or you WILL be let down. The line is deceptive because it swirls all over the place.) After Pan we go watch Mickey’s PhilharMagic which is one of my FAVORITE attractions in all of Magic Kingdom. I just really love singing, seeing all my favorite characters and smelling that apple pie!

After the fun at Philhar we go see THE Castle. *sigh* It’s just so wonderful! There’s really not a ton to do other than look at the mosaic, take pictures and make a wish at the wishing well but it’s really my favorite part of the entire park. Actually, I’m going to go ahead and say of the entire World. These are pictures from the past few times we visited. First picture was our first time together, second picture was our engagement, third picture was a surprise trip and fourth was our anniversary.

Once I’m done daydreaming that the Castle is my home, we ride Prince Charming Regal Carousel because there’s never a line, I like running around until I find the perfect horse and I love the music. We always take a ride in Pooh’s honey pot and the Tea Cups because I worked there, but they’re not rides I usually suggest to people until they’ve been on their favorite rides. Don’t get me wrong, they’re AWESOME rides, I just know it’s hard to fit everything in during busy season.

New Fantasyland is REALLY cool and has some awesome attractions but most of them are for younger kids. The Seven Dwarfs Mine ride will be open sometime in the next few months though, so I’d add that to the list once it’s open. Tomorrowland is our final land before taking it easy and leisurely seeing the remaining attractions we skipped over. First off we get a Fastpass for Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin and head over to Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. After major laughs with Mike, we go ride Space Mountain. My favorite seat is in the front row. Never be afraid to ask for a certain seat. The grouper will put you to the side until the next car but it’s totally worth it once you get to sit where you want. On some rides it makes all the difference!

We’ve now experienced the BEST of the BEST in the way of attractions for adults at the most Magic(al) Kingdom. Once we go through this order of attractions we go back and visit whichever ones we missed…or just people watch…or eat a lot of food. 😉 Did I miss any? Any that you detest or can’t get enough of, even as an adult?! Can you believe I was going to put all 4 parks together for this post?! WHEW. That would have been outrageous. Man I’m feeling homesick.

by Shelly on April 10, 2014 Leave a Comment

35 before 35: My Bucket List

I loved Courtney’s idea to do a 30 by 30 list! I, however, will be 30 in less than a year and thought it’d be too much to complete 30 new things in that amount of time…hence the 35 deadline. 🙂 Deadline sounds so strict…how about goal! No, I’m not freaking out because I’m almost 30. Honestly, I have to count on my fingers to figure out how old I am because that’s how little I care about my age. Yes, I still use my fingers to count. I don’t think people should be ashamed of their age. 1. You can’t do ANYTHING about aging. 2. It just shows that you’ve had that many more experiences. I really think I can get in all 35 new experiences in 5 years. Anyone else have a list like this? I’d love to see! Follow along as I cross these things off my 35 before 35 list.

35 before 35

Go to another Disney park
~~Run a 5k~~
Visit my family in CO
~~Have a sibling for Soph~~
~~Organize the entire house~~
~~Join a Moms group~~
~~Host a holiday at our home~~
~~Listen to music at an outdoor ampitheater~~
~~Learn about the stars at the planetarium~~
Paint 10 paintings
~~Sew a quilt~~
~~Pick apples at the orchard~~
Pay for the next person’s movie
Organize a community clean up
Design and make stained glass
Read 10 of these classics
Go to Lalapalooza
Camp out at the Indy 500
Go spelunking
Take a skiing lesson
Meet Trent Reznor (ok, this is a stretch)
~~Take my daughter to meet Mickey Mouse~~
Be school debt free
Take a sushi making class
Go horseback riding
~~Harvest my own garden~~
Use a rain barrel or compost
Fly in a hot air balloon
~~Go on a vacation with my sister~~
Make our wedding scrapbook
~~Take a couples dancing lesson~~
Cosplay at the D23 Convention
~~Monetize my blog~~
Make every recipe from Max Brenner
Become a yoga guru (or an intermediate yogi)

Top Disney Attractions for Kids: Hollywood Studios

Top Disney Attractions for Kids-EPCOT

Disney Attractions for Adults-EPCOT

Magic Kingdom Attractions for Adults

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