Disney's FREE Halloween Gift To You

The Disney blog posted an awesome project and included the free downloadable templates for it as well.
You can make your very own Hitchhiking Ghosts from the Haunted Mansion.

Watch as their eyes seem to follow you as you move from left to right!

Disney Inspired Pumpkins and Jack-o-lanterns

In honor of Halloween, I am dedicating this post to Disney pumpkins! Lord Hill and I LOVE to carve pumpkins and always have some awesome design but we have never done a Disney themed pumpkin. While searching for some inspiration I came across some amazing pumpkins and asked the carvers and painters if I could share their creations with my lovely readers.

So, without further ado, I present to you Disney Inspired Halloween Pumpkins!

I came across an amazing pumpkin carver on twitter. Geoffrey carves all sorts of fabulous designs into artificial pumpkins and has even started selling them in stores. For more information you can follow Geoffrey on twitter. These are a few of his Disney inspired creations:

How amazing are the Castle and Haunted Mansion???

The next two pumpkins are also from twitter. The Jack Skellington pumpkin is by @hellodisney and the Mickey Mouse is by @DisneyBrit .

 Aren't they adorable?!

I'm hoping to do a Disney themed pumpkin this year and will definitely post the results after Halloween.

For those of you who'd like to make your own Disney Halloween pumpkin you should check out these awesome kits I found at Target, they were on sale last time I checked.

Have you carved Disney pumpkins? I'd love to see your designs!

Free Dining at Disney World Extended

If you purchase a non discounted Magic Your Way Package for 4 nights and 5 days at select Disney Value Resorts you can get the Quick Service Dining Plan for FREE!

If you purchase a non discounted Magic Your Way package for 4 nights and 5 days at select Disney Moderate, Deluxe, or Deluxe Villa Resorts you can get the Disney Dining Plan for FREE!

This offer is valid for arrivals most nights January 8 -12, February 2, February 11-16, March 3-8, and
March 24-29, 2012.

Disney Blog Hop - Shared Experiences

This week's theme over at the Disney Blog Hop is shared experiences.





I didn't even have to think about what I wanted to write about. Since I had already written about my experience with my mother on the Characters in Flight balloon, I decided to write about my "first" visit to Disney World.
Now, by all means this was not really my first visit to the World. I have been going to Disney since I was an "itty bitty" girl. This was however, my first visit to Disney World as 1. - a married woman and 2.- with my husband who had never been to Disney, heck, he'd never been further south than New Jersey!

The full tale of this trip is too long to share in one post, but as a brief summary this is how it went...

This trip was a surprise. Hubby had no idea we were going. On Christmas morning he opened the gift and asked when we were going. I said "On New Year's Eve! For your birthday!" YAY!!!

And off we went.These are a few of my favorite photos from that trip and some of my favorite memories in general.
Clockwise from left to right...
Our first trip to the Magic Kingdom -Midnight on New Year's Eve behind Cinderella's castle.
Our first trip to Down Town Disney.
Our first ride on The Seas with Nemo and Friends.
Our first trip to EPCOT.

This trip is what started it all... I am so happy I was able to share my husband's first Disney World experience with him and that he wound up loving Disney just as much as I do.


Do you remember your first trip to Disney World? I'd love to hear about it!

Disney Wordless Wednesday - Haunted Mansion

Disney Vacation Club - Doorway to Dreams at Oyster Festival

For those of you who read my blog and are in the New York tri-state area, I just wanted to let you know that the Disney Vacation Club has a booth set up at the Oyster Bay, Oyster Festival this weekend.

I will be posting photos this week of the festival, but before it's over I wanted to make sure you knew to stop by the booth. DVC members will receive an extra special gift and everyone is welcome to register to win free tickets to The Lion King on Broadway.

Admission and parking for the Oyster Festival is free. Pets are permitted at the street fair portion but are not allowed on the fair grounds.

There are arts and crafts vendors, amazing food, carnival rides, games, giveaways, raffles, and more.

The Oyster Bay Oyster Festival is the largest waterfront festival on the East Coast.

Changes to Disney Dining Reservation Policy

Disney is making a major change to their reservation cancellation policy for the Signature dining restaurants at Walt Disney World.

Starting on October 26 2011, guests will be required to provide a credit card in order to make a reservation for all signature dining restaurants on Walt Disney World property. If the reservation is not  cancelled at least one day in advance, the credit card on the reservation will be charged $10 per person.

Guests have frequently complained that they are unable to dine at their favorite restaurant due to no available reservations. Many guests have complained/speculated that this is caused by other guests not attending reservations they held.

Recent changes to the online dining reservation system made it impossible to book reservations at more than one location at times that were too close together.

It seems that Disney does in fact listen when guests complain and have concerns. Well, it's either that or they were sick of seeing empty tables at their best restaurant. ;-)

The is a list of Signature Dining restaurants that require a credit card guarantee:
• Artist Point
• California Grill
• Tusker House Restaurant
• The Hollywood Brown Derby
• Victoria & Albert’s
• Yachtsman Steakhouse
• Cape May Café
• Chef Mickey’s
• Cítricos
• Hollywood & Vine
• Jiko – The Cooking Place
• Le Cellier Steakhouse
• Narcoossee’s
• ‘Ohana
• The Crystal Palace
• Flying Fish Café
• The Garden Grill
• 1900 Park Fare
• Akershus Royal Banquet Hall

Locations that have previously required full payment to secure the reservation will continue to do so. They will still keep the full pre-paid amount if the reservation is not cancelled one day in advance.

These restaurants are:
• Cinderella’s Royal Table
• Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue
• Mickey’s Backyard BBQ
• Disney’s Spirit of Aloha Dinner Show

You can cancel your dining reservations at any table service restaurant podium, at any guest relations or hotel front desk, or by calling 407-WDW-CNCL. You may also change your dining reservations by visiting www.disneyworld.com/dining

Thank you to those of you who posted this across message boards and twitter in order to bring this to everyone's attention.

Will this change the way you make your reservations? Do you think this will help open up availability or simply cause less people to book at these locations?

Personally, I will be less inclined to book at these locations. I ALWAYS call to cancel a reservation if I know I will not be able to make it, however, there have been times where I need to cancel the same day or tweak our times based on how I am feeling and what the day has looked like. With my fibromyalgia I am never quite sure how I will be feeling come dinner time. Some days I need to push reservations back in order to take a break, and other days I need to eat earlier so that I can take a break while eating and not be out all night.

I'm really hoping to get a lot of feedback from others on this both prior to and after the change.