Good morning everyone! Sorry I didn't make chat last night. It was a busy day and I just felt wiped at the end of it.
Now that the DVC receptions are over we can talk and not spoil any surprises. We did have a great time. Everyone in our group except for Walker were dressed in our shirts from SSMC05. Mark made buttons for the group saying "we're taking over the Wonder again!" The actual show lasted about 1 1/2 hours. Started with Radio Disney doing lots of silly things to win little prizes (we ended up with a pencil and an antenna topper). There was food set up (fresh fruit, bagels and pasteries) as well as coffee, tea, and water. There was a cash bar where the mini bottles of pop were $5 (got to love the prices at downtown hotels). They also had raffle cards you could fill out.
They also played some games. One was for children and their parents - the child wears a t-shirt and the parent has to fill it with balloons. The next one was for mom's and Cindy got picked. I'll let you tell her about it.
After about 20 minutes or so they asked everyone to take their seats. Then a young woman came out to talk. I believe her name was Jennifer. She was the woman who hosted the talk with Jim Lewis on SSMC05. She introduced the DVC sales staff that came up and Ricardo joined her in helping with some DVC trivia. They asked who owned at the different DVC resorts. If you were picked they asked a trivia question to that resort and you won a prize. I won the one from Vero Beach and ended up with a nice picnic blanket. Flannel on one side and plastic on the other.
Then they did a review of the new things at WDW and around DVC. Like Soarin, Lights Action Motor Cars (I think this is when Cameron won his prize - a Goofy alarm clock). They also talked about being able to manage your points online and the new offerings in the collections.
Finally they passed out some more prizes and this time Walker won for being so excited he was standing on his chair! He got a cool DVC travel mug. Finally they did the raffle for the one week trip and then for some Mickey Christmas decorations.
At this point many people left, but to us this was the best part. After taking the picture of Cindy's family with the backdrop we headed to the back of the room where the Marketing team was. It was a chance to talk to them. We thanked them for coming to Chicago. Mark gave them more of the buttons (we had given them a batch for SSMC05) and we talked for about 15 minutes or so about what what we loved about SSMC05 and some suggestions for next year. We did talk about pulling the ship in one day and backing in another. Cindy made a great suggestion of talking about theme nights earlier. We pointed out that even though they did mention them it must have been a little too subtle because the DIS group seemed to be the only ones that dressed up on pirate night.
All in all it was a great day and so nice to have a little bit of DVC in Chicago. Of course the best part was getting to spend time with Cindy and her family. We did tell all the DVC reps that we'd be dialing in on 12/3, but I think our group were the only ones there excited about the cruise. Oh well - makes it easier for us!