Dreams granted only to families?

[inkkognito]

I knew there was someone on here who knew a couple who won it that didnt have kids with them! How lucky of them!!! I would have been at their house wanting to hear all about it and to see all their pictures!

I was, I was!! It was really cool because I'm a writer for a local magazine, so I got to interview them for a story. Their next door neighbors have triplet boys, so they invited 'em over to stay in the castle with them. It was so cool to live through them vicariously and hear their stories & see all the photos. Truly the prize of a lifetime! There's so much more to it than just the castle...the VIP treatment, the little extras etc.

 

[CleveRocks]

There's a few things to realize here about the official rules of the sweepstakes.

As stated earlier, the prizes are determined by a computer. A computer in Elgin, Illinois, to be exact. It goes something like this. Today, the castle suite winner will be the first person to exit from row 5 of vehicle 2 at Star Tours on or after 10:04 a.m. Tomorrow, the castle suite winner will be the first person to take a drink from a specific water fountain in Downtown Disney on or after 11:13 a.m. The next day the castle suite winner will be the first person to walk through a specific exit door at Mickey's PhilharMagic on or after 9:22 a.m. And so on .... These specific mathematic determinations are blind to variables such as race, sex, family/couple/single, and so on.
[The only thing non-random about the awarding of the castle suite prize is that it must be done earlier in the day. This allows time for the winner(s) to get transportation back to their hotel room (or to their home, if they are locals) to pack a bag for the night, to participate in the parade, to have a special dinner, etc. It would be too difficult and also pretty unfair to pick the castle suite winner at 10:30 p.m., which would be too late to enjoy most of the perks of the win.]

Furthermore, when the Dream Squad has any of the "bigger" prizes, they themselves don't even know what prize they are giving out. They just know to inform the proper person and then to escort them to an office or something like that backstage, where someone else informs them of the exact prize. Of course, if the prize is something small and tanglible like Dream FASTPASSes or golden Mickey ears, then the Dream Squad CMs know what that prize is.

I hope this clears some things up.

Like it or not, most (but certainly not all) adult visitors to WDW are there with children.

Like it or not, most (but certainly not all) visitors to WDW are white.

Therefore, just by random luck, most winners are going to be white families.

This is a result of what's generically called "The Laws of Probability," rather than some sinister plot by Disney that most of the winners should be white folks with children.

 

[YouJustBideYourTime!]

No. The dream team doesn't even know where they are going until they are handed an envelope a few minutes before they leave. You have to be the person standing in that spot, at that time, at that very moment really.

Like for example, it is awarded to the person on certain horse on the carousel at exaclty 1pm on this date. Or something like that. So it is completely random.

NOTE: please don't start taking 2 hours to pick out your horse or arrive at the carousel at 1pm I have no special knowledge this is just an example! lol. Thought I should clear that up before leaving.

 

[inkkognito]

Most of the time it's not even a ride where you pick your seat anyway. Sure you pick your horse on the carousel, but on things like Star Tours, Soarin' or Great Movie Ride (where my neighbors won), you were told where to sit.

 

[mmkk]

We were chosen to be Grand Marshalls in Nov. '07 (there were five of us, 4 adults and 1 child) and the castle suite winner that day was a single lady.

 

[Joanna71985]

I wish I was eligible to stay in the castle.

 

[Luv2Diz]

My 2 adult kids and I won Dream Fastpasses in Hollywood Studios on September 11. Also - an older couple had been chosen to open the park that day and I thought that was great. The prizes don't go to only families with young children.

 

[ChocoKat]

We are 2 adults, no kids, we won fast passes.
I am under strict instructions that if we ever win the Castle Stay we must phone our friends (also annual pass holders, living just an hour away from Disney) and see if we can share with them and their kids. The castle is big enough to hold us all.