May 28, 2005 Mexican Riviera

[wmjivey]

Challada - count me in; just let me know when and where.

 

[wmjivey]

Is anyone else spending the night of May 27th at the Sheraton LA Harbor?

 

[EnchantedPlayroom]

Man, sounds like there will be green people scattered all over the boat the first day. My mom (sandysplayhouse) and I have found lime green material, and my Grandma will be coming out for the cruise a week early (from Texas) to sew us CUSTOM lime green wear. Mom and I were thinking of wearing our Alien Green paint swatch as a name tag with our Real AND DIS board names, and printing a picture of our Avatar. A tight squeeze, but it'll be easier to recognise everyone. What do yall think? (or was this already discussed and were way out of the loop?)

 

[EnchantedPlayroom]

Wmjivey, I think my group is spending the night at the Holiday Inn.

 

[Jedisan]

We are hoping to get on the ship as early as possible. So, we're good to meet at Scoops at 2:30 or 3:00.

Enchanted - what time will you be at Disneyland on Sunday? Perhaps we could arrange a pre-cruise meet?

GGG - Thanks for keeping count (we were at 100), but did not keep a separate chart for those people confirmed for the meet at Scoops. It's going to be wonderful meeting everyone.

 

[EnchantedPlayroom]

JEDISAN, that sounds AWESOME! Would you guys be interested in meeting at Goofy's kitchen for breakfast? Ever eaten there? Very fun! A little steep at $20/person, so if you want to meet somewhere else, that's fine too.

 

[Jedisan]

Let me check with DH on that. We've eaten there before while staying at the DL hotel. It was a lot of fun - so many characters.

We also enjoy the Storyteller Cafe. I'm not sure if you've eaten there. They have Chip & Dale and do a breakfast parade to the Mickey Mouse March. Very cute.

What time will you be there? We like getting there early with the kids, otherwise its almost impossible to do Peter Pan (my personal favorite) and Dumbo.

 

[EnchantedPlayroom]

We can get there at 8 when they open. Sandysplayhouse will be there too. Would you like to eat first or meet in front of Peter Pan and ride first?

 

[Moley]

Is anyone else spending the night of May 27th at the Sheraton LA Harbor?

We are staying there that night. Not sure what time we will check in because a friend of ours is picking up The Man of our house and me at LAX and taking us to dinner before dropping us off at the Sheraton.

 

[wmjivey]

Moley - glad to see that we will not be the only ones at the Sheraton. We will be arriving some time that afternoon, depends on when we leave Phoenix and whether we actually make it to the Grand Californian for the pre-cruise meet. Maybe we can ride together to port on the 28th. We will probably see about getting over to port around 10-11.

 

[wmjivey]

Challada - are we still on for the pre-cruise meet on the 27th at the Grand Californian?

Hey, I just realized that I have made it to Mouseketeer.

 

[Mommyuf3]

Enchanted...DTD=Downtown Disney-Sorry

We are staying at the Embassey Suites, in Anaheim before we leave. They have a great,quick breakfast, before we leave for the Ship

I did call Super Shuttle for the morning of, and have a shuttle lined up. Anyone used them before?
:thewave:

 

[wmjivey]

Mommyuf3: Super Shuttle is very good and reliable. We use them all the time and have never had any problem.

 

[ssnyder]

Is anyone else spending the night of May 27th at the Sheraton LA Harbor?

My husband and I are there also. I'd like to meet up with the people that are at the harbor that evening for cocktails. Sandy's group is nearby at the Holiday Inn and we have already discussed getting together that night as a possiblity. We'll be driving up from San Diego after work. Considering it will be Friday night rush hour, I have no idea when we will actually make it there.

 

[JennsBabySky]

We can get there at 8 when they open. Sandysplayhouse will be there too. Would you like to eat first or meet in front of Peter Pan and ride first?

I won't be at Disneyland that day but I strongly recommend riding the rides first. In my opinion, the first hour that they open and the last hour before they close are the best times to be at Disneyland. The lines are usually super short and in one hour you can go on lots of rides! After about an hour, the lines get longer and that is a great time to go have breakfast. I find that I forget about hunger if I'm walking onto rides!

 

[ssnyder]

So you are kicking those of us without kids out of the Scoops meet. We were looking forward to meeting everyone that afternoon. But I totally understand the concern of the kids being overwhelmed with so many adults. I also looked at the map and Scoops is right at the entrance to the buffet, so there is going to be a lot of traffic right there.

So can I propose an alternative for those of us that are being kicked out of the Scoops meet? There are some adult places on the same deck where the rest of us could hang out while the kids are getting acquainted. There is the adult pool (which I understand is uncrowded at this time) , Signals Bar, and the new Cove Cafe. DH and I would probably go there anyway if we weren't trying to meet up with the group. Would one of these places work?

I'd really like to meet people before we get involved with everything else.

 

[rccllap]

Wow.
-----------------------------------------------------------

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - George Reiger has turned his tattooed body into a human animation cell for hundreds of Disney characters.Betsy and Dale Nelson left their law enforcement jobs in Fort
Lauderdale to move to an Orlando suburb so they would be closer to Walt Disney World; but the 45-minute commute wasn't close enough, so they moved again - this time within 2 1/2 miles of the theme park.Actor Patrick Labyorteaux of CBS' "JAG" bought a second home just blocks from Sleeping Beauty's castle in nearby Anaheim, Calif., so his family could drop in on Disneyland whenever they want.
These Disney fanatics have taken the theme park experience to the extreme. They've adopted it as
a lifestyle - quitting jobs, transforming their bodies, purchasing real estate and moving to strange
cities based on their need to immerse themselves in the innocence, happiness and community that
they feel the entertainment conglomerate gives them.
"The bottom line is it makes me happy," said Reiger, 51, a postal worker and part-time magician in
Bethlehem, Pa., who has been married six times. "Wives come and go, kids come and go, but
Disney is always going to be there for me."
Disney executives are very aware of the visceral, personal connection the theme parks have created
for their fans.
"This is where the consumer experiences Disney at its best," incoming Disney CEO Bob Iger said
during a speech this year in Orlando.
Disney planted the seeds for this sort of mania by opening Disneyland a half-century ago, followed
by Disney World and parks around the world in Paris, Tokyo, and later this year in Hong Kong.
Disneyland begins celebrating its 50th anniversary next week.
Part of Disney's success in creating hyper-fans stems from the "sacred" role the company has
played in childhood and family life, said University of Oregon communications professor Janet
Wasko. "As far as I know, Disney is the only brand that has so many fanatics."
Reiger has found in Disney the happiness he never had in childhood. His parents divorced in Tampa
when he was young, and his mother sent him to Pennsylvania to be with his grandmother. The
adults in his life had two or three jobs, so the television - especially the Mouseketeers - became his
baby sitter.
He got his first Disney character tattoo - Mickey Mouse from "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" - on his first
honeymoon in the early 1970s, around the time of Disney World's opening. He has since covered his
body in quarter-inch-size tattoos and has gone on five more honeymoons - each time to Disney
World."I'm reliving my childhood basically through Disney," he said. "I'm making up for things I didn't do as a kid."
Like Reiger, Betsy Nelson, 56, became enamored with Disney as a 5-year-old watching "The Mickey
Mouse Club" in the 1950s, and she regarded Mickey, Goofy and Minnie almost like friends. Her
husband, Dale, acquired Betsy's Disney devotion after they married in 1975.
They moved to the Orlando suburb of Lake Mary in 1999 but still found it too far from Walt Disney
World. So they moved closer - 2 1/2 miles away.
In previous years, after getting off work for the weekend, they regularly drove to Disney World from
Fort Lauderdale where Betsy worked as a prosecutor and Dale was chief investigator for the state
attorney's office.
"That was our escape from the job," said Dale Nelson, 61. "In our professional lives, you didn't see a
lot of people walking around, smiling all the time and laughing. You go to Disney World ... and you
rarely see anybody not smiling or having a good time."
Escapism is a major factor in Disney's allure, especially in a post-911 world with heightened feelings
of fear and insecurity.
"Many people ... escape into this fantasy as part of a need to drop out of world they neither fully
understand nor want to participate in," said Henry Giroux, a professor of communications at
McMaster University in Ontario.
Even Labyorteaux, who spends his days portraying make-believe Lt. Bud Roberts on "JAG," said
there's always a need to get away from it all.
"Like everyone in the world, our lives are very stressed out," Labyorteaux said. "Why not enjoy a
place that once you're inside you have that happy feeling?"
But rather than simply being manipulated by Disney's marketing machine, some of these hyper-fans
go as far as to become a part of it.
Take Doris Lobring and her husband, Kirk. They left jobs in the construction business in St.
Petersburg in the mid-1980s to work full-time at Walt Disney World. The Cincinnati natives, then well
into middle age, took jobs side-by-side, and steep pay cuts, dipping ice cream at Epcot for $5 to $6
an hour.
"We had to choose between money and enjoying life," said Kirk Lobring.
They also decided to spend any extra money on Disney artifacts for filling what they called "The
House that Mickey Built." They purchased Disney clocks, telephones, knickknacks and drawings for
every birthday or anniversary.
Doris Lobring died unexpectedly in April at age 70 of complications from pneumonia. Two hundred
people, including workers dressed as Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, showed up for a memorial
service at Disney World where they remembered her infectious enthusiasm for all things Disney.
Hundreds of letters from visitors to the resort praising Doris were laid out on a table. Top Disney
executives spoke about how she had inspired them with her spunk, and other workers talked about
how they regarded Doris and Kirk as second parents.
"Doris had a passion for Disney," said Kevin Digiammarino, her former manager at Disney World.
"No matter what she did, it was about Disney."
___

 

[WWTBAMouseketeer]

What was the name of the original 3-D movie shown at Journey into Imagination (home of Figment, my all-time favorite purple guy)?

 

[sandysplayhouse]

UnFair! I know the answer but only because I looked it up.. this question is WDW based and not particularily a "DISNEY" question that ANYone could know without having gone to the park... I move for a rules change. (are there any rules??)

AND speaking about Disneyitis, ...our whole family and friends (like I said, we travel in herds) considered moving to Celebration Florida to achieve that "Disneyesk" quality of home living... but it was SOOOOO hot there during our visit in December that I knew I would not enjoy it during summers... soooo, nevermind. Although I would love to have a "winter" home there.

 

[Jedisan]

I think the answer is "Magic Journeys"