A few months ago my boss dropped a little bombshell on myself and the rest of the other Kingdom Konsultants. There was not going to be an Earmarked conference in 2010 and there was much sadness in the kingdom. The sadness was lifted when she informed us that the Earmarked conference would be held in January of 2011 on.....
Wait for it.......
One of the inaugural voyages of the Disney Dream!
The adventure started out with a 2 night stay at the Contemporary. We got a rather insanely low conference rate on the rooms and I was naturally expecting to be put in the garden wing. My heat began to flutter a bit when I noticed that our room number began with a 4.....that means tower room. Surely it would be a Bay Lake view. Nope. MK view baby!
We arrived somewhat late on Friday and only with only one day park hoppers we decided to spend the evening relaxing at the resort. However, my youngest daughter had a date with Peter Pan that evening. She has been pestering us for years to let her go back to the Neverland Club and we made her a reservation to do just that earlier in the week.
Just a quick FYI.... apparently 9 is the age when your kids think it is clever to smile awkwardly in every picture.
Hurry up with the picture dad!
Love you dear! Yeah, yeah...I got things to do.
Saturday started out with the new breakfast buffet at the Wave. It is a decent buffet. Nothing too special but a fair buffet for the price.
Next up was registration for the conference. I met up with the other KK agents and we made our way to the conference center. Nothing too exciting here, just typical conference stuff. Pick up agenda, tags, etc.
At noon on was on a bus heading for the "Through Walt's Eyes" tour.
The tour started back stage at DHS and went over a few of the hidden details of DS that refereed back to the early history Walt Disney the film maker. It was mostly stuff that the majority of us already know so I will not bore you with the details.
From there we made our way to the special events warehouse behind MK. Let me tell you this is a place that most of us would give our right arm to be left unattended in. Nearly every item that Disney builds for special events gets stored in this building.
After that we made our way into MK. Here we spent quite a bit of time in the Utilidors. We saw quite a bit more of the 1st level of MK than I did on the Keys tour. While it was completely fascinating to me I can see how it would be very unmagical to most.
After that my official day was over and I had a chance to enjoy the parks a little. I headed back to MK through the front gates this time with the family. We planned on hitting a few attractions and watching the MSEP and the new Magic Memories and You show on the castle. In the couple of hours it took for me to eat, collect my family get back to MK it had gone from mild crowds to pure bedlam. Just when did Brazilian tour groups start showing up in January? MSEP was pretty much out at the parade route was packed by 6:00 PM. We decide to kill some time, hit the HM and use a couple of fast passes we had for Space Mountain. We found a decent spot just to the right of the castle about 20 minutes before show time.
Let me tell you the videos of this show do not do it justice. The tech, the music and the story are simply amazing. IMHO the new making memories promotion is one of the best concepts in quite some time. Even if you do not like the show the future application of this projector technology is quite promising. I can only imagine what the Imagineers could do with this for Christmas, Halloween, New Years, etc if given the opportunity.
After the show we had to make it back to the Outer Limits at the Contemporary to meet up with the other KK agents and a few other friends both in and outside of the travel industry. If you think getting out of MK is hard after Wishes you should try it 5 minutes prior. We wound up getting routed back stage. Had we not I fear we might not have made it in any less than an hour.
The evening finished off pretty well. We spent a couple of hours with some great old and new friends. The party broke up a little after ten and we all went to bed with dreams of boarding the DCL's new crown jewel the next day.
The day I had been waiting for had finally arrived. I would be boarding the Disney Dream in just a few short hours. I had a short customer service seminar that I needed to attend that morning. While I was there my wife packed up, fed the kids, gassed up the van and met me out in front of the convention center. Quite honestly I think I am lucky that she even brought the van to a complete stop. She was so excited I half expected her to have me jump in on the run as she circled in the parking lot.
We made it to the port just shy of noon. I had wanted to get there considerably earlier to avoid the rush but it looks like it really would not have mattered. Apparently nearly every delegate at the convention had the same plan and made it to the port early. According to a text I got from my boss the fire martial stopped the incoming buses for a while the mob cleared. Check in went smoothly and efficiently and we were on board a couple of hours later.
Wait for it.......
One of the inaugural voyages of the Disney Dream!
The adventure started out with a 2 night stay at the Contemporary. We got a rather insanely low conference rate on the rooms and I was naturally expecting to be put in the garden wing. My heat began to flutter a bit when I noticed that our room number began with a 4.....that means tower room. Surely it would be a Bay Lake view. Nope. MK view baby!
We arrived somewhat late on Friday and only with only one day park hoppers we decided to spend the evening relaxing at the resort. However, my youngest daughter had a date with Peter Pan that evening. She has been pestering us for years to let her go back to the Neverland Club and we made her a reservation to do just that earlier in the week.
Just a quick FYI.... apparently 9 is the age when your kids think it is clever to smile awkwardly in every picture.
Hurry up with the picture dad!
Love you dear! Yeah, yeah...I got things to do.
Saturday started out with the new breakfast buffet at the Wave. It is a decent buffet. Nothing too special but a fair buffet for the price.
Next up was registration for the conference. I met up with the other KK agents and we made our way to the conference center. Nothing too exciting here, just typical conference stuff. Pick up agenda, tags, etc.
At noon on was on a bus heading for the "Through Walt's Eyes" tour.
The tour started back stage at DHS and went over a few of the hidden details of DS that refereed back to the early history Walt Disney the film maker. It was mostly stuff that the majority of us already know so I will not bore you with the details.
From there we made our way to the special events warehouse behind MK. Let me tell you this is a place that most of us would give our right arm to be left unattended in. Nearly every item that Disney builds for special events gets stored in this building.
After that we made our way into MK. Here we spent quite a bit of time in the Utilidors. We saw quite a bit more of the 1st level of MK than I did on the Keys tour. While it was completely fascinating to me I can see how it would be very unmagical to most.
After that my official day was over and I had a chance to enjoy the parks a little. I headed back to MK through the front gates this time with the family. We planned on hitting a few attractions and watching the MSEP and the new Magic Memories and You show on the castle. In the couple of hours it took for me to eat, collect my family get back to MK it had gone from mild crowds to pure bedlam. Just when did Brazilian tour groups start showing up in January? MSEP was pretty much out at the parade route was packed by 6:00 PM. We decide to kill some time, hit the HM and use a couple of fast passes we had for Space Mountain. We found a decent spot just to the right of the castle about 20 minutes before show time.
Let me tell you the videos of this show do not do it justice. The tech, the music and the story are simply amazing. IMHO the new making memories promotion is one of the best concepts in quite some time. Even if you do not like the show the future application of this projector technology is quite promising. I can only imagine what the Imagineers could do with this for Christmas, Halloween, New Years, etc if given the opportunity.
After the show we had to make it back to the Outer Limits at the Contemporary to meet up with the other KK agents and a few other friends both in and outside of the travel industry. If you think getting out of MK is hard after Wishes you should try it 5 minutes prior. We wound up getting routed back stage. Had we not I fear we might not have made it in any less than an hour.
The evening finished off pretty well. We spent a couple of hours with some great old and new friends. The party broke up a little after ten and we all went to bed with dreams of boarding the DCL's new crown jewel the next day.
The day I had been waiting for had finally arrived. I would be boarding the Disney Dream in just a few short hours. I had a short customer service seminar that I needed to attend that morning. While I was there my wife packed up, fed the kids, gassed up the van and met me out in front of the convention center. Quite honestly I think I am lucky that she even brought the van to a complete stop. She was so excited I half expected her to have me jump in on the run as she circled in the parking lot.
We made it to the port just shy of noon. I had wanted to get there considerably earlier to avoid the rush but it looks like it really would not have mattered. Apparently nearly every delegate at the convention had the same plan and made it to the port early. According to a text I got from my boss the fire martial stopped the incoming buses for a while the mob cleared. Check in went smoothly and efficiently and we were on board a couple of hours later.
