Broke Hoedown

The top 10 Disney Chief Magic Official candidates are now online - go check it out and cast your vote!

I’d submitted an application myself, but am no longer in the race (I didn’t even make the first cut, actually). Mr Broke Hoedown tells me I should throw my endorsement behind a candidate . . . this is gonna be a tough call, I gotta say.

Okay people, my Disney Chief Magic Official video is online. Good thing I don’t embarrass easily I have no idea whether the number of views of each video has any impact on selection of the first round of finalists . . . but I figure it couldn’t hurt to get some traffic, right?

Plus, I know y’all really need to see my attempt at deadpan comedy, right? So go ahead click here to see my PowerPoint, office-jargon-spewing skillz in action.

If it weren’t for the last minute, nothing would ever get done! And I’ll bet I’m not the only one around here who learned how to use non-linear video editing software over the last couple weeks, preparing a video resume for the Disney Chief Magic Official contest. Entries are due today, January 27.

I’m not entirely clear whether the contest rules allow me to upload my video to YouTube, so for the moment at least I can’t post it for you. (Suffice it to say I look rather fetching in Mickey ears with my business suit, and that I gotz mad PowerPoint skillz.) The rules say that “All Online Entries become the sole property of the Sponsor,” which seems to imply that I no longer have any intellectual property rights over my entry, so I’m playing it safe.

I actually uploaded my video resume a couple days ago (thank you, hotel wireless network!), and it hasn’t appeared yet on the Disney CMO “watch videos” section, which makes me think that page just reflects a random sample. Plus, for the moment at least they’re not making it easy to link to individual videos, so it would seem they’re hoping none of these videos will go viral yet. I bet that’ll change once we get into the “Top 10″ round, where online voting counts.

I know my chances of winning are very small. Many will enter, few will win, yadda yadda. But it was a lot of fun making the video! My best wishes to all of you who are entering the contest too.

Today’s MouseGuest Weekly Podcast features a segment my BFF Lisa and I recorded live this week with Dan and Eric, commenting at length on various criticisms we’ve heard of the Year of a Million Dreams. Per usual we also take a few tangents, like poking a bit of fun at other Disney podcasters, and taking inventory of my Pal Mickey’s rapidly-expanding custom wardrobe.

Yes indeed, it was another fabulous trip to Walt Disney World, this time made extra-special by a free upgrade to Saratoga Springs Resort (we had booked Pop Century) and the “Free” Disney Dining Plan promotion (yes, I did the math . . . in our case we really did save money on paying rack rate in order to get “Free” dining).

Here are a few of the most, and least, Magical Moments from our 6-night stay:

Best Cast Member Pixie Dust: Eric from Illinois, at Disney-MGM Studios. Some Cast Members are so special, I just gotta let everyone know (including Disney management, who’ll receive a note from me shortly). The last night of our stay, my son lost a souvenir mug he’d just purchased at Pizza Planet. I cannot begin to tell you how traumatic this was . . . all the stresses and sadness of the vacation coming to an end somehow crystallized around this lost mug, and I was not sure how we could recover. Stopping by Guest Relations, we were greeted warmly by a Cast Member named Eric, from Illinois. Eric not only advised us on how to use the lost-and-found registry, and how to contact WDW Merchandise to try to purchase a replacement, but he took the time to walk with my son to Mickey’s of Hollywood, and let him pick out any mug he’d like. Eric’s kindness, care, and patience with my sad little boy were exactly the pixie dust we both needed.

And a strong runner-up: Michael from Florida, who chatted with us as we waited for a table at the Sci Fi Dine In. My son and I were particularly impressed at how patient and calm Michael was when confronted by an angry Guest who didn’t seem to understand how the Advanced Dining Reservation system works.

Best Fine Dining Experience: Le Cellier. This hot spot lived up to its reputation. The service was superb, the pretzel bread delicious, and the New York Strip Steak (aka the Scopa Special) cooked to perfection. The Cast Member serving our meal chatted amiably with us, and worked closely with my son to ensure that he had just the right food for his very particular tastes. I never would have booked a meal here without the Dining Plan, but now that I’ve tried it I’ll eat there again, even if I need to pay full price.

Also, a little tidbit of advice: If you’re hoping to get into Le Cellier and can’t get an Advance Dining Reservation (ADR), try dropping in right when they open for lunch (or dinner, but the odds aren’t as good). When we sat down at 11:50am for our noon ADR, only about 20% of the tables were occupied, despite the fact that Le Cellier is apparently fully booked until December. Cast Members told us that there are often tables available for walk-ins during the first 20 minutes or so after they first open, due to the high number of no-shows for those early slots.

Worst Fine Dining Experience: Coral Reef. We had the best of all possible tables, right up against the enormous aquarium. The food was reasonably good, and the wait staff understanding when my son had to send back an entree. But the noise was simply too much - the acoustics of the room seem to amplify the din you’d expect from any family dining establishment, and I’m sure we all complicated matters by shouting a bit in our attempt to be heard from the other side of the tiny little table. We won’t be back.

Best Character Interaction: Captain Jack Sparrow at the Pirate and Princess Party. Two tickets to the Pirate and Princess Party: $80. Wait in line to meet Jack: 45 minutes. Photopass pictures I ordered online today: $40, including shipping. The sparkle in my son’s eyes whenever he remembers giving Jack a set of “black pearl” beads, which Jack tenderly wrapped around his wrist? Priceless.

Worst Wait Times: Saratoga Springs bus service. I was warned, I gambled anyway, and I lost. The schedule clearly stated that buses ran every 20 minutes, but our average wait was at least that long. One particularly annoying example: On Magic Kingdom’s Extra Magic Hour morning we arrived at the bus stop at 7:10am, but no bus arrived for us until 8:15am, shortly after a uniformed Disney Transportation Cast Member arrived with a clipboard and a stern look.

My son had the good sense to start toting a book around for those long waits, and Pal Mickey and I just kept each other company the best we could (”Are you ready for a quick quiz?”).

Best View: From My Balcony, SSR 3723. Would I have appreciated it as much had I paid full price for the Saratoga Springs studio? I doubt it. But nonetheless there it was, a beautiful and relaxing vista right in my very own room. Every day during our afternoon break (thank you for the advice. Unofficial Guide!), I’d spend at least a few minutes sitting out on the balcony watching the fountain, watching for bunnies, and just plain enjoying what passes for privacy when you’re a parent traveling on a budget. I even caught a nice sunset or two.

Worst Scheduling Algorithm: Magical Express. (Be warned: I’m gonna get geeky for real here . . . I know just enough about computer programming and algorithms to be dangerous.) I hadn’t used the Magical Express (ME) before, and was always a bit put off by the fact that you’re required to board a bus to the airport three full hours before your scheduled flight. But I never realized that this rule was applied so haphazardly. Based on a conversation I had with another family on our same return flight (but staying at a different resort), we both boarded ME buses at 7:00am, but their bus made two stops en route to MCO - one of which was at our resort, 30 minutes after we had already been required to leave. And once again, since we were on the same exact flight, it seems to me that if they could depart Saratoga Springs at 7:30am, we could have been sitting right next to them instead of already being at MCO (since our bus was blissfully nonstop).

Now, I could tell myself that Disney’s just trying to trap you in MCO long enough to drop a few dollars in their stores there. Lord knows I did! But I think it’s really just a question of lazy scheduling. Because ME knows your itinerary (and in our case even provided flight check-in at the resort), certainly someone could easily design a scheduling algorithm that looks at the various Guest itineraries and optimizes ME departure times based on ensuring that all Guests scheduled for Flight XYZ arrive at MCO 2 hours in advance of Flight XYZ, rather than just a hard-and-fast rule requiring that all Guests have their butts in ME seats 3 hours before Flight XYZ departs. Had such an algorithm been in place, we might well have had time for one final round of Mickey Waffles, instead of having to be on the bus before Artist’s Palette opened for the day. Harumph.

Best Marketing Strategy: Continuation of the Year of a Million Dreams. I’m still sold on it, as surely as I was last October. Sure, in many ways it’s really more like the Year of a Million Free Lanyards, with a couple big prizes thrown in (many will enter, few will win), and I giggled this morning when I heard Scopa call it the Year of a Million Refurbishments. But those free lanyards feel more magical than they have any right to be, especially when you’ve spent too much of your morning waiting for a bus. And my son’s very proud of the Dream certificate he was awarded for throwing a basketball around with a few Cast Members one morning at Epcot.

Worst Wake-Up Call: The 5:00am call from Stitch and Mickey on the morning of our departure. Was it really time to go already? Couldn’t we just sneak in one more ride? “Well,” I thought to myself, “At least maybe I might be able console myself with a last few pin trades at the World of Disney store at MCO. Maybe Pal Mickey needs a couple new friends to keep him company on the long flight home. I wonder if Magical Express will get us there early enough?”

Reuters reports that Disney has opened its Fairy Tale Weddings to same-sex couples:

The Walt Disney Co. has changed its policy to allow same-sex couples to participate in a popular Fairy Tale Wedding program it runs mainly at its two U.S. resorts and cruise line, a Disney spokesman said on Thursday.

Disney previously had allowed gay couples to organize their own weddings or commitment ceremonies at rented meeting rooms at the resorts, but had barred them from purchasing its Fairy Tale Wedding package and holding the event at locations at Disneyland and Walt Disney World that are set aside specifically for weddings.

The article mentions the excellent AfterElton.com article in March which brought this issue to so many people’s attention. The conversations within Disney must have been very interesting even before the article, given the number of Cast Members and Disney management who likely opposed the former policy.

I read some of my favorite message boards tonight, and I see the couples overjoyed to know they can start planning their dream wedding at Walt Disney World. As one poster said, this is truly the Year of a Million Dreams now.

Have faith in your dreams and someday
Your rainbow will come smiling through
No matter how your heart is grieving
If you keep on believing
the dream that you wish will come true

Many times in this blog, I’ve mentioned the fabulous trip my dear son and I had to Walt Disney World in October, 2006. It was a special surprise, piggybacked onto Mr Broke Hoedown’s business trip to Orlando. We were especially lucky to win the American Wishing Tale Dream, along with my Best Friend Forever Lisa; my son still beams when he talks about it, and I cherish the Magical Moments certificate we brought home.

But I’ve never written about what our lives looked like earlier that same week. About 48 hours before this picture was taken, I was sitting in my living room removing electrodes from my son’s scalp, at the end of a 48-hour ambulatory EEG. This was his second EEG of the year (and while we didn’t know it at the time, there was one more to come). We’d also had an MRI, a CT scan, and countless visits with neurologists of various stripes over many months. This trip was more than just a regular vacation for us; it was a diversion from an endless stream of medical fears and uncertainties. For a few days, we were able to forget, and stop worrying about what the next test result might bring.

I am tremendously relieved to report that my son is fine. He has a chronic condition that will always require management, and we’re fortunate to have access to excellent health care. But some kids face much tougher odds, and they need a little magic even more than we did. So do their parents.

Give Kids the World fulfills the wishes of terminally ill children who would like to vacation with their families in Central Florida. There are a tremendous number of ways to support these efforts, ranging from direct contributions, to booking your Staybridge hotel stay through a link on their web site, to bidding on eBay auctions that donate a percentage to this important work. Please visit their site and consider how you might want to help.

In late February, many travel agents received emails about a special sweepstakes, for one lucky travel agent to win a night in Cinderella’s Castle, as part of the Year of a Million Dreams.

The problem with this? The thing that’s got some of us cynical and irritable? Well, the winner must take their night in the castle on June 2, 2007. And it just so happens that Magic Kingdom is “park of the day” for Gay Days at Walt Disney World.

Co-incidence? Maybe, maybe not. But for those of us feeling a little twitchy about not seeing any families headed by same-sex couples winning the big photo-op YOMD prizes, well, it makes us even a little more so. Is Disney trying to avoid awarding a night in Cinderella Castle to participants at Gay Day? I wish I could give them the benefit of the doubt here, but I’m still too sad about the fact that same-sex couples can’t use Disney wedding services to think that there’s not something amiss here.