In the Shadow of the Mouse

Long time coming!

steve.nospam@nospam.intheshadowofthemouse.com (netdirector) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 10:16:00 +0100

It's been a long, looooooong time since my last post about Mary Poppins - and I still haven't gotten around to posting about our last Disney trip! It's been an extremely busy year and I'll try to fill in best I can working backwards...

My son Derek just got back from his two week, People to People trip to Paris and London. For those of you who aren't familiar with the program, it was started by Dwight D. Eisenhower when he was President, and works towards getting kids from 5th grade to high school traveling around the world, learning new cultures, and sharing their culture with others. It's an amazing journey that took Derek through Paris, Normandy, Oxford, Parliment, and so much more. 2 weeks of non-stop activity. He returned immediately wanting to go on the next trip to Australia. Given the cost of these trips... I think he needs to get a job.

If others are interested for their kids, and I strongly recommend the program, you can find more details at the Student Ambassador web site.

I'll let Derek post himself if he wants to share about his experiences.

Prior to him leaving, in fact it was the night before, we took a trip into Chicago to see the D23 Mary Poppins musical. The seats were amazing, we ended up with 4 copies of the DVD (? - 1 per ticket? Really?), Mary Poppins pins (!), and we got to meet a few members of the cast afterwards, including Mary (now dressed in t-shirt and jeans) and Bert. The show itself was much longer than I thought it would be, but the singing and dancing was great and the musical really took it's cue from the book rather than the movie, so there's a different, edgier feel to it. At one point Mary battles with an older, evil nanny sent to replace her, and Mary casts her into a cage and banishes her to hell. Yup, that's what I consider "edgy". All in all a great show. I was little more disappointed in meeting the cast afterward - not that the cast wasn't great, but there were no pictures and no autographes allowed. Contrast that with the D23 event in New York, where both were allowed and you can understand my disappointment.

I'd still do it again in a minute though. Just for the pins. :)

Busy summer... the house has been pretty much booked a few weeks each month, which has been nice. I'll be putting a "end of month" sale up on my VRBO site today to book the last week in July (the only week not booked). September and October are still wide open for bookings as well. Being my first year, I'm just learning the ropes as to when to decrease prices and when to increase, as well as being able to gauge the pricing pulse of the area. From an economic standpoint, Disney is holding steady in attendance, and though they've had some great incentives the prices at their resorts have actually increased over last year. If anyone has ideas on what they'd like to find in a rental property, I'm all ears... :)

Something about Mary... Poppins!

steve.nospam@nospam.intheshadowofthemouse.com (netdirector) — Mon, 25 May 2009 11:41:00 +0100

It's been awhile since my last post and I *really* need to get around to posting the notes about our last trip... but until then I wanted to mention D23 again, and the latest benefit they've given out.

In case you haven't read my last post about D23, it's a new Disney Club that they're calling the "official" community for Disney fans. They have their own magazine, they send out special gifts with each issue, and just recently they announced a summer line up of activities exclusively for charter members.

most are located at or near the Disney properties, either in Florida or California. but one just happens to be in Chicago! A behind-the-scenes tour of the Broadway hit "Mary Poppins"! For a special price (which is a whole lot cheaper than the tickets available now) we get:

Premium seating location
Complimentary souvenir program
Special "behind-the-scenes" experience following the show
Coupon for 20% merchandise discount (included in your ticket envelope)
Complimentary 2-Disc Mary Poppins 45th Anniversary Special Edition DVD courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment

So I called the next day, and got tickets in the 5th row, dead center. The exact area that I think Mary Poppins flies over when she soars off the stage!

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

Back again! Wow... what a trip!

steve.nospam@nospam.intheshadowofthemouse.com (netdirector) — Tue, 05 May 2009 18:00:00 +0100

Just flew in last night from another whirlwind vacation in the shadow of the mouse, where we took Sydney down for her 10th birthday. It was a blast! I'm going to recount each day's activities in subsequent posts, but first I thought I'd talk a bit about the house.

It was interesting returning home after a few other folks had now stayed there. Still smelled like new (versus smelling like anything else) but I did notice a few scrapes against furniture and walls, and a few things moved where they weren't before. Like the dining room table. Someone switched it up from vertical to horizontal! And end tables were moved around... as well as plants. Very odd.

We took a good chunk of a day to stock up on a few more HDTVs for the bedrooms and DVD players... so we now have 19" TVs in the master bedrooms and in one of the Queens, and DVD players in all but the Queen. We picked up the TVs at Sam's Club... and let me jump on a tangent here about shopping in Kissimmee. We've been typically shopping at the local Wal-Mart and let me tell you... I *hate* Wal-Mart. It's always packed, and yet despite this fact there are very few checkout lines open. So you wait... and wait... and wait... but the prices are unbelievably cheap. Cheese is half the price it is here, and Illinois is right next to Wisconsin! The "can you smell my dairy air" state! Anyway, the night we went out for TVs the Wal-Mart was out of power (bizarre) so we traveled a bit further up US192 to the OTHER local Wal-Mart. This one was even worse. Frustrated, we left.

Now, I figure all Wal-Marts are the same... crowded, too few checkouts, yada yada... at least that's my been experience. And Sam's Club, the baby brother discount arm of Wal-Mart, is no exception here. But in Kissimmee... it was heaven. Barely 1/4 of the parking lot was full. Big huge aisles you could walk through and nary run into another soul. And someone actually came up to me as I was looking at TVs, and asked me if I needed help! I showed him the choices I had, and I was eyeballing a model with built-in DVD player. The Sam's Club guy actually pointed me a less expensive, non-DVD set and told me to not buy the DVD model, as they'd been having too many returns!

I felt I was in the Twilight Zone... and not the Tower of Terror!

So I picked up the TVs at Sam's Club, and DVD players at Wal-Mart (go figure, they had better deals there) and then HDMI cables at the Super Target, where they were half the price of the other two.

I also picked up a wireless Internet router at Wal-Mart... a Belkin... and this was the biggest pain of the entire trip. Took me forever to finally configure. But the entire house now has wireless Internet.

I also installed a keyed lock for an owner's closet. We don't ahve too much we'd want to keep there, mostly just a screwdriver (that I bought to install the lock) and a collapsible cooler we bought to bring our lunches to the parks in.

Oh yeah, that was a *great* idea Lora had to bring our lunches. Disney Parks have decent food, but it tends to be really expensive. Like $50 a pop for the fast food, and well over $100 for the four of us for a sit down. Combine that with the frozen cokes and churros the kids must have

and it really starts to add up. So Lora would make sandwiches in the morning (I preferred the ham and swiss, with little love pockets in the folded lunch meat)

along with Pringles and grapes or bananas, and we'd pack up the cooler for the trip. Disney offers lockers to keep your stuff in, so we'd store the cooler until lunch, then pull it out and find a nice shaded spot to eat. Worked out great! We'd save money AND time (the lines for food can rival the lines for the attractions).

Ok... next post I'll tell you about the first park we visited upon arriving... EPCOT!

Terra Verde Resort

steve.nospam@nospam.intheshadowofthemouse.com (netdirector) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 18:17:00 +0100

So I've written at length about my home here in Kissimmee, Magna Opus, but not at all about the vacation home community that it's part of. My home is located in Terra Verde, a private, gated community located within easy reach of the US192 corridor and within 15 minutes of Disney, Seaworld, Universal Studios and all the other Orlando Theme Park attractions. It's just south of US192 down N. Poinciana Blvd, just a bit past Oren Brown Rd. You'll find it as you come up to a big rock on your left with "Terra Verde" engraved in it.

This is a great community. Aside from the fact my home has a pool and a game room, the clubhouse at Terra Verde (free for all guests) contains all sorts of other great values, including:

Reception desk with Conciege services to assist guests plan their vacation activities, whilst offering advice and discounts on local attractions.
Large meeting and reception room making an ideal location for private family parties, reunions and other functions
Fitness center with Sauna, offering a bookable, visiting massage and complementary therapy services
Massage and complementary therapy services available by appointment
Business center, offering full PC facilities with Internet access
Free Wifi internet access throughout the premises
Games room
DVD rental / ATM / Postal facilities
Complimentary coffee and cable TV

The resort also features:

A large, freeform, landscaped, heated Pool with sunning deck and Hot tub, overlooking the central lake
Poolside Tiki bar for drinks and light snacks
Separate Children's play areas with swings, slide and climbing rock
Netball and Basket ball courts, Bowling lawn and Sandy area for Volleyball
3 acre, stocked fishing lake

Here of a picture of the clubhouse overlooking the lake at night...

Beautiful, isn't it? I haven't had the opportunity to go fishing yet, but the resort is built around a 3 acre stocked fishing lake. The private lake has an abundance of wildlife in and around it that includes turtles, cranes and ducks to name a few. There is also a bridge that spans our lake to make the walk from some of the homes to the clubhouse a lot shorter. The bridge has been designed to allow children and adults to fish from it.

The clubhouse also has a fitness center with workout equipment that would be nice to use. For some reason the kids want to be at the parks when they open and we don't get home until well after they close, but once I ever get a chance to take a vacation from my vacation, I can't wait to take advantage of all the amenities!

Epcot Flower and Garden Festival

steve.nospam@nospam.intheshadowofthemouse.com (netdirector) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 13:03:00 +0100

Only 10 days left before we leave... and one of the things I'm really forward to is the Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival, which runs from March 18th to May 31st.

This year looks better than ever. Lots of new sets with all your favorite Disney characters, and the weather should be perfect. At least I'm hoping it's perfect, because aside from touring Epcot and taking in the flower scene, I also want to take a ride in the new balloon at Downtown Disney.

Now THAT looks like fun. It's not a real hot air balloon, it actually uses helium (which will make it much quieter than the traditional hot air baloon) and it lifts off about 400 feet above Downtown Disney. The carrier holds about 30 people, but I'm hoping if we get there early enough it won't be so crowded.

Also hoping to get plenty of great aerial photos once we're up there!

D23 pins... SOLD OUT!!! (temporarily, I hope)

steve.nospam@nospam.intheshadowofthemouse.com (netdirector) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:03:00 +0100

Soooo... I have my brand, spankin' new D23 membership, and as much as I love the $900 pen I was looking to complement my spiffy new lithograph with something more affordable... like PINS!!!

So I mosey on over the Disney shopping site to pick up a choice few... and I find this...

Not on just this pin, which I really wanted, but on EVERY D23 pin! So either D23 is a much more popular club than I imagined, or every D23 member is also an avid pin collector and they've beat me to the pins!

I guess it makes sense that your average D23 member would be a much more avid Disney collector, and would want to pick up as much of the "Charter Year" memorabilia as they can.

Can't help but notice though, that the $900 pens sure haven't sold out yet...

To eBay, or not to eBay, that is the question...

steve.nospam@nospam.intheshadowofthemouse.com (netdirector) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:09:00 +0100

Ok... back to Disney and back to pins. One of the great pleasures my family and I have at Disney World is found in pin collecting and pin trading. We buy tons of pins, mostly off of the Disney Store site (since we live in Chicago) and a bunch more whenever we visit Disney World. Unfortunately, we also keep most of the ones we buy. Pins are for the most part EXPENSIVE. There are large, limited edition pins going for $20 on the Disney site right now... pin sets going for $150. So we buy those to keep those. So then how do we get to trade for the cast member pins, which you can't buy, you can only get by trading with a Disney employee?

Our answer... eBay. There are pin lots being sold on eBay for as low as $1.40 a pin, with wonderful descriptions of how these are collected by people who live near Disney and trade year round. It all sounds so great until you being to think about how they can afford to be trading and reselling for so low, when the average "low" price pin at Disney is maybe $3. So I did a little research and discovered a horrible, dark, evil secret about these Disney pin brokers.

Most, if not all, are not legitimate Disney pins. They're made in China, most likely in the same places that make the real pins, just made "after hours" or these are the defects that didn't past muster. And comparing some of the pins we've gotten with ones we've already traded for... some are a little off in color. Some have strange markings. Some are missing features. They call these... scrappers. Here's an example of a real and a fake counterfeit.

And a big sinking feeling hits me that I'm dong something wrong to taint the wonderfulness that is Disney - which is all about fun and excitement and good family values.

So I'm calling out to other Disney pin traders... are all these Disney pin lot dealers on eBay corrupt and evil, taking advantage of a genuinely enjoyable hobby for young and old alike... or might be some be legitmate? There are quite a few. I've already purchased another 200 for trading on our next trip... but I'm thinking this will be my last.

Unless someone out there can convince me that this can actually be a legitimate method for collecting and trading. I'd like to think it is, because it's a great way to accumulate enough pins for my kids to trade. Otherwise, pin trading is going to be limited to 5-6 pins versus 40-50. Which brings up another topic... why are Disney pins so gosh darn expensive? For a company that puts out 10000 pins a year, you think they could make a few of those in the $1-$2 range for the kids.

Boy, all this talk about pin trading is getting me excited about the trip! 26 more days! Woo hoo!

Who watches the Watchmen? I did...

steve.nospam@nospam.intheshadowofthemouse.com (netdirector) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:07:00 +0100

So a rare occasions without children on Friday night, so Lora and I went to dinner, ate way too much food (fresh, fried potato chips smothered in bleu cheese... oh yeah), and then we went to see "Watchmen".

Unfortunately, "Monsters Vs. Aliens" booted "Watchmen" off the IMAX screens (grrrr...) and the absolute collapse of attendance since the first week pushed the movie to the small theatre in only it's 3rd week (more on that later). So we settled in and hunkered down for the 2 hours and 42 minutes of superhero goodness.

"Watchmen" did not disappoint. It was amazing. With the caveat that it was NOT as amazing as the graphic novel, but as far as superhero movies go, this was probably my favorite since "Spiderman" (the first movie) or "Darkman" (both Sam Raimi movies, by the way). If you haven't had the opportunity to see "Darkman" it stars Liam Neeson as a Batman like vigilante who was injured to extant of no longer being able to feel pain as well as having some sort of high octane adrenaline boost that ups his strength. But I digress...

First the good pieces... "Watchmen" is incredibly true to the dialogue and the artwork. I swear there were times I could swear I recognized the exact images on screen from the graphic novel. The actors were all dead ringers to their drawn counterparts, although I never quite realized how much Dan Dreiberg resembled Chevy Chase. Maybe it was the glasses. I did keep expecting someone to call him Clark Griswold though. Special effects were phenominal as well.

Now the bad. Wow, did they have to cut from the graphic novel. I guess there was no other way around this (other than making this a trilogy) to come out with a movie of reasonable length. Personally, I think there should have been multiple movies. The graphic novel itself was originally a 12 issue mini-series, so it's not like there weren't sections you could easily break for. Now, Lora loved it without having read the novel, so it can still stand on it's own merits as a movie, but I think it would have been so much better if there was more time to explain things and more layers could have been added in. It did feel rushed to me, even at the long length.

At lastly, the ending. I won't ruin it for anyone who hasn't read the graphic novel or seen the movie, but I didn't like it. I didn't feel it was realistic, and I certainly don't think it would have led to the final conclusion like the graphic novel's alternative ending did. That's all I'll say.

And I'll also say... DON'T TAKE YOUR CHILDREN! I heard figures of a 40% walkout rate, mostly from parents who took their kids thinking they were going to see the next "Iron Man" or "Spider Man". Not even close. Sex, violence, nudity, profanity, child molestation, end of the world... it's not appropriate in the least for kids to see. Yet as a co-worker of mine mentioned eariler today, they're marketing "Watchmen" action figures at ToysR'Us. Very irresponsible.

Ok... enough non-Disney talk! Next blog I'm going back to talking about PINS!!!

Miyazaki’s PONYO to be released in August

steve.nospam@nospam.intheshadowofthemouse.com (netdirector) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 10:55:00 +0100

So a brief tangent here from my typical posts on vacation homes and Disney pins... especially for those of you who are fans of animation and may not have heard of Hayao Miyazaki. I'm glad to be able to use this post to make this introduction.

Hayao Miyazaki is considered a genius among animators, and his films have inspired numerous American animated films - including many of the Pixar films. John Lasseter, the Chief Creative Officer at Pixar is an unabashed fan of Miyazaki films, and to quote,

"At Pixar, when we have a problem and we can't seem to solve it, we often take a laser disc of one of Mr. Miyazaki's films and look at a scene in our screening room for a shot of inspiration. And it always works! We come away amazed and inspired. Toy Story owes a huge debt of gratitude to the films of Mr. Miyazaki."

High praise indeed. My first exposure to his films was with "My Neighbor Totoro", which I had bought for my kids based on some rave reviews I had read. If was fascinating and magical. Numerous adult themes, wrapped in a wonderful story about two little girls and a host of forest spirits.

Film critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times identified "My Neighbor Totoro" as one of his all-time "Great Movies". Ebert reviewed the film,

"My Neighbor Totoro is based on experience, situation and exploration—not on conflict and threat," and described its appeal: "...it would never have won its worldwide audience just because of its warm heart. It is also rich with human comedy in the way it observes the two remarkably convincing, lifelike little girls... It is a little sad, a little scary, a little surprising and a little informative, just like life itself. It depends on a situation instead of a plot, and suggests that the wonder of life and the resources of imagination supply all the adventure you need."

If you ask my kids, they'll say they loved the weird little bunnies, the Cat Bus, and the catchy tunes.

Our first movie going experience came with "Howl's Moving Castle", when Hayao came out of retirement to write and direct this adaption of the Diana Wynne Jones novel. A whole cast of stars - Christian Bale, Lauren Bacall, Billy Crystal - and a fantastic storyline made this one of my favorite movies ever, and it was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards.

There are numerous other Miyazaki films I can comment on... but I'd rather hit upon the point of the post.

Disney is releasing a BRAND NEW Miyazaki film... "Ponyo on a Cliff".

The story revolves around a five-year old boy, Sosuke, and the Princess goldfish, Ponyo, who wants to become human. Sort of like a "Little Mermaid"... but using a real fish instead of a mermaid.

I don't have many more details... reviews are trickling out from Japan, where Miyazaki's film "Spirited Away" owns the box office record at $292 million in Japan alone, but I'm going to hold off reading too much so I can go in fresh to the film.

True be told, though... I can't wait! And if you're new to his work, I highly recommend heading out to rent or buy... you won't be disappointed!

Putting a Smile on the World

steve.nospam@nospam.intheshadowofthemouse.com (netdirector) — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:06:00 +0100

Well, eariler this week my D23 membership card arrived, with a nice "Charter Member" certificate (suitable for framing, although not sure where I'd put it), an official membership card, and the premier issue of the very glossy, Disney "twenty three" magazine. That was all nice and dandy... although I have already missed out on my limited edition D23 pins (darn it!)... but I was really looking forward to my "surprise" gift they said would be coming soon.

It arrived yesterday. I was not disappointed. In a very large tube I found a lithograph from Mickey's 80th birthday... Disney artist Paul Felix's "Putting a Smile on the World". 20"x30". Seriously, you could expect to pay about $50 for one of these in a Disney store.

Derek is extremely jealous. And it's not even a Donald picture! If it was, I'm sure I'd have to share...

Can't wait to buy a frame and hang it up!