Here's Some Countdowns!

   If you get excited for Disney like I do, you should make a countdown! These are fun family crafts and helps bring that excitement to a WHOLE different level.           

•  Make A Countdown- This will help you see exactly when your trip will be. If you have kids let them help you! This could be a fun family craft. Here's some ideas I found online.

Paper chains! A simple but nice countdown http://www.allthingswithpurpose.com/2013/01/top-50-ways-to-count-down-to-disney.html

I really love this one! http://www.mouseearsmom.com/2013/09/16/using-the-monorail-to-countdown-to-your-walt-disney-world-vacation-free-printable/

You can get these paint swatches for free at Home Depot! http://moldingmindshomeschool.blogspot.com/2011/08/disney-world-paint-chip-countdown.htm

Here's my favorite! You'll have to check this link out.http://www.palmettosandpigtails.com/walt-disney-world-countdown-for-disney-activities/

     I hope you liked this small little post. Make sure you check all the links! They'll help you with some instructions.

Meeting Face Character Tips

   

     Let's face it no matter how young or old you are, you want to meet the characters. I get excited meeting ALL characters. Princesses, animals, and villains are all exciting to meet. Although, my favorite characters to meet are the face characters ( Characters with no mask on ) .  I love meeting face characters, since they actually talk to you. So here's some of my tips on meeting face characters!

•      Make them something! Characters love getting things, if you make them something they will generally spend more time with you. So don't be afraid to paint a seashell for Ariel or make a kiss for Peter Pan!
  
•      Plan ahead! It would smart to plan your questions while in line. You don't want to smile and nod or that will get you nowhere!
  
•      Don't Be Embarrassed! You might be slightly embarrassed since your a grown adult waiting by yourself in a two hour wait line to meet Tinkerbell. DON'T BE! This is the happiest place on earth after all.
  
•      Camera, Autograph Book, Check! You probably want to remember this moment. So make sure you have a camera on hand or an autograph book. If you can't afford a autograph book make one yourself. Put stickers in it, the characters love them!
  
•     Be Yourself! Don't be afraid to act like yourself!
  

     My Experience...

          My first face character experience was actually only a few months ago. I've been meeting fur characters for my whole life but I NEVER met a face character. Well actually that's a lie. When I was younger I met Ariel and Snow White but I can't remember. So in August we went to Epcot. I really wanted to meet Alice, the Mad Hatter, and Peter Pan. So far I had no luck with finding any of them. My mom said I could get a souvenir from the store in England so we walked into the shop. Right when we walked in, there was a line for meeting Alice. You wouldn't believe my luck! The line was only five minutes long. So we talked to Alice for awhile. We talked about cupcakes, t- shirts, and cheese. That experience changed everything about my Disney trips. I'll make sure to meet more characters every trip!

I do not own any of these pictures. All rights reserve to owners.

Saving Mr. Banks Review

     So here's another movie review. I've been to the movies a lot lately so I thought I would take advantage.

     Saving Mr. Banks is an emotional impacting movie based on the true story about how Mary Poppins came to be. If you don't feel like crying then you shouldn't watch this movie. Don't say I didn't warn you!

     P.L Travers is a pushy author trying not to get her book turned into a movie while Walt on the other hand is determined to get this movie made for his daughters. She doesn't want any cartoons, no silly songs, and proper English. ( A hard lady to please ). Throughout the entire movie you see flashbacks of Travers past. This movie will tear every part of your heart out. When a sad part comes another one is just around the corner getting ready to punch.

     If your a Disney geek like me, this is a must see! Seeing Walt's office and all the little details are especially exciting. I loved the picture of Florida with a big red X in the middle. This is were they were planning to put Disney World. The scene were they were in Disneyland was great! Getting to see what Disneyland was like in the past was spectacular to see.

     The actors did a fantastic job playing their characters. Emma Thompson had P.L Travers down like the back of her hand.. Tom Hanks did a great job playing Disney as well. They seem like the real characters!

     The costumes were an important detail for me. Not only do i obsess over Disney but I love the 60's! Seeing all the costumes were great! Everything was perfect. From head to toe everyone was decked out in 60's clothes.

     Let me warn you that you shouldn't bring your kids. There's some smoking, death, violence, and alcohol scenes in here. Some bad language but nothing to bad. They wouldn't understand what's going on anyways so don't bother. I barely understood until after we left the theater. It was a great movie though and I recommend it. Just remember to bring the tissues!

Frozen Review

     So I actually saw Frozen a LONG time ago and didn't think until now that it would be great to do a review! Overall I thought the movie was pretty good but in a way I was slightly disappointed. So without further ado HERE IS THE FROZEN REVIEW!

     So first of all let's talk about the characters. I would have to say that Olaf was definitely my favorite character. Here you have all these serious characters then BAM! You meet Olaf. He brings the balance between serious and funny. Anna the main character was great as well. Let me just say though, Elsa's dress was amazing! You can clearly see all the details and it's just a perfect beautiful dress.

     Now the music, here's were I got disappointed. I thought the music just didn't live up to Disney standards like Tangled did. It's the kind of thing were you have to keep listening to it to really like it. Although if you didn't shed a tear in " Do You Want To Build A Snowman?" you must be cold blooded. Now I can say I AM OBSESSED with the Frozen soundtrack. I listen to it everyday ( and sing every morning).

     I loved to see a new Disney movie inspired by old fairy tales and stories. It captures that old Disney style that we don't see much anymore. This was especially exciting since it was based on "The Snow Queen" my old childhood favorite. This is definitely one of my new favorite Disney films.

     What surprised me a lot was the fact that Anna AND Elsa are going to be in the Disney princess franchise. It wasn't a surprise that Anna would be crowned but I always thought of Elsa as more of a queen. She is Elsa the QUEEN of Arendelle after all. Din't forget this movie is based on " The Snow QUEEN" You see what I'm saying? Yes all the kids ( and adults ) love Elsa but she's not a princess, she's a queen. By the way why does everyone obsess over Elsa? Yes she has ice powers but I think Anna is an overall better character. Just my opinion.

     Well go see Frozen yourself because it is just a great movie! After you see let me know if you liked it in the comments!

     I just wanted to add in here that you definitely need to get to the theater early. There is an amazing pre- show involving Mickey and all his old friends trying to get Minnie away from Pete. They jump in and out of the movie screen tormenting Pete. So if you're not interested in Frozen you at least have to see this!

Here is a little preview...

Day 1 : No Toy Story and Downtown Disney

So Here's The Family

• Memere- The person who made all of this come true!
• Grampy- Married to Memere, another person making our dreams come true!
• Kara- Their daughter who loves Disney Channel, also my aunt
• Stacey- My aunt with Joe and has three kids Samantha, Tyler, and Sofia
• Joe- My uncle with Stacey
• Samantha- My 8 year old Disney loving cousin
• Tyler- My 5 year old cousin
• Sofia- My 2 year old cousin
• Erika- My mom married to Erik and has three kids Kayla, Kendall, and ME
• Erik- My stepdad who loves thrill rides!
• Kayla and Kendall- My 1 year old twin sisters
• Me- My name's Jaleen and IN LOVE WITH DISNEY

     The morning was kind of a blur, I was so excited I couldn't sleep. Literally I DIDN'T SLEEP AT ALL! Spending the night watching Disney Junior isn't so bad though, anything having to do with Disney that night was fine. We ended up packing our bags the day before so we were already well prepared. Now all we had to do was drive to Memeres house. We rented a giant bus to bring us from our house to the airport. It feels like a ghost town when your driving around at 5:00 in the morning. ( I wouldn't be surprised if I happened to see 999 happy haunts roaming around Seven Eleven).

     When we got to the airport we went straight to security, so lets begin our VERY stressful day. Well first of all Kara doesn't have a license, ( She has autism). She had another card with all her information on it so we thought we would be fine, well we were wrong. The security decided that her card wasn't good enough and needed to check all her cards for about five minutes. So once we got in it was time to go thru the scanner, of course me being me completely forgot I had my metal Disney bracelets and necklaces on and walked right thru the scanner. Another extra five minutes of time wasted. Although once we actually got into the airport we were fine.

     It was very exciting to bring Samantha and Tyler to the airport for the first time. We ended up getting some Dunk'in Donuts, I had a bagel with cream cheese and orange juice. Once we got on the plane me, Samantha, and Erik sat together. (I made sure to reserve a window seat with my family)!

Here's our plane

     We had a little bit of trouble on our plane. When we were going up Kara well, she passed out. Yes I know great way to start off! We were not sure why this happened, it might have been the air pressure because she was carrying a heavy backpack. On the bright side she did wake up and was fine. So once we were all set I had the one of my best plane rides. I listened to Disney music, read Disney books, and watched Disney movies. What could be better?

     Then it was time for the Magical Express, I was excited to see what this was like since I've never been on it. The video was great and defiantly helped built up the excitement. After the video there was some Mickey shorts and that excited Samantha, Tyler, and Kara since those are always on Disney Channel.

     We were staying at the All Stars Movie Resort, since I've never stayed in a Disney Hotel I had no idea what the experience would be like. Although when we got there we found out that it was a lot less enjoyable then we thought ( well at the beginning once we were all settled we had a lot of fun ). We originally reserved rooms in the Toy Story section but our travel agent messed up. So when we got there our rooms were not there, luckily some rooms were open in the Fantasia Section. We also reserved rooms with king beds. They said they could arrange to put those in our rooms but when we got there every room had two twin beds. That was fine with me since we were fortunate enough to have rooms in Fantasia but every one else was not happy, so we had to put the twin beds together. Let's go back about one hour, when we were waiting we ate in the cafeteria. I had a taco salad, it wasn't bad but the shell tasted to sweet compared to the rest of the salad. 

     After finally getting into our room and went to the pool it was time for dinner. We originally forgot to think this through see we ended up thinking about finding somewhere to eat in Downtown Disney. We thought the bus ride would only be about ten minutes but it ended up being forty five . So we walked around Downtown Disney for hours trying to find a restaurant that we could go to without reservations. So everybody decided to go back to the hotel and eat at the cafeteria while me, Erik, my Mom, Kendall, and Kayla ate at Pollo Campero a small Spanish restaurant. Moral of this story ALWAYS MAKE RESERVATIONS.

     Yes  this was a stressful day but, we had fun. The rest of the trip was a lot less stressful. Oh and by the way you may have noticed this is early, I wanted to put this up before Christmas so heres my present. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

My Disney Experiences, Part 1 August 2013

                           August 2013 Disney Experience!

     I've been to Walt Disney World many times, but never with a big party. Usually it's the usual go to grandmas with dad and take off one day to visit Magic Kingdom or Animal Kingdom. In this case it was completely different, now 13 people in my family were going to stay INSIDE of Disney World and go to EVERY park. Yes I know it sounds very overwhelming but if you are obsessed with Disney as much as I am this sounds very exciting! I ended up reading the whole Disney section at Barnes and Nobles. ( I never said I bought the books, Barnes and Nobles is basically a library except for the fact that you can't take the books home!) 

     After days, weeks, months, and years planning this vacation the excitement started to take over, seriously it's all I could think about! When the trip finally came it felt unreal. It was crazy to think that in just 8 hours I would be on my way to the airport. So here's my family story, we had some great moments but also had some bad moments, but at the end of the day we all had a good time. ( That's all that matters right)!

Click The Links Below

STARTING FRIDAY, CHECK BACK TOMORROW!

'Ohana Dinner Review!

     

Here is the entrance to 'Ohana.

     Today we'll be talking about my favorite restaurant on Disney property. 'Ohana is a Polynesian family style restaurant  located in the Polynesian hotel in Walt Disney World. Here the waiters keep bringing the food out from pork dumplings to the delicious bread pudding. Even if your full you can't help but stuff yourself even more. ( So if you're planning to go to the parks after this you might want to change your mind). All I can say is YOU HAVE TO GO TO 'OHANA! 

     Right when you step foot into 'Ohana you feel like you've been transported to Hawaii. We made a reservation but as always you still have to wait. Even when you wait it's still nice, right next to the entrance of 'Ohana is a waiting area with some comfy couches, (which are probably nicer than my couch at home.) Anyways if you come to 'Ohana at the right time you can watch Wishes while your waiting! There's a huge window with a perfect view of Cinderellas castle. Whats better than eating amazing food and watching Wishes?

     The decorations at 'Ohana are very true to the restaurants theme. There's tiki statues, lush green plants, and flowers covering the rooms. I love when you first enter and you immediately feel welcomed. The cast members really work their hardest! First you get some welcoming bread. It tastes delicious and tempts you to want more, but make sure you don't fill up to quickly because you have a lot more ahead of you! Then your whole group gets some leis. ( I was with my family with a total of 13 people including babies who also got leis. I still have mine by the way)! Now the fun has begun!

 Entering 'Ohana

   Appetizers

     Right away you get the starters. Pork Dumplings with Sweet and Sour Sauce and Honey Coriander Chicken Wings. The Pork Dumplings are OK but once you dip it into the Sweet and Sour Sauce it's like you've never tasted anything as good as this before. The Honey Coriander Chicken Wings were tasty as well. These appetizers alone set high expectations for the real meal, and the real meal is even better.

Skewers

     Grilled Chicken Skewer, Char-Sui Pork Loin, Marinated Sirloin Steak, and Spicy Grilled Peel - n - Eat Shrimp. First of all let's start with the Grilled Chicken Skewer, lets just say I BELIEVE THIS IS THE BEST THING ON THE MENU! The sauce on the chicken is amazing! I am not ashamed to say I did ask for seconds and possibly thirds. The Char- Sui Pork Loin surprised me, I'm not a very big fan of pork but this came in second place! (Grilled Chicken Skewer in first). The Marinated Sirloin Steak was perfectly marinated. The steak was neither to crispy or to chewy. Now for the Peel - n - Eat Shrimp I did not taste. I absolutely hate seafood and would not try it. Although I can tell that the rest of my family enjoyed it.

Accompaniments

     There wasn't really anything special about these but I though I might as well mention them. There are Noodles, tossed in a Teriyaki Sauce with Fresh Vegetables and there is also Stir-Fried Vegetables. I think it was very good but then again as I said nothing special.

Desert!!!!!!

     'Ohana Bread Pudding 'a la mode with Bananas Caramel Sauce, the most delicious bread pudding I have ever had. The consistency is great combined with the vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce. This is defiantly a must have!

 Helpful Tips

• Have picky eaters? Just ask your waiter for a hot dog, and for desert, a vanilla cupcake and vanilla ice cream! 
• RESERVATIONS!!!!! (Well if you want to eat)!
• If you bring the kids let them have fun! During dinner kids (or adults) can do coconut races. They push coconuts across the floor with a broom, who ever gets to the finish line first wins!

What Do You Think?

     What's your favorite 'Ohana food? Have any fun experiences? Share them in the comments section!
     
I do not own any of these pictures ( except for the video ). All rights reserve to their owners.