Disney Social Media Conference – Epcot Day 3

Disney Magic of Healthy Living Evening Event

Today was basically a free day!  There were a couple things planned in the morning if we wanted to sign up. There were three options. There weren’t enough spots for everyone and they were venture that were not including the family.  I had Zippy (my sis for the weekend) here and decided to hang out with her.

We got up and took our time, sitting by the water and relaxing with our coffee at the Grand Floridian in the morning.

This is also where we sat and watched fireworks the night before.  It is such a nice view. You can see Cinderella’s castle straight through just above the tree line.

We decided to go to Downtown Disney and explore. I learned how the world of trading pins works.  I had no idea that you can trade any pin for any pin with the Disney staff.

Zippy had fun looking for champagne, wine and martini glasses with Mickey’s on them.  It may have even started a new idea for her blog Champagne Living, you’ll just have to read it to watch for it.

We then took the bus from the Downtown Disney to the Boardwalk. I realized I had never been there before. It was very much a taste of New England, the Cape where I went many times as a kid.

I thought this made a neat picture

We then hopped on a boat to go over to Epcot.  It is so nice that when you stay in a Disney property you can use all of the transportation to get around Disney without any charges.

They were having the Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival. The flowers were just beautiful. I can’t imagine trying to keep all these flowers looking so great!

I have to show you a couple more

Check out the blue heron

There were all kinds of figurines made out of flowers around Epcot

We were hot and thirsty! But Zippy and I did plenty of walking today. We then went over to the Disney Magic of Healthy Living dinner.

We walked in a little late to the interview session, so I didn’t know the people who were up front. I did find out that three of the girls were winners of the Disney Magic of Healthy Living contest, there was a Disney Chef and 3 Disney TV stars.

They were up on the stage for a question and answer time with us bloggers.  It was all based on eating and living healthy and how to help our kids to embrace that style of living.

One of the things that was said was to make the food pleasing to the kids, to encourage them to eat it.

After the Q&A we were released into a huge room full of tables that looked wonderful.  There was a stage set up.

The tables were all labeled and unfortunately finding tables that were close enough to the stage for the Social Media Moms was nearly impossible.  So we ended up giving up and ended up sitting in one of the back corner tables.The whole idea of what they were doing was great.  I do have to admit that this did not seem like a meal for children.  All the places set were the same.  It looked fantastic for a fancy restaurant you’d go to.

This was geared for kids – they had participated in an outdoor physical activity and had winning teams. At least those kids that were brought in for this contest had. But the Social Media Mom children were also there for dinner.  Believe me when I said there were a LOT of children there!
Here is the menu:
It doesn’t look like a meal for kids to me. But it certainly is healthy!

I know they were highlighting healthy cooking.  But if doesn’t taste good… kids aren’t going to eat it (and adults can get past the looks more than kids…. but if it doesn’t taste good…. healthy cooking isn’t worth much either)

I’m going to be perfectly honest, with no offense to the wonderful treatment Disney has given us, but this meal was really not for kids. As an adult I actually ate very little of it, as did most of my table. But our table had a good time.  I was sitting with Zippy, April, Katja and her husband, Lisa and her husband and Danielle and her husband.

This is Lisa with one of her six children.

Katja listening to her son.

Can you believe I didn’t get any pictures of Danielle?  I can’t. I always get pics of my bud Danielle at conferences. She is just too cute! Here is Lisa’s daughter who has had a full day on Daddies shoulder.

We left there and wanted to find something to eat. I know… not so good, I feel sad that there was so much wasted food between not only the kids, but also the adults.  As good as Disney is at catering to the kids, I feel like they missed the boat on this meal.  Being healthy is one thing, but it has to taste good too.

Zippy, April and I split off and wandered around, trying to decide what to eat.

We ended up in the French district of Epcot and went into the bakery right before it closed.  We went from healthy food to very unhealthy food (but oh it tasted good).
We had a nice evening of enjoying the beauty of Epcot, a nice boat ride and bus ride back to the Grand Floridian.

Disney we had a wonderful time!!  Even though I didn’t full appreciate the meal that was prepared, I sure did appreciate all you did for the winners of this contest and for us as Disney Social Media Moms. Thank for for a beautiful evening at Epcot and for working to encourage kids to eat healthy.

I love your comments!

Disney Social Media Moms Conference – Day 2

Conference Day 2 at Disney World!

We got some fantastic information from our speakers today, and had a great dinner with dancing afterward at Hollywood Studios Disney Junior. I’ll take you through the day and evening.

The main portion of the conference was on Friday March 18th – which just happened to be my birthday! It was so much fun to be in Florida, at Disney, with my blogging friends, where it was beautiful sunny and warm… on my birthday! The only negative part was that my own family wasn’t able to be with me at Disney.

We began the morning by walking into this beautifully decorated huge room where the speakers would be.  They even thought to have a power strips at every table! Awesome extra!

Look how pretty the table arrangement was! You can’t see that the clear castle has a blue light that glows at the base.

The first speaker was Meg Crofton, the President of Walt Disney World

We also heard from Matt Jacobson, head of marketing for Facebook.  I realized how much more you could do with FB. I’m going to have to work on that. He took loads of questions from us bloggers and admitted that most of the groups he talks to, do not use it the same way we do. He was surprised by a few of the questions asked and didn’t realize some of the issues that we have problems with.  I think he was educated a bit himself.

Rene’ Syler was an awesome speaker. She got a standing “O” from us bloggers! She was real, she was inspiring and she has been through the ringer.  This isn’t a great picture of her.  I wish I had gotten her great smile. She had us in stitches and tears.    She has a blog called Good Enough Mother that you should check out.

They had some raffles going on and gave away some Dooney & Bourke Handbags and also a night in Cinderella’s castle!  The Fairy Godmother got to present it to Andrea Deckard from Savings Lifestyle! She got to take 5 other bloggers with her to stay the night. You can read about her experience here.

Fran Capo posed as a blogger before she got on stage. She is the worlds fastest female talker, comedian, author and motivational speaker.

We had a yummy lunch and when we went back to the room after lunch we had this little cutie gracing each of our seats!

Minnie Mouse Princess Leia dressed and ready for Star Tours – The Adventure! It is coming back to Disney Hollywood Studios on May 20th, 2011.

Chris Brogan was great as always. I love listening to Chris speak. He has some great insights and just says it like it is.

We were served champagne!  That is a different kind of afternoon snack for a mom conference! lol  Probably better than chocolate, because I didn’t drink much champagne, but I would have been up for the chocolate!

We were then treated to Susan Egan who sang most of her speaking time. She has such a beautiful voice. She played Bell in Beauty in the Beast on Broadway for two years and she is also the voice of Meg in Hercules, along with a zillion other roles.

Also playing and singing with her was Georgia Stitt who is an award winning composer and a lyricist. They had great harmony on some of the songs they sang together.

The great table center piece they said would go to the blogger at each table who had the closest birthday to today’s date which was March 18th. Guess who?  lol  One fun thing about having a birthday while at a conference.  But – there wasn’t any way I could take this on an airplane!  It just so happened that Amy Hodges at our table was local and she had just been admiring how cool the light up castle was in the arrangement.  So I took a picture to remember it by and gave it to her.

Then someone at our table suggested we all get our picture taken together.

From left top: Maria Strong from Saving Queen; Connie Robers from Brain Foggles; Kim Janocko from Crafty Mama of 4; me; April from Simply the Sweet Life Magazine; Amy Hodges from A Million Boxes and in front is Jennifer Leet from The Dirty Shirt

After the conference sessions my roomie Zippy from Champagne Living came! She tried to get into the conference, but like so many others who tried that afternoon, she wasn’t able to get in.  But.. since it ended up that we just couldn’t afford the airfare for the whole family to come, I was able to invite Zippy to stay with me. She got to come as my family member. lol (sis!)
We had a wonderful time talking and eating and walking and talking and eating.. lol

Friday night was Hollywood Studios!  All gazillion of the bloggers, mostly with families loaded onto buses and headed out.

So many tables were set up. I don’t know the exact number of how many people including families were there… but it was a lot!

They had it all set up for the kids.  Lots of food and then they had food set up for the kids. I love how they make sure the kids have food they like to eat.  I snuck over to the kids table to get a cupcake. I figured.. it was my birthday and I wanted to have some birthday cake. lol

I love these pictures of Kim’s  kids.  Doesn’t that just epitomize a kid after a day at Disney?  Tired eyes, blank star, Mickey ears on crooked, eating a Mickey rice krispy treat. lol

Her younger son enjoying his also

The kids all got to dance and have a great time with music and characters

With kids trying to see over crowds and having a little help from their dads -

To Quatro Mom and Dad from 4tunate feeding their boys.

Everyone loves the characters at Disney

And Donald Duck

I had to get a picture of Daisy Duck for my step daughter.

And I think this is one of my favorites.  Look at the little girl on the left! Arms spread out, ready for a big hug!  How precious is that?  I love it!

If you happen to know who’s daughter the little girl on the left is, please let me know. I’d like to send them this picture.

Thank you  Disney World, Maria Bailey and Amy Lupold Bair,  and Susan & Janet from 5 Minutes for Mom and all the sponsors.

This trip was heavily sponsored through Disney Social Media Moms, but I did pay the required charge for it and full air fare.

Disney Social Media Moms Conference #DisneySMMoms

I was lucky enough to be able to go to the most sought after conference of the year. The Disney Social Media Moms Conference in Disney World!

I wanted to bring the family in the worse way this year. But after doing the finances and seeing what it would cost us all to fly here, and eat and stay at least 1 more night (in a less extravagant hotel), we realized we just couldn’t swing it. Ugh!

So I came by myself and Zippy Sandler from Champagne Living is going to meet me here tomorrow and have fun with me and the rest of the gang.

I got in today (March 17th) and came to the Grand Floridian Resort. omg! This place is beauuuttiiful!

This has always been one that I have seen when I have been to Disney and thought to myself, wow…. I’d love to stay there!  lol (yippee!)

Look at the view from my room!

Then out on the balcony

I got a short nap in, but long enough to miss the beginning welcome reception that took place before the presentation.

Off to the Wedding Pavilion I went.  We were given Minnie Bride Ears (loved that!) and got to go into the place where Disney Magical Dream Weddings take place.

There were brides everywhere!

We got to hear the Vice President of Alfred Angelo Wedding Dresses; Michael Shettel speak.  Then we got to see the new Cinderella inspired wedding gown. (although because of where I was sitting, I didn’t get any good shots of the dress.

Look at all the cameras us Social Media Moms have! lol

Walking back with Michael Shettel

We got to hear from Carley Roney from www.TheKnot.com and we also got to see and hear David Tutera from a show called My Fair Wedding. (I’m going to have to find that and watch it now!)

Then we got to witness a vow renewal from a couple that was married here 2 years ago.  She had always wanted a Disney wedding in this chapel ever since she was a girl and saw it looking down from the monorail.

But it wasn’t just any wedding vow renewal. This was a “flashmob” kind of wedding, with dancing down the aisle!

Here comes the bride

It was fun watching a real life wedding.

What I loved was the Cinderella carriage picking them up. How cool!

Wouldn’t this be fun?

Here they go (after fireworks as they came out of the pavilion)

This event was being run my Fronk the Wedding planner and his assistant

Then we were off to dinner on the Grand Floridian lawn.  It was so beautiful there. The families were invited to this event.

So guess who was there for them to see and take pictures with? And those of us who didn’t get to bring our kids…. got to be kids too!

I took this picture of Goofy for my Z. He likes Goofy!

Kim @craftyMamaof4 and I

Here were just a couple pictures I took of the table decorations.

They were just so pretty

Thanks so much Grand Floridian for hosting such a wonderful event!

Give a Day – Get a Disney Day

Give a Day – Get a Disney Day Promotion

We were really excited to see what was in store for us this morning. We knew it was geared around the “Give a Day – Get a Disney Day” promotion.

I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Disney Social Media Mom’s event in Orland Florida at Disney World.  Our first morning there we were given a very nice breakfast and got to hear a great speaker, Guy Kawasaki.

From there we were walked over to another part of Disney Epcot (and for Florida it was a cold walk).  We were ushered into a huge room with a balloon filled stage and hundreds of chairs set up.  Yeah….we were here! To learn more about the Give a Day – Get a Disney Day There was all kinds of media in the back and cameras. The middle section was empty at that point and the Social Media Mom’s (us) had sections just for us.

They brought in a family from every state (except 2 that got held up by the winter storms) to represent the volunteerism that has been taking place. Disney started a promotion this year that you can give a day of service at participating places and get a free Disney park pass in return. Their hope was to get 1,000,000 participants and just 6 weeks in they have had 600,000 participants! Better than they ever expected. I think that is great. I knew someone who signed up at our local zoo to help take down Christmas lights. The projects don’t have to be big and scary. One of the points they kept making over the couple days we were there is how much better you feel and how just giving a day of service somewhere benefits not only those that you are helping….but it benefits you.

There are enough cans here to make up 70,000 meals for people who need them. Wow…is that fantastic. They then used many volunteers after this presentation was over to pack up the cans into boxes to take to those needy people.

They were colorful, decorative and had a message:

They really decorated and had the Volunteer theme going all around. Great

How can you help?  Check out the Disney site and see how you can also Give a Day – Get a Disney Day yourself!

If you liked that, maybe you would like to see this also:

Disney Social Media Moms

Disney Social Media Moms Conference

Thoughts on the Disney Social Media Moms Conference

As I write this post I am sitting in the Orlando airport waiting to board my flight home from the Disney Social Media Moms Conference and I am reflecting on how much I got from it.  I didn’t think I was going to be able to make it due to the weather and some other factors…and after missing my initial “great flight that would have had me there by noon” I spent 12 hours getting to Orlando and got into my room about 11:30 pm this last Wednesday.  But it was worth it.  Getting home is another story since I had one of my “old lady brain farts” when I scheduled my trip and instead of arranging my flight for Saturday the 13th at 7:30pm I scheduled it for Sunday Feb 14 at 7:30pm. (Yes…Valentines day). I changed that flight so that I at least get home by 10pm instead of 11:30pm tonight. Just because I’m an organizer doesn’t mean I don’t mess things up. (for sure)

Guy Kawasaki giving his presentation

Guy Kawasaki – Founding partner of Garage Technology Venture & Co-founder of Alltop.com

Our first speaker of the trip was Guy Kawasaki. He gave me some new insights on twitter.   He discussed twitter  and how he uses it and how we can best use it to further our businesses.  He shared that he was originally against it, not caring that “Jimmy was drinking his coffee” , but realized that it can be an invaluable tool in your business.  Some of the tips that I gained from listening to Guy was that we should tweet out 4  times each thing we tweet.  He schedules them about 6-8 hours apart so that he doesn’t lose page views.  He states that more than 4 times is too much, but less than that we are losing valuable page views.  He also doesn’t tweet what he is doing during the day and he is not talking about tweeting out responses to people 4 times.  He is constantly searching for information that others will find interesting and informing us of that on which is linked to his All Top Site which of course then brings him more traffic.  The site is a pure meca of information!  He also stated that we need to have a tweeter-feed. So that each time we post something new…it shows up on twitter. (I need to do that)

Maxine Clark founder of Build a Bear

Maxine Clark – Founder and Chairman of Build a Bear

Maxine if my new idol I think.  She is the founder and chairman of Build A Bear. She shared with us how she has a love of bears and how much her bear meant to her as a child. Persevering and believing in your dreams and working to achieve them was her message.  She was truly amazing. She told us about her 2nd customer and how neat it was that a boy can get a Teddy Bear and dress it up in Army gear and it’s acceptable for him to get that and be a kid too.  She has kept in contact with these people. She listened to a little girl in Canada who e-mailed her and told her she would like a Build a Bear store in her town and why. That little girl was at that store on opening day along with Maxine. How cool is that?  She manages her own Twitter account, e-mail account and answers people back. She is a very busy running a Build a Bear empire….but she still has time to talk to her customers and friends…she is real. She is a gem.

Chris Brogan

Chris Brogan – Eleven year veteran of Social media and Author of Trust Agents

To be honest I was excited to listen to Chris Brogan at our conference, but I didn’t know how entertaining  he would be. When I saw him at Blog World speak….he was on a panel with a few other people and no offense at all….he didn’t really get to “shine” like he did when he was on his own. I didn’t expect to be laughing as hard as I was. But he also passed on some really great information to us. Listening….Connecting…Publishing… The 3 pieces to Social Media that Chris spoke to us about and the importance of them.

Marissa Jaret Winkour

Marissa Jaret Winkour – Tony Award winning Broadway Actress and Veteran of Dancing with the Stars

You may remember Marissa on Dancing with the Stars. I never saw her in Hairspray the Broadway play she won her Tony for.  Since she was on Dancing with the Stars she has dyed her hair blond and lost a lot of weight and has a son. She told us she was due to have a baby 2 months after she was on Dancing with the Stars. She shared that she was a cancer survivor and before she under went her treatments she froze some eggs and her surrogate was 7 months pregnant with her child. She then went on to tell us about her life as a actress with a baby and how difficult it was.

Kathy Ireland – Surprise guest appearance

Kathy Ireland was not on our programs and we didn’t know she was going to speak to us. She came out looking beautiful as ever. She told us about her work ethics and a business she began going bankrupt, her 22 year marriage and her new book about daily devotionals due to come out soon. (She didn’t push her book, I think someone knew about it and asked her the question…and she answered)

Maryellen Hooper absolutely cracked me up.

Maryellen Hooper – Veteran in the world of Stand-up Comedy

I can’t tell you how hard I laughed. She was cracking me up.  Her act was about motherhood and life as a wife. She has a blog called  Stinky Flowers that you will have to go visit. You will have to get her DVD…she is really entertaining.

Disclosure:  I was not sponsored to go to Disney Social Media Moms conference.  I paid for the conference on my own. We did however get a discounted rate on the conference, our room and Disney tickets, and some of my meals as that was part of the conference package I purchased. I was not asked to blog on it, so any blogs or pictures I post are because I have chosen to do so.