Disney World Magic Kingdom Interactive Adventures

Two of my daughter's favorite things to do at the Magic Kingdom are two interactive adventures called Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom and A Pirate's Adventure - Treasures of the Seven Seas.  Here's a little information on each:

Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom
https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/attractions/magic-kingdom/sorcerers/

Go the Main Street Firehouse, and you'll become an apprentice sorcerer and learn how to unlock Magic Portals using your Sorcerer Key card (or Magic Band if you have one) and use your spell cards to defeat the villains.  There are currently 9 adventures that take you throughout the park, and you can get another pack of spell cards each day you visit.  One of the cool things is you would never know there is a portal somewhere unless you were playing and using the map to find them.  Here's a couple of pictures of a portal in a shop window on Main Street:

Main Street Portal 1.1

Main Street Portal 1.2

I bought some card sleeves to put the cards in to help with wear and tear and rain.  My wife suggested a zip lock bag as well.  Both the sleeves and zip lock bag helped when it rained once or twice while we were playing.

A Pirate's Adventure - Treasures of the Seven Seas

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/attractions/magic-kingdom/pirates-adventures/

These interactive adventures involve 5 treasures hidden throughout Adventureland, with each adventure having a specific map to follow. So make your way over to The Crow’s Nest and get a magic talisman (or link the adventures to your Magic Band).  A Pirate's Adventure doesn't have the collectible piece to it (i.e. collecting cards) that Sorcerer's of the Magic Kingdom does, but I felt that it was a more interactive experience because the set pieces are integrated into the park and talk, move, etc.  For instance, these skulls come to life and start talking to you during one part of the adventure:

Treasures 1.1

There was even a skeleton that comes up out the water during one adventure.  We didn't get a picture or video, but here's one from YouTube:

Treasures 1.2

I hope to see more interactive attractions like these in the future!

Pin Trading at Walt Disney World

My family just got into pin trading on our last visit to Walt Disney World, and had a great time with it!  If you have kids a little on the shy side it's a great way to encourage them to interact with the cast members.  Here are some pin trading tips:

All Parks - every park (and Downtown Disney) has a Guest Relations that will show your their pin book if you ask.  You never know what pins a cast member might have on their lanyard (some cast members have a holder at their hip they have pins on).  So if you're curious, ask to see their pins!  Also, some of pins cast members have are Hidden Mickey's - pins with a small Mickey Mouse icon included on the front of the pin. The back stamp also indicates it’s a Hidden Mickey pin.  These are only available by trading.

Resorts - Art of Animation had a great pin selection for sale in their store (called the Ink & Paint Shop), the store also has a pin board they bring out twice a day (usually once in the morning and again in the evening), and the cast members have pin lanyards.  The front desk also had a pin board they brought out a couple of times a day.  We were also told the arcade had a pin book or board, but we didn't check this out this time.

We heard the Contemporary has two gift shops next to each other. One is against the wall and the other is out in the middle which is the middle of the other gift shop and the arcade. This middle gift shop has a pin board is available.  Haven't checked this out yet.

Magic Kingdom - in my opinion, the best place for pin trading, although the Ink & Paint Shop in the Art of Animation was pretty awesome.  Besides all of the pin lanyards worn by cast members everywhere, here are some spots we found or heard about:

Frontier Trading Post - main pin location for the Magic Kingdom.  They have a ton of pins for sale and the cast members had a bunch of awesome pins on their lanyards.  They have a pin washboard, cowboy hat, and bear with pins also.

Magic Kingdom Bus Area - didn't get to see these pin boards, but I asked one of the drivers and he said they're usually located by the boat boarding area.  This is supposed to be a treasure trove, I'll try to find next trip.

Sir Mickey’s has a shield with pins.

Big Top Souvenirs in New Fantasyland has popcorn displays with pins on them at many of the checkout areas.  When you walk in ask to see the popcorn.

Main Street Confectionery has an oven mitt with pins, but we didn't check this out.

Stroller rental area

Hollywood Studios - main pin trading was with cast members, but here are a a couple of other possibilities:

Rockin’ Rollercoaster photo pick-up area has a drum with pins on it. 

Sorcerer's Hat - main pin selection for sale at the park.  There is supposed to be a pin game (you get 1 minute to look through their pin book and pick 2 pins for trade) here if you ask, but cast member didn't know about it when I asked.

Animal Kingdom - as with Hollywood Studios, main pin trading was with cast members.  I heard Animal Kingdom stroller rental has a pin stroller, but didn't have a chance to check it out.  If it was like the pin stroller at Magic Kingdom, you'll want to check it out.

Heard that the gift store outside of the park gates (right beside Rain forest Cafe) has a pin trading board and a pin trading vest.

Magic Kingdom, Guest Relations

Hollywood Studios, Guest Relations

Pin Drum, Rockin’ Rollercoaster photo pick-up area 

Pin stroller, Magic Kingdom stroller rental area

Big Top Souvenirs, popcorn displays with pins

Sir Mickey’s, shield with pins

Walt Disney World Planning

Here are my planning notes from our July 2014 Walt Disney World vacation.  Please let me know if you have any questions or comments!

6-12+ weeks prior to trip:

1. Go to http://buildyourdisneyside.com/ and build your stick figure family.  Disney will send you a decal for free.

2. Go to http://customizedmaps.disney.go.com/ and build your customized maps for each park.  Disney will send you the maps for free as well.

3. You can also get a DVD and other planning material sent to you for free by going to http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/vacation-planning-video/.  I just requested an updated planning DVD and it looks like the videos are online as now as well.  You can request DVD, online, or both.

4.  Check out http://www.mousesavers.com/2014-disney-world-resort-room-rates-season-dates/  for a list of onsite resorts and seasonal prices.  There are big price differences based on what month you go!

5. Create a Disney account by going to https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/plan/my-disney-experience/.  This way you'll be ready to link your hotel reservations, magic bands, etc. after you have them.

6. Two websites I found that have the best custom maps are http://kennythepirate.com/maps/ and http://www.easywdw.com/cheat-sheets/disney-world-cheat-sheets-maps-touring-plans-and-wait-times/.  KennythePirate maps show character locations in addition to FastPass+ kiosks.  EasyWDW has a map only or a cheat sheet which includes plans of how to schedule your attraction visits.

7. Schedule your FastPass+ experiences as soon as possible by going to https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/plan/my-disney-experience/.  If you buy tickets ahead of time, you can schedule your experiences 30 days in advance.  If you're staying at a Disney Resort hotel you can schedule experiences 60 days in advance.  You can schedule up to 3 FastPass+ experiences per day.  Once you've used all 3 you can go to a FastPass+ kiosk and select one additional experience, once you've used that you can go to a kiosk again and schedule another.  This is called a 'rolling' experience.  When trying to figure out what to use your three initial selections on, you might check out http://touringplans.com/magic-kingdom/fastpass - it has some data on busiest attractions, etc.

8.  Get the My Disney Experience app for Android or iPhone at https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/plan/my-disney-experience/mobile-apps/.  Probably the two best features are the wait times for attractions and the ability to create/modify FastPast+ selections.  I created all of my selections on a PC, but one day on a bus ride back to the resort I modified the next days selections.

4 weeks prior:

9.  If you plan on eating at Be Our Guest, go to https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/dining/#/reservations-accepted  and login with your Disney account (created in # 4).  You will have the option to make a reservation 30 days prior to your visit, as well as pre-order your meal.


Onsite:

10.  Configure wireless on your devices.  Verizon signal was pretty good in some areas, but just to be sure you can communicate with your party you'll probably want to configure your devices to use free wifi.  In the parks the SSID was 'Disney-Guest' and in the resorts 'In-room Guest WiFi (Disney)'.

11.  Bus schedule for Disney resorts - the official word is buses run every 20 minutes starting one hour before park opening.  What I found is that because of early scheduled events (i.e. breakfast reservations, etc) buses run starting at 7 AM.  We hopped the 7 AM bus because we had an 8:15 AM breakfast one morning.

More to come soon as I gather more of my notes.

Welcome!

Welcome to the Cline family blog!  I decided to create this after our recent Walt Disney World trip as a way to share information about certain things, the first of which will be planning secrets for Disney World since I spent the past month and a half planning our trip.  I hope to post what I learned soon.