Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Ronni’s Disney Trip FAQ. People ask me these questions whenever they find out I’m going to Disney World again.
How many times have you been to Disney World, anyway?
I’ve been six times. This will be my seventh trip. I’ve also been to Disneyland twice.
Why do you love it there so much?
Disney World is a world in itself. It’s a very magical place, one where I can pretty much forget everything happening in the world and just have a good time. They go out of their way to make sure that’s exactly what happens. I also love the detailing. Every little thing is so well thought out. Most people overlook them for the big things like the rides and the parades, but if you have time, it’s fun to check out all the tiny little details. Believe me, they’ve thought of everything.
Plus, those who know me know that I’m a kid at heart. Disney World is the one place I can go where I can be myself and no one looks at me weird for doing so.
Wheeee!!!
Are you taking Aidan?
Not this time. He’s in Columbus with his dad, and also in school. He goes with us every other trip.
June 2011
Don’t you ever want to go somewhere else?
Sure. I want to go to Disneyland Paris, Tokyo Disney… oh wait, that’s not what you meant, is it? But seriously, I have every intention of traveling more places. I got a passport in August and I am desperate to use it.
Doesn’t it get expensive?
It can be, but Adam and I always try to go when there is a free dining promotion going on. We also try to go during Value season, when everything is cheaper. (This isn’t always possible because Aidan’s time off school doesn’t always coincide with a Value season.) We also don’t stay in the most expensive resorts (although I’d LOVE to stay in the Polynesian someday). We’re also aggressive about picking the least expensive flight options. (We tend to go with Southwest because of their free baggage allowances, but if we find a flight that’s cheaper including baggage fees, we’ll go with that.) My dream Disney trip would cost about $15K. We never pay anywhere near that much.
Tomorrow this time, I will be frolicking in the Magic Kingdom! It will be awesome, albiet cold. Seriously, I can’t believe the weather waited until the day we arrive to have a forecasted high of 57F when it’s been in the 70s and 80s all week. That frustrates me. Not that I was planning on wearing shorts and tank tops anyway. I’ve packed hoodies and jeans and socks and I will be wearing my new awesome Keens which I love. But now it looks like I will need reinforcements, at least for tomorrow.
I guess I can’t be too mad. It’s currently 17F here in Chicago. So 57F will feel like a vast improvement anyway.
As always, I plan to take loads of photos, and this time, Adam and I will be using Instagram as well. So feel free to follow me on Instagram to get up-to-the-minute photos! 🙂
When I get back, I’ll post all about my trip, and I’ll also have my very first giveaway! You’ll definitely want to check back for that.
So, I’ve been pretty busy the past few days. In addition to two really big deadlines (that I made because I AM AWESOME), there were two very limited edition dolls I had to procure. And there was social stuff, some cleaning involved. I’m ready to be done for a while! Just a little while, though. Gotta make that $$!
I never thought that working from home would make me more busy than working full time AND working from home. But it’s OK. I love it this way. My commute is awesome, and sometimes, my “cube mate” is this:
Little Helena
Plus, I get to do the work I love.
Last Wednesday, Adam and I headed out to The Morton Arboretum to look at the trees. I was shocked to see that a lot of them had not peaked yet, but there was still plenty of brilliant color.
Sunday, we headed out to Naperville to see the Dark Days of Autumn author tour, but mainly because Claudia Gray was there, who we hadn’t seen since July, when she packed up and moved to New Orleans. *sad*
It was SO FUN to see her and hang out again! (Ignore my hair in these pix. It was a TERRIBLE hair day.)
What was really funny is that I was talking with some really young girls in the store as the event was winding down. They were 12. To be honest, preteens tend to scare me, and I’m not sure why. But these girls were super sweet. I’ll talk to teens all day every day but preteens? Not so much. It’s weird. Anyway, Claudia came over to hug me again and to make arrangements for hanging out after the event was over. The girls freaked out. “OH MY GOD. YOU KNOW HER? YOU’RE FRIENDS WITH A REALLY, REALLY, REALLY FAMOUS AUTHOR!” Claudia goes “I’d take off a couple of those ‘reallys’.” Ha.
I bought her new book FATEFUL (werewolves on the Titanic! HELLO!) and because Kiersten White was so adorable and funny, I bought her book PARANORMALCY because well, it sounded awesome. I’m reading that one now. I really need to stop reading that one and read the remaining four library books I have before Monday. But I’ll do that once I take care of my remaining deadlines tomorrow (why do I get the feeling something more is going to come up, though?). I’ll go on a BOOK READING BINGE. OR I’ll just try to renew the books I have to buy me some more time. In fact, I should do that now…..
Monday morning, I got up SUPER EARLY because I wanted one or more Disney Designer Princess dolls. There are ten dolls total. The first three dolls sold with no fanfare. They were being released once per week in the stores and online. Only a few people knew or cared about them, apparently. Some of them were in the stores for weeks before selling out. I hadn’t found out about them several weeks ago, when I ventured into The Disney Store and saw the display and went HOLY MOTHER OF GOD THESE DOLLS ARE AMAZING I MUST HAVE ONE. Then suddenly, it went to a fever pitch! The dolls were selling out within hours and showing up on eBay just a few hours later at nearly 7x their retail price. And unfortunately, the ones I wanted? Tiana and Jasmine? They hadn’t been released yet, so although I had a chance to get them, I knew I’d have to fight for them. The dolls are very limited edition, and the eBay dealers are being jerkwads about it by snatching up all they can and then jacking up the prices. Suck. So, Disney decided to put the remaining five on sale AT THE SAME TIME. Which meant, if I had any chance in hell of getting one, it was going to be about early morning rising and standing in line.
I got to the Disney Store at Block 37 at 7am. There were already more than 20 people ahead of me. Turned out the most of any doll they had was 20. They passed out cards at 9am. Guess who lost out? BUT. My darling, darling awesome husband was standing in the cold at the Michigan Ave. store. For an hour and a half, he froze, and when they go to him, well Tiana was sold out but there were still Jasmine dolls left. He got the card, and I squealed and ran out of the mall and caught the first bus to North Michigan Ave. I joined him in line, got the card, and told him to go somewhere and warm up. By now it was about 9:20. Forty minutes til the store opened. I didn’t get my doll til nearly 11am because they were letting people in one by one or two by two or something like that, to pick up the dolls and pay for them. Fortunately, I was standing near some really nice people, and talking to them (although they were so obviously frozen) helped. It was cold!
But I got my Jasmine.
She’s still in her case–it’s so pretty, plus I need to clean the hell out of this apartment first before I even think of displaying her. (The cleaning is supposed to take place this weekend.)
This morning, I had to get up to try for Tiana. Because honestly, I couldn’t NOT try. She’s my favorite princess! The site came up at 11 CST, and I got in, managed to get TWO Tianas in my cart somehow. Took ages to get one of them out (they were only allowing one type of princess per person–I didn’t want to screw ANYTHING up). But then I couldn’t go any further. Checkout button was like NOPE. THANK YOU! The site was a mess. It kept crashing and freezing and doing all sorts of bad things. But AGAIN, my awesome husband came through. He was on his computer and HE MANAGED TO GET THE ORDER TO GO THROUGH. I got a confirmation email and everything. Tiana didn’t sell out on the Web site until at least an hour after Adam placed my order, so I’m hoping and praying I don’t get an “order cancelled” notice. I am eager for Tiana to arrive. I feel extremely lucky in so many ways and I will love these dolls forever.
I bought Adam brunch for standing in line, but it seems I owe him again!
I’ve been neglecting my yoga. 🙁 I won’t be going tomorrow either. Stuff to do, stuff to do. But Thursday I should be able to go back. YAY.
I know I have blogged about this before, but watching YouTube today brought it back to the forefront of my mind.
When I was in high school, I LOVED LOVED LOVED the all new Mickey Mouse Club. This is the show that spawned Britney Spears, Keri Russell, and Justin Timberlake. I was a fan from the beginning–well, once we got The Disney Channel installed in my house. Back then, I had to beg and plead for us to get cable in the first place, and The Disney Channel was a premium channel, like HBO or Showtime! My parents knew how important Disney was to me, so they sprang for the premium. Back then, my cable life revolved around The Disney Channel, MTV, BET, and VH1. I loved music videos and there was no shortage of them in the early 90s.
I started watching MMC when I saw the video for Summer Vacation by The Party on MTV. I thought Damon Pampolina was the hottest thing on TV. I was ready for a new crush–I was over my New Kids on the Block phase, Joey Lawrence and Kirk Cameron did nothing for me, and Dino and Glenn Medeiros were just too old. I am not sure how I figured out that The Party had to do with The Disney Channel, but once I realized that The Party was made up of Mouseketeers from MMC, I was hooked. My crush on Damon was short-lived, though. I started watching MMC in its third season, and that’s the season that Ricky Luna started. More on that later.
The show, to me, was so different from any other show. It wasn’t a typical multi-camera sitcom filmed in beta. It was a variety show, with skits, singing, and dancing. My favorite was the musical numbers. I liked learning the dance steps and I liked singing along. The cast members used their own names, and at the end of a taping, they let the audience come down and dance with them, which made them seem more approachable than say, the kids on Blossom. I really wanted to be friends with all of them.
My life back then mostly consisted of school (ugh), an after school job at the deli, marathon phone conversations with my best friends (our record: 13 hours), writing (mostly fanfic), and music. I wasn’t getting out much nor was I participating in a lot of school activities. My life was MMC and those kids. I wrote fan fiction about them before it was cool. If I wasn’t planted in front of the TV at 5:30pm Monday through Friday, then the VCR was recording the show. That show was the reason I got up some mornings, the reason I got dressed and did my hair. Maybe I was just going to be in front of the TV all day, frantically rewinding the VCR so I could learn yet another dance step, but I was up and moving. And that was a good thing.
There were two Mousketeers who inspired me the most. One was Mylin Brooks. I thought she was absolutely beautiful. She had this gorgeous dark hair, this beautiful face, and she was on a TV show that was filmed at Disney World. She was smart and talented and I desperately wanted to be her.
It was this video here that started my fascination with Mylin:
Please refresh if the videos aren’t showing up. YouTube is being a pain in the rear.
Ah yes, Disney Channel’s watered-down pop lyrics. I didn’t care. I watched the video all the time. I even learned the steps. I can still do most of the steps. I NEVER in a million years would have imagined that one day, this would happen:
Through the wonders of the Internet, I reached out and asked Mylin to be my friend on MySpace back when MySpace was cool. She accepted, and we began talking back and forth. When everyone moved to Facebook, she and I kept in touch on there. I was part of her “American Girl” street team back in 2006. It was amazing to get to work with her.
In July of 2010, I finally got to meet and spend the day with this woman, and let me tell you, she is just as sweet as she is beautiful. My mom is tickled pink because she knew how important MMC was to me, and she knew how important those kids were to me.
The other Mouseketeer that changed my life was Ricky Luna. I had an obscene crush on him when I was a teenager, and I didn’t care. Every single day from 5:20-6:00pm, I would sit in front of my TV, VCR remote in hand, ready to tape anything with Ricky in it.
When the MMC came on, the Mouseketeers would pop into a circle and say their names. He popped into his circle, yelled “Ricky!” and I was instantly head over heels. Well, as much as a girl can be with a guy whose first name is the only thing she knew about him. But we don’t need to worry about that. Look at this video:
He’s the one in the red shirt and the suspenders. I dare you to say you don’t understand how teenage me could have fallen for that total Mr. Hottyness.
I got to meet him for the first time in 1993, when MMC came to Cleveland to do a tour. Boy did I make a fool out of myself. I grabbed him and yelled “I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU.” Mortifying. Forgive me. I had no social skills and I was face-to-face with the object of my teenage fantasies OMG what was my life??? Don’t judge me.
Here are a couple of pix from that weekend:
Forgive the blurriness. I scanned these back in 1997 when I had no idea how to really work a scanner.
In late 1997, Geocities came out. I could make my own web page, what! So I did. I made a Ricky Luna fan site. If you google “Ronni’s Ricky Luna Fan Page” some old, old, old mirrors of that site will come up. Good times. I made that site in hopes that Ricky would do a search of his name and find it. He did. That site was the top hit in all the search engines. He contacted me and we kept in touch on and off over the next several years. MySpace and Facebook kept us even more in touch. Back in 2009, this happened:
Yeah, it was pretty awesome. I got to hang out with him and his manager’s family. It was a really fun day. He lived up to the crush that 17-year old me had on him and then some because he’s just an awesome, kind, and warm human being. We laugh about my declaration of love for him at Tower City mall back in 1993. I still can’t believe I did that. Anyway, now he’s a super talented producer and he makes really good music, which you can download for free from his site. I recommend the Electro Bomba mini mix. You can get it here. 🙂
I’m proud to call him my friend.
I leave you with this video. I just watched it again and it gave me chills because I loved it so much back then. And as I belted along with it, remembering all the words, I realized that I still love it today.
If only The Disney Channel was still this awesome. Oh well. At least they have Phineas & Ferb.
This post is cross posted at my Disney blog. Feel free to visit and follow!
See ya real soon! 
