Disney World prep

I have been completely consumed with planning for my upcoming trip to Disney World (which is still six months away).

I've been buying star clips from Taiwan and a $100 bag, reading the entirety of WidenYourWorld.net, figuring out how to turn the screen off on my digital camera (so I can take pictures of the newly refurbished Spaceship Earth!), listing what outfits to wear each day, and imagining what to take into each park.

I've purchased this Timbuk2 Custom Messenger Bag to hold my video camera, digital camera, signs, and accoutrements.


One such accoutrement is the star clip, which I shall be putting frantically into my hair as I enter Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom (and perhaps Future World as well).
And hey, it matches my bag!

Other items that will go into my bag:

A whiteboard (for writing messages to hold up in photos);

A wand (for Fantasyland);
A mob cap (for Liberty Square);
Mouse ears (for Mickey's Toontown).

Widen Your World

The man behind "Widen Your World," Mr. Mike Lee, certainly has a way with words, and some intriguing information. Here he is talking about the effect Disney World had on him and his brother:

"...WDW provided us with an introduction to - or a prism through which we came to view - significant aspects of the world around us (foreign cultures, U.S. history, space exploration, classical music and English literature among them). The main difference between its impact on us as individuals was that Brian, being a paranoid hedonist, thought WDW was pretty much the ultimate pleasure zone (full of patently non-threatening fun) and I, an antisocial idealist, regarded it as the perfect example of how the rest of the world should be: immaculately planned, strikingly efficient and unfailingly cordial ... even to someone of a contrary demeanor."

His footnotes are priceless:

"*** I had not yet taken a prostitute to Ponderosa.
"**** In 1980 WDW had 27,443,666 employees and half of them were constantly high. As Walt Disney often said, that's twice as high as the island of Manhattan."

I read the footnotes first, and those are honestly the only reason I read the rest of his "About Me" page, which is well worth it.

Free personalized park maps

I ordered Disney's Customizable Maps a few weeks ago, and received them in the mail last week. They are free, and I thought they would make great wall decorations! And they do.

They include all four Disney World parks and a resort map. They are about 17 by 11 inches, printed on thick, decorative paper, and personalized with your own favorites. They even include gold stickers to mark future favorites.

The only disappointing feature is that they print the maps on both sides of the paper. While this is great for the environment, it means I can only showcase two parks at a time: Animal Kingdom or MGM Studios; Magic Kingdom or Epcot. But that's rather nice too, because I can flip them over ever-so-often, to keep things interesting.

Now go customize and order your free Disney World maps!