We have a Guest Blog for you today, enjoy! ~M
Keeping the Magic of Disney Alive When You’re Not at Disney.
By: John Leever
We have found several ways of keeping the Magic of Disney alive when we are not at Disney. We have two games we like to play and we play them in the car or while eating or just sitting around watching TV. The first game is “Where would you be?” and it is very simple. Where would you be in Walt Disney World right now if you could be there right now, but we simply say “Where would you be?” because we have been playing this for more than a decade. Whoever is asked then picks someone else and asks that person until everyone has been asked. It is not a game where one person wins and everybody else loses, everybody wins because they are reminded of Walt Disney World and the answers spark comments of trips past. We have gotten to the point where our answers are pretty specific. So if you were to ask me where I would be, my answer is “I’m entering the Magic Kingdom from the left tunnel, the smell of popcorn is in the air, happy smiling people are walking around and I’m starting a new day with all the magic awaiting.”
The second game does have a winner and is a variation on twenty questions. We started doing “I got a place” but it has become place, or just about anything WDW. We don’t limit it to 20 questions because we want someone to get the answer and they usually do and the person who gets the answer gets to pick the next place in the game. When we have young kids we kept the places simpler like Small World, but when the group is a little older we play what we refer to as cutthroat which might be “the three platypuses waving their eggs in their arms at Small World”. So when you have your place somebody goes first and everyone gets a turn asking questions and you give yes or no answers (and if you have to you can elaborate on your answer) and you keep going round and around. A lot of times we try to narrow down to the answer (kind of like doing a binary search) and we will ask “Resort?”, “Theme park?”, “Magic Kingdom?”, “Fantasyland?”, “Small World” And so on until we find the answer.
Another way we keep the magic alive is less formal than the two games we play but can pop up just as randomly. We call it Disney References! You never know what is going to remind you of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, a Disney Movie or TV show, but when it does you point it out and make the Disney Reference. My sister and I were walking through a store and she saw a book being displayed that had the word “Faces” in the title and pointed it out to me. In Hollywood Studios (MGM Studios) “The Great Movie Ride” shows a montage of movie clips and in one of the scenes Gloria Swanson says “in my day we had FACES!” she says with emphasis. It has become one of those inside family jokes. So when my sister pointed out the book with word “FACES” she was really reminding me of that scene in “The Great Movie Ride”. It can be as simple as someone mentioning the word circle and you reply “as in the circle of life.” Whether you are referencing a Disney song, movie, or something that happened at a Disney park, it is a fun way to share a memory.
So these are a few of the ways we keep the Magic of Disney Alive: asking each other where we would be; playing a twenty question like game “I got a place”, which also is useful while waiting in long lines; and Disney References to remind us of something special about Disney. Keep your Magic Alive!
Michele also contributes theme park news for Fox 35 Orlando 11pm news and on the radio on WDBO.
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