Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Paul

Warning: This post will contain spoilers of the new interactive game, “Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom”.  If you wish to experience the game from a clean slate of knowledge, do not continue reading.

Earlier this month, Disney opened Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom to limited guest testing.  This past Sunday, I had my first opportunity to begin playing the game.  The game’s checkin center is at the Firehouse on Main St, to the right of Guest Relations.  There was an A-Frame out in front, saying that they were “recruiting” new Sorcerers.  Even with this notification, however, there seemed to be very few people at the Firehouse, only about 3 people ahead of me in line when I went to check in.

While waiting to check in, we see a video explaining the story of the game.  Basically, Hades has decided to take over the Magic Kingdom, using something called the Crystal of the Magic Kingdom, which has been broken into several pieces, scattered throughout the lands.  Hades, being the god of the dead, has the ability to resurrect different Disney villains who met their end.  (Side note: this was also the plot of an episode of Hercules: The Animated Series, which crossed over with the Aladdin series as Hades resurrected Jafar.  I wonder if the Imagineers knew that when conceiving the story).  Merlin, King Arthur’s trusted wizard from The Sword in the Stone, is attempting to stop Hades, and he’s recruited us guests to help him. Continue reading →

Posted in Walt Disney World | 1 Comment

Volunteering at Marathon Weekend

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Paul

So my blog somewhat seems to have stagnated since I moved to Orlando.  The primary reason being that now that I go to Disney so often, the idea of writing “trip reports” no longer quite works.  I mean, no one wants to read “Went to Magic Kingdom after work.  Rode Space Mountain and Haunted Mansion.  Came home.” 3 or 4 times a week, right?  So I didn’t know really what to write about.  But I think I will now make an effort to update my blog on random musings and happenings that I discover, as well as make entries about special events that take place in Walt Disney World.  This entry is the first of the latter category.

I volunteered at the 2012 Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend.  It was an incredible experience, and one that I hope to duplicate on several more occasions.  Deb Wills, of AllEars.net, asked me to give her some information about my experience volunteering, and my response to her turned out to be significantly closer  in length to Trip Report than it was to a survey response.  With that in mind, I figured it might be something others would enjoy reading, so I’ve decided to copy/paste it here:

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Posted in Racing, Special Events, Walt Disney World | 3 Comments

Five Nights of a Disney Dream

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Paul

So I’ve moved.  I now live about 20 minutes north of Walt Disney World.  More on that in a future post.  For now, I want to concentrate on the 5-night cruise I just took with my sister Amanda.

It was, in a word, fantastic.  Amanda and I both enjoyed it immensely.  It was her first cruise, my third.  If you can afford the money, and you are a Disney fan, and you don’t want to gamble on your cruise vacation, I cannot recommend Disney Cruise Line enough.

We arrived at the cruise terminal at Port Canaveral about 10 minutes before 11am.  We were turned around, with the guard saying they’re not letting anyone in until 11am.  Okay.  So we drove around for 10 minutes, then came back.  Apparently a bunch of people found somewhere else to hide out for those ten minutes, because when we got back at 11am on the dot, there was a massive line of cars waiting to get into the garage.  It took us probably 20 minutes just to get to the point where porters take our bags.  From there, upstairs to the cruise terminal, and about a 20-25 minute wait in line to check in.  By the time we got through that process, our boarding group had long ago been called, so we were allowed to board the ship right away.

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Posted in Disney Cruise Line | 1 Comment