I loved the year that Disney employed its Dream Team to spread extra magic randomly around the park.\u00a0 I wished desperately that I could be on the Dream Squad.\u00a0 But never one to be constrained, I decided I could and would still become a magic maker – unofficial of course.<\/p>\n
I love doing things for my own family at Disney. But how wonderful it must be to spread extra joy and magic even beyond your daily contacts!\u00a0 So I began to plan.<\/p>\n
First, I needed to supply my magic wand…or buy lots of stuff.\u00a0 In January before our August trip, I began to look for cool Disney items.\u00a0 The items had to be portable, fairly inexpensive while still nice, and fall within certain guidelines.\u00a0 I scoured EBay and WalMart looking for Disney brand merchandise (mostly bracelets, figures and plush) that were not personal items (no make up or food), breakable, heavy, meltable or had many pieces.\u00a0 I tried to think of things I would want my children to have in the parks. \u00a0From January until May I shopped just getting a little along every week or so.\u00a0 I would find bracelets, figurines, plush, small books, etc… and kept them in the original packaging.\u00a0 Then I made tags that read \u201cHope you have an extra magical vacation\u201d and labeled everything.\u00a0 I packed it all up and was stunned that I had filled one large suitcase.<\/p>\n
Next we drove down and became part of the magic.\u00a0 Everyday we loaded our backpacks full of magical gifts and then we would look for folks who needed a smile.\u00a0 We found little ones waiting for older taller siblings outside Rockin Roller Coaster, preschoolers who were being turned away from Dinosaur because they were just a bit too short for the attraction, moms who were having a tough day with their kids at the end of the day, all sorts of guests who could use a bit of magic.\u00a0 We then (my children, spouse and I) would approach the guest (or their parent) and tell them that Mickey wanted us to give them this gift.\u00a0 Eyes lit up, smiles appeared and magic was made.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Not content only to make magic for guests, I wondered how to make magic for the magic makers themselves…the Cast Members.\u00a0 This took a bit more thought since Cast Members are not supposed to accept items from guests.\u00a0 I did some research and found they could accept pictures!\u00a0 I made 400 copies of some great pictures of the kids on previous trips and labeled these \u201cThanks for Making Magic and Sharing Smiles\u201d and randomly gave these out to the Cast throughout the parks.\u00a0 We made a game of trying to give pictures to Cast Members in as many different roles as we could find.\u00a0 We also made it a point to give a picture to any Cast Member who was having a more difficult day.\u00a0 Again, eyes lit up, smiles appeared and magic was made.<\/p>\n
And yet, I knew I could do more.\u00a0 We made a special autograph book and asked the Cast Members at the parks and resorts to sign it.\u00a0 We thanked them for how hard they worked everyday and every moment to make magic for us as Disney guests.\u00a0 We then asked them to honor us by giving us their autograph.\u00a0 They were flattered and gracious and signed our book and we were honored and flattered they did.<\/p>\n
We do this every trip now.\u00a0 We have made ourselves honorary unofficial magic makers.\u00a0 The magic has now spilled into our daily lives back home and we try to think of ways we can make magic, share smiles and pay pixie dust forward wherever we are!<\/p>\n
Spring Slagle<\/p>\n
I loved the year that Disney employed its Dream Team to spread extra magic randomly around the park.\u00a0 I wished desperately that I could be on the Dream Squad.\u00a0 But never one to be constrained, I decided I could and would still become a magic maker – unofficial of course. I love doing things for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-walt-disney-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2083"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86560,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083\/revisions\/86560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}