Disney - Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom - Tips & Tricks for your new gamers for the fun interactive game

This post was planned for much later but bestie ‘A’ is headed to Disney for the holiday and in need of some info for her littles who are dying to play Sorcerer’s of the Magic Kingdom.  C-man has undoubtedly been sharing how much he has loved the game with ‘A’s’ girls and even gave them all of our extra spell cards to get them started.  

About the Game - 

If you have a child age 7 or older (especially if they are gamers like my C-man), they will love the new Interactive game ‘Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom’ at the Magic Kingdom that was rolled out in spring of 2012.  The game allows kids of all ages to become an apprentice sorcerer and help the wizard, Merlin, protect the Magic Kingdom from Hades, the god of the Underworld, and his gang of villains.  Hades wants to take over the Magic Kingdom and has recruited Disney villains to help him.  Your job as an apprentice sorcerer is to help Merlin by battling the villains.  

The game is free with your park admission ticket and you can register to play at the Firehouse located just before you enter Main Street on the left or just behind Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe in Liberty Square.  I suggest you register at the Firehouse for your first time to play the game so that you can see the portals on Main Street.  After that first time of play, the Liberty Square location usually has a shorter line.  

The Map to find portals

The Map for Frontierland and Adventureland

The map for Main Street U.S.A. and Fantasyland

How does it work?  

Each person in your party can use their admission ticket to register and obtain a pack of sorcerer spell cards.  If you have a member of your party who really wants to play, I would suggest that your entire party go with their admission tickets to obtain the card packs, even if they don’t play.  The more card packs that you obtain, the more fun your player will have using different spell cards.  It is important to know that you can’t just take 10 admission tickets with two people and get 10 card packs.  Each person obtaining a card pack must be present to obtain said pack and you can each obtain new card packs each day you attend the Magic Kingdom.  

I know having your entire party do this sounds very inconvenient, but I believe the inconvenience is worth the time for a few reasons.  Last fall and this spring, C-man absolutely LOVED playing Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom.  It made his trip even more magical and he would tell you that it was his favorite part of both trips.  Also, he and his sisters have enjoyed pouring over the cards and devising plans for card combinations for our upcoming trip.  (Hours y’all.)  

What do you put all of those cards in without ruining them?  (Those Florida rainstorms usually pop up out of nowhere.) There are a few options.  On our fall break trip, Honey treated C-man to a Disney Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom book that can be found in the Emporium and other shops around the MK.  I will warn that the these books are pricey.  In order to save a little money before the trip, I picked up a trading card book at Target that works just as well protecting the spell cards.  After C-man upgraded, the girls were thrilled to receive his leftover book.  

Once you are registered, have your cards and sorcerer map, you will be sent to one of four areas in the Magic Kingdom for game play.  The four areas are Main Street U.S.A., Adventureland, Fantasyland, and Frontierland.  There are portals in each area with a Key Box that your player will place their key card on to start or continue their game.  Your player will hear a beginning story by Merlin where you will learn which Villain you are battling and then be led to other portals in the area to use spell cards to defeat the Villain.  There are 9 villains, including Hades, to defeat.  Once your player has defeated all 9 villains, your player can go to the Firehouse and obtain a new card set and ring the firehouse bell.  C-man really enjoyed ringing the bell and we were lucky that the cast member working at the time made a really big deal out of completion.  

A Key Card Box

C-Man is loving it

How do the spell cards work?

There are a few things to remember when using the spell cards -   

Make sure you gamer stands directly on the Sorcerer's of the Magic Kingdom gold crest.  The camera and computer are designed to read the spell cards with the player standing on the crest.  

Hold the card by the outer edges so that the reader can adequately read the card.  (Another reason the books are a good idea.)  

Hold Card on the outer edges if you don't have a book

• Don’t reuse the same spell card when battling the same villain.  The game makers designed this game well and the program is designed to weaken the strength of the card’s spell if it is used more than once against the same villain.  

• You can use more than one spell card at a time - Up to 6 at the same time from what I understand.  My kids loved seeing the different spell combinations.

• C-man says that cards from the same movie work well together.  (ex. - Eve & Wall-E; Tiana & Prince Naveen; Flynn Rider & Rapunzel; Princess Aurora & Prince Philip; etc.)

• There are 3 levels - Easy, Medium & Hard.  Your first time player will start at Easy.  When your player is only level 1, any spell will defeat any villain.  As your player reaches the ‘Medium’ or ‘Hard’ levels, defeating villains is more difficult and time consuming.  (C-man has worked up to the ‘Hard’ level and even beat ‘Hard’ last trip.  

• There are 70 different spell cards that can be collected. The card packs that they give you when your register for play include a key card and 5 spell cards.  You can collect up to 60 spell cards in mix of cards given at registration or if you complete the game.  The last 10 cards can be purchased in packs sold at the Emporium and are very rare cards known as 'Thunder' cards.  Each pack contains only 1 'Thunder' card. 

• The more your use a spell card against different villains, the stronger the spell card becomes.  

• If your gamer reaches the 'Medium' or 'Hard' level have them listen carefully to the storyline.  The villain will usually mention something in the storyline that reveals their weakness and give a clue as to what type of spell will work best to defeat that villain.  (i.e. - Warrior, Hero, Princess, Fairy, Toy, Machine, Animal, Monster, Mystic.)

How long does it take to complete the game?  

It depends on if you play continuously or take breaks for rides and character greetings, but it usually takes about 4 plus hours. In May, Honey and I switched off with the girls and C-man so that C-man could play.  Both of us will readily admit that we enjoyed the one on one time with C-man and I doubt C-man will ever forget getting caught in the rainstorm or my lost iPhone.  (I REALLY REALLY REALLY love the Find My Phone app!)

All 3 of my littles are very excited about spending some time at the Magic Kingdom playing sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom during our upcoming Christmas trip.  We usually have them wait until the 3rd day to play so that many of our ‘Must Dos‘ have been checked off the list before we take time out to play.  That said, it is a fun addition to the Magic Kingdom that our family has truly enjoyed.  

Hope

Custom T-Shirts for Disney

Happy Wednesday everyone!

I promise to share three more recipes before Thanksgiving, but the Baby and I have been busy doing school work and making sweet sister-in-law's baby bedding for the new bundle of joy that will join our family soon.  (More posts on the baby bedding to come.)  With all of this learning and sewing going on, baking just hasn't been in the cards.  I know I promised frequent Disney posts so I thought I would share how the idea of matching t-shirts came to light.

I'm not normally a matching t-shirt kind of girl because, let's face it, they aren't always cute.  I am also fairly certain that Disney World is the only place on the planet that Honey will agree to wear matching shirts, but you guessed it.  The t-shirt idea was Honey's.  I'm sure he will deny it, but he mentioned the idea of matching t-shirts after one of those evenings he read through the 'Dis Boards.' (aka the website devoted to all things Disney run by Disney fans.)

We were taking Honey's parents, Mimi and Pappy, with us that trip and I actually thought it would be a fabulous way to keep track of everyone.  After scouring the 'Creative' section of the Dis Boards I found several designs that I liked.  You can find a few of my favorites HERE on the DIS Board.  I found designs I loved from Marion HERE with all of the family names.  You can find Christmas designs by Marion here that we are using for an upcoming Christmas trip and Halloween designs Here.

For a few of the t-shirts, I contacted the designer and requested our family's names on the design.  The designers are so very kind and will email you the jpg image for your use for t-shirts and more.  Please note that you cannot sell these images.  On the other t-shirts, I had an idea of what I wanted and took my ideas to a local print shop and had the shirts made.  We had a fabulous experience with our local print shop and really love that they have an in house graphic designer who helped me create what I wanted.

It had rained just before this picture!

Sweet Cousins!

No, we don't have shirts for each day but it was really nice to have two days where I knew I could find everyone in our group!  I have a really cute Christmas themed shirt planned for our Christmas trip and will post for y'all soon.

Now we are off to the Church Advent workshop to prepare our wreath for the season of Advent.  Have a good night!

Hope

Disney - The Road to Disney and Waiting in Line Activities to Prevent the Whining

Some people think we are crazy for driving from Tennessee to Orlando every Disney trip, but that’s ok.  I like to be a little crazy sometimes and it helps A WHOLE LOT to cut costs down.  When the children were younger the drive to Disney was fine, but I can’t lie, the ride back home was just down-right painful.  I am not sure if it is because we have what Honey and I consider to be the ‘perfect driving plan’ now, if it is because we have all become accustomed to the drive, if it is because the children have gotten older and more self-sufficient, or if it’s a happy harmony of all of the above, but the ride gets easier every trip.  Seriously.  

Part of our ‘perfect driving plan’ involves packing the entire car the night before we leave so that it takes us little to no time to leave the next morning.  We all go to bed by 9 or 9:30 p.m. and I get up at, brace yourself, 3:15 so that we can leave by 4 a.m.  I am very lucky that I seem to have an ‘off switch’ and can go to sleep within minutes of laying down.  I am also a morning person who does just great with a little coffee.  I take the first three hour drive shift because Honey is not a big morning person.  Honey usually drives most of the rest of the way to Disney because he is just not a ‘passenger seat’ kind of guy.  

So how do the children do during the drive?  Well, normally they are sleeping angels the first 3-4 hours and then when it’s my turn to sleep they need snacks, movies, drinks, headphones, crayons that have fallen on the floor and more.  Thankfully, the Princess is also known as “Little Hope” and has now taken it upon herself to assist with all needs while Mama sleeps.  Praise The Lord for self-sufficiency!!  

Here are some tips on how I have made it super easy to help this self-sufficiency process.  I have each child pack a back pack with all of their favorite toys and place said  backpack right beside or in front of them along with their pillow pets and blankets.  I also have the big tote of a mix of healthy snacks and snacks that they hardly ever have placed right in between all three children so they can reach what they need when they need it.  

We always buy 2-3 new movies that they haven’t seen before for the drive.  The ‘never seen before’ part is extremely important and helps hold their attention.  I pack every travel sized game that we own for the girls to play.  C-man is usually just fine solo in the back seat with his DS and book.  Honey actually asked this past trip about 4-5 hours into the drive, “We didn’t leave C-man at home did we?  We haven’t heard a peep out of him.”  We usually limit the video gaming time but the road to Disney is just not one of those times.  

The ride home?  Well, it’s still not fabulous, but it’s pleasant now.  I pack the car the evening before and we make sure that we leave by 7 a.m. at the very latest.  We have found waiting any longer is just asking to combat the swarm of people leaving on a Sunday.  

Waiting-in-Line Activities

I usually have several tricks in my bag to combat boredom while waiting in line.  My first line of defense is the Disney ABC game.  Here is how the game works - the first person has to name a Disney character whose name begins with the letter ‘A’.  Play then continues to the next person who has to name a Disney character whose name begins with the letter ‘B’ and so on until you reach the letter ‘Z’.  I suggest you save this game for those really, really long lines. 

My children also love Story Cubes.  Even the Baby like to get into the action on this one.  Because we have to move suddenly and quickly in line, I don’t really follow the rules suggested.  I have each child draw 3 cubes and then tell a story based on the 3 cubes they received.  After the 3 stories have been told, play continues with each child drawing 3 new cubes from the bag.  The stories can be pretty hilarious and my kids love to play.  You can find it at Amazon for less than $8.  

Story Cubes - Great for activity while waiting in line

I always carry crayons and Disney themed pocket sized activity books that you can find at the Dollar store or the $1 section of Target (Don’t y’all love that addition to Target?) in my backpack along with a pocket sized ‘Spot It’ game by Blue Orange.  You can find 'Spot it' at Amazon Here for less than $12.  

My kids love the game 'Spot It' - especially my girls

For our upcoming Christmas trip I purchased a darling Disney activity book from my friend, Amanda, over at DIxie Delights.  The digital personalized download for all 3 of my kiddos was just $5.  You can find them HERE at her Etsy Store.  

Dixie Delights Activity Book

I hope these ideas help make your next trip even more Magical.  

Hope

Unforgettable Disney Autograph Books

Unforgettable Disney Autograph Books

Autograph Pages

Have I mentioned that Honey absolutely LOVES trips to Disney?  One evening a couple of years ago, he mentioned that he thought it would be fabulous if I could make the kids autograph books for our upcoming trip that was less than a month away.  My response in my mind was "You can't be serious.  That is crazy talk!", but I sweetly responded aloud with, "Honey, that would take forever to do.  Aren't the ones we buy at Disney World just fine?"

Honey responded, "Well, I saw these amazing autograph books that a mom had made on one of the trip reports on the Dis boards." My thought was, "Oh great, another mom who has a graphic art degree, can create amazing printables, and I can barely figure out how to run iPhoto on my Mac.  There is no way I can match her designs, and even if I tried, it would take me FOREVER." My response aloud to Honey was, "Honey, I'm not sure how to even begin to make personalized autograph cards for each character." He then grinned, looked like a kid at Christmas and showed me that there were several graphic designers on the Dis Boards who had created autograph books and uploaded the jpg images to Photo Bucket.  He was so excited about how much he thought the kids would love it that there was no way I could say no.  I then set out to assemble unforgettable autograph books for our Disney trip.

As an aside for the uninitiated, (I was clueless too) the 'Dis Board' is a community website filled with all things Disney.  A small section of the board is used by Disney lovers to post 'Trip Reports' about their Disney experience which is where Honey saw the amazing autograph books.  Honey loves occasionally reading the trip reports.  I guess it's his brain candy just like US Weekly is my brain candy.

Round 1 - I was a little overzealous in my first attempt to create the autograph books.  I made several mistakes.  First, I printed off pages for every character we could possibly meet during our trip.  Next, being the extremely prepared mom that I am, I anticipated some serious wear and tear on these books and decided to laminate every single autograph page. That's right, I'm crazy.  I printed the pages onto card stock, laminated the sheets and then had the books bound.  I had anticipated one big book, however, when the sales person at the local copy store gaped at me when he saw the amount of laminated sheets I wanted bound together I thought maybe I was wrong.  He informed me that there was no way to bind all of those sheets into one coil.  Two books per child would have to do.

The good part of these books was that the Florida rain didn't mess up a single page.  The bad part was that each child had two books that I had to keep up with and the permanent marker tended to scratch off the pages.  The kids did LOVE the books and it was a lot of fun to see the interaction with the characters when the character saw that they had their own personalized page to sign.  My kids were often asked where they got the autograph books and they would sweetly respond, "My mom made them!" I would just smile on the outside and then beam like the sun on the inside.

These are Lily Brooks and Hannah's two books

The all laminated version was super thick and a big pain to lug around

Round 2 - So after my lamination crazy debacle I decided to forget the lamination all-together.  I also cut back on printing pages for the lessor known/seen characters and added cute blank pages at the very end just in case we did see a character who didn't have a personalized page.  I was pretty proud of myself because the books were much lighter and easy to carry around.  Sadly, as you can see from the ink bleeds, we, along with the books, were caught in a rain storm.  There were tears over the wet books.  It rained just a couple of hours before we were headed to the big Princess dinner at Epcot and the girls were pretty sad to hand over soggy books for signatures.  :(

The Rain-soaked versions - notice the wear on Hannah and C-man's books

More water damage, but I wanted y'all to get an idea of the cool graphics

The worst of the water damage was to C-man's book. :(

Round 3 - By George, I think I've got it! To combat the rain problem I decided to laminate the front and back covers.  I also put my email and phone number on the back cover just in case the book was lost along the way.  We did get caught in the rain and a few pages on two books were a little damaged but other than minor damage, they were a huge success.

Add caption

The great part about the homemade books is that you can feature your child's favorite character on the front cover and make sure that character's that are more important to your child are in their book.  You can either make your books with card stock and print the pages using your printer or you can print photos of the jpg file.  Yes, it took much longer, but I was happy that I went with the card stock route.  I highly suggest you invest in the extra large ink cartridges.  I run through A LOT of ink when I make the kids' books.

There are several fabulous graphic designers on the Dis Boards who have shared their work and you can find the list with their links at Dis Board - Meet the DISigners page.  Here are a few of my favorite designers and their photo bucket links - Penny, Evan, Marion (password to album is 'noquotes'), and Kim.  There are many more than the ones I have listed and they all have a nice niche.  They post their designs for free but you cannot sell anything they have designed.

Once you decide on your favorite designs, save the jpg. files onto your computer and print.  I printed two autograph pages per sheet so that each book is made of all 5 x 7 autograph sheets.  The binding can be easily done at your local office supply/copy store. I believe the binding for all 3 books this last trip was $10-12.

Is this project a labor of love? Yes, but all three of my children LOVE their books.  They love getting to show the characters their special books and they love that their books are individualized just for them.  C-man even put up a fight tonight when I came to retrieve his book for the pictures.  Each child has their latest autograph book beside their beds and actually do look through the books about once a week or so.  I had intentions of printing the character photos and gluing the pictures into each of the books but that hasn't happened yet, and sadly, probably won't.

Please let me know if y'all have any questions.  I am happy to help and would love to hear how your autograph book turns out.  See ya' real soon!

Hope

Disney - Reviews of Places to Stay

I remember the first time we took the kids to Disney World.    Honey called me from work and said, "I just saw an ad for specials that they are running at Disney World.  I need to take a few days off and think we should take the kids to Disney World for a few days.  I want to leave next Thursday (11 days away) and am going to book this today." Even though Honey is a CPA, he is shockingly spontaneous.  Me?  I'm the planner but at that moment I was so tired from having two little ones that I really didn't care and was along for the ride.  At that time, C-man was 3 years old and the Princess was only 1 1/2.  When we started this great Disney adventure Honey had only been to Disney twice (once a kid & once with work).  I had never been.

A Pic from our 2nd trip.  So sad but I cannot find any files from our 1st trip.  :(

Now, Disney World is our family vacation spot.  We are very lucky that we are able to go at least once a year (this year more often because Honey sprang for annual passes).  I know it sounds frivolous, but  it is what the family looks forward to all year and we have made the most precious memories along the way.   I swear I think Honey loves Disney World more than the kids.  In order to make the annual trips a priority, we save on other things throughout the year and also try to be as frugal as you can be at Disney.

I am going to try to make it a priority to post at least one Disney related post each week because it is probably the thing I get asked for advice on the most.  Special thanks to good friend, A, for her quick and intense Disney orientation that night at Bunko 6 years ago.  Her laminated daily schedule cards totally freaked me out but thanks to her assistance we didn't just wander aimlessly around the parks that first trip.

Seriously - How cute is this?

C-man talked a big game about no princess stuff but check this out!

The first thing I would suggest is to pick up a current copy of The Unofficial Guide to Disney World.  The authors also have a great website Here and an app as well.  Honey and I have found that new My Disney Experience App by Disney is just as good as, if not better than, the Touring Plans app.   

There are several websites that have exhaustive reviews of the Disney Resort Properties, but here are our opinions of the places that we have stayed.  I am going to list them in the order with which we have stayed.  

The Princess was 2 1/2 in this pic and C-man was 4 1/2

Port Orleans - French Quarter

Sadly, I cannot find all of the jpg files for my pictures from our stay until the last two years so I have used images from Here at Easy WDW.  I guess that happens in the fog that is having 3 kids two years apart!

Pros & Cons - We love the theme at Port Orleans French Quarter.  We also liked that it was smaller moderate resort.  It shares amenities with Port Orleans Riverside which can be good and bad.  The good is that amenities are available.  The bad is that the walk is pretty far.  We found the rooms to be comfortable and stayed here twice.  We loved the food court and the beignets are amazing!

We didn't use the pool because we went in February and the children were too young to make it enjoyable for anyone.  

Caribbean Beach Resort - 

We moved over to Caribbean Beach because they had just renovated a few buildings with pirate themed rooms and C-man loves pirates.  I have to admit that the pirate rooms were very cool and C-man was over the moon.  It also made a nice trade-off for the Princess dinners for the girls.  (The baby had made her arrival by the time we moved over to Caribbean Beach.)

Kiddie Pool area with a cool pirate ship

Food Court Area

Pros & Cons  -

The theme was really great! Y'all know how much I love the beach! The rooms were such a treat for our little pirate man and he absolutely loved it.  The pool area was a lot of fun and the kids absolutely loved the ship area at the kiddie pool.

We didn't like that the beds were full sized instead of queen sized.  Sadly, our older two are kickers and C-man kicked the Princess right out of the bed one night.  After the incident, Honey and I each slept with one child and the baby in her pack n' play.  It's just not fun to sleep with a child who kicks in a full sized bed.  Sometimes that extra couple of inches makes a difference.

While the food court is very large, it is just not big enough for the size of the resort.  It was cramped most every time we went inside.  We also didn't like that this resort is extremely large.  Maybe it was the age of our children at the time, but we also couldn't walk most places within the resort.

We did stay here twice, but I am not sure we will return to this one.

Polynesian

We would normally never spend the money for the deluxe resorts, but after we had paid for our trip Disney offered free dining.  Having already paid for the dining plan, we could choose to have our money refunded or spend a small amount more to upgrade to a deluxe resort.  Honey and I had really wanted to try the Polynesian because it is a favorite of so many reviewers.  I am so glad we were able to try the Polynesian.

While we did like several things about this resort, it isn't our favorite.

One of the many room buildings called 'Long Houses'

The pool was a HUGE hit with our kids

The rooms were nice and spacious

The food court was TINY. What is shown here is basically all they have.  

Pros - We love the theme, the small touches like the fire show each night and the leis, the monorail system that is extremely convenient, and the amazing pool.  We also loved being able to see the fireworks from the magic kingdom and the night-time electrical water pageant from the beach.   The rooms are large and absolutely enough room for our family of 5.  

Cons - Even though the buildings have been renovated, the rooms are quite old and the walls are thin.  I  am a pretty sound sleeper, but a crying child will wake almost any mom I know and kept me up two-three nights while we were there.  The food court is pitiful and, well, just sad.  For such a large resort they need a bigger quick service area and the one they have needs to be set up better with more options and more staff.  It really became an ordeal for us and we tend to lean more toward sit down character meals and eating in the parks over dining at the resort. 

Overall, we loved the Polynesian, but we prefer to save money and stay the moderate resorts that we like just as much, if not more than, the Polynesian.  

Port Orleans - Riverside - New Princess Rooms

If you have girls and a family of four, this is the hotel for you!  Last September, we took Honey's parents, (aka 'Mimi' and 'Pappy') with us to Disney.  We had two of the new Princess themed rooms.  They are absolutely amazing!

C-man, The Baby & the Princess with Mimi & Pappy

The Food Court at Riverside

The pool area that has an "awesome" slide according to my kiddos

Southern Mansion Side of Riverside where the Princess Rooms are located

Pros - The princess rooms are the nicest that we have stayed in at Disney.  Our girls were over the moon excited and even C-man was impressed by the nighttime LED fireworks over the beds.  While the resort is large, the walk doesn't seem too far by any means.  The evening outdoor movies are a great touch over on the southern mansion side of the resort.  The food court is probably our favorite. The boats to Downtown Disney were fun and a our kids adore this pool area.  It was also easy for me to keep my eyes on all 3 kids swimming with the set-up.  The kids also enjoyed games run by the pool entertainment staff one afternoon.

Cons - I wish the princess rooms could fit five people.  The buses seem a bit slower than French Quarter and Caribbean.  

We love Port Orleans Riverside and other than stopping by the French Quarter Resort for benigets a couple of mornings, we prefer it over any other resort that we have tried.  

Port Orleans Riverside - Alligator Bayou Rooms

This past May we went with my brother, Lew, and his family and stayed on the Alligator Bayou side of the resort.  I was disappointed because I had fallen in love with the Princess rooms and how nice they were, but I was pleasantly surprised.   The Bayou side isn't 'girly' but it is very nice and will sleep five people which is a must for our family.  C-man LOVED his pull down bed that made both girls envious. The amenities are all the same as the Southern mansion side and we are happy to head back to Riverside for a Christmas trip this year.  

C-man's Pull down bed

In reading through my reviews, please keep in mind that we have driven to Disney all but two times and we have younger children.  Your needs might be different than ours depending on your family's preferences.  

Stay tuned for my next Disney post on Autograph books & the Road to Disney!

Hope