Before any more time elapses, I HAVE to share a recap of the Dis­ney Social Media Moms Con­fer­ence (which may in fact be the longest post– ever! )! We expe­ri­enced so much dur­ing the con­fer­ence time and our trip after­ward! As I shared back in April (when I announced our Dis­ney World trip), this trip included a BUNCH of firsts for us! Most impor­tantly, it was our first fam­ily trip to both Dis­ney World and the Dis­ney Social Media Moms Con­fer­ence! Need­less to say, there is SO much to share (way more than I can pack into just a cou­ple of posts)! Many of you fol­lowed all of our adven­tures live via social media (I was shar­ing quite a bit via face­book, twit­ter, and insta­gram), but I’ve still got­ten SO many ques­tions after­ward about every­thing. So, with­out fur­ther ado, here’s a glimpse into the magic of our Dis­ney Social Media Moms expe­ri­ence…After get­ting the invi­ta­tion in March (for which I was both elated & honored–yes I cried! ), two months of plan­ning, super fun #Dis­neySM­Moms clues & antic­i­pa­tion on twit­ter, and sur­pris­ing the boys less than two weeks before, the day finally came and we were on our way! For us, that meant a cross-country red-eye flight (which actu­ally went pretty well)!

Day 1 — Arrival & Open­ing Events

We arrived in Orlando and took the Mag­i­cal Express (one of the many ben­e­fits to stay­ing on prop­erty) to our first hotel — the Con­tem­po­rary Resort (amaz­ing & full review/details com­ing soon)! Once we arrived we headed straight to con­fer­ence check-in (squeee). There, we got to check out some fun new prod­ucts in Win­nie the Pooh Cor­ner, includ­ing the Win­nie the Pooh Won­der Wan­der app (the boys LOVED this) and most impor­tantly, the boys got to meet Tig­ger! The offi­cial con­fer­ence fes­tiv­i­ties didn’t start until that evening, so we had the after­noon free. We walked (that’s an extra spe­cial fea­ture of stay­ing at the Con­tem­po­rary) over to the Magic King­dom, where we had lunch at the new Be Our Guest restau­rant (so cool & review com­ing) and checked out some of the New Fan­ta­sy­land! We did a few fun rides and then peo­ple started get­ting really sleepy after our red-eye flight. So, we headed back to the hotel for a bit of rest before get­ting ready for the evening kick-off fes­tiv­i­ties. Our kick­off event was in Epcot and what a cool event it was! We heard from the fab­u­lous Leanne Jakubowski and I was inspired by Chris Powell’s talk about choices and trans­for­ma­tion. Once our fam­i­lies joined us, we dined on some deli­cious healthy foods as part of the Dis­ney Try It cam­paign in a great atmos­phere, danced to music, had drinks with light-up ice cubes, and enjoyed meet­ing up with some incred­i­ble char­ac­ters! We ended our evening watch­ing Illu­mi­Na­tions at Epcot–what a spec­tac­u­lar way to end a busy, fun-filled day! Great fire­works and reminded us of World of Color at Disney’s Cal­i­for­nia Adven­ture just a bit!

Day 2 — Con­fer­ence Day & Hol­ly­wood Stu­dios Din­ner

What an amaz­ing day!! For me it began at 5:00am with a runDis­ney event (more on that amaz­ing expe­ri­ence to come) and ended at about 10:30pm with new friends watch­ing the Elec­tri­cal Water Pageant at our hotel! All the moments in between were filled with learn­ing, inspi­ra­tion, social media, great food, friends, fam­ily, and lots of pixie dust!Look at all those social media gurus and their tech­no­log­i­cal devices! Love it! In that photo, we’re lis­ten­ing to our clos­ing speaker, Dayna Steele, who gave us tips on being successful–really, being rock­stars! We heard from some other rock­star speak­ers that day as well like Olympic Gold Medal­ist, Shan­non Miller, mar­ket­ing con­sul­tant and author, Jackie Huba, and for­mer wrestler, Marc Mero. Our host for the day was the amaz­ing Rene Syler of Good Enough Mother, who is both hilar­i­ous and inspir­ing. She was fan­tas­tic! Mixed in with all of that inspi­ra­tion was lots of pixie dust and Dis­ney news shared! I espe­cially LOVED hear­ing from the Dis­ney speak­ers and all the upcom­ing Dis­ney fun! Some super excit­ing things are going on, which I can’t wait to share (like Dis­ney Infin­ity an awe­some inter­ac­tive game com­ing this August)! But, the real stand-out with all the Dis­ney speak­ers was their amaz­ing energy and absolutely clear LOVE for their job! Gary Buchanan (PR & Social Media Man­ager with Dis­ney) is absolutely incred­i­ble!! It was a joy to lis­ten to these peo­ple talk about what they love! Inspir­ing!Just when I thought things couldn’t get any more mag­i­cal or fun, R2D2 dropped in to say hi (like really, rolling through the con­fer­ence hall mak­ing noises and all). Then, we were kicked out (for lunch) by a whole Impe­r­ial crew! How many peo­ple can say they’ve been escorted out of a room by a band of Stormtroop­ers?! Seri­ously, it was SO cool! And, for this mom (and wife) to some seri­ous Star Wars-loving boys, all the Star Wars fun was amaz­ing. Even though they didn’t get to see it, the boys think it’s pretty cool that mom has a photo with R2D2 and the Stormtroop­ers! We are SO going to Dis­ney World for Star Wars Week­ends some year! Then, near the end of our con­fer­ence day time, some­thing REALLY mag­i­cal hap­pened to my friend, Amy. She won the cov­eted grand prize give­away at the conference…a night in Cinderella’s Cas­tle!! Yes, THAT castle–the iconic one in the mid­dle of the Magic King­dom! Her name came up on the screen and I screamed! The gals at my table were so con­fused! What an amaz­ing moment! If you’ve ever won­dered what that expe­ri­ence might be like, be sure to check out her Cin­derella Cas­tle post on Dis­ney Men­tor Moms! What a day!

While I was busy will all these con­fer­ence events, Mr. Mom Endeav­ors was busy being an amaz­ing daddy, rock­ing it solo at the Magic King­dom all day with all three boys! Even with Baby Brother in tow they man­aged to spend hours at the park, go on a bunch of rides, and even take pic­tures! Love these of my four favorite boys!! After my “work” was done, the boys met me back at the hotel for some swim­ming time before our evening fes­tiv­i­ties. So many Dis­ney Social Media Moms fam­i­lies took advan­tage of some pool time at the Con­tem­po­rary Resort dur­ing that down time, which was so fun. Then, we headed off to Hol­ly­wood Stu­dios for our evening event, which was incred­i­ble– a spe­cial red car­pet din­ner on the set of the Lights, Motor, Action! Extreme Stunt Show! How awe­some is that?! We ate great food, danced, saw some of our favorite char­ac­ters, and enjoyed the com­pany of some of our new friends. We sat with “Clue­less Mama” and her adorable fam­ily (her hus­band is a Nebraska fan so that was an imme­di­ate con­nec­tion. Mr. Mom Endeav­ors was in heaven talk­ing Nebraska foot­ball! ) and with “The Foot­ball Wife’s” fam­ily (Big Brother made fast friends with her old­est lit­tle girl! So cute!). It was a great night!We got back to the Con­tem­po­rary just in time to watch Magic Kingdom’s fire­works show from the park­ing lot. Then, as we walked back with our new friends, we  stum­bled upon the Elec­tri­cal Water Pageant (another ben­e­fit of stay­ing on prop­erty)! Mag­i­cal! A per­fect end­ing to one of the best days ever!

Day 3 — Merida’s Coro­na­tion & Fan­ta­sia Gardens

After a fairly early alarm and a quick break­fast, Sat­ur­day started in amaz­ing fash­ion too. We had VIP passes to see Merida offi­cially wel­comed into the Dis­ney Princess Royal Court. This was such a spe­cial occa­sion, that I’ve already shared a full post with lots of pic­tures and video of this! Just click the link to read all about cel­e­brat­ing Princess Merida! After all that amaz­ing pageantry, we had time to enjoy the Magic King­dom as a fam­ily. We spent time with some of our new friends, met char­ac­ters, did lots of rides, and really enjoyed time in Sto­ry­book Cir­cus in New Fan­ta­sy­land. We even got to expe­ri­ence an amaz­ing Florida thun­der­storm! It was quite impres­sive to us desert dwellers! And, we got one of my new favorite fam­ily pho­tos that morn­ing! It’s already framed and on a shelf in the house! That evening, we had a super fun fam­ily din­ner focused on Disney’s Magic of Healthy Liv­ing ini­tia­tive. Did you know that Dis­ney World has a whole mini-golf course?! It’s called Fan­ta­sia Gar­dens and it was the scene of our final din­ner! After the rain, the weather was gor­geous and it was an absolutely fab­u­lous night! We had SO much fun! After a deli­cious din­ner, there were all kinds of game options, plus a fun DJ and danc­ing! The Radio Dis­ney crew kept every­one hav­ing fun. Big Brother is my lit­tle dancer and he had SO much fun with his new friend, Ellie! It was SO super cute!! We even had a spe­cial guest that was SO cool! Goofy sur­prised us all with some mad per­cus­sion skills and rocked out with the JAM­Mi­tors! This for­mer per­cus­sion player loved every sec­ond! The boys also dis­cov­ered a lit­tle beach area and absolutely loved play­ing in the white sand. It was Baby Brother’s first expe­ri­ence with sand “on the beach” and they all enjoyed every minute of it! How I love these boys and these pictures!

A truly awe­some night!

Day 4– Mother’s Day Break­fast — a mag­i­cal end!

And, if every­thing so far wasn’t proof that the Dis­ney Social Media Moms team thought of absolutely every­thing to make the event com­pletely mag­i­cal, then the end­ing to the con­fer­ence cer­tainly was! They put together the most won­der­ful Mother’s Day gar­den party break­fast! What an amaz­ing Mother’s Day gift!While this wasn’t the end of our first Dis­ney World expe­ri­ence, it was the end of our Dis­ney Social Media Moms con­fer­ence time. And, clearly, it was beyond fab­u­lous! I’m so thank­ful to have been invited and am so very appre­cia­tive to the many amaz­ing peo­ple & spon­sors (Ray­ovac, Hanes, H2o+, and GoGoSqueeZ) who had a hand in mak­ing this week­end a spec­tac­u­lar Dis­ney expe­ri­ence! It’s so amaz­ing to think that all of this “started with a dream and a mouse”! Thank you, Walt Dis­ney!

Whew! If you’ve made it through this über-long post, but just can’t get enough, be sure to check out a few more great posts recap­ping the events from some other con­fer­ence attendees:

• The Learn­ings
• Lessons Learned
• Favorite Things

And, stay tuned right here on Mom Endeav­ors for more Dis­ney fun to come! In the mean­time, if you’re inter­ested in more infor­ma­tion about the Dis­ney Social Media Moms Cel­e­bra­tion and their upcom­ing “On-The-Road” events, be sure to check out the #Dis­neySM­Moms web­site!

Dis­clo­sure: My fam­ily was invited to the 2013 Dis­ney Social Media Moms Cel­e­bra­tion. I paid a con­fer­ence fee to attend and received dis­counted & com­pli­men­tary items from Walt Dis­ney World as part of the expe­ri­ence. I was not asked to write about our expe­ri­ences at the con­fer­ence or our fam­ily trip. All opin­ions and expe­ri­ences are entirely my own

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