We were so honored and excited to be invited to attend the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration this year. This conference is a special invite for social media influencers that love Disney. We are passionate about family and love that Disney is too. This conference was a part land and part sea adventure. The first few days we attended some amazing events at Disney World and we got to hear lots of exciting Disney news! Some of the news was released first to our group! The second part of our trip I will be talking about on my second post, which was our first time on a Disney Cruise! Be sure to check it out HERE.
Walt Disney World News
Let’s start with the news! There were four big announcements made about Disney World last week:
1. Magic Band 2
Disney World just started rolling out their new Magic Bands, the Magic Band 2. What’s awesome about these bands is that the center piece is removable! This allows for mixing and matching and placing in other kinds of options other than a wristband. You can use keychains or lanyards! Guests that are staying at the Disney hotels are already receiving the Magic Band 2’s and they will begin rolling in to the parks for purchase soon, along with their new accessory options.
2. Rivers of Light Night Show in Animal Kingdom
I am so excited to tell you about this new night time show at Animal Kingdom! We got to see it’s first ever showing to an audience before they began showing it in the park! Rivers of Light is a show that combines light and music and water and celebrates all living things. It is truly stunning. We absolutely loved it! And it’s open to the public this weekend! Shows and dining packages are available to schedule now on My Disney Experience. The first show will be February 19th.Animal Kingdom is now extending it’s park hours and has all kinds of nightly features like afternoon Safaris and the Tree of Life Awakenings.
3. Happily Ever After Fireworks Show in Magic Kingdom
We were the first to get to hear about this brand new night time spectacular fireworks show at Cinderella’s Castle in Magic Kingdom. Then new show will feature all new music and beautiful projections (including Moana!) on the castle combined with fireworks. Happily Ever after will begin on May 12 of this year.
4. Pandora the World of Avatar
This new park in Animal Kingdom is so big and incredible and it opens on May 27th! Pandora will have new rides like the Avatar Flight of Passage and the Na’vi River Journey. As well as new dining options and gift shops. The park itself is beautiful with floating mountains, and interesting greenery, and bio luminescent lights. This is going to be a must see and is going to take Animal Kingdom to a whole new level of excitement.
Walt Disney World Fun and Food
I also wanted to share some of the fun experiences that we had at Disney World. We got to stay at the beautiful Port Orleans Riverside Resort. We love New Orleans so we had so much fun staying there among the New Orleans style buildings, the beautiful river ways, and eating the New Orleans style food that they had on site.We were a quick walk from the New Orleans French Quarter resort where I was able to get gluten free beignets! That was definitely one of the highlights for me since I haven’t been able to eat one in a long time. We spent one of our evenings at Hollywood Studios and had so much fun. We started the night at the new PizzeRizzo, a yummy Italian restaurant near the Muppets Show. This was another win for me because they had gluten free pizza that was really good! We finished the rest of the night with all kinds of epic Star Wars experiences! The night time show – Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular, was amazing! Then we checked out the Star Wars Launch Bay and got to meet some of our favorite characters. Some of our favorite rides were: The Rock ‘n’ Rollercoaster in Hollywood StudiosExpedition Everest and the Safari in Animal KingdomThe Seven Dwarfs Mine Train in Magic Kingdomand the new Frozen Ever After boat ride and Soarin’ Around the World in Epcot Another highlight was a breakfast reservation that we made at Ohana at the Polynesian Resort one morning. That was such a fun island character breakfast with all you can eat yummy food. Our girls loved it! One of the other dining reservation that we made was at Yak and Yeti for lunch at Animal Kingdom, which we loved. Everything we ordered was so tasty! I need to go back so I can dedicate an entire post just to food! There are so many awesome dining options and yummy treats at Disney World. We also loved checking out the gigantic Disney Store at Disney Springs and got some fun supplies for the Disney Cruise!
Conference Highlights at Disney World
We had some really great speakers and sponsors during the conference and it was so interesting learning more about them. We got to meet Dominique Dawes, gymnastics Olympic Gold Medalist who does incredible work with Go Go Squeez in helping children lead healthy lives. Hanes showed us their awesome new line of products for 2017, which included breathable, moisture wicking fabrics and customizable college and high school apparel. Alamo showed us their new commercials featuring taking the scenic route. And American Tourister spoiled us all with their new line of Star Wars themed rolling carry on luggage!
Be sure to head over to Part 2: Our Disney Cruise! HERE
The Disney Social Media Moms Celebration is a conference by invitation for Social Media Influencers. I paid a conference fee to attend and received some discounted and complimentary items from Disney Parks, the Disney Cruise Line, Disney Media, and their Sponsors. We were not required to write about our experiences and all opinions are my own.
