Who turns down a trip to Disney World?  Not this chick.  As you are probably aware, I am a Travel Professional, specializing in vacations to Disney Destinations.  When asked if I wanted to participate in an on-site agent seminar last week, I couldn’t jump at the chance fast enough!  I spent three days at the World absorbing all that I could about resort renovations, inspecting different room categories, meeting new friends, and enjoying some once in a lifetime experiences.  Before I get a million emails about how you too can become a Travel Professional, let me just add that running a small business is a lot of work and while perks like these are super, the effort to get to this point is pretty significant.  I live and breathe Disney 24×7.

Back to the fun though!  I was definitely busy with the resort inspections and classroom portions of the seminar but I did squeeze in some time to visit Magic Kingdom and Epcot.  It is great to pop into the parks and immediately have that ‘home away from home’ feeling.  Disney goes above and beyond to make the overall guest experience top-notch.  Magic Kingdom was fairly crowded for a late January evening so I hopped on Haunted Mansion for a quick ride in a Doom Buggy and then headed over to Pecos Bill Cafe for a veggie burger.  People watching in the spacious dining area of Pecos Bill’s proved to be quite interesting.  I highly recommend grabbing a bench and a snack sometime while you’re in a Disney park and just watching the crowds flow by.  The happiness of the children and their parents as they are making memories of their time together always brings a smile to my face and reminds me why I truly love my job.

The next afternoon led me to Epcot where I enjoyed a most delicious mango smoothie in Canada while people watching (do you see a theme here?)  After every last yummy drop was gone, I strolled over to Mission Space where I took the easy way out on the “Green” side.  For those that aren’t familiar with this ride, you are in a simulator that takes you on a mission to Mars and you have two ride options, Green or Orange.  Green is the gentle version with no ‘g’ forces and orange gives you the full feeling of taking off for outer space.  Since I just had a mango smoothie, I was thinking that rapid spinning wasn’t going to be the best idea I could have so I opted for the gentle mission.  It was really nice and I rode with a family with two little boys who were enjoying their first time on the ride.  I love that!  Seeing their excited faces, even though we didn’t speak the same language, was just great.

After my ride, I meandered around to the Werther’s caramel store in Germany (“Karamell-Küche”) where I promptly ordered up a caramel apple and began the journey into pure delight.  The caramel is made fresh in the store and those apples are to die for.  I finished up my snacking with a little shopping in Japan and went back to my seminar group for a private dinner and Illuminations Dessert party to cap the evening.

Now that I’m back home, completely exhausted and sick (likely due to airport germs), I am so glad to have been able to have had these experiences and learn more to be able to enhance the vacation experience for my clients.