I had an amazing weekend

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LesBaker

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In January I was finally able to leave the shitty company I was working for and embark on a new career path. I work for a radio group that has several stations here in SWFL. Long story short the guy that had the job prior to me was such a dick that he damaged several relationships, and one of them happened to be with Disney. Well we got that fixed and I just got back from their largest media event of the year. It's HUGE.

Anyway we had 4 rooms, and Disney let us put up to 4 people in each room. So the on air staff was able to bring family for a three day or actually three and a half day weekend free. But it was a lot more than that.

They gave everyone meal vouchers for the parks, twice had breakfast buffets put together for us, once on site at Animal Kingdom, and had a cool contest with prizes so they also put together an fantastic dinner/prize things in the ballroom of the Coronado Springs Resort where everyone was staying. Hard to top all that right? Of course you assume that they will give you access to the parks since the contest involved a photo hunt on an app that they built for the contest. During certain one hour windows one or two times a day, they dropped a picture and everyone would race to the spot to get a booklet stamped.

This however was no ordinary "magic band" as they are called. You can google magic band so you can see what that is but it's a wristband that serves as your room key and you can tap it on machines to use it to pay for stuff so you don't have to carry money, you also tap it up against the entrance to rides.

OK so everyone who pays the admission to the parks can normally get 3 "fast passes" (move to the front of the line so to speak) per day and select the rides they want to go on and they assign a time based on availability, and only a certain number of people can be accommodated at a time of course. These bands gave not only gave us unlimited fast passed but our bands over rode the system if a certain time was blocked because it was at capacity. Essentially we had all access anytime to any rides we wanted as many times as we wanted.

Here's the coolest part. I had never been to Disney, so my first trip was basically on a magic carpet ride with any ride I wanted whenever I wanted it. Same with the other attractions too, not just the roller coasters. I got the Disney experience buffet style/all you can eat. One of the staff at one of the other radio groups (they had stations from all over Florida in for the event) said that the only time they issues these type of magic bands is for celebrities so they don't get mobbed by the crowd and when they bring in a child with Make A Wish. So this was a really special thing and it made the entire weekend so, so, so memorable.

Pretty much everything I have heard about Disney's parks was true. It was one of the best weekends of my adult life by the way.
 

Selassie I

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Very cool Les. I'm glad you had a wonderful experience here in my backyard but didn't even call me to let me know you were here. Hahahaha

Seriously, Disney is first class all the way and I'm glad to hear you were taken care of like the celeb that you are. You deserved it after your last job I'm sure... nice to know your new gig is the opposite of your last.

Was it just last weekend or the one prior? I only ask that because one of those weekends was the "rainbow" weekend as I recall. Were you guys doing something special for that by chance?
 

Dodgersrf

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Very cool Les. I'm glad you had a wonderful experience here in my backyard but didn't even call me to let me know you were here. Hahahaha

Seriously, Disney is first class all the way and I'm glad to hear you were taken care of like the celeb that you are. You deserved it after your last job I'm sure... nice to know your new gig is the opposite of your last.

Was it just last weekend or the one prior? I only ask that because one of those weekends was the "rainbow" weekend as I recall. Were you guys doing something special for that by chance?
Lmfao.
 

Dodgersrf

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Congrats Les.
Hopefully you have some smooth seas, all the way to retirement.
 

LesBaker

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  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
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@Selassie I I had pretty much all our time scheduled, not time to do much else, maybe next time hahaha. Gay Days at Disney was this weekend, actually I think it's four days, one day for each park so we had some overlap and I got a couple of interesting pics at Epcot. Star Wars weekend was also this weekend, and that was huge too. We weren't involved with either of them, we were there for the huge Annual Pass event for FL residents called The Coolest Summer Ever.

Disney doesn't not pinch pennies at all. Even the vans they picked us up in had leather seats that were like high end office desk chairs. The food they catered in, actually they cooked it themselves, was delicious too.
 

Selassie I

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@Selassie I I had pretty much all our time scheduled, not time to do much else, maybe next time hahaha. Gay Days at Disney was this weekend, actually I think it's four days, one day for each park so we had some overlap and I got a couple of interesting pics at Epcot. Star Wars weekend was also this weekend, and that was huge too. We weren't involved with either of them, we were there for the huge Annual Pass event for FL residents called The Coolest Summer Ever.

Disney doesn't not pinch pennies at all. Even the vans they picked us up in had leather seats that were like high end office desk chairs. The food they catered in, actually they cooked it themselves, was delicious too.


I knew Gay Days was happening over one of those weekends. We have some neighbors who can't wait for that every year. It's actually been going on for like 25 years... Disney has always been way ahead of everyone else as far as acceptance for the Gay community.

Disney is the reason that Orlando is the tourist capital of the world. They are 1st class in everything they do. I'm really glad you enjoyed yourself.

If you're ever going back and aren't able to get those magic bands... let me know and I'll give you the 411 on how to at least get free fast passes with no problem. Well, I'll tell you as long as you set aside a few hours so we share a few drinks. ;)
 

Mister Sin

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Awesome Les. Do you by chance work for Clearwater? I remember we used to have MJ in the morning on here in STL until a couple years ago.
 

Rmfnlt

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When I was married, we belonged to The Disney Vacation Club (basically, trime share) and so we went to DisneyWorld just about every year. Went on the cruise a couple of times too.

My youngest (who really grew up as a Disney kid) loved it so much, she got an internship at DisneyWorld last year. She played two characters, but no one is alloowed to know who they are.

The internship is over and she's working full time there now. It's great to be able to visit her and do DisneyWorld too!

Yup... they say it's "the most beautiful place on earth". Not sure about "the", but it's definitely up there.

Glad you had a great time... Disney knows hospitatilty! (my daughter had to attend Disney University for three months before she could actually start working).
 

Mackeyser

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That sounds like a really awesome weekend.

I used to have passes to Disneyland with the kids when we lived in LA.

Would still have them, but damn, they cost a mint now...
 

-X-

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Disney is gay.

Universal Studios FTW.

Cool story though, Les.
 

Pancake

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Now you have me wanting to go to Disney too. Haven't been since I was a teen. I always wondered if in the future I would finally understand why my parents always hit up the boring rides and skipped the good ones. Like country bear jamboree over space mountain. Maybe I can't handle the good rides anymore and don't even know it yet.
 

bluecoconuts

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When my father worked at Disney we used to get treatment like that, it was pretty awesome. I can't stand going now though.
 

Athos

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Knowing your post history, Les, I'd figured your amazing weekend would have included more buxom babes and disturbing acts of heathenism. :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO: