ChiIL Mama's Adventures at Disney World & DisneyOTR THIS Tuesday in Chicago #Travel #DisneySide #DisneySMMoms #DisneyOTR

This Tuesday, ChiIL Mama is elated to be invited to ON THE ROAD with Disney Social Media Moms and a small selection of top bloggers. We'll be chiILin' right here in Chi, IL and happily showing our Disney devotion at this sold out event. 

In honor of the occasion we're recapping our Disney Side.

This is my favorite Disney Side Shot ever and still cracks me up. "The Twins" outside of The Haunted Mansion (another of our big favorites).

I still remember visiting Disney Land and Disney World during my own childhood, and those are fond, family memories I carried with me into adulthood. So Disney was high on our family dream destination list once we had kids of our own. 



Dugan & Sage's first glimpse of Disney World! Note their first visit buttons. The characters were extra friendly to them and made it special and memorable. 

We still haven't made it to Disney Land, yet, but we finally got to Disney World in 2011, when the kids were 8 & 10. We had a blast and it was great that they were old enough, tall enough and brave enough to ride just about everything.

Check out our full slide show here 
and more of our favorite shots embedded below and at the bottom of this feature.



Have you taken your kids to the magic kingdom to make your own happily ever after memories yet?

ChiIL Mama's ChiIL Tips:
Stop for Mickey shaped ice cream sandwiches. This sweet treat will help you keep your cool!  Kids hot and squirrely from waiting in lines?  It's also cooler and less crowded on the lake, so take a boat ride and go low tech and run around the island a bit.

Here at ChiIL Mama we do a lot of green and eco-friendly features, so we did eco-Orlando coverage while we were down for a week.  It was fun and informative to highlight the recycling and environmental initiatives and activities at Disney and beyond.

A brilliantly colorful end to a memorable day!

We're so looking forward to Tuesday and all the fun DisneyOTR has in store for us right here in Chicago!  Follow along on ChiIL Mama's FACEBOOK, TWITTER & INSTAGRAM accounts for real time updates, and we'll have a big photo filled recap after as well.

We've also been crossing our fingers and toes for ages, hoping and wishing upon a star for a highly coveted family invite to visit THE Magic Kingdom one Spring with the DisneySMMoms!  Every year they treat a select group of bloggers to the VIP treatment and we'd LOVE to be there. We're still hoping and waiting...

We have been giving away tickets to Disney on Ice for years, and shooting all their shows in Chicago.  Check out our coverage here (25 features, in fact, including photo filled recaps).





We especially dig the pre-show press/blogger meet n greets where we get to hang with Mickey, Minnie and sometimes even local TV personalities!


Even Dug has a Disney Side
How many of your husbands can say they met THE mouse at the airport?!  Dug has boomed Mickey Mouse... oh yeah, and the Mayor of Orlando, too, at O'Hare Airport on a press junket!  He travels the world as a location sound engineer, shooting TV shows, documentaries, films, and more.





More Favorite Disney World Pixs:

ChiIL Mama's Adventures at Disney World. "C'mon Mom... we have enough photos at the entrance. Can we go in already?!"

The boys playing Pirates at another of our favorite rides, Pirates of the Caribbean. Johnny Depp's got nothin' on my pirates. 

Crazy realistic pachyderm action!  And that hippo gets me EVERY time.

Boat ride with my boy!

Dugan taking "stock" of the situation.

Some things are so timeless, they're exactly as I remember them from 30+ years ago!

This view wowed me as a child and it's still pretty impressive as an adult!

Check back with ChiIL Mama, ChiIL Travel Kids & ChiIL Live Shows like we vote in Chi, IL... early and often.

We have photo & video filled features, loads of great reviews and interviews, and lots of weekly giveaways--nationwide toys/games/products and Chicago based music and theatre tickets. We know what rocks in Chi, IL and beyond... so come travel vicariously with us all summer long.  ChiIL out with ChiIL Mama, then get out and go places.

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Mugging It Up With Mickey Mouse for #VisitFlorida #Disney #DisneySMMoms

 Closer to home, ChiIL Dad (Dug) and The Cameraman mingle with "The" Mouse and The Governor of Florida at Midway airport in Chicago.   Dug Production Sound, Inc. provided the location sound engineering for the shoot.

Spring break is comin' and we're going to 

Disney World!

Our world traveler kids are 7 & 10 and have never been to Disney or Universal Studios or even Florida, for that matter.   We'll be making a family trip in April, to do a whole series of features on Eco-Orlando for Chicago Parent-ChiIL Out, ChiIL Mama, ChiIL Travel Kids, Green Parent Chicago, and more.

Right now, many of our fellow social media mamas are in Orlando, at Disney's Social Media Moms Summit.   Next year we'd love to be included. For now, we'll have to be content with reading all about it, in preparation for our own adventures next month.

A few weeks ago, Dug met Governor Rick Scott and Mickey Mouse at Midway Airport in Chicago, far from The Magic Kingdom.   Dug's the one pictured above with the fuzzy mic on a stick.

Here's the scoop on the tour, according to Christopher L. Thompson, President & CEO of Visit Florida:

Governor Rick Scott and the “Sunshine Ambassadors” from VISIT FLORIDA returned from last week’s highly visible “Share a Little Sunshine” tour with a renewed commitment to the importance of tourism in Florida.  Governor Scott and the rest of the team spent two days in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York City and Chicago hosting Florida-themed events, speaking with potential visitors and meetings professionals, and awarding Florida vacation packages to lucky winners. 

“Share a Little Sunshine is not just a two-day marketing blitz,” said Will Seccombe, Chief Marketing Officer at VISIT FLORIDA. “This tour was an amazing example of Governor Scott’s commitment to the Florida tourism industry.  It is now our job to take the Governor’s lead and run with it.”

Share a Little Sunshine Chicago Tour Details:

The fourth stop on the tour was Chicago, which included a meeting professionals’ roundtable at the Chicago Cultural Center, a stop at Sunda New Asian Restaurant where the Governor delivered fresh Apalachicola oysters to encourage business with the Florida seafood industry and spoke with personalities from the Food Network and other local media, followed by a rally at Midway Airport where more than 100 winners of Florida vacation packages to Walt Disney World were greeted by Mickey Mouse before leaving on Southwest Airlines’ “Florida One” plane bound for Orlando.

 
Christopher L. Thompson
President & CEO


Dug's also going down the last week of March, for an unrelated TV shoot in Florida, for CNBC.   But our family vacation week in the sun will come soon.   Can't wait!