Deb's Digest

It's been a while since we had an All Ears meet outside of MouseFest, so I decided to have one the weekend prior to Animal Kingdom's 10th Anniversary.

Let me digress just a bit. I flew in Saturday and stayed at the Dolphin. I had a wonderful room with a small balcony and view of Epcot's IllumiNations!!

Shortly after check-in, my Owner's Lockers were delivered! What did I ever do without them?!

I had a great breakfast before the meet at Fresh, with team member Linda Mac. Fresh is a Mediterranean inspired buffet on the first floor of the Dolphin. It serves Breakfast, Lunch and Starbucks coffee!!

For me, it's one of the best kept secrets in Disney. The food is made fresh, most of it to order and it doesn't have the frantic atmosphere of a Disney Resort eatery. Hence, I ate here actually 3 times during my stay.

As LindaMac and I entered Epcot and walked toward Future World, team member Jack Spence called on the phone to meet up. Right after we found Jack, we also found Elton - a Disney Dream Team Cast Member. With his great smile, I just had to take a photograph.

One of the things I typically forget to do at meets, is take a photo of the AllEars team. So this time, I made sure we did it as soon as everyone arrived. From left to right: Jack Spence, Deb Wills, Glo from Miami, and Linda Mac. (Thanks to the Cast Member who play photog)

Soon folks began to arrive. We had new AllEars buttons to hand out as well as hats to keep the sun out of your eyes. There were AllEars T-Shirts for the person who traveled the farthest (Illinois). And, oh yes, we had stickers too for all kids and coughadultscough in the group. It was a fantastic turnout!

Larger Image of Group Photo.

Here are meet photos of people arriving and headed into the attraction.....

...Loading into the Ride Vehicles for Journey into Your Imagination...

At the conclusion of the ride, many folks continued onto the second half of the meet, lunch in the Land at Sunshine Seasons.

On behalf of LindaMac, Jack, Glo and myself...thank you everyone for spending part of your vacation with us!!!

The weather was beautiful and we had a great turn out at the Meet and Greet at Animal Kingdom.

Matt Hochberg from WDWToday Podcast:

On the left, Jack Spence, AllEars Feature Writer and Blogger:

Special Offer - the first 5 folks to show up wearing an AllEars, Hat, Button or lanyard received a special gift! Here are the winning families and they each received $10 Disney Dollars.

I then asked Bri and Anna to come up and explained to folks they had a special role with Walt Disney World. I had an AllEars t-shirt for whoever knew who they were! Folks shouted out a few things and then someone said " Are they the moms?" And indeed, Bri and Anna are members of the special Disney World Mom's Panel, an online forum where you get personal answers to your questions about traveling to WDW and the Disney Cruise Line. Oh, and there is also a Disney Dad, a Disney Grandma and Moms from Canada (Bri) and the UK.

We had a few AllEars trivia questions and folks with the correct answer received either an AllEars hat or Tshirt.

Soon it was time for our group photo:

Thanks to Matt Pezzulo who I quickly volunteered to take photos of the Meet and Greet. Also thanks to Brenda helping distribute AllEars pins.

Special thanks to AllEars team members Jack Spence and Glo from Miami!

We spent lots of time chatting and getting to know each other and then realized the standby line for the Safari was 50 minutes. After a quick show of hands, we decided to head straight for the Flame Tree and grab lunch. About half the folks found their way to our area and we continued to chat with each other. It was a great afternoon.

Friday May 8th a group of All Ears fans gathered as Jack Spence took us on a tour of Kidani Village. We had a great group of very friendly folks from as far away as Brazil!!!!

All Ears Team Members Jack Spence, Andrea (Anita Answer) McKenna, Linda Eckwerth, Mike (Dizney Mike) Bachand and myself were present. Linda is missing from the photo because she was taking the picture.

Jack showed us around Kidani Village lobby, animal viewing areas, the Library, Community Hall, Sanaa, and the pool area. Our room had just become available before the tour so we invited the group to see the One-bedroom Villa as well.

It was great meeting everyone! Hope you all had a wonderful time!

We've got more meets scheduled this month. Hope you can join us!

We had a nice turnout for yesterday's meet at the Studios. Many folks just stopped by to say hello, grab a photo or two and headed back out. Several spent time chatting and having lunch together at the Backlot Express.

Special thanks to the lady that brought the Mardi Gras Beads from Port Orleans!
Thanks also to Matt Hochberg for being photographer!

Oh, if you are wondering why the photos have a blue tint to them, I forgot to change my light settings from Tungsten back to outdoors!