Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom

Every time we go to the Magic Kingdom, we walk by this little game called the Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom. We always say that we will try it someday, ultimately skipping over the game because there is just so much to do at the world's most popular theme park. Why waste time on a card game when there is so much to do?

Well, that was until this past weekend. I made it a point to try the game and see if Noland Jr. would like it. I figured if nothing else, we could collect the cards and be happy. With some rare and cool cards, I figured that the family would at least enjoy that. Now that it is almost summer, the crowds are picking up anyways, so it is a good thing to do on a crowded day like it would be, I thought that anyway.

My take away is that I was right and wrong in my preconceived notions about the game. It is definitely not something to do if this is your first trip to Disney World. There is simply to much to do at the park and you don't want to be playing this game if it is your 1st trip. However, if you are park veterans like us that just were skipping over the game, it could well be worth it. Noland Jr. loved this game and said he wants to play again next time. If you are in that category like we were, read on...

You sign up for this FREE game at the firehouse on Main Street USA. One person in your party becomes the key holder (we chose Noland Jr.) and that person opens the portals at each location you must travel. Once you sign up and pick a key holder, you will get a map and a pack of cards. Each pack contains 5 cards. Again, all of this is included with your park admission. That is pretty rare for an extra benefit.

Once you get the stuff to start the game, you go to a land to defeat a villain as your current mission. You must defeat 9 villains to beat the game, and we defeated 3 on the day we went. If you do not beat all 9, you can start back where you left off last time when you arrive next. That is what my family will plan on doing.

Overall, we enjoyed this game, but it definitely had some issues that we noticed and almost gave up on the game from. The practice portal in the firehouse, used our spell cards with no problems. However, once the game started, Noland Jr. could not get any of the spell cards to read. I realized after we lost the same battle 3 times that I had to hold him up or use the card myself. He is tall enough to ride Splash Mountain, so I figured this wouldn't be the case. It was the case though, he was not tall enough for the cards to read despite no issues on the practice portal. Additionally, there were one or two portals that didn't seem to work for anybody. There were 2 or 3 that we saw multiple people fail at. One a guy had to shine an extra light at the perfect angle to get the screen to read. That can be frustrating, but still through that, Noland Jr. loved the cards and we did manage to figure most of it out on the 1st day.

Pictures of cards we own/what we think of them
Sorry for the poor quality of pictures, I should have had my wife take them :)

 This card was ok. Not our favorite and didn't do much, but was okay.

 The sword was one of our next card's to try, but we did not get to try it. This card seems like it would be pretty cool.

 The Laser Blast was the next one that Noland wanted to try. It looks cool, but as big a Disney fan as I am, I did not recognize Eve. Jenna said he/she/it is from Wall-E. I hated Wall-E so that would make sense why I don't recognize the character.

 This move would probably be pretty epic, but Jr. did not want to try it.

 Jr.'s 3rd favorite move so far, he really liked the fire on the screen and it burning the characters.

 Surprised we didn't use this yet, since we love the Mad Tea Party ride, but alas we did not.

 Our most used card and the card we started with. Jr. won the 1st 3 battles with this card before we moved on.

 You see blond hair flick the screen 3 or 4 times. I was very underwhelmed with this card. Not sure what I was expecting, but Rapunzel is my favorite princess and I was not a fan of this card.

 Really neat move that we finished of Cruella with. We all liked this one.

 This was my favorite move and Noland Jr.'s favorite move. It was really cool to see on the screen with Grumpy flicking his axes everywhere. Loved this card.

 I was prepared to use this immediately after Mickey and Rafiki, but Jr. put it at the bottom of our pile because he didn't recognize it. I guess we will be watching some Meet the Robinsons soon.

 The coolest looking card and our favorite character in the group. Underwhelmed though with the card. Still cool and we enjoyed it.

 Jenna's favorite card and our main card used to defeat Shadow Man. Love this one.

 This was the last card he wanted to use. Haven't used it.

We showed no desire to use this one either, but we will get to it eventually.

A master card list is contained below. Ones that we own are bold. Cards 1-22 on this list are labeled as rare, 23-41 as uncommon, 42-60 common, 61-70 super rare. The Super Rare cards are only rumored to be available in purchased packs available at the Emporium. Feel free to offer trades of cards and or share your comments on the game in the comments section. One of these cards supposedly features the cricket, so we obviously want that one in this house.
Rare
1. Apprentice Mickey's Broomsticks
2. Belle's Mountain Blizzard
3. Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blaster
4. Doris's Bowler Hat Attack
5. Eve's Laser Blast
6. Fa Mulan's Dragon Cannon
7. Flynn Rider's Frying Pan
8. King Triton's Trident
9. Lythos' Rock Titan Boulder Throw
10. Maurice's Wood Chipper
11. Maximus' Horseshoes
12. Merlin's Fireball
13. Monstro's Water Spout
14. Nib's Neverland Assault
15. Rapunzel's Hair Whip
16. Robin Hood's Magic Arrow
17. Simba's Roar
18. Fairy Godmother's Pumpkin Bash
19. The Giant's Giant Stomp
20. Tinker Bell's Pixie Dust
21. Violet's Force Fields
22. Woody's Cowboy Lasso
Uncommon
23. Aladdin's Lamp
24. Bolt's Super Bark
25. Cinderella's Magic Ribbon
26. Colonel Hathi's Righteous Stomp (want this one bad)
27. Eeyore's Gloomy Cloud
28. Frozone's Ice Blast
29. Lightning McQueen's Ka-Chow
30. Mickey's Magic Beans
31. Mike's Grand Entrance
32. Pinocchio's Sawdust Blast
33. Prince Phillip's Enchanted Sword
34. Snow White's Housecleaning
35. Headless Horseman's Exploding Jack-O-Lantern (Another one we want)
36. Mad Hatter's Tea Time
37. Queen of Heart's Card Army
38. Sugar Plum Fairies' Dewdrop Spiderweb
39. Wall-E's Trash Crunch
40. Yen Sid's Sorcerers Hat
Common
41. Aurora's Rose Petals
42. Baloo's Coconut Cascade (Noland Jr. said this is the card he wants most)
43. Cabellero Donald's Pinata (Has to be awesome!)
44. Dash's Whirlwind
45. Flower's Flowers
46. Gopher's Demolition Dynamite (Excited that Gopher has a role in this game, he is often forgotten)
47. Grumpy's Pummeling Pickaxe (Our Favorite Move So Far)
48. Lumiere's Candle Blast
49. Mowgli's Swining Vine (Mowgli is in the game too!)
50. Mr. Toad's Wild Ride (There you go Toad fans)
51. Pocahontas's Colors of the Wind
52. Pongo's Soot Bucket
53. Prince Naveen's Army of Frogs
54. Pumbaa's Odorous Gas (The Card I want the most :)
55. Quasimodo's Bell (Cool that he is in game)
56. Rafiki's Wisdom Stick
57. The Blue Fairy's Wand Wish
58. The Woozles' Woozle Nightmare
59. Thumper's Mighty Thump
60. Tiana's Hot Sauce (Jenna's Favorite Move So Far)
Super Rare
61. Ariel's Bubble Attack
62. Dumbo's Pin Elephant Parade
63. Finn McMissile's Missile Salvo
64. Hercules's Tower Topple
65. Jasmine's Magic Carpet Tassles of Fury
66. Mama Odie's Magic Charm
67. Merryweathers Stone Spell
68. Mr. Incredible's Power Heave
69. Mushu's Fiery Breath
70. Winnie the Pooh's Honey Bees (don't want to buy a pack, but we really want this card)

Stay tuned on the blog for more Disney World tips and tricks...Next week though, we will talk about being a one cable TV household and why that is perfect for us.

- Noland

Winnie the Pooh is the Best

My family absolutely adores the character Winnie the Pooh. He is my second favorite character,in Noland's Jr.'s top 5 (his favorite was Pooh when he was 1 and 2), and Jenna and Eli's favorite. As a family, he is our favorite character. We love the movies, the books, the stuffed animals, and mostly experiencing Winnie at the Disney Parks. Before we get into the parks though, let me tell you that the 1st stuffed animal each kid got was a Pooh character. Noland Jr. being the fantastic boy that he is gave Eli his baby stuffed animal of Tigger on the day that Eli was born!

Look @ that sweet baby and his new stuffed Tigger cuddling him!

It is a point of ours each time to ride the ride, whether we do a Fastpass+ selection or hit it early in the day. We just love the character and all of his friends and think that Disney did a great job with this character. If there could be any more with him, we would surely enjoy it!

Let's start with what they do have, before we get into what was lost.....

First, the Crystal Palace!
This is the single greatest character breakfast we have tried at the Walt Disney World Resort. It is absolutely phenomenal. I cannot believe how great this breakfast experience is. Reservations are hard to come by though, so we have only been able to do it once for breakfast. Dinner is also available, but at $12 more per person is not an option we have explored. This is the only non special event where you can meet Piglet and Eeyore and something my family will be doing again! We will certainly give Eli the opportunity to experience it!

Noland Jr. meeting Eeyore @ Crystal Palace w/ Mom (2 years ago)

Now, the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh ride!
Many Disney purists are upset that the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh ride took over for Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. I am not one of those people, although I did enjoy the classic. Winnie the Pooh is far more marketable and has a great deal more fans than J. Thaddeus. My kids barely know about the Wind and the Willows, but I did expose them to it. However, they absolutely adore Winnie the Pooh. The bear is timeless. The toad is practically unknown by an entire generation. While it would be cool to reserruct that ride at say, Epcot, I rather enjoy that Winnie the Pooh got some more love at the Magic Kingdom.
This ride was one of the 1st rides to have an interactive queue, where kids could play while they wait for the ride. This fantastic idea makes waiting in line not such a bad thing. The pictures below are from the front of the queue and out in front of the ride. Noland loves the little Pooh house....

Front of Pooh's House

Pooh's mailbox and honey

Inside the house with Jr. and a photo bomber

The ride itself is incredibly fun and features scenes from the movie The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. The actual ride focuses on the 2nd part of the movie, the Blustery Day. As I said, this ride is a ton of fun and has playful scenes. Another fun thing about this ride is it has a picture in Owl's house of Mr. Toad handing the deed of the ride over to Owl.

Ride getting ready to start!

Next, the Thotful Spot Meet and Greet!
Right next to the ride is a wonderful place to meet Pooh and Tigger. This spot is one of the most popular meet and greets in the entire Magic Kingdom. It is recommended to come at a time the two have taken a break and will be back shortly, this will decrease your wait time. This strategy also increases the chances that the duo will remain throughout your time waiting in line instead of stepping out for a break. These guys are really fun. This meet and greet occasionally features Eeyore and/or Piglet although that is rare. I have even seen Rabbit in here before with Pooh Bear. Below are some pics from our favorite meet and greet.

 Eli Meets Pooh

 Jenna and Tigger selfie w/ Eli who just wants to look @ Tigger

Noland Jr. w/ two of his favorite characters

Finally, the character breakfast @ 1800 Park Fare @ The Grand Floridian Hotel!
This is an experience we have not done yet, but are looking to try this summer! Winnie the Pooh and Tigger are a part of this character breakfast at Disney's fanciest hotel (at least that I have seen). I am sure it is a pretty epic experience to try.

There are also special meets at the Halloween and Christmas Parties!
I have said before that these are overrated to pay extra, but they are fun and I am glad we did each once to get the experience. The Halloween meet and greet with all four characters was almost worth it to do it by itself. When Eli is a little earlier, we will probably do it again. That way we  can see these characters in the best parade at Disney World and get to meet them all again as well.

Maybe a chance at the Epcot Training Meets or Character Palooza!
I have only gotten to see an Epcot Training Meet once, but I seem to remember that Piglet was in there. I have not seen any characters from Winnie the Pooh at the few Character Paloozas we have been to, but I have heard some rumors that it happens.

Rare rabbit sightings!
I have seen Rabbit @ the Thotful Spot meet and greets, and there are rumors of him being at Epcot Training Meets on occasion. One of our goal characters to meet this year is Rabbit and we will definitely be waiting in line if we see him again. Personally, I think he should be part of the Garden Grille character breakfast with Chip and Dale. Seriously is there a character you associate with gardens more than Rabbit?

They used to have him in 3 parks. Then regretfully moved him out of Epcot and Animal Kingdom. The Epcot experience was awesome because it was practically empty. You got to meet him in the setting of Christopher Robin's room and most people didn't know about it, so it was a great place to meet Pooh and Tigger. Since most people didn't know about it though is probably why they moved him out. The Animal Kingdom one is frustrating though. It was a great locale for them and it was the 1st meet and greet experience that Noland Jr. had at Disney World (pic below). It made little sense to move him out of that park where he was so beloved.
We need more Winnie! Pooh Bear in every park!!!!

I hope you enjoyed my bragging on Winnie the Pooh and talking about how you can experience him at the Walt Disney World Resort! This is our absolute favorite consistent Meet and Greet experience (Character Palooza isn't always consistent). I hope you soon get to meet him too, especially if you have children.

Join me next week as we discuss ........Continue to keep checking up for more Disney tidbits, tips, and other great tips to #LoveFL and cool things to do all over the country. Have a great week!

- Noland

ZooWorld

Happy Friday the 13th everybody! Here is another Zoo Review for our Zoo Readers! 

ZooWorld

Panama City Beach, Florida

Website

Hours: 9:30-5

Admission: $16.95

Date of Visit: March 2015

Highlights: Large variety of animals. Species from all over the world. Get to see the animals up close. Prairie Dog exhibit was epic and one of the best I have seen.

Disappointments: Almost every enclosure looked to small and you felt bad for the animals. It was sad at several of the cages, especially the Jaguars and Giraffes.

Additional Tips: If you do end up going, purchase the feeding experiences. I am not sure those animals get fed outside of those experiences and they are cool. Jr. loved feeding the camels.
The walked a timberwolf around the zoo for kids to pet just like it was a dog. I decided to pass on letting my kid pet it, because at the end of the day its a friggen wolf. They said it was safe, but that was just one of the sketch things about this place.

Pictures

Entrance Sign

Awesome White Lion Cub

Fun Feeding Experience, Not A Lot of Space For The Giraffes

A cat this majestic needs a bigger habit. Still cool to look at, but felt bad.

Awesome Mandrill that was fat and happy

Peacock

Jr.'s favorite part, the prairie dog tunnel

Serval

Funky Snake

Another Snake

We had a good time just hanging around

Turkey

Tiger

Final Rating:
This zoo was the hardest to rate out of any we had seen so far. The variety of animals should lend itself to a 5 rating. However, the exhibits have to knock it down some. That being said, the Reston Zoo got a 4.5 from us early and they had charges of animal cruelty brought against them (we didn't know about at the time). The species of animal at this zoo were about as cool as can be. There have never been any charges against them, but I still feel bad for the animals. We are unsure if we are willing to give them a second chance and unsure of the rating. It just is what it is at this place. It will appeal to many, but disgust many as well. It is an interesting phenomenon. This zoo will remain unrated due to the complexities involved with it.

-Noland

Passholders Again!!!

So, we haven't been posting as much as normal lately, but my schedule has finally been rearranged to get back at it. Jenna will be on more now too, since Eli is 10 Months old!!!!! The little stinker is growing and getting quite the little personality. One of the first things we did when he got to be past 6 months was to get our beloved Annual Passes at Disney World back!

These passes are well worth the money if you live in Florida and Disney does a great job at making affordable payment plans for us. We pay about $60 a month for passes for me, Jenna, and Noland Jr. Eli is free because he is under 3 and Noland Jr. was free last time we had passes. For these passes we decided to get the Silver Pass because lower tier passes now come with free parking!!!! This family does not really have a desire to go in the summer when it is miserably hot and way overcrowded or during Easter/Christmas weeks when it is overcrowded as well. There is plenty of time to enjoy Disney in between those times.

Disney is full of magic for our boys and we just love it. There is so much to do and all 4 parks are like different worlds for our kids. Noland Jr. is at the perfect age for Disney and it is his favorite place to go in the entire world. Eli Thomas has a surprising amount that he can do at the park, especially  since he is under 1. While that is not the ideal age for a Disney trip, he still loves it and he is free!

Here are some of our favorite memories so far with these passes this time around!!!

We caught a rare character and my favorite...Jiminy Cricket

 On the safari! My favorite ride!

 Eli liked It's a Small World with KJ on her birthday!

 My beautiful wife and baby b4 Buzz

 With some of our best friends at the Visa character Meet. Love how suspicious Eli is of Mickey in this photo!

 With my best boys on St. Patty's day @ Magic waiting for Buzz. So much green!

 Waiting for the Disney Jr. show!

 Eli's 1st character he ever met, Donald Duck! This is @ the Baja Beach Club Breakfast!

 2 Boys Smiling with the coolest Duck around!

 Easter Egg hunting at Epcot!

 Met Brer Fox @ Character Palooza!

Disney makes us all so happy!!!

Thanks for stopping in and reading up on our recent adventures. Stay tuned for much more news and pictures on Disney, more zoo reviews, and more fun tips and tricks. Next week, we will have a review posted up on Zoo World in Panama City, Florida. Come to Florida! This state is unbelievable!

-Noland