Making Magical Memories

This lakeside hotel provides you the formal grace of a grand New England-style yacht club.  An elegant lobby invites you to relax and catch up with family & friends.  There is a wonderful large pool shared with the Beach Club, Stormalong Bay.  And because it connects to its sister property, Beach Club, you can access everything at both Resorts easily! The Yacht Club is only about a 6-7 minute walk to EPCOT and about a 20-30 minute walk to Hollywood Studios.  Alternatively you can walk to EPCOT and catch the Skyliner to Hollywood Studios.  It is not considered a Skyliner Resort, but it truly is in my opinion based on the fact that you can easily walk to the EPCOT Skyliner Depot.  You can also elect to take the Friendship Boats to either EPCOT or Hollywood Studios. The rooms are spacious and pretty.  Decorated in a nautical theme.   Not only do you have good food options on site, you are within walking distance to the following Resorts, whi...

 Next up for our Disney dining at home was some Loaded Buffalo Chicken Tots and a kid friendly Mint Julep.   The Mint Julep Bar is located in New Orleans Square at Disneyland in California.  This is where you can find the non-alcoholic mint juleps as well as some delicious fresh Mickey beignets.  I've enjoyed the beignets from this location, but sadly did not try the mint julep at any of my stops here.  Now that I've tried this homemade one, I can say I am definitely putting this on my must try list the next time I'm at Disneyland! After enjoying the mint julep, we had Loaded Buffalo Chicken Tots for dinner.  These can be found at the Friar's Nook at Walt Disney World.  We honestly don't remember ever seeing these on the menu before, and this is something that 3 out of 4 of us would totally order while at Walt Disney World.  In fact, 1 out of 4 of us didn't even try these tots when they were made (spoiler alert: it was me - I don't like the "...

 My daughter has recently received the Unofficial Disney Parks Cookbook (available on Amazon) as a gift.  She wanted to not only make some things from it immediately, but video the process and share.  She asked me to help her do this, and then share her process with you. So, without further ado, here is her attempt at Galaxy's Edge Green & Blue milk this past weekend. First, what are they? Within the Star Wars universe, Green Milk comes from the docile marine animal called thala-siren (sometimes called a sea sow), which are located on the planet Ahch-To.  They like to sun themselves on rocks fringing the coasts of the planet's islands.  They produce a nutritious green milk, which is harvested by the native Lanai and adventurous visitors, such as Luke Skywalker. At Galaxy's Edge, officially, Green Milk is a citrus drink featuring mandarin orange, passion fruit, grapefruit, and orange blossom. Blue Milk comes from the bantha, a horned herbivore animal native ...

The older my kids have become, the harder it has been to actually surprise them with anything.  First of all I'm not one to be able to keep a secret that is this exciting from anyone very successfully.  When I'm excited, I want to share that excitement.  So, normally after I've booked a vacation, I want to share it with everyone!  However, there have been some times that I've been successful (maybe only fairly) in pulling off a surprise or two when I was taking my kids to Disney or Universal! When my son was 3 (note the age!) we took him to Walt Disney World for a weekend.  For Christmas we wrapped up a box of all his favorite character items - a Little Einsteins shirt (I'm dating us here!), a Buzz Lightyear hat, and a few other small things.  Since he was 3 and had never been, he didn't really understand what it meant. However, when he was 5 and his sister was 3 we planned a trip in about 3 weeks.  This one was a whirlwind of planning and was easy to ...

I have a confession.  I've never purchased an autograph book when I traveled to Disney.  I know there are a lot of options when it comes to buying a pre-made autograph book...you can get so many different kinds; Princess versions, Fab Five versions, Pixar versions....so why did I make my own each time we traveled?  The short answer: I never wanted to run out of an autograph page!  I always had this horror that if I bought a pre-made autograph book that I would be standing in line with one of my kids to get an autograph of a character and we'd be flipping through the book and we'd find we had no more pages for someone to autograph!  That's really the only reason.  Those pre-made ones are gorgeous and super easy, and in a pinch I would have totally grabbed one to use.   But, if you have a few extra minutes before a trip, you can easily make your own with some card stock, a paper cutter, and a small 4x6 photo album from the store.  I purchased ...

I've enjoyed spending some time during these months of stay at home orders finding fun Disney recipes and making them at home to enjoy!   This Breakfast Lasagna from the Crystal Palace at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom was my biggest challenge to date.  I found this recipe from food.com which appeared to be the most accurate reproduction based on comments so I thought I'd use this as my starting point.  It was a little intimidating at first glance, but then I figured I could tweak it a little bit.  I really didn't want to make homemade everything! First I chose to skip the pancakes and just use two layers of waffles.  Then, because my husband is the waffle maker and I'm not, I elected to use frozen waffles instead of making those from scratch. I bought pre-made pound cake instead of making it from scratch. But I did use the recipe listed for custard and pastry cream.  I started making those on a Friday afternoon so they could refrigerate overnight....

Get Back to the Magic in 2021! Are you ready to make more memories in 2021?   Join my list today and have 2021 quote information in your inbox as soon as prices are released! Give me an idea of your vacation needs, get booked early and secure your family's favorite resort! A $200 package deposit is all that is needed to book your trip!   There are so many new changes and exciting things happening in Walt Disney World in 2021 - you won't want to miss out! Contact me at jlynn.wilkinson@magical-vacations.com today to get on my list today for your families best opportunity to make NEW memories!!  Or, fill out the questions available here and choose my name in "Magical Agent" and I'll be in touch with you as soon as possible!   REMEMBER, Disney is currently operating on a Park Reservation System and Park Pass Reservations will need to be made AS SOON AS WE DEPOSIT YOUR PACKAGE!   Don't wait! View Park Pass availability (Click "Disney Resort Guests") on t...