Day Two
Breakfast at the Yacht & Beach Club Convention Center (sponsored by Disney Magic of Healthy Living)
The breakfast served before the conference was very healthy and delicious.
Chef Gary, Disney Magic of Healthy Living, gave an extremely informative talk during our breakfast.
Im really excited about Disney’s dedication to healthy food options.
Also, since I’m married to someone with a food allergy, I was very impressed by how seriously Disney takes this condition. The food service staff go above and beyond to accommodate guests with food allergies.
After breakfast, we headed to the morning session of the conference.
General Session, at Yacht & Beach Club Grand Harbor North & South (sponsored by Alamo)
The conference exceeded all of my expectations. It was the perfect blend of humor, information, imagination and motivation.
The hosts were Leanne O’Regan, Director of Social Media, Disney Parks & Resorts and Mark Daniel, a hilarious comedian. During the conference they gave away amazing prizes, like this coveted Disney Dooney & Bourke purse pictured below.
Two attendees won one night in Cinderella’s castle. I won a VIP Disney experience, you can read all about it in this post.
While I was excited about the conference agenda, I was super thrilled to hear from the President of Walt Disney World, George A. Kalogridis.
He gave us several updates about Walt Disney World including:
- Downtown Disney is going to transform into Disney Springs. It will double the amount of dining and retail.
- Animal Kingdom will transform into a day and night experience. There will be all new entertainment with the Rivers of Light.
- The biggest Animal Kingdom expansion will be AVATAR Land, which will open in 2017.
- Corporate Citizenship is important to Disney. Last year, Disney reached out in $4.5 million dollars in grants
Head of Pinterest Partner Marketing Communications & Insights, Eva Smith, gave us an update about the popular social media platform.
Smith said Pinterest is focused on the future. Here are the highlights of her talk:
- Create useful pins that help people plan their futures.
- Pin great images that are vertically oriented.
- Let your pin solve a problem.
- Write helpful pin descriptions.
- Learn what your audience loves based on your most popular pins.
Next, we heard all about the new film Inside Out from the producer, Jonas Rivera. I loved that he started out as an intern. At the time, they didn’t have a position available but hired him anyway. It was a very motivational speech.
During his talk, he told us about all of the work that went into the film. He also gave an in depth description of the creative process that goes into an animated film. I love that everyone brainstorms and ideas change and grow during the process.
The conference also featured fun surprises. For example, Star Wars Storm Troopers came into the room and took Leanne captive!
Next, Janice Belgemino, from Disney Infinity talked to us about exciting new changes coming later this year.
Highlights from her speech:
- Disney Infinity 3.0 is coming this fall.
- Disney Infinity Star Wars is coming to 3.0 and will include Twilight of the Republic, Rise Against The Empire and The Force Awakens.
- Bringing in fan favorites including Mulan, Mickey, Minnie and Olaf.
- New features will be available in Toy Box.
Next, Vivienne Harr, told us how she works to make positive changes in the world. She works tirelessly to end child slavery. She told us that even one person can make big changes by taking action. You can find out more about helping her efforts at makeastand.com.
Author Chris Brogan gave invaluable advice about interacting with people on social media.
Highlights from his speech:
- Handle your own social media.
- Make yourself reachable.
- Make your newsletter different and offer unique content.
- Brag on other people.
Jeffry Epstein, Disney D23, talked to us about the official fan club.
D23 allows fans to come together for insider access. You can join for free or you can pay a small fee to obtain a gold level membership. There is also a new family gold level membership. This allows you to bring a certain number of family members to D23 events. Find out more information, here.
Epstein talked about the upcoming Disney Expo. This is the largest Disney fan event in the world! It sounds like a blast.
Lunch at Yacht & Beach Club (sponsored by Hanes)
When we broke for lunch, we headed to an event sponsored by Hanes. We had extremely fresh food. They even cut the salad out of a giant planter for our dishes. They had an incredible variety of lettuces. It was amazing.
During the lunch, we heard from Hanes and from Jessica Shyba. She recently published a book of photos entitled, Naptime with Theo and Beau. You may be familiar with Shyba who grew to Instagram fame by taking photos of her dog and small child. These photos are now available in book form.
When we returned to the afternoon session of the conference, we learned all about Disney Imagicademy.
Director of Global Brand Marketing for Disney Imagicademy Dr. Tanya Altmann gave an informative talk. She told us all about the exciting news from Disney Imagicademy.
Here are highlights from her speech:
- Imagicademy puts the child in the center of the educational experience.
- By using technology, in the form of apps, Imagicademy makes learning fun and interactive.
- Parents stay connected with their own app to monitor the performance of their children.
- They encourage creativity by allowing children to draw, color, learn about shapes and math.
Donald Driver, former NFL player and author, gave a motivational talk. He encouraged us to ask questions about ourselves to find our motivation.
He suggested we ask ourselves why we blog to understand our motivation. He also talked about making smart choices on social media and to think before you tweet.
After the main conference portion, we headed to break out sessions regarding YouTube and creativity.
Later that day, we headed to one of the most incredibly fun family events at the conference.
Family Dinner “Mickey’s Beach Bash” at Yacht Club Beach (sponsored by Mylan)
This beach party was a blast. The food was amazing and entertainment was so much fun. My daughter loved dancing with the performers and the incredible band.
We loved seeing Mickey and Minnie in their beachwear. In true beach party fashion, they were posing in front of their hot rod.
Pluto, Donald and Goofy were also at the party!
In addition to the delicious food and fun, they even had a fire pit for us to roast marshmallows and make smores! Talk about an authentic beach experience!
The beach party was an amazing experience. We didn’t want the night to end.
The next morning, we headed to Downtown Disney.
Click here to read all about Day Three.
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