Bag Lady

I love bags...all sorts of bags.  Handbags, totes, backpacks, sachels, slings, gift bags, duffels, hipsters, coin purses, eye glass cases, cosmetic bags, even high quality plastic store bags.  And like a good girl, I've got my share of Dooney & Burke, Vera Bradley, and an assortment of knock-off styles from Target.  My husband claims it's an obsession.  <sigh...men never learn, do they?>  I say it's part of my world where there is "a place for everything and everything in its place".  I supposed taking advance from a flying nanny is as good as any!

So, when it comes to Disney and bags, you can imagine how heavenly that is for me.  Every trip, I come home with at least one bought bag, and an assortment of store bags from purchases I've made.  I'll use these bags as gift bags for people who've never been to Disney or kids who like the design.  I'll also use them for storage bags of Disney related items.  For example, my Disney rain ponchos are in a store bag from 2003.  The design on these bags change often and as I go through my bag-stash I'll run across one from various years.  Many, many years ago bags were specific to parks and resorts.  Those were the bags to collect and hoard!  Now, it's just the same design across Walt Disney World and Disneyland.   Still, the bags are quaint reminder of that trip and always makes me smile.  I recently ran across a really old bag.  It's a paper store bag.  No handles, or hand-holes...just a paper sack.  I'm not sure of the time period, but I think early 80's, definitely pre-EPCOT.  I hope you'll find it as "groovy" as I do.  It made me smile and that always makes a bag worth saving!

"Here you leave today - and visit the worlds of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy." - Walt Disney

Our Disney Obsessions

Our Disney Obsessions

Welcome to those of you joining me from Manda’s Disney Blog and those of you just hopping aboard. I am your 3rd stop on our Magical Blogorail.  This month we are talking about our Disney Obesssions.  This should be a fun ride!


Of course we are all Disney obsessed, else why would we blog about it all the time and return year after year to the place with the same level of enthusiasm, if not more.  Yes, we are an obsessed group.  Sometimes our Disney obsession spills over into our normal lives in our collections, habits, or hobbies.  Today on our Magical Blogorail, we are focusing on those Disney Obsessions…or what I like to call our "Secret Disney Behavior we are probably not going to put on our resume or talk about too much at cocktail parties".  ☺

So, what’s my Obsession?  I don’t collect, I don’t have a Disney themed hobby, however, I am obsessed (or so my husband says) with listening to Disney music…park based music to be more specific.  In my car, at work, at home, on road trips, whenever.  In fact, when I got a blue tooth adapter for my car radio a few years ago, I stopped listening to the radio all together.  Now I can stream music from my phone.  And what’s my category of choice?  Yep, you guessed it…Disney!  And it’s not just Disney themed music like you’d hear from movies.  To tell the truth, that’s not my favorite.  My favorites are attraction dialogs, attraction ride-throughs, resort lobby music, ambient background music, restaurant music, attraction queue music.  You get it…park based music, anything you could hear in and around the Disney parks and resorts.

I blame this obsession on my brother.  When we were little we had a few vinyl records (yes kids, old technology, look it up) of a few Disney attractions and parades.  We listened to the Tiki Room, the Jungle Cruise, Country Bear Jamboree, and the Electrical Light Parade over and over and over again.  We even had a few Disney short stories/cartoon dialog on record (similar to books on tape).  If you grew up in the 60s/70s, you know that you didn’t have a whole lot of options so you listened to what you had a great deal.      

Now fast forward a number (*cough cough*) of years and technology is my new best friend!  I can stream all sorts of music.  Thanks to a handful of online Disney radio stations, I can listen to most anything anytime.  Just hearing the ride through track of Pirates of Caribbean takes me back into my happy place.  I’ve about memorized most of my favorite attractions this way which makes me a whole lotta fun to go to the parks with (Not! Says my family).

Some of my favorite ride-through music:

• Pirates of the Caribbean (Disneyland original version)“Avast there, it be too late to alter course mateys and there be plundering pirates at every cove waiting to board”
• The Haunted Mansion (Disneyland version available on CD)“Take your loves ones by the hand please, and kindly watch your step.  Oh yes, and no flash pictures please.  We spirits are frightfully sensitive to bright lights”
• 20,000 Leagues under the Sea“We hope you enjoyed this journey though liquid space”
• Splash Mountain “Time to be turning around, if only you could.  So you’re looking for a laughing place, eh.  I’ll show you a laughing place” 

But it’s just not Disney based music.  If you have ever noticed, where ever you go in the theme parks and resorts, there is music playing.  The music is themed to the attraction, land, resort, or pavilion, and much of it is commercial (ie, non Disney) tracks.  Those I love just as much, if not more than the ride-throughs.  Many of the ride-througs are recorded from the ride, and unless they were published by Disney at some point in the past, their sound quality less than desireable.  However, much of the ambient music is found in it’s original form.  With iTunes, I can listen to my favorite queue music all the time.  

Some of my favorite background or queue music:

• Tower of Terror Queue - these songs include 1930’s based artists such of Vera Lynn, Jimmie Lunceford, and Glenn Miller
• Wilderness Lodge Lobby – features music from Last of the Mohicans, Dances With Wolves, and the Magnificent Seven
• MGM (now Hollywood Studios) Entrance Music – features classics from movies and TV such as Goldfinger, Towering Inferno, and the Rocky Theme
• Jungle Cruise Boathouse Area Loop - features a radio recording from "Global Broadcasting Service serving remote outposts since 1938".  Besides the interesting dialog, you can hear lots of classic tracks from the mid-1930s.  

And finally, we have parades and fireworks music.  Much of this music can be purchased online or at the theme parks.  Wishes is a great example that can be readily found.  I also enjoy the Electrical Water Pageant and Illuminations (Reflections of Earth).  Such dramatic and inspiring music to listen to.  

If you’ve never take the time to stop and listen to the music around you at the parks, I highly suggest you do on your next trip.  It’s all part of the “story” and is just a small piece of the parks that you can take with you anywhere, anytime you need to go to that happy place.  

Thank you for joining me today. Your next stop on the Magical Blogorail Loop is The Disney Point.

Here is the map of our Magical Blogorail should you happen to have to make astop along the way and want to reboard:

1st stop ~ The Disney Chick
2nd Stop ~ Manda’s Disney Blog
3rd Stop ~ The Magical Mouse Pad   <-- you are here
Final Stop ~ The Disney Point