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In 2007 we took the family to Disney World for a family vacation, My mom and dad, my wife, son, and I and my sister her husband and two girls. My brother didn’t make it that year. When we were there, Disney was celebrating the Year of A Million Dreams. At one point, we got off a ride, I don’t remember what attraction it was, but a cast member pulled the woman in front of us aside and told her that her party was being given a special Year of a Million Dreams surprise. It was a Day long Fast Pass, for every attraction in the Magic Kingdom. They could use it as many times as they wanted and they could use it all day long. We were in shock, we thought it was so cool, we also wished it had been us, but just to see something like that adds to the Magical Experiences that you can have in Disney. Other times Magical Experiences happen, because of things like this that you would never expect to happen or for you to see. So, I present for you today, the Surprises that make up the Unknown Magic in Walt Disney World.

I think I created one of these Unknown Magics for someone earlier today. I called the phone booth in the Great Britain area of Epcot. A young girl, probably in her early teens answered it after a few rings. You could tell her family made her answer it. Very tentatively she said hello. After I said hello, she asked who it was and I just said, I have a question for you, looking over your right shoulder, is the Pub busy? You could tell she was looking around and then answered yes. I said okay, I’ll have to go someplace else. Then I asked if she was having a Magical Day. She got all excited and said yes. I ended the call by telling her to enjoy herself and to keep having a Magical Day, she said she would and said good bye. I know she’ll be talking about this phone call for the rest of the day, if not the rest of the trip.

We had an unexpected Magical Experience when we were down in Disney World this summer. The boys, my son and his friend, saw their assistant principal walk by them in Fantasyland. He stopped and said hello and asked if they were having a good time. And then told them to be good and off he went. It floored both of the boys. They described it later as awkward, but I could tell they were excited by it, but being teenagers, they were too cool to show it.

It reminded me of a time when I was in Walt Disney World with my parents as a kid, and I was wearing my baseball team shirt. Back then we were named after the sponsors of the team. I had a shirt on from the Buck Hotel, in Feasterville Pennsylvania, and as we were waiting to get on an attraction, someone walked over and said something about the shirt, probably asking if I was from near there. I said yes and my dad got into a conversation with the family about our baseball team and then about the restaurant that was our sponsor. Here the man knew the owner and so did my dad, and then they found out they had actually been together at a business function together. It was a neat surprise for my dad to meet someone that far away from home.

My family and I try to be very friendly to everyone and well start conversations with people, sometimes this also leads to Unknown Magical Surprises. A while back I told the story about when we were eating at Le Cellier, in Canada in Epcot. When we had gone in, the girl had mentioned that she was from Nova Scotia. My son got all excited because his favorite hockey player, Sidney Crosby is form Nova Scotia. When she came back to our table with our drinks, we mentioned it to her and she started chuckling and asked if he liked the Penguins, or just Crosby. He told her the Penguins and they started talking hockey right there in the dining room. She shared the fact that she was actually good friends with Marc-Andre Fleury the goaltender for the Penguins and that she had met Sidney once or twice. The rest of the time we were there, my son was awestruck and couldn’t get enough of her stories about Fleury and the Stanley Cup. It was a Magical Experience that we still talk about today and it was all because of the surprise comment about my son’s favorite hockey player coming from Nova Scotia, so he was happy to be sitting in that section.

So, now you know, Surprises can happen in Walt Disney World at anytime. A lot of these surprises lead to Magical Experiences and others are definitely Unknown Magics. To experience them, all you have to do is keep your eyes open and take your time exploring the Walt Disney World Resort.

The Picture of the Buck Hotel was taken from their website at:
http://www.thebuckhotel.com/ordereze/default.aspx