Who are we?🤷♀️ Well, to sum it up in just a couple of words: Disney Fanatics!😁 Yup, that’s right! We love going to Disney parks, watching Disney movies, collecting Disney merchandise… we enjoy pretty much everything “Disney”!
Sharing our love for Disney magic comes naturally for us, and since our social media following has grown so much, we thought that some of you might be entertained by our thoughts on all things Disney, so we decided a while back that we were also going to start a Days Gone Disney blog (we really hope you will enjoy it!😊)!😀 And what better way to start our blog than by giving you a little bit of our background & introducing ourselves?!
My name is Amy, & my husband is Andy. Together, we are Days Gone Disney!🙂 Like with our other social media platforms, we both post/contribute, however, the majority of the posts on this blog will probably be written by me (Amy). We are a married couple with 2 teenage boys whom we have also passed our love of Disney on to (from time to time, they may even help write some blog posts, or at least contribute their input on certain subjects). So, when & how did our love for all things Disney start, you might ask? Well, here is a little more about our background to help you get to know us better & to answer that question! Let’s start with Andy…
Andy’s first experience with Walt Disney World was back in January of 1972. He was just barely 3 years old (his birthday is at the end of November), & Walt Disney World was only 3 months old, having opened in October of ’71. Below is an actual 8mm film from that very trip (the one that started it all!😉) with his dad, mom & both of his brothers. BTW, he is the cute little boy on the Carrousel.😊
While growing up in the 70s & early 80s, he & his family lived in Western NY (near Buffalo), & his grandparents, as well as a great aunt & uncle, lived in Florida. Every other year, during Christmas break, they would take a 3 week vacation to Florida to visit them and would take a long 3 day drive down south (back in the days of no seat belts 😄). Part of each of those family trips included a visit to Walt Disney World. 1972, 1974, 1976, 1978, 1980 and 1982 (the year Epcot opened) brought him many wonderful family memories, & each trip only made his love of Disney grow stronger.
Then there’s me. Unfortunately, I wasn’t quite as lucky to get to take regular trips growing up like Andy, but I still always had such a love for Disney!❤ I grew up watching the movies, of course (every time a new Disney animated movie came out, my dad would always take me & my younger brother to the movie theater to see it. I think he wanted to see them just as much as we did!😉), I had Disney records that I listened to over & over on my record player, I loved watching Disney shows on TV… I remember how excited I was when we got the Disney Channel when it came out!😆 I was in love with it all, & my dream for as long as I could remember was always to go to Walt Disney World (my poor parents… I think I begged them CONSTANTLY!🤐). I finally got to go on my one & only Disney trip as a kid, & I still remember how much I loved it & that I couldn’t wait to get to go back again someday.
After Andy & I were married, we decided that a trip to Walt Disney World before having kids was a great idea, so we went for the first time together just before our 2nd anniversary. Considering neither of us had been there for quite some time, & I had only gotten to go once before, I was fully on board with the idea!😁👍🏻 Besides bringing back countless childhood memories for both of us, we enjoyed getting to experience the parks together (Animal Kingdom was also a newer park at that time which neither of us had been to, so it was neat for us to get to see it for the first time together). We were also excited about the possibility of coming back to the “Happiest Place on Earth” with our future children!
When our oldest son was 3, & I was pregnant with our second child, Andy realized that he still had some vacation time from work to use before the end of the year. He brought to me the idea of taking our oldest to Walt Disney World before the baby was born (knowing that, once the baby came, it would be harder to travel with a newborn), & of course, I couldn’t say no! Our then toddler was already obsessed with Disney (do you remember the old vacation planning movies they would mail to you for free? For the longest time, the only way I could get that boy to sit still long enough for a haircut without him fussing was to put one of those in for him… he was mesmerized!😆), so we were so excited to take him for the first time, even though I wasn’t as excited about being there in the heat & with all of that walking at 6 1/2 months pregnant🤰!😜
My dad & step-mom had found out we were going & asked if we minded if they came along too, which we didn’t, so they also came. Our little guy loved it (we ALL did!), & he’s been hooked since! It was a great trip! Several times throughout it, my dad made mention of how fun it would be if the rest of our family were there too, & that started the ball rolling for us to start planning our next trip! That trip included 12 people: me, Andy, our 2 boys, my dad, step-mom, brother, sister-in-law & their 12 month old daughter, my step-brother, his wife & her daughter. It was another great trip & our youngest’s first (if you don’t count him having been there while I was pregnant with him!😉). At that point, now both of our boys were hooked!
We’ve been to Walt Disney World several more times since, just the 4 of us. One of our next times back, we decided to surprise our boys with a trip as their main Christmas gift that year. Christmas morning, the last thing they opened was the box with our magic bands in them. They weren’t really sure what they were at first (magic bands were brand new then, so we had never had or used them before), but of course, they were thrilled once we explained it to them!😉 We went just 2 weeks later, & we stayed in a Cars suite at the Art of Animation resort (our youngest son has always LOVED Cars, so that was on his personal bucket list!).
Later the same year, we went back in November. This time was stayed at Animal Kingdom Lodge with a savana view… AMAZING!! We were also able to get in on the free dining plan offer that trip🥘, got to enjoy Epcot’s Food & Wine Festival🍷, we there on our oldest son’s birthday🎂🥳, & went to our first Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party🎅🎄(hopefully with many more parties to come!😁).😃 We made a lot of wonderful & unforgettable memories!
The next Disney trip we would take would be out west to the original park, the “happiest place on earth”… Disneyland!!😁 It was a first for all of us! It was also during the 60th-anniversary celebration, & we stayed at the Disneyland Hotel (something that was on my bucket list). Absolutely amazing!🤩 As I had mentioned before, our youngest son has always been a huge Cars fan since he was little, so he had especially wanted to see Cars Land & absolutely loved it!🚘 We were amazed at how much we fell in love with everything there & knew we would definitely be going back!
Next came an anniversary trip to Disney’s Aulani resort in Hawaii!😃🌴🌺🍍 Hawaii had always been on my bucket list, so when Disney built a resort there, I knew that I definitely wanted to go there one day! Well, we made it there about 3 years ago & most definitely want to go back again someday… sooner than later! There is so much I could say about that trip (as well as pictures I could share… yes, they have Photopass photographers there, too!👍) that I could make a whole blog post just about that, & since this post is already so long (sorry!)😬🤷♀️, that’s what I plan to do sometime soon (that is, if you all would all like to hear about our amazing experience)!
On our next trip to Walt Disney World, Andy’s parents came along with us. They were so excited to go back considering it had been at least 25 years since their last visit there!😱 We had been making plans & reservations together for months, & then a few days into the trip, his mom started not feeling well at all. She ended up going to the urgent care & tested positive for the flu!😔 She had to stay put in their room for the rest of the trip, & Andy’s dad also stayed with her, so of course, he ended up sick as well! He had gotten a pretty bad fever & got so light-headed one day that he even fell & broke his ankle, too! It was so crazy, & unfortunately, they ended up missing out on so much!😢 On the bright side, the rest of us stayed healthy & were still able to make all of our Fastpasses & dining reservations. Thankfully, they were both better by the time it was time for all of us to fly back home (flu-wise anyway… of course Andy’s dad’s ankle still needed a lot more time to heal! We ended up having to push him through the airport in a wheelchair!♿). We are thankful, though, that before they had gotten sick, they were able to do the Walt Disney: Marceline to Magic Kingdom Tour with us at Magic Kingdom, because that was something we were all really looking forward to (it was the first Disney tour any of us had done), & it was absolutely fantastic! They both thoroughly enjoyed it & have talked about it ever since! I could write another whole blog post just on our tour experience (& probably will)!
Last spring, the 4 of us went out to Disneyland again over spring break for our oldest son’s senior year of high school (a family “senior trip” of sorts). We were so excited to be back visiting Walt’s original park again, & we also got to enjoy the Food & Wine Festival at Disney’s California Adventure park. We had gotten to experience Food & Wine at Epcot before & really enjoyed it, so it was great getting to also experience the west coast’s version while we were there. We had enjoyed the tour we did at Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World so much that we decided we wanted to do one at Disneyland this time too, so we had made reservations to do the Walk in Walt’s Disneyland Footsteps tour, & the best part of it… we got to go up into Walt’s apartment!!😍😭 It was such a priceless experience, something we are so glad that we got to do. That in itself could also be another entire blog post!
Those are just some of our many memorable Disney experiences, & we hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about them & maybe getting to know us a little bit better!😊 Please let us know if there is something you would like us to blog about. Do you want to hear more about our trip to Aulani? About resorts we’ve stayed in or the Christmas party? Or what about the tours we took at both Magic Kingdom & Disneyland? Please, let us know! We would love to share our experiences & thoughts with you!🙂