Last weekend, I was lucky enough to take my son to the Magic Kingdom at Disney World. I say lucky enough, because even though I was hot and tired, seeing the look on his face while we are there and then hearing the excitement in his voice while he recants his experiences to his grandparents is one of the most magical things on Earth.
Most people enjoy visiting the Magic Kingdom to ride the iconic rides, reminisce about family vacations, and share a little bit of the magic of The Mouse with their children. While preparing for our trip, I realized that the park offers us even more. It never dawned on me until now that we could actually take tips from the Disney masters and apply them to decorating our own homes.
Don’t believe me? Take a look at the five lessons I learned on my visit.
1. Pay attention to detail – One of the most amazing things about Disney World is the Imagineers’ attention to detail. Everywhere you turn, the smallest details make the biggest statements. The unexpected details, such as this pictorial carved into the columns in Cinderella’s Castle, are one of the elements that make Disney World so magical. They really make the park come alive.
2. Have patience – If you come out of a visit to the Magic Kingdom with only one lesson, it will be the lesson of patience. Even though the folks at Disney wrote the book on quickly moving massive amounts of people from place to place, you are still going to do your fair share of waiting…and waiting…and waiting.
When decorating your home, you must also have patience. It took the folks at Disney four years to construct the Magic Kingdom, so don’t expect your home to be decorated to perfection in a few hours. Learn how to set a tablescape, step back and admire it, live with it for a week or so, and rearrange until you get it right. If you painted that end table black and don’t swoon over it every time you walk into the room, get out the primer and paint and try it in white, yellow, or even red. Have patience when trying to create the perfect room, and the magic will eventually reveal itself.
3. Hide your unsightly necessities – I knew that Disney did a great job with hiding items that didn’t need to be seen by the general public, but I didn’t realize how just good they are at this process until I started trying to take photographs of their hidden necessities. I finally spotted an outdoor electrical outlet camouflaged along the Jungle Cruise route.
4. Keep it tidy – I have always been amazed at how clean the Disney parks stay with the thousands of visitors that walk through their gates each day. Of course, they have an army of “cast members” who do little more than pick up stray water bottles and polish the brass. The crew really blends into the surroundings and you hardly notice their work unless you are actually looking for them.
5. Amaze yourself – There’s nothing quite as special as seeing the look of amazement on a child’s face as he stands in between two of his favorite friends. The magic of Disney has the power to amaze us all, even if we think we are too cynical and too old to enjoy the experience.
Think about your last trip to a Disney park. What other lessons could we learn from the Most Magical Place on Earth?
Don’t forget that today is the last day to enter the Greengirl Designs/Paper Prayers Giveaway! Entries close at 11:59 pm tonight and the winner will be announced on Tuesday. Good luck!
Wonderful post! Thank you for shAring these tidbits of wisdom.
Looks like you had a wonderful trip!
-Sherrie
Great post, and the first time that I have visited your blog. My maiden blog post was titled Details, and featured a photo of WDW bench. Neat coincidence, I believe.
What great suggestions!
I’ve always shied away from decorating–it’s not really something I love enough to spend lots of time doing it. And I get overwhelmed thinking about it. But as I’ve decorated Zoodle’s room, one project at a time, it definitely has not been overwhelming. So I’ve decided (when I finish his room) to take one room of the house at a time, then one project at a time within that room…and maybe in a year or two my house will look decorated (beyond just art on the walls!) It doesn’t have to be all at once!
Love the clutter suggestion–stacks of paperwork tend to be my biggest clutter vice and I HATE looking at al that.
What a fantastic post!!!!!! It actually gave me chills cuz that’s the kind of gal I am!!!
I agree with The Nester! This was a great post! I’ve been to Disney World dozens of times and I’m always amazed at exactly the things you pointed out!
Interesting Disney World Facts-
1. It opened in 1971 – Same year I was born!
2. Very shortlly thereafter, my Mom went to work there as a tour guide. They used to take everyone around in little groups, or something like that.
I love Disney! Did you see the fireworks?
Tim
I love the spin you put on this post. Great!
Whistle while I work, I knew. This stuff hadn’t occurred to me. Brilliant.
Great post! Isn’t it funny how we notice the decor literally EVERYWHERE we go?!
Oh. my. gosh. What a neat post! Very creative and insightful. 🙂 On a side note, how much fun was it to enjoy with your son?! I am counting the days until we are able to take our family…don’t know if I’d survive the drive from VA to FL though. 😉
Great post! We just got back from Disney last week and I agree with all you had to say. The place is truly magical! I too took time to look at the decorating and other “homey” things. Thanks for sharing and fabulous picture of your son and his “friends”!
We are so impressed with the parallels you draw between decorating and Disney. We should really take this to heart when we do our next living room project.
Thank you for the great advice!
We go to the disney parks a lot. And they have paid such amazing detail to everything in the parks from the rides, restaurants etc. It is a fantastic place.
What a fun way to relate Disneyland to decorating. Your son’s delight is in high contrast to my daughter’s freak out when we met Tinkerbell. She was not so pleased to meet Tink. (But we have AWESOME photos of it to torture her with!) LOL
great post! enjoyed reading it. Disney world is truly a magical place to visit.
No wonder I love DW so much!!! 🙂
What a clever post! I love YOUR attention to detail!
We went to Disney World for the first time this fall and it was so wonderful. We hope to return someday. We all had so much fun.
I love this post. I am such a Disney fan. I have dreams of one day being a Disney historian. Goofy, eh? Did you know that every single night they repaint the carousel? Nuts! But they are magical. I need to apply tip number 4 a little better better….15 minutes a day. I can handle that.
We just visited Disney World last month! I was amazed how they took care of all the details and I thought it truly was magical!
We’ve been to WDW and Disneyland Paris many times (in face we’re going to WDW next month and DLP in Sept!). You are spot on with your observations. Something else I’ve notices is that they are brilliant at setting the mood. You walk from one place to the next and can feel the difference. We should set the mood in our homes too. Another thing they do is make the entrances to rides (where you wait in line) special. Think of them as the “hallways” of WDW. Don’t ignore your halls. They are just a means from one part of the house to another, but there’s no reason they can’t be pretty and interesting.
Great post. After going to Disney so many times, I find that I now look at the details more than I used to. It’s amazing what they do there. I do wish some cute little mice or fairies would come clean my house though. How awesome would that be?
I love this post! I worked at Disney for two summers but never really thought about it quite like this. Thanks so much for sharing!