The Magic Touch

As time drew near for the Floridays 1993- The Magic Tour trip, I continued to seek ways to make the trip special. There were 32 of us from Springfield Friends Meeting planning to attend, and another 8 from my friend Mark Caughron's group at Holly Spring Friends.  Step one had been booking rooms at Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort, which meant we would be staying in a beautiful, safe hotel with bus transportation to everything we needed.  It also meant that if we chose we could come back to the hotel during the day and enjoy the pools or take a nap, and then return to the parks at night.  Step two had been to secure park-hopper passes that would allow us to visit the Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, The Disney/MGM Studios, River Country and Typhoon Lagoon as often as we liked- even all in the same day in we wanted to!  Step three had been to get reservations for the group at the Hoop-de-doo Musical Revue, an immensely popular dinner show at the Fort Wilderness Campground.  Step four was purchasing deluxe meal tickets (see yesterday's post) for four meals.  These tickets would allow our group to eat at places they otherwise would never have gone.  Things were coming together very well.  But there was still one last thing I wanted to do...and it was going to be a challenge!

In addition to all of the places listed above, our passes were also good for admission to Pleasure Island, Disney's center of adult nightlife.  You had to be 18 or accompanied by a parent to enter at night, and most of our group would not fit that description.  At first I didn't care, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to get us in to one place on Pleasure Island- the Comedy Warehouse.  It was a club that did a dozen shows each night, each one different because the comedy was improvised based on suggestions from the audience.  It was another experience I thought our kids would really enjoy, and so I asked our travel rep about it.  He said it couldn't be done.  So I called WDW and asked who I should speak with about such a request- and they had no idea.  I was given the number of a guest services supervisor- and she had no idea.  In fact, she told me no one had ever asked her that before.  This continued several more rungs up the WDW corporate ladder, until finally I spoke with a woman who was in charge of RENTING Disney parks to big companies for private parties.  I explained to her I didn't want to rent the Comedy Warehouse, just to go to a show there using our passes.  She had never heard that question before either, but she felt certain it could be done.  The next day she called back with an answer-  YES!!!  Once we decided on a night and a time, she would arrange for guest services to meet us at the gate and walk us in to the comedy club.  I was ecstatic!  I now knew for certain that we were about to embark on a trip unlike any a group had ever taken to WDW.  Over the next few weeks you will read many stories of what happened once we got there, but for me, adding the "magicical touches" was a huge part of the trip.  My excitement was contagious, and the group was catching it.  It was a very different group this time...but that is tomorrow's story.

Because of Jesus,