If you have young children at home, then you may be excited to find out that a new 24-hour Disney Junior channel will be coming on March 23!  The current Disney Junior block will continue on Disney Channel as well, but your kids can now enjoy their favorite shows throughout the entire day.

The new Disney Junior channel will include shows like Jake and the Never Land Pirates and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, plus will launch with new shows like Doc McStuffins and a weekend full of Disney movies. In addition, the Disney Junior channel will feature past Disney shows such as, Higglytown Heroes, JoJo’s Circus, and Rolie Polie Olie. My girl loved JoJo’s Circus when she was younger and her first birthday party theme was even JoJo’s Circus, so this is pretty exciting for our family! Now, we can share these shows with baby boy as well.

Other new shows coming to Disney Junior are Sofia the First, about a little girl princess, and Oki’s Oasis, the first western for preschoolers, starring Mandy Moore as the voice of Oki. You can check DisneyJuniorTheChannel.com to see if the new 24-hour Disney Junior channel will be available in your area.

What are some of your children’s favorite Disney shows?

A few photos from our weekend safari tour of Kilimanjaro Safaris at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, part of the Walt Disney World resort in Orlando, Central Florida.

Have you ever been to Disney’s Animal Kingdom? What’s your favorite part of that park?

Helping folks find their way to Cinderella’s Castle. Icons on parking lot floor of Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World.

My family and I recently attended Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World. We were part of a media group invited to attend as guests of Disney and were able to join the fun of celebrating Christmas Disney-style. This is our second year attending Mickey’s Christmas Party and it was just as fun as our first time attending!

Some of the highlights of attending the holiday events at Disney World are special character sightings, special event merchandise for those who collect Disney merchandise, and event-only parades and other activities. During Mickey’s Christmas Party, we got to see Mickey’s Once Upon A Christmastime Parade, which has a special appearance from Santa at the end. You can also catch a holiday version of Wishes, Magic Kingdom’s fireworks show. There were also a couple of character-themed dance parties for the kids; baby girl got to dance with Jessie from Toy Story!

Throughout the night, we spotted some new characters we had never run into in the past: Abu from Aladdin, the bears from Frontierland’s Country Bear Jamboree, and Captain Jack Sparrow. I’m not sure if these characters are normally out and about at the parks and we’ve just missed them, but I know that it was our first time being able to get their autograph and picture. We actually had something really nice happen to us as we were waiting for Abu’s autograph. As is normal for character greetings, Abu and Aladdin were switching out with Jasmine and the Genie. The only character my girl was missing was Abu, since she’s met the others at previous park visits. As she was getting close to the front of the line, it was announced that only one more person would meet Abu and Aladdin, as Jasmine and the Genie were about to come out. So, baby girl was going to miss her chance to meet Abu! But, the very nice little boy in front of her told her it would be okay to switch places since he was fine with meeting any of the characters!

Something my girl was really looking forward to was the complimentary hot chocolate and cookies that are provided to guests throughout the park. The night we attended, it was actually pretty cool out and windy, so hot chocolate came in handy. The snow on Main Street is also a fun treat! Another bit of Disney magic that happened for us that night was not being charged for baby boy’s skullcap; the cashier told my husband as he went to pay, “I can’t let the baby be cold!”

We had a nice evening out and enjoyed seeing Magic Kingdom decorated for Christmas. It’s always fun to visit the parks during these special events because you see them in a whole new way. In the coming weeks, we plan to visit Disney’s Hollywood Studios to see the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights.

Have you ever visited Disney World or Disneyland during the holidays? What is your favorite part?

Photos © ModernMami.com

New Magic Kingdom parking lot set-up.

The beginning of 2011 was full of a couple of exciting times for my family and I. Of course, my baby boy was born a few weeks prior to the end of 2010, which made for a hectic, but lovely way to start the year. But, also, my daughter and I got to experience the awesomeness of a Disney cruise. Needless to say, 2011 has been a busy year so far, with much of it revolving around chasing baby boy and adapting to being a mother of two. This, primarily, is the reason that I am just now sharing with you about our Disney Dream cruise adventure.

In January, just a month after baby boy was born, my daughter and I embarked on what was the first cruise ever for both of us. And what a way to experience our first cruise ever than with a Disney cruise, right? If you’re going to go big, then you might as well go real big, no?

Sadly, baby boy was too young to come aboard, so my husband stayed behind with him in order to let my baby girl and I experience the cruise. We just couldn’t pass up on such an invitation, courtesy of our friends at Disney and Disney Cruise Line. My parents were going to come along with us, but unfortunately, my father fell ill the week before the cruise and doctors advised him not to travel. So, it ended up being a girls-only event!

We had a lot of much-needed mommy-daughter fun on the cruise. We enjoyed fun dining in what baby girl called “very fancy” restaurants, swimming in the pools (don’t forget about the AquaDuck slide!), a stop at Disney’s private island Castaway Cay, and late-night dancing (in the rain…with pirates!). Our cruise experience was the best and allowed my baby girl and I to escape for a little bit – something I know she appreciated since we were only one month into the big change in our family dynamic. She still talks about our cruise and will ask if we can go on a cruise again one day.

As are all things Disney, they pay lots of attention to details and really make your experience a great one. Since I have no other cruise experience to compare to, it’s a little hard for me to know what is standard for a cruise trip and what is exclusive to a Disney cruise. But, I can tell you that there are some major highlights to a Disney cruise, such as character greetings for the kids and themed evening parties. Here are some of the things my girl and I liked the most about our cruise trip on the Disney Dream.

Youth Clubs: Disney’s Oceaneer Club & Oceaneer Lab

When we checked out the youth club areas on the Disney Dream, my girl immediately wanted to stay and play. The Oceaneer Club & Oceaneer Lab had a dress-up area with plenty of costumes and accessories, a coloring area, computers, and themed play rooms, such as Andy’s Room from the Toy Story movie. Most importantly, these youth clubs are supervised with plenty of Disney employees on hand that are there not just to supervise the children, but also play along with them and engage them in organized games and activities. My girl absolutely loved her times in these play areas and it was very hard to get her to leave to enjoy some of the other activities of our trip.

Additionally, when we stopped at Castaway Cay for a day, they had a supervised play area there as well. We did take advantage of this, upon my girl’s request, which allowed me to have a little time to myself to enjoy the beach and relive my days from Puerto Rico on an hamaca (hammock).

Broadway-style Live Shows

There are a couple of live shows you can catch while aboard the Disney Dream, but my daughter and I particularly enjoyed Disney’s Believe. The story is a very cute one about a girl trying to get her very busy father to believe. I actually cried, along with several other women in the audience, including the one sitting next to me. There’s just something about a girl and her daddy that brings tears to my eyes, and this was no exception. If you ever go on the Disney Dream, you definitely don’t want to miss this show.

Pirate Party: Pirates IN the Caribbean Deck Party

Probably the most-talked about aspect of our cruise for both baby girl and I was the awesome pirate party we enjoyed one evening. Pirates come out to play games with the kids before a live show featuring Captain Jack Sparrow ensues on the deck. Then, after some fireworks, the pirates stick around to dance with the crowd! We even received pirate bandanas to dress up for the party. The night of our pirate party it rained. But, that didn’t stop baby girl and I from dancing with the pirates! I’m so glad I let her keep partying despite the rain and it being past her bedtime because it made for a great memory!

These are just some of the fun things my girl and I enjoyed while on our Disney Dream cruise. There’s so much to do on the ship that I truly wanted to stay a few more days and I know I didn’t get to explore all there is. If you want to experience a fun family vacation, then booking a Disney cruise might just be what you need since there’s something for everyone. I plan on taking our family on a Disney cruise in the future, hopefully once baby boy is older and can enjoy it more because it’s definitely something everyone should try at least once.

If you’ve ever been on a cruise, what do you enjoy the most about them? And, if you’ve ever been on a Disney cruise, share your experience with us!

Disclosure: My daughter and I were part of the inaugural Disney Dream voyage. All expenses were paid for me and a discounted rate was provided in order for my daughter to join me. Our experience, memories, and opinions are, as always, our own.

A few months ago, we took our baby girl to see the movie Tangled. I was still pregnant at the time, and it’s the last movie we’ve seen at a movie theater and will remain so for a few more months since baby boy is too young to go. Our girl was excited to see the movie as she’d been seeing the commercials for a while, and like most girls her age, she LOVES princesses. Naturally, she wanted to see Disney’s latest princess movie; their 50th animated film I later found out!

We all really enjoyed the movie and laughed thoroughly, as there are many funny moments in the movie. Even my husband laughed, particularly at Maximus’ antics with Flynn Rider. Rapunzel’s strong will and energy was also contagious and appreciated by my daughter, who is also strong and energetic.

I actually asked my daughter, “Why do you like the movie Tangled?” Her answer: “It’s funny and even though Flynn Rider is a thief, he finds someone that loves him [Rapunzel] and they get married.” The girl has recently become obsessed with all things love and marriage.

Incidentally, the movie’s executive producer, John Lasseter, incorporated a special moment from his own marriage into the movie. Here’s how he explains it:

One of my favorite sequences in the movie is the one we developed with the floating lanterns. Personally, these sequences are very special to me. Why? Well, let me tell you a little story… My wife and I headed to Bora Bora, Tahiti, for our 20th wedding anniversary. The Head Of Food Service at the resort we were staying at was an Italian guy, but he married an Indonesian woman and he had lived in Indonesia for years. He said to us, “I have something special for you.” And on our 20th anniversary, he brought out a lantern. He had us sign a little note to each other, which we taped to the top of the lantern, and then he lit it. It was dusk, we were on the beach and it was very romantic. The guy then said, “Kiss and let it go.” So we let it go and that beautiful lantern floated up into the Tahitian sky and drifted off into the distance.

It was beautiful. We had dinner on the beach that night and we watched the lantern float away for about two hours until it was a tiny, little speck in the sky. It looked like a star up there. It was one of the most magical things that has ever happened to me, so when we started talking about doing something special for Tangled, I mentioned this story to the team. We got on the internet and we discovered that there are festivals in Southeast Asia where thousands of these lanterns light up the sky. We’d never seen anything quite like it, so it became an inspiration for the movie.

If you wish, you can read more from John Lasseter, in this Q&A interview I was provided. [PDF] (Note: These are not questions I personally asked him.)

Also, check out this slide show featuring the concept sketches and drawings for Mother Gothel:

Tangled is due to be released on DVD/Blu-Ray on March 29. And, you have a chance at sharing the story of Rapunzel with your family by entering to win your own copy of Tangled below!

Giveaway

Enter for your chance to win a TANGLED DVD/Blu-Ray Combo pack.

How to Enter

Required entry: If you’d like to enter this contest, simply leave a comment below telling us what you liked best about this movie (if you’ve seen it) or what you think you’ll like based on the previews! You can view a trailer and find out more info about the movie here.

Extra entries (optional):

Each of the following will count as 1 extra entry. You’ll need to leave a separate comment for each entry.

1. Follow @modernmami on twitter.
2. Tweet the following: Enter to win a Tangled DVD/Bluray pack from @modernmami! http://bit.ly/tangleddvd #giveaway #contest #disney #movies
3. Receive post updates by subscribing to our RSS feed. You can do so either via email or through a RSS reader. Leave a comment saying you did so or are already a subscriber.
4. Subscribe on friendfeed and leave a comment with your friendfeed ID.
5. Like ModernMami™.com on Facebook.
6. Write a blog post on your own blog sharing the details of this contest. Be sure to include a link back to this post. Leave a comment with your post link.

All entries must be in by Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 11:59 pm EST. You must have a valid U.S. address to enter. Remember to leave a separate comment for each entry. The winner will be chosen using Random.org and will be notified via email. (Please be sure to provide a valid email address with your entry.) Winner will have 48 hours to respond and claim prize, otherwise a new winner will be chosen. DVD/Blu-ray combo provided may be a different version than pictured.

Disclosure: I received information and product in order to facilitate this review/giveaway. No compensation received. As always, all opinions and thoughts are my own.

Photos provided

I recently participated in the Trekaroo KidsMobile blog carnival, where a few Orlando bloggers created lists of their favorite kid-friendly activities in the Orlando and Central Florida area. Many of the lists created have suggestions for traveling to Disney. I offered up a list of Free and Low-Cost Activities in Orlando for Preschoolers.

Since Orlando is a popular vacation destination for those with families, and you may one day find yourself coming to visit the various theme parks housed here, you might find these links handy.

The Orlando KidsMobile blog carnival has many recommendations from Trekaroo families and local bloggers. Check out the following lists for more information on activities for kids in Orlando:

• Top Activities for Kids in Orlando, Florida – voted by Trekaroo parents
• Top Kid-friendly Hotels in Orlando, Florida – voted by Trekaroo parents
• 5 Tot-friendly Restaurants Favorites in at Disney by Two Kids and A Map
• Disney Hotels for Tweens and Teens by Travel with Teens
• Top 5 “Must Do” Walt Disney World Attractions with Teens by Disney Everyday
• Water Parks in Florida – Cheerio Family
• More Disney, Less Waiting – A review of RideMax – Li Er Hanson
• 71 Activities for Kids in and around Orlando, Florida
• Kid-friendly hotels in and around Orlando, Florida

The Trekaroo KidsMobile’s next stop is Memphis, Tennessee. The Trekaroo KidsMobile is a blog carnival with a twist. It’s designed to provide a unique opportunity for mom and dad bloggers to be featured on Trekaroo while 1) expressing their unique point of view, and 2) getting a web of link exchanges. Join them for one of their next stops.

There are many new TV shows and movies coming up that are age-appropriate for toddlers and preschoolers. I wanted to share a few that are showing this week you may want to check out.

This Friday, Disney’s The Princess and the Frog opens nationwide. In case you didn’t know, Princess Tiana is Disney’s first African-American heroine.

My baby girl has been anxiously waiting for the movie to open and has been seeing the commercials and trailers for months now. The only way we could help her understand how long she had to wait was to tell her it wouldn’t be out until her birthday. So, now that she knows her birthday is around the corner, when she sees Princess Tiana on TV, in the stores, or wherever, she asks, “That movie comes on my birthday, right?” Guess where we’ll probably be on Friday?

This past Sunday, a new Dora special, Dora’s Christmas Carol Adventure, premiered on Nickelodeon. In this episode, Swiper tries to swipe the Christmas star from Dora’s Nochebuena party and winds up on Santa’s naughty list. I love that it’s a Nochebuena party (Christmas Eve), since that is when a majority of Latinos have the family get-together and dinner, not on Christmas day. If you missed it, you can catch it again this Sunday, December 13, at 7 p.m. (ET) on Nick Jr.

Nick Jr. will premiere Signing Time, a music series dedicated to teaching sign language to preschoolers, today, Wednesday, December 9. Signing Time teaches American Sign Language (ASL) vocabulary-building signs that are useful in daily life. This is one of those in-between shows that play throughout the day and I’m told the first one is scheduled for after the 1 pm ET show. I plan to catch a few of these to help baby girl learn some more signs. Ok, really, it’s to help me learn some since she already learns many at school and is often teaching them to me.

Enjoy the shows this week and let me know what you and your kids think after watching them!

The first time I saw the movie Snow White in its entirety, I fell asleep. It was nothing against the movie itself, but more so that I was a teenager and the movie was a bit slow for my liking at the time. Since then, I had never sat down to give the movie another chance. It was just one of those things that never happened.

Of course, now I have a three year old girl and we’re all about the princesses. But, mainly we’ve been a Cinderella house.

So, when we heard that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was being re-released by Disney, we knew we had to get it. And since Disney movies are only available for a short time before going into the vault, we didn’t want to miss our chance of introducing baby girl to the movie that started it all. It was, after all, the first full-length animated movie to be made.

Just a few days later, I got an email from One2One Network about an opportunity to review Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Diamond Edition. Talk about perfect timing!

Why is it the Diamond Edition? Well, it has both a Blu-ray disc and a regular DVD in one package.

What’s so Great about Blu-Ray?

I finally get it. Ever since my husband put together his “entertainment wall,” I’ve been trying to figure out what the big deal is. He talks about 1080p, HDMI, and it’s all like a foreign language to me. I’ve thus far been unimpressed. Much to his disappointment.

But now…I get it. I guess my biggest issue was a point of reference. Now, I look back at my tattered and torn VHS version and then over at my sparkly new Blu-ray and the difference is like night and day. The color is clean and vivid. Though my daughter will never know the “joy” of scratchy, grainy video tapes, I can definitely appreciate how far things have come. Man, kids have got it good.

The DisneyView framing, though a nice thought, isn’t what I’d consider “must-use” as it seemed unnatural in some instances. Even baby girl commented on its “different” appearance every now and then. It’s basically just a frame around the picture. So, instead of having two black frames to the sides, you get scene-appropriate frames that coordinate with the picture.

All about the Sound

I think the audio probably excited my husband more than my daughter and I. Apparently, many of the Blu-rays he has purchased don’t have 7.1 surround sound. What did that mean to me? Err…nothing. So, I was privy to a 10 minute discussion of the surround setup in our family room and the difference between having 5 speakers and a sub woofer (5.1) versus 7 speakers and a sub woofer (7.1). It was more than I REALLY wanted to know, but, it did help me gain some perspective on “what the big deal is.” I actually began to appreciate the small nuances provided by his elaborate setup. Kinda funny that it took a kid’s movie to do it, which I’m sure he finds infuriating. He tried to explain the same thing before with Transformers. Hehehe.

Extras

I have to say, we were a little disappointed by the special features as a whole. Though the decade by decade Disney history was very interesting, to me and the husband anyway, I would have expected a little more with the capacity of the Blu-ray disc. There was not much in the way of music, video or otherwise; a single karaoke sing-along track and a music video from one of their up-and-comers.

The games, classic and new, suffered from the monotony that MOST DVD games suffer from. Some required a level of comprehension or patience that my 3 year old was not willing to put in. We did get a kick out of seeing which princess daddy was (ahem, Ariel) and the phone call from a princess was a fun little extra, that lit up baby girl’s face. With a web enabled player, you can take a peek at some of the latest films preparing to be released into theaters or Blu-ray/DVD in the coming months. And the quirky phrases and insights from the magic mirror was worth a few laughs to the monkey.

You can view the Snow White Blu-ray Edition Trailer and learn more about Blu-ray discs with the Disney Timeless Memories Blu-ray High Definition DVDs and Movies video.

Disclosure: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Diamond Edition pack received from One2One Network for review purposes.