What was so great about the Year Of A Million Dreams promotion?

[HookPan]

My DH and I had a fun time when we visited that time. We got an after hours party at Epcot. Got to spend an extra hour (?) in the park and ride all the rides with no lines. They only awarded it to max 200 other people. It was pretty special!

 

[Dreaming~of~Disney]

My daughter, 3 at the time, was chosen in 2007 at HS Beauty and the Beast show as the show Princess. She was taken at the end of the show up to the stage and was given a toy rose by the Prince. Also our entire family was chosen at the American Adventure in Epcot as the first family. We had special seats in the lobby while the Voices of Liberty sang and were taken in to the theater first and taken to special seats there too. That was a great promotion!

 

[Charleyann]

There wasn't anything to "take advantage" of. Every day cms wandered the parks giving perks to random people. Every night a family got to stay in the castle suite for example. And tons of people got unlimited fastpasses each day. We never won any of the really cool prizes, but we got a treat here and there and a free popcorn bucket. it was realy neat to see the dream squad wandering around (they had a special uniform) and hoping they would pick you.

We went for 14 days and won quite a bit. We won ear, lanyards, and fast passes. We won sets of pinker pins , certificates and Mickey ice cream bars , for Halloween we were given 4 full bags filled to Capcity. We won special seating for parade . At the Christmas party we won a mickey Santa hat and Stitch Santa hat .......loved it !!!!

 

[Eoywin]

We were in Disney for our honeymoon during YOMD - we waited a year after our wedding to go on our honeymoon.

Our Epcot day fell on our first anniversary and it was extremely magical in part because of YOMD. We won dream fast passes and dream pin lanyards with 2 special pins. We got to be the special family for the American Adventure too.

We got tons of dream certificates over our stay but that day we got an extra dose of magic

 

[DLBDS]

We were approached by a Dream Team just as we started to board the Jungle Cruise attraction. They gave everyone on our boat Dream FastPasses.

I was just thinking about this promotion recently and wondering why they haven't done something similar since. It was an awesome way to make our visits more magical.... even if you never received anything. Just knowing it was a possibility was enough to send you into the parks full of giddiness.

 

[riverbend]

The best and worst part about YOMD was that it was completely random. If you knew about the promotion before your vacation, it was hard not to get your hopes up a little bit. It was really exciting to go into the parks everyday knowing you could be on the receiving end of some extra magic but it was hard not to be a tad disappointed when you went home empty handed, even though you knew that winners were chosen at random. What would also kind of add insult to injury is hearing how families won prizes seemingly every day of their trip or knowing that locals were hitting up the parks every weekend to better their chances. Womp womp.

 

[tripletots]

My DH and I had a fun time when we visited that time. We got an after hours party at Epcot. Got to spend an extra hour (?) in the park and ride all the rides with no lines. They only awarded it to max 200 other people. It was pretty special!

Our family received this too! It was in August 2008 and it was the best! The dance party prior to the hour was so much fun for my kids.

We loved the Dream Team!

 

[pbtink]

We were in the Magic Kingdom during the YMD, what a great day we had. We had just gone on Cinderella's Carrousel and were heading toward another attraction and one of the CM's said to us, "You should really go on Cinderella's Carrousel." We told him we were just on the ride and he said again, "you should really go on the Carrousel." So we did and got the Dream Fast pass. It was awesome.

Then, my family went on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and on their way off, they all received Year of Million Dream Ears.

It was a trip we'll never forget!

 

[disneysuncat]

We were there during this promotion for Halloween, on Halloween day. (we went into the parks early in costume, even though we had party tickets for later). My daughter was dressed as Captain Jack (minus the facial hair), as she was obsessed with him at the time. We put a lot of time before the trip getting various accessories to make her look very authentic! Her long curly hair reached her rear at the time, so we just put a few tiny braids here and there with beads, too, it was SO great and pirate-y!

Anyway, back to the main topic, we were there early afternoon, she was in her full costume, and as we were coming off of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, a cast member stopped her (she was age 8, my daughter, not the cast member, lol) and asked if she had met Captain Jack yet. She just stood there shaking her head no, she asked us if we'd like to come with her, and she marched us out to where the Pirate Tutorial was starting. She held her hand up, Captain Jack looked over, and she pointed down at my daughter. Captain Jack then asked her to be one of the kids for that performance.

It was spectacular, when it was her turn, he looked her up and down and said "this looks rather familiar!" Then he went to disarm her of her own weapons so that she could do her part, which was hilarious, as we had loaded her down with ALL kinds of fake swords, guns, knives, etc. She'd pull out another weapon and he'd say "do you have any MORE weapons?"

I was trying to take photo after photo with tears of happiness running down my face, lol. It was her first trip to Disney World, and to be there, with her "idol" was just beyond anything we could have ever imagined.

Later on that day, we were going across an area, and "Captain Jack" on his way to or from another performance saw her as he was walking and stopped for her.

Even now, if she's describing how good something was, she'll say "well, it wasn't a Captain Jack moment or anything"

So for us, it was the best promotion ever. It was everything I could have ever hoped for in terms of Disney "perfection". Heck, I still get tears in my eyes thinking of how great it was!

(On a side note, I mentioned her hair above...on that same trip at least 4 strangers reached out and touched my child's hair to ask if it was her "real" hair. That was so odd! Even Chip & Dale were tugging on it and messing around with it, lol. I told her they were thinking of lining their chipmunk home with it. She was fine with Chip & Dale, but not the humans!)

Edited to add: after that, we went everywhere trying to find that same cast member and finally did, and I got my daughter's photo with her and her "dream team" get up.

 

[sukhakuli]

We got Dream Fastpasses. It was a fastpass to every major ride. Typical for us, every ride we went to to use our fastpasses was down, lol. We didn't get to use a single one. We just laughed it off, but it was a total bust.

 

[kelmcg]

We loved YOMD!! We received the ultimate fastpasses at Hollywood Studios, right after we got off the elevator in Tower of Terror. We were at Rafiki's Planet watch in AK and we noticed them YOMD castmembers holding a door open. We walked out of the building and right back in through the door they were holding open and that's how we got fastpasses for AK. Then at EPCOT I saw a group of the YOMD castmembers standing around a "not so heavily traveled" path. I told my husband to follow me (and he was questioning ..WHY?) I had to just tell him to follow me.....we walked right by the castmembers and we were given the YOMD lanyards!!

 

[GrumpyDad1974]

DD & DW received dream fast passes while on Star Tours and I didn't get one because I get motion sickness and waited outside... They were really cool I just wish we had three, the best part is some CM's didn't take the tab off they just let us keep going on.

 

[PSUGuy]

Our first day there at BoardWalk that March we ran into a gal whose family spent a night in the castle and that week we won Dream Fastpasses twice, once in AK's Dino pre show room and once while entering Buzz.

Bill From PA

 

[TnTWalter]

After riding space mountain, they ran up to everyone on the cars and gave wristbands for special EMH that night. They closed the park to everyone but those of us with wristbands. It was AWESOME....we were the only people on HM. Rode space mountain 5 times in a row, etc. Walked around with no one in sight. Should have taken a million pictures of us in front of the castle ALONE but didn't! Oh well. The kids loved it!

 

[TinkOhio]

We received a magical upgrade as a prize. We were on a tight budget and could only swing a value that year. A few weeks before we were to leave, an email from Tinkerbelle was set to us. I almost deleted it. It informed us that we had been chosen to receive an upgrade. Wound up that they put us in a villa at Old Key West--during Easter week! The upgrade was worth several thousand dollars--and a huge jump in comfort level. It was one of our best trips-- ever!

We also received a few small things during that trip at the park, like fastpasses, pins, and free mickey bars. We loved the promotion!!

 

[Mom2Minnie]

My family was on Dinosaur and we were cracking up the whole time because my mom was terrified. After we got off, we were pulled to the side and asked if we would like a magical moment. Of course we said yes! They took us backstage to see how the ride was run. We got to talk to a couple of kids in the college program and it was a really cool experience. They gave us a certificate for our magical moment and I believe the unlimited fast passes for Dinosaur that day. It was really a great promotion.

 

[Daisybell911]

I got to go backstage at the Haunted Mansion! I was so happy, I cried!

 

[maggiemayhem]

I got to go backstage at the Haunted Mansion! I was so happy, I cried!

that's amazing! can you tell us where exactly you went, and what you saw?

 

[Daisybell911]

It was October of 2003. I was wearing a bat mouse ears hat and the Haunted Mansion CM loved it so we started chatting. I told her how much I loved HM and she offered to take me in the VIP entrance and take me straight to the ride. It was so cool! It looked like a hallway of a real mansion. Everything was decorated like the ride and the hall took me straight to the loading area. It was the coolest thing!

 

[MomofKatie]

DD and I were touring MK with SIL, BIL, and their 3 kids in January of 2007. We got stopped by a nice CM near the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse and asked if we would like to be one of the families in the parade (Family Fun Day, I think It was called?? Not sure) We got to hold hula hoops and do a little choreographed routine with them- other people held flags, pom poms, or other props. There were costumed CMs and also several characters (Pluto, Chip & Dale, etc). We walked from the Hub to the end of Main Street. It was really fun to be a part of a WDW parade.

The same trip, DD and I got the special YOAMD Ears when the Dream Team presented them to everyone in our ToT preshow room.