I was lucky enough to go to New York City with Adventures by Disney (ABD). This was a "Fam" trip, which means that it is all travel agents being "familiarized" with a service/product/resort. In this case, it meant that I got to do one day of a three night ABD itinerary.
Adventures by Disney is a tour company that is a part of the Disney Destinations. They have amazing tours around the world. They also have a long weekend in San Fran and in NYC. They have some tours that are adult only, but they also have family centered programs. It's a great way to have a top-notch travel experience without having to worry about anything. There are two adventure guides on each tour. One is always a local, and one or both of them have deep history with the Walt Disney Company, so you are sure to have the level of service you are accustomed to in other Disney Destinations. As with other destinations, I would be happy to help you plan one of these trips, and my services are totally free to you (kacietravelplanner@gmail.com if you want to talk!).
Ok! On to the details of this trip! We met at the Intercontinental in Times Square. It is a gorgeous, modern, and clean hotel. It is right by Times Square, but it felt peaceful and calm as soon as you walk inside. ABD is known for contracts with exceptional hotels, and this one was certainly no exception!
I love lobby flowers :-)
Check out my awesome "cast member" style name tag!
One of the adventure guides always had a paddle with this logo on it. At first I kind of rolled my eyes at the idea of following someone with a sign in the air. To be totally honest, it really took the effort out of navigating through Manhattan. I got to just relax and enjoy talking to the other agents in my group. As long as that little sign was in sight, I never had to look down at my phone/map. It was actually great!
After a short introductory session, we went on this bus called The Ride. Half of the bus was just huge windows. Our guides here were hilarious! To be honest, this was more of a show than a tour! There were really talented actors along the way on the sidewalks that interacted with us as we went along. We were all laughing and having a great time on this tour. I think that early teens to teens would just eat this up.
We got off the bus and headed into John's Pizza. We had a really tasty and relaxing lunch. Again, the adventure guides were amazing. On top of having tables ready when we walked in, they made sure we knew where all the restrooms were. Plus, they went around and offered hand sanitizer (in multiple scents!) and checked in with everyone.
After lunch, we walked over to the Ripley-Grier studios. This was an amazing experience. ABD had already checked us in through security in the building before we got here, so we just went on up to the dance and voice studios. They were running auditions for the new Broadway Frozen show. I really loved just lingering through the hallways and watching the beautiful and talented people pace the halls and wait for their turn! I could have spent the day just observing out there!
But, we went into one of the dance studios for a dance lesson!
The instructors (in the picture with me), were exceptional teachers. I have met many teachers in my life, and these two clearly have the talent and the passion for education. Along with that, they love Disney, and they were amazing performers!
Because we were going to see Aladdin, they focused our dance session around some choreography from the Broadway play. In just an hour, they took a room of 30 adults that didn't know each other into a happy, sweaty, laughing, singing, and dancing up coming performers (well, maybe not that last part, but a girl can dream!). We had a great breakout session afterwards talking about what we learned from the class and how the guests that we book travel for would enjoy this! It was such a great experience, and it is SO unique. This is the kind of thing that you don't really get when you just go somewhere solo.
We went back to the Intercontinental to have dinner. It was delicious and classy (of course). It gave us all an opportunity to really talk about ABD, about this New York itinerary, and learn as much as we could soak in.
One really fun part of this is that ABD trips all have pins! You get a pin on each day that can only be found on that particular trip (you can't buy them anywhere else). We got the first day pin for the NYC itinerary, and there were a lot of happy travel agents in that room!
From dinner, we walked over the the New Amsterdam theater to see Aladdin. We were in the 4th and 5th row, which was just awesome! The performance was beautiful. There is nothing like seeing shows on Broadway! The talent is incredible, the set amazing, the crowd excited, and the costumes were stunning. After intermission, our adventure guides had put cookies on each of our seats! No need to stand in any lines on an ABD--everything is taken care of!
All in all, it was a great experience! I love having first hand knowledge of the Disney products, so that I can better guide any of you that want to go!
Oh, and the night before, I got tickets to see Hamilton! I would totally reccomend that as a little "pre-ABD" treat if you want to come into NYC a day early! That might deserve it's own blog post though....
Let me know if I can help you plan your next trip! kacietravelplanner@gmail.com
