So my Disney DVD collection has been growing and growing, and I can now proudly say I own all the Disney Pixar films! 🙂
In chronological order they are:
1. Toy Story (1995)
2. A Bug’s Life (1998)
3. Toy Story 2 (1999)
4. Monsters Inc (2001)
5. Finding Nemo (2003)
6. The Incredibles (2004)
7. Cars (2006)
8. Ratatouille (2007)
9. Wall-E (2008)
10. Up (2009)
11. Toy Story 3 (2010)
12. Cars 2 (2011)
13. Brave (2012)
14. Monsters University (2013)
°o°
Today I watched The Princess and the Frog for the first time.
Until now I’ve been a little sceptical, being from a generation of the true classics, about how a new princess film would match up to something as legendary as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, but I was pleasantly surprised..
1. There is a character called Lottie – how could I not love that? (although I wish she had been a little less self-absorbed and money-orientated)
2. Not a magical kingdom far, far away.. – Mixing it up, Disney set the scene in Jazz-age New Orleans, with real life, hard-working parents James and Eudora raising their beautiful daughter Tiana.
3. That girl can work! – Tiana teaches little girls all over the world that dreams can come true if you work hard to make them a reality. Once again, Disney buck the traditional princess trend: Tiana’s ‘kingdom’ is the restaurant she built from scratch, and she continues to work post-coronation.
I wouldn’t put it in my top Disney films, and compared to other more recent princess films (I could watch Tangled all day), it doesn’t have me rushing to buy it on DVD, but I can’t say no to a good bit of breaking social norms!
Well worth a watch 🙂
If, like us, you booked your Disney holiday very much in advance (over a year in our case!), it can be hard to keep that initial ‘WE’RE GOING TO DISNEYWORLD!’ excitement alive, especially with little ones.
Countdowns are great, but over 350 days can lose their impact, so are probably best saved for the final run up, but I wanted something to keep my girls excited for our trip, and also ensure they’re fully educated on Disney films and characters (I always worry, coming from a generation who were raised on the classics, that kids these days don’t know of some of the lesser known, older gems such as Hercules and Atlantis), so I came up with..
A year long Disney movie marathon! You could obviously shorten the length of your marathon, depending on how long it is until your holiday, but for us it worked out to one Disney movie a week (we started with 43 weeks to go), taking us right up to our departure!
Once a week I pick the girls up from school, we pick a film, I make popcorn and snacks, and we get cosy on the sofa to enjoy the film. The girls like picking the film, and if they can’t agree on one between the three of them, they take turns to choose, and I just like re-watching my favourite childhood films – I get a lot more of the references now – and having the excuse to buy Disney DVDs (check out how I get FREE DVDs here!)
So as part of my Pre-Disney Movie Marathon, I’ve been stocking up my DVD collection with Disney classics. Our family DVD collection is fairly tiny, so it needed a little brightening up, and in doing so I stumbled across this little gem that I feel any Disney nut should be aware of..
Disney Movie Rewards is a scheme in which by buying Disney DVDs or Blu-rays and even Disney video games and CDs, you can earn points which can be redeemed for a fab range of rewards. Along with some free rewards such as colouring sheet downloads and desktop backgrounds, you can spend your points on activity packs (around 25 points) to DVDs and Blu-rays (500-750 points), and even charitable donations to Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity.
Why not get something for nothing?!
Setting up your account is easy – if you already have an account with Disney, even more so! Its just a quick form: name, email address etc, then you’re good to go. Each eligible item has a code, usually on the leaflet inside the box, all you have to do is pop the code into the website, then it will ask for the last 6 digits of the EAN, and that’s it: points earnt! 100 points for DVDs, 150 for Blu-rays, 80 for CDs, 250-300 for video games, and all of these add up surprisingly quickly so you can start reaping the rewards.
I found codes in three of my new Disney DVDs, plus my copy of Toy Story 3 on Blu-ray, and I also completed a survey for an extra 50 points, bringing my total points up to 500 – enough to redeem a DVD!
There are so many rewards to choose from, but I’m concentrating on DVDs, so I chose Cars (which would have cost £7.50 on Amazon) to spend my 500 points. You can redeem any reward up to 3 times per account, and its as simple as clicking ‘Redeem’, providing an address, and waiting!
Still not convinced? Well, whether you’re a DVD person or a Blu-ray person, it works out that for every 5 you buy/already own, you get one free, and who doesn’t like that kind of math?
So go on, get shopping!
Lottie Does 