Confession time once again for me: I’m an obsessed Disney fan. I decided to start my own business planning Disney (and all other) vacations because of my crazy obsession with all things Disney-parks related. I’m a former Walt Disney World cast member and a former Universal Orlando team member. I’ve worked at Disney’s Animal Kingdom (College Program 1998), Disney’s Hollywood Studios (when it was still MGM Studios), Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort, and Universal Orlando’s City Walk. And while I have continued to be a big Universal fan, my true passion lies in the Disney theme parks. I met my wife while we were both working in Walt Disney World, proposed to her during Wishes in front of Cinderella Castle, and we went to Disneyland on our honeymoon. Our 3 children (all under the age of 5) have been to Walt Disney World over 20 times. So it should come as no surprise that my home office is decorated primarily in Disney memorabilia. For this blog post, I wanted to take you, loyal readers, behind the scenes and on A Photo Tour of the Ear To There Travel Home Office.
I was able to grab this sign off of eBay for a fairly low price and I love it! It’s mounted on the outside of my office door and it reminds me of my days working for Disney every day when I open it to get some work done. The best part is, I don’t have to show an ID before walking through!
If you’ve ever been to Disneyland or The Magic Kingdom, this sign should look a bit familiar to you. This is a replica of the sign that hangs over the tunnel entrance in Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom has the same quote on a slightly different sign. I have this one hanging over the door to my office and it makes me feel like I’m walking into one of the parks every day!
Right inside my office door there’s my framed Steamboat Willie picture that I bought years ago at Blockbuster Video store going out of business sale (remember when you couldn’t get any movie you wanted on your phone or iPad in ten seconds?!). Under that is my popcorn machine that pops the EXACT same ingredients that the Disney parks use in their popcorn carts. Sorry, I can’t tell you what Disney uses to pop their popcorn because it’s kind of a tightly guarded secret and I don’t want the special, top secret Disney police knocking on my door. Yes, that is a thing (not really!). The guitar is only in the picture because I didn’t feel like moving it when I was taking pictures (and it’s an Epiphone SST, Chet Atkins model, a less expensive version of a guitar famously played by one of my favorite musicians, Dave Matthews).
On the left is a framed map of Disneyland from the 1980’s, on the right is a framed map of the Magic Kingdom from the 1970’s. I was able to find them on eBay a couple of years ago and I think I paid maybe $20 for each one. These old park maps make awesome decorations for any Disney nerd like myself and you can almost always find one on eBay at a reasonable price. I actually just purchased this next one a few weeks ago:
My EPCOT Center park map! This one is from Epcot’s opening year, 1982. I’m going to get this one framed as well as soon as I find out where the heck my wife will let me hang it in our house! I love the old EPCOT Center logo on the bottom left of the picture. I don’t have any tattoos, but I’m thinking of getting this tattooed on my arm soon (again, not really!).
As the ultimate Disney super nerd, I have a strange obsession with Disney trash cans. I find if kind of fascinating that Walt Disney actually came up with the idea for these types of trash cans in Disneyland (designed with a swinging flap so guests wouldn’t actually see the trash). It’s also pretty amazing that he had his original imagineers calculate how many steps guests would walk holding onto trash before dropping it on the ground. That is why the trash cans are placed so strategically throughout Disney’s theme parks. So what if my Disney trash cans are actually just salt & pepper shakers! I think they work better as little display pieces of my Disney obsession!
These are some character sketches from the Disney Junior show, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I know a guy who knows a guy who might have a connection or two who knows another guy who got me these. Anyway, they make a great display in my office and my kids absolutely love them and try to take them off the wall all the time.
As I’ve mentioned an awful lot here in my blog posts, I’m a runner and I’ve run in several of the runDisney races. Here are a bunch of the medals I’ve earned from some of the races I’ve done. My favorite is the WDW Marathon Mickey Medal from 2014 since it was my first time ever running 26.2 miles!
Time for another confession. My office is set up to be reminiscent of the Disneyland & Magic Kingdom entrance tunnels that run under the train stations. The walls are gray, the rug is red, and there are attraction posters on both sides of the room. Yes, I am married (incredibly!) and my wife is very cool for being okay with having all of this stuff in the house!
These are just a few of the Disneyland miniatures I’ve collected over the years. They were designed by an amazing artist named Robert Olszewski and they all actually are designed to fit into a platform where you can have your own miniature Disneyland. I’ll get back to that in just a little bit (and I’ll show you the ULTIMATE in Disney nerdery!).
This one is a ticket stub from Walt Disney’s It’s A Small World at the 1964-65 World’s Fair. This was another eBay find that I have yet to put on display because I’ve run out of wall space in my office!
My favorite piece of Disneyland memorabilia that I own is actually a little piece of Disneyland history. This is original concept artwork from a WED artist (now called Imagineers) for a sign at the Golden Horseshoe in Disneyland’s Frontierland. It’s not signed so I’m not sure which Imagineer drew this, but it was either drawn in 1954 or 1955 before Disneyland’s opening day. This is another one I still have yet to figure out how to display but once I do I think I’m going to start charging admission to see it!
And here it is, the ultimate in Disney fan nerd-dom, my complete Disneyland platform! These pieces were all hand-designed by Robert Olszewski and were purchased separately over the last 8 years. I saw the complete platform while my wife were on our honeymoon in Disneyland and right away I knew I NEEDED one in my house. Each individual building is wired together and with one flip of a switch it can instantly be nighttime at Disneyland in my house. Like the real Disneyland, though, this platform will never be complete. I still have to install the working train & music that I bought but haven’t had the time to get to just yet. I also have hundreds of tiny, hand-painted guests that will be “walking” up and down Main Street someday soon! And, if all of this stuff wasn’t enough to prove that I’m the ultimate Disney nerd, there’s this:
I modified the Disneyland sign on the platform to say “Welcome Gramlich Family!”.
Thank you for reading and taking a look behind the curtain at the Ear To There Travel Home Office! I hope you enjoyed the photo tour as much as I enjoy looking at this stuff every day while I’m “at work”! I truly love what I do and would be absolutely thrilled to help you plan your next Disney Vacation! Please feel free to let me know what you think about my office and my crazy Disney collection by commenting here on this page, writing on my Facebook wall or sending me a message HERE, Tweeting me HERE, or by sending me an email at phil@eartotheretravel.com. As always, please feel free to share this and any other blog post on your favorite social media site by clicking the buttons on the top or bottom of any blog post. Thank you again for your time and please enjoy the rest of your stay here at Ear To There Travel!
If you’re thinking about taking a Disney vacation soon, whether it’s Walt Disney World, Disneyland, the Disney Cruise Line, Aulani in Hawaii or Adventures By Disney, I can help! I offer concierge level service and will take care of any and all planning for you, and I will do that 100% FREE OF CHARGE!
