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Chef Robert Irvine Loves Helping Others, Meeting Fans and DISNEY!

Suzannah DiMarzio — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 14:59:39 +0000

As you may have seen on twitter and facebook, a few friends and fans of Chef Robert Irvine of Dinner: Impossible fame were treated to an informal and cozy little meet up at the Crew’s Cup Lounge inside Disney’s Yacht Club Resort. I have to thank Amanda Tinney for informing me of this hush-hush event, put together in part by Marc Bigbie and another facebook fan of the Chef. The meeting was kept quiet for the purposes of not having the chef mobbed by fans, camera flashes and questions (otherwise you can be sure that with three local bloggers in attendance – myself, Amanda, and Leigh Caldwell from ThemeParkMom.com – we would’ve spread the word!).

At first there was question as to whether the chef would make it over, as he was still filming and I guess had been stopped by many fans along the way. A man of his word, Chef Irvine did indeed show up and was extremely kind and appreciative that all of us had waited for him. So often you hear stories of celebrities having a different personality in real life or being too ‘big’ to bother with fans but that couldn’t be further from the truth here. Robert Irvine is as funny and warm-hearted in person as he is on his show. It would’ve been all too easy (and understandable!) for him to say, after a long day of shooting, “Sorry, I can’t make it”. Obviously he didn’t say that and we were so grateful for his time!

I swear Amanda and I aren't drooling or anything!

My other blogging pals have covered in great detail the interesting tidbits and stories he shared with us, so I’ll simply direct you to ThemeParkMom, DisneyEveryDay and DisneyFoodBlog for more information and pictures.

Something I never thought I would hear from a celebrity of any sort, was that they had my picture on their computer! Now before you go getting the wrong idea, let me explain. Back in February, several Walt Disney World Moms Panelist friends and many other bloggers converged on Disney property for the first annual Disney Social Media Moms Celebration. The event coincided with the Give a Day Get a Disney Day celebration and Chef Irvine was there filming a very special episode of Dinner: Impossible featuring some of the program volunteers and of course, Disney princesses.

This is Chef holding my phone and talking about the picture on my blog!

As we were strolling through Epcot’s World Showcase, my family and Moms Panelist Kathie Flood‘s family happened to see Chef at the American Adventure pavilion. We waved and he came walking right over to talk with us. We took a few pictures and I blogged about it. When that February visit came up in Friday night’s conversation, I showed him the picture from ZannaLand on my phone he immediately exclaimed, “I have that picture on my computer!” I thought he was joking at first, but he explained how he has several photos in a screensaver on his desktop and mine was “right there in the middle!” I was blown away! I shared the news with Kathie and she said it made her night too as I know she is a huge Robert Irvine fan. As you can see, Chef Irvine is truly one of a kind and all in attendance were just so grateful for his generosity.

That would be "Casualty" he's showing us...

Oh, and did I mention he bought us all tequila shots? Yes. This was the very good stuff…but being the lightweight that I am I could only do a sip! We would’ve been happy just spending some time with him but again, he went above and beyond and made us all feel special. Each fan that came up was able to get a photo or two and a word – even indulging requests to ‘show us his guns’ as we all swooned at his famous biceps (which he let us know were named “Casualty” – on the right and “Cemetery” – on the left because “If I hit you with Cemetery, you won’t be waking up” not that I’d ever think this gentle giant would hurt a fly!) Chef also shared with us that his next adventure was flying to Canada for the Make a Wish Foundation – one of his three charities of choice, the other two being armed forces and veterans. He said he’s loved coming to Disney for the past 4 years because of the people and how everyone works so hard to make it such a wonderful place. Chef Irvine was truly a class act, gracious and imploring us to do something nice for someone we don’t know, each day, to make the world a better place. Will do, Chef. Will do.

Huge thanks to Robert Irvine for a wonderful evening! If you’re in the Hilton Head, SC area, look for Robert Irvine’s eat! to experience some of Chef’s recipes first hand. Also be sure to watch for his new series Restaurant: Impossible, coming soon!!

Winner of Kevin Dundon Cookbook Giveaway and ZannaLand News

Suzannah DiMarzio — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 17:26:51 +0000

First things first, I must announce the winner of the “Great Family Food” by Chef Kevin Dundon giveaway. After inputting the number of entries into random.org, #14 was chosen – Jennifer P. Congratulations, Jennifer! I’ll be emailing you for your info to send the book your way. I wish you many happy hours of delicious cooking with it! Thank you so much to everyone that entered, tweeted, re-tweeted and spread the word about the giveaway and ZannaLand.

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Some other news – I am now an official contributing author at TampaBay.com’s Whoa, Momma! blog. I know I mentioned I was writing articles for them before, but now I’m all permanent-like and my name’s on the header and my author bio’s on the side. Yee haw! Pretty darn cool and I am extremely grateful and honored that the fine ladies over at Whoa, Momma! for taking a chance on me. You can read my latest post on Activities Off the Beaten Path at Disney there now, with more to come in the coming weeks. Some pieces may even be picked up by the St. Petersburg Times and in turn their news wire and show up in your local paper.

I’ve mentioned on twitter but I know not everyone is there – I have also written a couple of guest posts for Mr. Hidden Mickey Guy himself, Steven Barrett. Again, the honor was mine and if you told me a year ago I’d be doing either of these things, I’d have laughed and said “yeah, right!” I’m so very grateful. You can read my post on Disney After Dark and Staying Cool in the Summer at Disney over on his site.

And of course, you can find me over at DisneyWorldMoms.com where I’ll be answering questions for a few more weeks. I’d love to get a question from a reader to answer on the panel! Just click on the “ask Suzannah a question” link on my WDW Moms Panel bio page.

If you are looking for other ways to stay connected, you can find me on twitter @zannaland, or the facebook page for the site: facebook.com/zannaland (close to 500 members now!) over there you can post comments or questions on the wall, interact with other Disney fans, add pictures to the group photo album and keep up with all the blog entries as well. I’d love to see more of you!

Thank you so much for reading!

I was LOST but now I’m FOUND

Suzannah DiMarzio — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:59:51 +0000

Alright, I’m sure by now the entire population is aware of tonight’s premiere of the final season of Lost. I will admit to watching most of the first season, though I can’t remember much of it. I saw parts of I think the second or third season, but I really lost interest with the whole polar-bear-in-the-jungle premise and the introduction of the second group of people really did me in. It was kind of hard to hear all about the wonderment that is Lost and not want to jump on that bandwagon, but my stress levels simply couldn’t take it!

I am one of those people that has to psych herself up to watch a sad movie. I could live watching nothing but Bosom Buddies for the rest of my life because it’s just so happy and carefree…ish. Ok, I might get a little tired of Bosom Buddies but you get the idea. I actually get sick when I watch movies like Silence of the Lambs or pretty much any Martin Scorsese film. I’m not saying Lost is in that category, but I also can’t take series that stress you out with suspense AND don’t give you explanations for things. I’m all for mystery and mind-bending plot twists, but I’d like them to be resolved at LEAST by the end of each season. Give me a nice cliffhanger that frustrates me for a few days and I’ll get over it. Not plot lines that need entire websites, books and countless other sources of theories. My rainbows and unicorn-filled head just wouldn’t know what to do!

On a whim just now, I tweeted that I guessed I was the only person on the planet not watching Lost tonight. Well, imagine my surprise when my followers came out of the woodwork proclaiming their UN-Lost status as well. I was truly shocked. More people are tweeting even as I type this. One of my fellow Disney Moms, the gracious and beautiful Andi came up with a name for our group – FOUND. Another Disney fan and friend came up with the same group name as well, and the numbers keep growing of those ready to join. I’ve found out that people have many differing reasons for not watching, which was also a surprise.

Of course I am in no way bashing the show or the amazing J.J. Abrams, I’m really a huge fan.The original reason I started watching Lost was because of Dominic Monaghan, who I *may* have had a crush on during the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Oh, Merry…sigh) but we’ll save that discussion for another time. In any event – FOUND members, stand up and be counted and share why you won’t be watching tonight (or any night?).

How cool is this?! I couldn't NOT share it here. Photo © @wdwmom

HOWEVER – my very amazing friend OhAmanda not only loves LOST, she writes about it at The Disney Blog and on her own blog as well, so if you are looking to convert, we won’t judge, and she’ll show you the WAY! (and if I find out there’s a happy ending I just may have to catch up myself. shhhh.)

< --- EDIT: Check out what another Disney Mom friend did for her LOSTie family in celebration of tonight’s premiere:

If there are other shows you aren’t on the bandwagon for and feel alone – comment with those here too, you never know, you might find another support group!

We’ve Only Just Begun…

Suzannah DiMarzio — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:44:41 +0000

Happy 2010 to all reading this! I took a bit of time off from writing for the holidays to enjoy some family time at home, but now it’s time to get back into full swing here at ZannaLand. I can’t tell you how excited I am for this new year and all it may bring. I thought I’d take a moment to talk about where I’ve come from and where I hope to be going in 2010.

According to my archives, I wrote my first entry on this blog on March 5, 2009. It was a pretty silly entry about working on the technical stuff and how I’d soon be updating. Then a month went by and I posted one more time. And another month and I posted a rant about annoying people leading up to Mother’s Day. Then…I decided to make the switch and talk about what I knew, Disney. In June, I started writing semi-regularly about the topic I know and love, Walt Disney World. It’s been both a long 10 months and at the same time feels like the past year flew by.

I went through many changes in a short time with the blog, wondering if I should be all newsy and informative, realizing no one can compete with the amazing Disney news sources already out there, thinking I should be more personal, starting up a sub-blog about personal things, realizing I should just combine the two, and getting to where I am today – a blog about all the things I find interesting and share-worthy about my life, family and the World (Disney World that is). I know a lot more about the world of blogging and social media than when I started, but boy do I still have a lot to learn! And I can’t wait to learn it!

I’m not sure if anyone has read my About Me section, but I thought I’d expand a little bit on it. I’ve actually been writing online for over 10 years now, before it was really called blogging. I started out when I discovered iVillage.com and the due-date message boards they had there for children born in the same month/year. I joined the January 1999 one and soon made a ton of new friends with babies born the same time as my firstborn. There were message boards for pretty much any and every parenting topic as well as women’s issues etc. Members could volunteer to be Community Leaders (CL’s) on the message boards and be in charge of keeping conversations going and welcoming new members. After being a member for a while, I decided to try my hand at leading a few communities.

Around that time, in 2001, iVillage was bought by Hearst Magazines and decided to add many new message boards themed to the various magazines they published, from Good House keeping to Cosmo (with quite shocking topics, in keeping with the Cosmo reputation). I can’t really remember which boards I was hosting now so many years later, because at one time I got up to 14 boards that I led. It was really my escape and my sanity-saver, being a stay at home mom of 2 under 2.

I remember wanting more than anything to be a CM – Community Moderator, which was actually a paid position and you were in charge of deleting inappropriate posts and motivating the CL’s to keep the boards running smoothly. I tried twice in a year to obtain one of those coveted positions, to no avail. (Think of it as the Disney Moms Panel of its time, only a paid position.) I didn’t understand why I wasn’t chosen for it until I learned of the politics and behind-the-scenes things going on. Finally I realized it was just too much drama and was not worth the heartache and headache for something I wasn’t even that passionate about. I do believe everything happens for a reason, and my lack of passion was the lesson I needed to learn at that time. iVillage is now affiliated with NBC/Universal and is I’m sure a completely different animal than it was in 1999 or even 2002. I haven’t even logged onto the site since that time frame so I have no clue what the message boards are like anymore.

Around April of 2002, my best friend asked me to add her as a friend on LiveJournal. It wasn’t until she asked that I realized I had signed up a year earlier but hadn’t done anything with it. Posting there was strange at first; it was like an online diary, and who is used to readers of a diary? I posted there “friends-only” which meant it was not open to the public, only those I added to my list could read what I had to say. Writing on lj was so freeing! I’d been posting for almost 3 years in a venue where you were censored with what words you could say, what topics you could discuss, and worry about community reaction to your words. On LiveJournal I could say anything and no one really cared. In the back of my mind even then, I longed to write publicly, but feared no one outside of my little circle of friends would be interested.

I posted there regularly, building up my ‘friends list’ and joining communities that seemed fun or interesting. I shared stories and pictures of my kids growing up, I started my own separate communities for Orlando residents, weight-loss support, and making graphics. Reading my friends list was a daily necessity as was hitting refresh all day to see what new posts had been written. At one point I had close to 500 followers, which by lj standards was a lot. While there I learned that I was not ‘just a mom’. I was friends with people from all walks of life, with all different lifestyles and cultural backgrounds. People I would never have had a chance to meet otherwise. These same people became my support system, seeing me through my rough times and my triumphs. They were there for me as we moved cross-country 3 times. There for me when my dad got sick and passed away. There for me when I took the plunge into writing and produced my own zine and later got an essay published in a book. I took risks I never thought I’d take thanks to the built-in cheering squad I had. (Twitter users, sound familiar?)

I became so close to some friends, that I actually met up with them in real life. Over the years I met about 20 people that up until that point had just been words on a screen. People came to visit me and I gladly opened my home to them like family and of course showed them around Disney World as well. One particular couple clicked so well with us, they’ve visited from California 3 times – and we asked them to be baby G’s godparents. As a shy person, I never thought I’d be able to just meet up with “strangers”, find out we had so much in common and become friends for life. I have lj to thank for that, for allowing me to take the risks I did both in life and in writing, to advance to the next level in my goals as a person. Having a place to work out the inner thoughts in my mind helped me realize what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go with my life.

That brings us back to blogging and social media. I’d heard about twitter for about a year before really understanding the point of it. Even when I finally signed up, I still didn’t ‘get it’. I abandoned my account for a while, then in March of last year, created the current account I have now, in hopes of promoting the new blog. Soon I found out that there was a huge Disney presence on twitter. I was adding people right and left and then finding mom bloggers, businesses and even some celebrities to follow.

Within weeks I was again creating connections and even friendships via twitter. It was amazing to me to have people interested in my little 140 character updates and pictures. People actually wanted to read my blog and I loved re-tweeting links or tweets I wanted to share. I remember my ecstatic reaction to Russell Brand actually replying to my tweet to him. Russell Brand! I was equally excited when Disney Parks followed me back. I was actually networking and fostering relationships!

I will admit to going a bit overboard at times on twitter – I am easily excitable and the WDW Moms Panel was a perfect example of that. Once I had it in my mind to achieve that goal, my focus was on getting noticed and sharing my commitment to that goal. Did my constant tweeting about wanting to make the panel help? I’ll never know for sure. I mean, even now that I’m on the panel, I have no more insight into how the panelists are chosen. I am confident in my Disney knowledge and background and made it a personal goal to use and share that knowledge with others. If I hadn’t made the panel, I probably could’ve found 100 reasons why (especially after meeting my fellow panel members with their amazing backgrounds!). I will say this – there are 1000′s of people on twitter with a bigger following/fan base than I have as well as the majority of 2010 panelists not having any real twitter or online presence at all prior to being chosen. More proof that there isn’t any ONE thing Disney is looking for.

So what does the future hold here at ZannaLand? Who knows – and that’s how I like it! Anything is possible, I’ve proven that. I hope to expand my readership here as well as being involved with as many social media and other projects as I can manage. Someday I’ll write that book that lives in my head, but until then, I’m having fun just sharing my memories and life here with all of you. I am so completely beyond excited for the new year with the Walt Disney World Moms Panel and while I have no expectations other than serving my quarter answering questions in April, I welcome any and all opportunities that being a panel member may bring.

Since achieving my goal of making it to the panel and taking part in the training we all experienced, my new goal is to somehow, someway, someday become a Disney cast member again. It’s funny how being a cast member in the theme parks at 22 is an amazing experience, but really doesn’t clue you in to just the sheer number of amazing cast member opportunities that exist at Disney Parks. Getting to see the special events and PR/social media team up close and person gives a girl a whole new set of dreams. Until that magical moment however, I’ll be here sharing my stories, pictures, experiences and reviews with you – and I can’t wait to see what the new year brings us all. I’ve met some unbelievably wonderful people through twitter. Like lj, people I never would have normally met in my day to day life. I am so grateful for the connections I’ve made and friendships I’ve started because of it. Twitter and blogging are not about the number of followers you can earn, or subscribers you can garner – it’s about relationships you can create. I’m so happy with the ones I’ve created and can’t wait to make more.

Happy New Year!

Disney’s A Christmas Carol: The IMAX Experience-Twitter Party & Giveaway!

Suzannah DiMarzio — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:12:13 +0000

Walt Disney Pictures and Robert Zemeckis proudly present Disney’s A Christmas Carol in Disney 3D opening this Friday, November 6, 2009. IMAX wants you to experience this amazing new film in IMAX 3D and is giving away prizes all this week on their facebook page.

Just by being a reader of ZannaLand, you can also enter to win a prize pack consisting of one Disney’s A Christmas Carol movie poster and one Disney’s A Christmas Carol: Movie Storybook. To enter simply become a fan of IMAX on Facebook and let me know by leaving a comment here on this blog entry. That’s it!

In addition, IMAX and Resourceful Mommy are hosting a Twitter party this Thursday from 9:00 – 10:00pm ET. Just log on to Twitter at that time and join in the fun conversations using the hashtag #xmasIMAX. Be sure to follow @IMAX and @ResourcefulMom to keep up with the giveaways! I’ll be there too, feel free to say hello – @zannaland

There will be more than a dozen winners during the Twitter party on Thursday night so be sure to RSVP for the Twitter party, EDIT: The Twitter party was a great success, but has now ended. The contest for the prize from participating blogs will end on 11/11, so you can still enter! Become a Facebook IMAX fan, and comment here!

See you Thursday night when we’ll turn those Bah Humbugs into Woo hoos!!

Where the Wild Things Are IMAX Experience-Prize Pack!

Suzannah DiMarzio — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 01:25:08 +0000

You may have heard that the film adaptation of beloved children’s author Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are opened in theatres across the country last Friday. Did you know it is actually available as an IMAX Experience as well? Starting Monday, October 19th, IMAX is launching a special Where the Wild Things Are promotion for their Facebook fans!

Each day from October 19-23, two lucky fans who put the Where the Wild Things Are crown on their profile picture and comment on the IMAX Wall will be entered to win an exclusive IMAX Where the Wild Things Are poster, book, and a pair of IMAX movie tickets! The crown image and full instructions will be released on the IMAX Fan Page on Monday!

In addition – just for reading this blog, you can be eligible to win an exclusive Where the Wild Things Are PRIZE PACK! Two readers from across the participating Momfluence blogs will win the following Where the Wild Things Are Prize Pack:

An adult Where the Wild Things Are t-shirt (L or XL)

A kids Where the Wild Things Are t-shirt (size large)

A Where the Wild Things Are Crown

An exclusive Where the Wild Things Are IMAX poster

Where the Wild Things Are book

A pair of IMAX movie tickets

Here are the two simple steps to enter:

1. Become a fan of IMAX on Facebook here: http://facebook.com/IMAX
2. Fill out this secure document: http://bit.ly/1kjn8H

The contest ends Friday, October 23rd at 11:59 p.m. ET and is open to all legal U.S. residents age 18 years or older.

If that’s not WILD enough for you, join us for a Twitter Party to sitewarm the IMAX Facebook page! The party will take place on Monday, October 19, from 9 to 10pm ET on Twitter, using the #IMAXWildThings hashtag. Please visit ResourcefulMommy.com to RSVP and for more information details and chances to win!

See you Monday when the wild rumpus will start!

Brought to you by Momfluence.This contest and party are part of a campaign sponsored by IMAX.