Celebrating One Year of DisneyTouristBlog.com!
It’s hard to believe, but DisneyTouristBlog.com launched one year ago today. In that time, we’ve seen a strong surge in readership, growing from 1 reader (my mom–even I didn’t read this garbage!) back on February 24, 2011 to over 11 readers today (our dog and cat count, right?). As we reach our anniversary date today, we’re quite proud that this has been our most successful week ever, traffic-wise, and we still have two days to go before the week is over!
It’s been a lot of fun sharing our photos, reviews, and other content with you, and we really appreciate all of your support. It’s almost cliche for a website to thank its readers for helping it grow, but really, without all you readers, this blog would not have grown like it has. As you may know, there are a lot of Disney fan-based websites out there, and given the sheer number of other sites, especially those that have been well-established since the late 1990s, it’s very difficult for a new site to find a readership. While we’re nowhere as popular as some of the big Disney fan sites, we have been shocked and amazed at how many of you have read and shared our content. From the bottom of our hearts, we sincerely thank you for that, and we hope you continue to read and share our content with your Disney-loving friends. There’s a reason we basically beg you to share the content at the end of most posts we write—because that really does help us reach a greater audience. So continue to share! If you do and we see you in the parks, we’ll buy you a cookie or something.
When we welcomed you to the site on February 24, 2011 (check out the post to see our original logo!), our mission statement, of sorts, was to offer a website that would be “different from the myriad of other Disney sites out there offering travel advice, as we will interject our wit, unique writing style, and quality photography to supplement our objective-as-possible takes on our experiences.” Now, I’d like to think we’ve stayed true to that as much as possible, but please let us know if we have deviated from this aim, or if we ever do. We don’t want to go on “auto-pilot” churning out the same press release style fluff that is found on some other sites, so make sure to keep us in line if that has (or ever does) happen.
We’ve had a lot of fun this first year—for those of you who have just joined us, here are a handful of our favorite posts from the past year:
Is the Disney Dining Plan Worth It?
Ultimate Disney Vacation Packing List
Photo & Video from Walt Disney World’s 40th Anniversary
Is Disney Vacation Club Right For You?
Top 11 Photos from 2011
Tips for Buying Photography Equipment
Drinking Around the World at Epcot
5 Tips for Awesome Vacation Photos
Disneyland to Walt Disney World Coast-to-Coast Trip Report
Cinderella Castle Suite Tour
Club 33 at Disneyland Photos & Review
As for the future? Well, there’s a great big beautiful tomorrow shining at the end of every day. We have a lot of exciting Disney-related things on our plates this year, some of which are planned for the website, and some are not. None of these things are ready to be announced quite yet (so why the heck did we just tease them—sorry about that!), but many of them should be pretty exciting. As always, we plan on continuing to travel way-too-much (look for us out at Disneyland for “One More Disney Day”) and reporting on our experiences with all of you.
With that said, to all who have come to this happy place, DisneyTouristBlog.com, THANKS!
-Sarah & Tom Bricker
Congratulations! Looks like more than 11 readers to me, though, from all the comments.
I assume most of these comments are from spam-bots! 😉
Congrats! Been following since day one. Keep the horrible photography and uninspired posts coming. No seriously, this site is great and I always look forward to new posts!
Our content might suck, but at least it consistently sucks…there’s something to be said about consistency, right?!
Consistently sucking creates a vacuum, and eventually you have to empty the bag.
Love your posts and pics. You are talented and funny. Thanks for letting us live vicariously through you!
Congrats on the year! I don’t comment/post too often but I read whenever I need a dose of Disney! I thoroughly enjoy all the gorgeous photos and quirky commentary! Keep it up and best wishes!
We’re glad you like the site–thanks!
Tom, My wife and I really enjoy your photos. what I really like about your work is that you generally do not go overboard with Photoshop (or whatever software you use).
When I look at a photo, I want to feel like I am really there. Photos that are heavily altered,often feel cartoonish, and I loose interest quickly.
Your photos really bring me back to the parks every time I see them. I look forward to more.
P.S. I would like to see more photos of Downtown Disney on both coasts. I think you could really capture the feel of those places, especially at night.
Thanks again for your wonderful work.
We will cover more on Downtown Disney at Disneyland in the future, but don’t expect a whole lot for WDW’s. It’s too tough to access and is generally a waste of time (with a few exceptions), in our opinion.
Love reading all You And Sarah do. Please keep it up. Thank you.
Glad you’re enjoying our site!