Well, it’s been another fantastic year for Military Disney Tips!

The growth in traffic coming to the site has been fantastic. We’ve just closed out our fourth year on the web and I’ve got to tell you how rewarding doing this is to me. I’ve had contact with so many of you both through emails and blog comments. I really enjoy being able to answer your questions about these sometimes very confusing military discounts.

MDT has grown from the humblest of beginnings to the large resource for military families that it is today. While I have put quite a bit of time and effort into the site, it’s you the readers who make the site so successful.

I wanted to take a moment to say thanks to all of you. I’m so appreciative of your interest. It’s been my pleasure to try to help you in any way I can to plan for your Disney vacations.

I especially want to thank those of you who have taken the time to send in your suggestions for topics, your boots on the ground reports, and also words of encouragement. It means a lot to me!

What You Want To Know

The big question on everyone’s mind right now is will there be a Disney Armed Forces Salute renewal past 30 September 2012? While I think it likely from talking to my Disney contacts, there is nothing official yet. Sign up for my Newsletter to hear about a renewal as soon as I know.

Shades of Green is also waiting to see what Disney will do. They’ve stopped announcing discounts past 30 Sept. because if there isn’t going to be an Armed Forces Salute they’ll revert to normal operations which would be no discounts off their normal prices. A thing we haven’t experienced since 2008.

Quite a few of you needed help interpreting or clarifying these sometimes confusing discounts. I received almost 600 emails this past year which it was my pleasure to answer. So many of you sent me your very kind compliments. Thanks!

This Year’s Big Growth In Numbers

This year the site has seen fantastic growth. Military Disney Tips received 242,412 visitors and 765,159 pageviews during the last 12 months. Our Newsletter has grown to over 1,725 subscribers. Our FaceBook fan page has grown to 1,347 Likes this year. Just prior to our 3^rd birthday we started our Military Disney Twitter account and we now have 189 followers. This year we started on Google Plus and we are in 104 people’s circles, we’re on the new military social media site Armedzilla, and just last month started our own Pin Boards on Pinterest.

Our Great Partners

This year is our 4th fantastic year partnering with Ears of Experience, an authorized Disney vacation planner and Veteran Owned Business. Over 495 of you have asked Amy for help making your Disney reservations this past year.

This has also been my fourth year teaming with YourFirstvisit.net a fantastic Disney World site geared towards the first time visitor. A perfect compliment to my site!

In July we became an affiliate of TouringPlans.com, publishers of the Unofficial Guides to Walt Disney World and Disneyland. Their books and Touring Plans website offer a huge amount of information as well as many step by step plans for touring Disney’s theme parks which will save you hours of time waiting in lines. They also offer their Lines App which gives you access to attraction wait times on your smartphone.

Big Stories This Year

The best stories of the year fell into many categories.

Many of course highlighted military discounts in and around the Disney Theme Parks,  like: Military Discounted Hotels – Military Deals in the Central Florida Area, Disney World Downtown Disney Resort Area Hotels offer Military Discounts, and Regular Disney Military Discount for Walt Disney World and Disneyland Tickets.

There were of course many Shades of Green posts: Shades of Green Offers 40 Percent Discount On Rooms, Lucky’s Snack Bar at Shades of Green, and Non-US Military Members Eligible To Stay At Shades Of Green.

Plus the non-Disney stuff like: 2012 Anheuser-Busch Here’s to the Heroes Salute – Free Military Theme Park Tickets. This is just a small overview of all the content over the last 12 months.

Worldwide Readers

While most of the site’s readers this year have been Stateside, we also have quite a few readers from overseas locations where our military members are stationed or deployed such as: The UK, Puerto Rico, Germany, Japan, Brazil, South Korea, Italy, Qatar, Guam, Iraq, The Netherlands, Spain, Afghanistan, Kuwait, The UAE, and Bahrain to name a few.

The Rest Of The Web

Because of the one of a kind content found on this site, many sites including other great Disney sites on the net sent visitors our way. I’d like to thank all of those sites for their support this year.

Here are the sites which sent the most traffic our way:

Yourfirstvisit.net

Dis Boards

Orange County Register Deals

Army Wife 101 Where Crystal allowed me to guest post

Wikipedia

Disney Dispatch

Disney Food Blog Where AJ has also allowed me to guest post

Disney Tourist Blog

USMC Life

Passporter Boards

Mouse Owners

Coastie Chicks

Couponing to Disney

Operation Military Kids

Military Duty Stations where I did a guest post

Military SOS

Your Favorite Pages

Here are some of the pages that you found most helpful this year:

Disney’s Armed Forces Salute

The infamous Unlimited Disney Military Discount Tickets Post. During the first several months of the Armed Forces Salute extension the offer changed several times and this version only lasted one week.

Sea World Busch Gardens Military Salute 2011 & 2012 

Military Discounts

Universal Orlando Military Discount 2011 &2012

Shades of Green

The Armed Forces Salute FAQ

And my new Intro to Military Disney Tips Page

Looking Forward

As you can see it’s been a busy year here at Military Disney Tips and I’m really looking forward to the upcoming year. It’s been my pleasure to provide content that I think you might find helpful and I’m so glad that the site’s growth shows you are enjoying it.

I’ve got some exciting things coming up. Later this month I’ll be covering Disney’s Heroes Work Here job fair and I’m excited to announce I’ll be interviewed for an episode of Soldiers Family Radio & TV, an internet based audio and video provider of content for military families seen by over 400,000 viewers. And look for some quotes from me in an upcoming Military Times (Army Times, Navy Times, and Air Force Times) Off Duty section article on “How to get the best rooms at the military resorts”.

Stay tuned for info on an Armed Forces Salute announcement and any other military discounts that become available in the next year. I’ll send out an immediate Newsletter Update as soon as I hear something!

Thanks so much, Steve
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