Contestant Blogs
This Week's Contestant
Mark & Heather C.
| Theme: | Making Disney Memories Week |
|---|---|
| Hometown: | Liberty Twp, OH |
| Week of: | 01-28-2013 |
POSTED on Thursday, January 31st, 2013
Were we nervous? Absolutely! Were we prepared? Definitely! Again, the contestant coordinators are phenomenal! We started VERY early but the coordinators spent the entire day preparing us for our big moment! They reviewed the rules, gave us tips, let us practice spinning the wheel and calling letters, and so much more. They are professional morale boosters!
The set is so beautiful! It's smaller than it looks on TV, as is the wheel, but it was really amazing seeing the set guys transform it to a Disney wonderland, complete with Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy and Lightning McQueen. The entire studio audience wore mouse ears! It was surreal!
Pat and Vanna were so very nice. Vanna even came into the green room to say hi before the taping and to wish us all good luck.
Finally, it was our turn; time to tape our show. Oddly enough, our nerves had dissipated at this point and we felt completely ready. Our attitude was that we were there to have fun. We were there to play the game we had dreamed of playing our entire lives. If we won any money, that was just a nice bonus on top of this once in a lifetime experience! We had devised a plan for how we would play together. My wife would call the letters, and keep track of what had been called and I would spin the wheel and focus on solving the puzzles. Solving the puzzles was easy. It was the spin of the wheel however, that truly determined our fate in the game.
In the end, we won $11,500! We were just short of making it to the bonus round but are SO excited and grateful for the money we did win. It was a huge blessing, especially considering how hard we were hit when the economy collapsed. We are using most of the money to get back on track, but some of it for fun! We are planning a trip to Florida this falland who knows, we may even stop by and say hi to Mickey.