March Update to The easy Guide

By Dave Shute

A few days ago co-author Josh and I published an updated version of our guidebook, The easy Guide to Your Walt Disney World Visit 2017.

We pride ourselves on writing the best-reviewed, most accurate and most up-to-date Disney World guidebook series ever, and part of keeping it up to date is revising it several times a year.

Our latest revision included more than 60 pages of changes. Key changes are below.

CHAPTER 1: HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

Chapter 1 includes three things: guidance on how to use the book, boiling down our recommendations—especially for first timers–by chapter; and “what’s new” for returning visitors.

The key changes are in “what’s new,” and point out

• The loss of the evening parade at Magic Kingdom
• The new show Happily Ever After, which will replace Wishes in May
• The new evening attractions at Animal Kingdom, and the late May opening there of Pandora: World of Avatar
• The projected end of the Wilderness Lodge refurb, and the beginnings of major refurbs at Caribbean Beach and Coronado Springs
• The ticket price increase of February 2017

CHAPTER 2: WHY AGE AND HEIGHT MATTER and CHAPTER 3: HOW LONG TO STAY

These two chapters saw only minor changes.

• In Chapter 2, we added the new rides to open at Pandora: World of Avatar to our summary table about the appropriateness of rides for folk of different ages, and to the ride height restrictions chart table
• In Chapter 3, we updated some ticket price material

CHAPTER 4: WHEN TO GO

In Chapter 4 we sharpened up material for which dates are now firm—or more firm–including

• The opening of Pandora May 27
• The kick-off of the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival in August and its last day of November 13
• The possibility that Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party will begin August 25

CHAPTER 5: WHERE TO STAY

Most of the changes in Chapter 5 were from or about resort refurbs

• The opening of the Copper Creek Villas at the Wilderness Lodge in mid-July, and other refurb-related WL items
• The already-started demolition, construction, and room refurbs at Coronado Springs
• The beginning-in-May replacement of the food, shopping, and bar at Caribbean Beach with temporary facilities while new constructions launches
• The refurb at Pop Century that kicked off earlier this month
• Minor updates on refurbs at the Dolphin and the Yacht Club

CHAPTER 6: HOW TO SPEND YOUR TIME

Chapter 6 is the heart of the book, and saw 22 pages of changes from us—well, actually, almost entirely from Josh.

Just a few highlights of the updates here include:

• Substantial revisions to the Animal Kingdom guide and cheat sheet, especially the touring plans, principally based on the effects of Rivers of Light on priorities and touring. (Our update for Pandora will come out once it is stable, likely in late June; see both of our sites for FastPass+ and touring plan advice well before then.) The new Animal Kingdom material of course includes an all-new review of Rivers of Light
• Updates on the changes to the park opening procedures and minor changes to the Epcot touring plans—mostly cleaning up typos
• In the Hollywood Studios section, updates on the changes to the park opening procedures and more detailed reviews of the two daytime Star Wars shows, and a revised approach to seeing Fantasmic and the Star Wars fireworks. No significant touring plan changes, other than even more emphasis than we already had to keep refreshing for new FastPass+ opportunities.
• Updates on the changes to the park opening procedures and evening offerings at Magic Kingdom, and minor changes to the Character-Centric Touring Plan, Morning Day 2

CHAPTER 7: WHERE TO EAT

Like Chapter 6, Chapter 7 saw dozens of changes

New or completely redone reviews include

• Paddlefish
• Planet Hollywood Observatory
• Las Ventanas

Other changes included

• New character breakfast with Rapunzel, Flynn, Ariel and Eric
• Shift of the characters at Hollywood & Vine at lunch
• New Dining Plan prices

CHAPTER 8: WHICH TICKETS TO BUY AND HOW MUCH TO BUDGET

Disney raised ticket prices in February 2017, so all our pricing material has been revised. One ticket form is gone, a new one has been added, there’s now a penalty for not buying in advance, and a new expiration policy is in place—we cover all of these.

CHAPTER 9: HOW TO SET EVERYTHING UP AND GET EVERYTHING DONE

In Chapter 9, we made no substantive changes, but rather only cleaned up some awkward wording (the 90,000 other instances of awkward wording in Chapters 1-8 remain).

*  *  *  *  *

The easy Guide is the only Disney World guidebook to offer free updates to the current year edition.
We sent out emails last week to those already on the update list.

To join our list—you’ll get the latest update, plus we’ll do at least one more update to this edition, after Pandora opens (after then, we’ll turn to the 2018 edition)– just follow the instructions below!

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