Category — p. News and Changes

AJ of the Disney Food Blog is reporting here on changes to the dates of Disney World’s free dining offer.

Those who have already booked free dining are fine, even if their dates aren’t covered any more; new bookings MUST follow the new dates.

I’ve got both the old dates and the new dates here–the old dates are slashed through, like this.

Analysis shows that with one exception  the Disney World free dining arrival dates now begin a day earlier (on Saturdays rather than Sundays) and in all cases end two days earlier, on Thursdays rather than Saturdays.

The effect is to add 9  Saturday arrival dates and subtract 20 Friday and different Saturday arrival dates, for a net reduction of 11 arrival dates.

Shifting the end of each arrival date period from Saturdays to the Thursdays two days before will make it harder for many families to take advantage of these deals during some popular weeks.

(Note: Not all of the black-out dates are popular weeks–for example, the October, early December, and early February blacked-out dates should all have low crowds.)

Again, according to AJ, if you’ve already booked, you are fine–the changed dates apply only to new bookings.

For more on the free dining offer, including both the new and old dates, click here.

I’ve been getting a lot of questions and comments about the potential impact of Hurricane Irene on Walt Disney World.

As I update this Thursday morning, it looks like Irene will cause little to no trouble at Walt Disney World.

Weather.com has an overview of Irene here and an Irene threat level map here.

Over this week, as the projected track has moved further east, the threat level for Orlando has moved from “medium,” to “low” to none.  The current expectation is for possible rain and wind gusts Friday morning.

Check the links above or below for up to date forecasts.

The local paper, the Orlando Sentinel, also has good info.

• For its weather page, click here
• For its hurricane page, click here
• For its cone of uncertainty for tropical storms and hurricanes, click here.

Storms like this are usually not a severe issue for Walt Disney World.

Even if they pass right over Disney World, their journey over land to Orlando dissipates their energy and makes them more like a really bad thunderstorm than like what most people visualize as a hurricane.

But things change, so stay up to date with the links, especially with the Irene threat level map and its cone of uncertainty.

For more on hurricanes at Walt Disney World, see this, and for some basic precautions see the lower part of my tornado page here.

INTERIOR PHOTOS OF ART OF ANIMATION RESORT PUBLISHED

Update: there’s an official 3-D drawing at about 1.14 of the Disney video that’s linked to on this page: http://wdwnewstoday.com/archives/8058.  Thanks to Barberella for the link! 

Disney recently published here the first available interior photographs of its new Art of Animation Resort (which I’ve written about previously here).

From  Disney’s photos you can see

• The kitchen and main living room
• The convertible dining room table
• This table converted into a bed
• The relationship of this cool bed to the master bedroom
• The master bedroom itself; and
• A bit of the master bath.

It seems–as previously speculated–that the entry is indeed from an interior hallway, and I saw no evidence of a balcony–although there could possibly be one off the master bedroom.

BUILDING A FLOOR PLAN OF THE ART OF ANIMATION RESORT FROM THESE IMAGES

What you can’t see from the photos is the entry itself, the kids’ bath, the closet, or the layout of either bath.

That’s not enough to stop me, so I built a rough floor plan tying together what I could see and speculating about what I couldn’t.

I’m sure it will be at best only moderately accurate–but it’s more accurate than the first set of speculative floor plans published here.

MORE ON WHERE TO STAY AT DISNEY WORLD

• For where to stay, see this
  • For your next best choices, in order, see this
  • For picking your resort based on appeal to kids, see this
  • For picking your resort based on convenience, see this
  • For where not to stay, see this

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• For what you get in each resort price category, see this
  • For Walt Disney World resort price seasons, see this
  • For resort reviews, see this
  • For the value resorts, see this
  • For the moderate resorts, see this
  • For the deluxe resorts, see this
  • For suites at the deluxe resorts, see this
  • For the Disney Vacation Club (“DVC”) Resorts, see this

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• For a (geeky) overview of comparative room size, see this

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• Large families should look at this, and also at
  • Large Families Looking for Value Pricing at Walt Disney World
  • Large Families Looking for Deluxe Accommodations at Disney World
  • Beds and Sleeping Spaces at the Walt Disney World Resorts
  • Renting Disney Vacation Club Points
  • Suites at Walt Disney World

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• Military/DOD families should look at this

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• Tightwads should look at this

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• Families seeking the most comfortable place to stay should see this

DISNEY WORLD FREE DINING DEALS OFTEN ACCOMPANIED BY ROOM RATE DISCOUNT DEALS

Disney World currently has a free dining deal with dates into March 2012.

In the recent past, it’s been unusual for Disney World to have a dining deal out and not also have a room rate discount out for at least the first part of the dining deal period.

Disney World’s room rate discount deals are typically in the 15%-40% range, depending on the price of the hotels offered, and typically also have fewer blackout dates than the free dining program.

RUMORS SUGGEST A DISNEY WORLD ROOM RATE DEAL MAY BE ON THE WAY

Rumors are out that a new set of pin code deals are out–e.g. see Dawn Tinnirello’s article here.

It suggests pin code discounts of up to 35% for the period September 18, 2011 to December 22, 2011, excluding Thanksgiving week.

Deals available to the general public often first come out as pin codes or Disney Visa cardholder offers, and then to the rest of us!

There’s no guarantees, but keep your fingers crossed!

The 2012 Disney World Week Picker is out!

It’s designed to be an alternative way of picking your time to visit Disney World instead of using this site’s 2012 Weeks to Visit, Ranked in Order.

It lets you decide for yourself the importance to you of crowds, prices, and weather, and, based on your choices, offers you the best weeks of 2012 that meet your criteria!

The 2011 version has already helped visitors to Disney World pick their weeks with more than 130,000 hits–so give the 2012 Disney World Week Picker a try–it may be a huge help to you!

MORE ON WHEN TO GO TO WALT DISNEY WORLD

• For when to go to Walt Disney World, see this
• For the next best dates, see this
• For the best and worst times to visit, see this
  • For 2011 weeks to visit, ranked in order, see this
  • For the 2011 Week Picker, see this
  • For 2012 weeks to visit, ranked in order, see this
  • For the 2012 Week Picker, see this
• For forecasting crowds at Walt Disney World, see this
  • For the 2011 Crowd Calendar, click here
  • For the 2012 Crowd Calendar, click here
• For seasonal pricing at Walt Disney World, see this
  • For 2011 price seasons, see this
  • For 2012 price seasons, see this
• For weather at Walt Disney World, see this

TouringPlans.com is reporting here that last week Disney World changed its policy on how long you have to add days and other stuff to your park tickets.

Under the old policy, you could add days and such anytime up until 14 days after the first use and pay no more than if you had bought everything at one time.

This was handy for folks on a budget, as they need not add days, hoppers or such until they discovered they needed them.

Now, if you want to add to your ticket, you must do so by the end of the day of last use of your current ticket.

So if you have a four day ticket, you can only add days and such if you do so before the end of the day you use your fourth day.

This is still a bargain compared to having to pay day one rates–but it’s not quite as easy to manage as the old way of doing things, as you have less time to make your decision, and some people used to the old policy will be caught by surprise.