Category — p. News and Changes

TOURING HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS AFTER TOY STORY LAND OPENS

UPDATE 4/18. This won’t work for June 30-August 25 (for why, see this).  I’ll have a revision out shortly!

I’m starting to work on my revised itineraries for Disney’s Hollywood Studios for use after Toy Story Land opens on June 30. I’m waiting to finalize them until Disney releases the official FastPass+ tiering—or May 1 (60 days before), whichever comes first.

FastPass+ at Hollywood Studios has tiering—you can pick only one attraction from “Tier One” rides, and up to two or three (three only if you don’t pick a Tier One) from another group.

Image (c) Disney

With the opening of Toy Story Land, it’s expected that the tiering here will shift quite a bit from what it is today. Expected to be in Tier One are the two new rides, the family coaster Slinky Dog Dash and the minor spinning ride Alien Swirling Saucers, and also the other ride in Toy Story Land, Toy Story Mania.

Attractions expected to be in Tier Two include most, but perhaps not all, of

• Beauty and the Beast Live on Stage
• Disney Jr. Live on Stage
• Fantasmic!
• Frozen Sing-Along
• Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular
• Muppet Vision 3D
• Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster
• Star Tours
• Tower of Terror
• Voyage of the Little Mermaid

The new tiering complicates one day visits for those who wish to see all three Toy Story rides. One can be seen at rope drop, one via FastPass+, but the third will require either some waits or seeing it at park close, which might get in the way of seeing one of the evening shows here.

Some guests with older children will want to skip Alien Swirling Saucers as it does not look like there’s much to this ride, but Alien Swirling Saucers likely will have such low capacity that the skippers won’t mean a lot for waits—at least early on. Others will want to skip Slinky Dog Dash, as they avoid coasters. However, the experience so far with the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train coaster at Magic Kingdom suggests that if Slinky Dog Dash is as family friendly as I expect, the skippers won’t have much impact on waits for it, it either.

For most one a one day visit, my suggestion would be to see Toy Story Mania at rope drop, pre-book FastPass+ Slinky Dog, and skip Alien Swirling Saucers, seeing the evening shows instead. For those with younger folk or avoiding coasters, book your FastPass+ for Alien Swirling Saucers and skip Slinky Dog. But good itinerary design means not skipping rides.

For a while now my standard itineraries have devoted two calendar days to Disney’s Hollywood Studios, for several different reasons:

• Allowing people to see both the evening shows, Fantasmic and the Star Wars fireworks, which otherwise is hard to do on a single day given how close together they can be scheduled
• Giving people some extra time off while still enabling them to book six FastPass+ for the Studios, and
• Setting up an itinerary structure that would still work after Toy Story Land opens—and, I hope (gulp) after Star Wars: Galaxy Edge opens

Itinerary design for the Studios is further complicated by shows with limited schedules and a larger group of attractions, including most of these, that—at least right now—operate only from late morning until early evening.

My current thoughts on the new touring plans is on each day to rope drop, to have an afternoon break, and to return in the  evening for one or the other of the evening shows. This permits eight high priority rides with low waits—six via FastPass+, and two more at rope drop.

Day 1 begins with Alien Swirling Saucers at rope drop, and includes pre-booked FastPass+ for Slinky Dog Coaster, the Frozen Sing-Along show, and Star Tours. Day 2 beings with Tower of Terror at rope drop, and includes pre-booked FastPass+ for Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, Toy Story Mania, and Fantasmic.

The immediate objection to this is the backtracking required. But Hollywood Studios is a small enough park that backtracking matters less than at the other parks (the longest walk at the Studios is half a mile), and the tiering structure means you can’t really avoid being in Toy Story Land both days if you want to minimize waits.

The other issue is using a FastPass+ for Fantasmic. Savvy folk know that using a FastPass+ for an evening show is often unwise, as it precludes you from looking for 4th and further FastPass+ until you’ve gone through the FastPass+ tap in—and many nights of the year, there won’t be any FastPass+ left, because of either crowds or park close times. I certainly would not use a FastPass+ for Fantasmic for a one day itinerary, and likely will have to abandon it after Star Wars opens, but for now, the chance to avoid long lines to get a good Fantasmic seat makes me comfortable with including it—especially since it’s on the late-arrival day, anyway.

So here’s my current overview of the days (note that I will revise this as need based on both reader feedback and the actual tiering once announced by Disney):

TOURING HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS AFTER TOY STORY LAND OPENS DRAFT PLAN DAY ONE

Pre-book FastPass+ for Slinky Dog Coaster (9-10a), the 10.30 Frozen Sing-Along show, and Star Tours (11a-noon)

• Arrive at the tapstiles by 45 minutes before scheduled opening
• See Alien Swirling Saucers
• See Slinky Dog Coaster (FastPass+)
• See Muppet Vision 3D
• See the 10.30a Frozen Sing-Along (FastPass+)
• See Star Tours (FastPass+)
• Look for additional FastPass+ to use either before you return to your hotel or when you come back before the evening Star Wars show
• See the noon Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular
• See the 1p Beauty and the Beast Live on Stage
• Head back to your hotel
• Return to the park, arriving in the park no later than 45 minutes before Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular
• See Disney Movie Magic
• See Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular

TOURING HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS AFTER TOY STORY LAND OPENS DRAFT PLAN DAY TWO

• Pre-book FastPass+ for Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster (9-10a), Toy Story Mania (10-11a), and Fantasmic
• Arrive at the tapstiles by 45 minutes before scheduled opening
• See Tower of Terror
• See Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster (FastPass+)
• See Toy Story Mania (FastPass+)
• See Walt Disney Presents
• See Voyage of the Little Mermaid
• See Disney Jr. Live on Stage
• See Star Wars Launch Bay
• See March of the First Order
• See Star Wars: a Galaxy Far Far Away
• Head back to your hotel
• Return to the park, arriving in the park no later than 45 minutes before Fantasmic
• See Fantasmic (FastPass+)

I’d love to hear any thoughts or feedback! Use the comment form below.

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DISNEY WORLD’S SPECIAL CHRISTMAS PARTY IN 2018

While Christmas itself is December 25 of course, Walt Disney World provides a special Christmas celebration at the Magic Kingdom many nights in November and December.

This celebration is called “Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, or “MVMCP” for short.

At the party, many of the Magic Kingdom’s rides are open with really low waits, and cookies and hot chocolate, special events, a Christmas parade, special fireworks, and even snow (!) are offered.

The official Disney World page for this event (where you can also buy tickets) can be found here. For a review of the 2018 version of MVMCP, see this.

MORE ON MICKEY’S VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS PARTY

This party occurs from 7p-12MN on certain evenings at the Magic Kingdom in November and December.

The 2018 dates for Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party are as follows:

• November 2018: 8, 9, 12, 13, 15, 16, 25, 27, 29, 30
• December 2018: 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16, 18, 20, 21

You need to buy a special ticket for this party. This ticket is different from regular Walt Disney World park admission tickets.

• The special party ticket does not allow you to enjoy the rides and attractions of the Magic Kingdom before the Party starts–you need a regular ticket for that (note that you can usually enter and enjoy the rides as early as 4p–although your ticket will say 7p. The 4p entry is unofficial, and not guaranteed, though it has happened that way for years)
• Regular tickets used to enter the park earlier the day of a Party do not give you access to the Party–you need to have the special Party ticket

The party tickets are expensive, so why would first-time visitors be interested? A couple of potential reasons

• Evening fireworks shows are rare this time of year, so going to one of the parties is a way to guarantee you can see them. There are rumors that the evening fireworks may be updated for 2018
• Operating hours at the Magic Kingdom are shorter this time of year, so the Party allows you more time there within the same visit
• Walt Disney World sells only a limited number of tickets to each party, so the evening can see much lower ride waits (except at Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Peter Pan), particularly compared to whenever the Magic Kingdom is open late that week. Note that the outdoor areas of the park, especially near the hub and along the parade routes, will be quite crowded.  Where you won’t see crowds is in the ride lines, other than the two noted above

Many families go the first time for one of these reasons…and then going becomes a tradition!

On the other hand, families following one of the standard 8-night itineraries on this site will see the fireworks and evening parade, and have plenty of time at the Magic Kingdom. For that reason, Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party is not designed into this site’s pre-Thanksgiving itineraries.

It is, however, built in to this site’s Christmas-oriented Basic Itinerary, which works for the three weeks beginning the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

For details on what the party offers, suggested approaches, etc., see this!

Here’s the 2018 party brochure–as always on this site, click to enlarge:

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DISNEY WORLD’S 2018 INTERNATIONAL FOOD AND WINE FESTIVAL AT EPCOT

Every year from late summer into mid-November Walt Disney World presents the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival.

In 2018, the Festival will run from August 30 through November 12th.

There are two components to the festival, one available to all Epcot visitors, and another made up of a bunch of events which have limited capacity and require reservations.

Neither has an extra ticket admission cost–you get to participate by virtue of your theme park ticket–but there are cash costs for the food, beer and wine, and for entry to some special shows and events.

[Read more →]

DISNEY WORLD DEALS FOR SUMMER 2018

Today a Disney World room rate deal covering most nights from June 11 through August 1 2018 came out.

Discounts vary by booking date, with generally better deals if booked before May 22, and by resort and resort class.

Overall savings range from 10% to 25%, with the most popular hotels seeing lower savings rates.

Other, more complicated, deals came out today as well.  The best way to sort through your savings and choose the best is to work with my travel agent, Kelly B–she will do all the math for you.

Kelly B. has been the travel agent partner of this site for years. To book your vacation through her, contact her at KellyB@DestinationsInFlorida.com or 980-429-4499. (Tell her  Dave sent you…and she may take a bit to get back to you, as she’s busy this morning trying to get the best deal for the clients she’s already serving!)

VALUE RESORT SAVINGS

At the Disney World values resorts, Little Mermaid Rooms at Art of Animation are excluded. The other value resort options are 15% to 20%, depending on booking date.

MODERATE RESORT SAVINGS

At the moderates, Port Orleans French Quarter and Riverside offer only 10% off.  Other moderate options offer savings of 15% to 20%, depending on when you book and where you stay.

DELUXE RESORT SAVINGS

At the deluxes, the Beach Club, Contemporary, Polynesian Village, and Wilderness Lodge have lower savings than the rest. Note that pre-discount deluxe prices are (for them) already low in the summer, and drop even lower on July 6.

DISNEY VACATION CLUB RESORT SAVINGS

At the DVC resorts, Bay Lake Tower, the Villas at the Grand Floridian, Bungalows at the Polynesian, and Cascade Cabins at Copper Creek are excluded. Old Key West, Saratoga Springs, the Animal Kingdom Villas, and the BoardWalk Villas are 20% to 25% off. The other DVC resorts are 10% to 15% off.

The deal needs to be booked by either May 22 (for the best savings) or August 1. Reviews of all these resorts are linked to on this page.

Disney’s page on this deal is here, and you can reach Kelly at KellyB@DestinationsInFlorida.com or 980-429-4499, or by using the quote form below.

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(Updated 3/20 to add the Cabins back in to the list of that which will be charged for–I had erroneously excluded them.)

The last few weeks, while I’ve been focusing on the March update to the unparalleled The easy Guide to Your Walt Disney World Visit 2018, some resort news has come out.

• Four Seasons has gained access to Extra Magic Hours
• A Pixar-themed children’s activity experiment has debuted at the Contemporary

But the big news is that parking at the Disney-owned resorts is no longer free.* For trips booked March 21 or later, parking at the Disney owned hotels will now be charged, per night:

• $13 at the values
• $19 at the moderates, and
• $24 at the deluxes

There have been two sets of reactions to this move:

• It’s a dipshit, unwarranted, and unearned money grab by Disney World
• What took them so long to make such a tiny change? At typical occupancy, the charge is $4-$8 per person per night, and every other resort on property (Shades of Green, the Swan, the Dolphin, the Four Seasons, and the seven Disney Springs Resort Area hotels) charges for parking

As usual these days, there’s been more heat than light in the negative reactions, but both reactions are valid. For years now Disney has been raising park and hotel prices at a level well in excess of inflation that I can’t defend compared to increases in the benefits (rides, entertainment, hotel refurbs) it has been offering.

• Part of this is strategic—Disney is trying to increase enjoyment by using price to limit—just a bit—crowds
• Part of it is Disney trying to recoup its capital investments in e.g. New Fantasyland and Pandora and the other enhancements at Animal Kingdom, and the still-to-come Toy Story Land and the Star-Wars themed Galaxy’s Edge.
• Part of it is a dipshit money grab—Disney is raising prices because it has so much demand that it simply can.
• And related to this last point, part of it, I suspect, is Parks and Resorts leadership improving operating economics in the parks so leadership looks better to the corporation and its board.

And when combined with the extension of some perks that used to come largely (but not solely) from staying in Disney-owned resorts to other on-property hotels, such as EMH going to Four Seasons and the Disney Springs Resort Area hotels, and 60 days FastPass+ access going to Shades of Green and the Disney Springs hotels, well, even though this is actually a small net increase in access to these (on the order of 15% more rooms), there’s still  a lot of heat out there.

For first timers, these changes don’t much matter. There’s not enough meat to them. But for returning visitors who have been paying attention, cumulatively they are extremely annoying, and the taking away of a previously free benefit, even if at a fairly trivial level, has some real, painful symbolism.

There’s on the order of 10,000 value resort rooms, 7,000 moderate rooms, and 5,000 deluxe rooms. (Ignore the various posts going around by the math- or fact-challenged that there’s 35,000 such rooms in total.) If you adjust for ~85% to 90% occupancy and then assume that half of the guests bring cars, then do the math, this is about another $60 million to Disney’s bottom line every year—coming out of its customers’ pockets for a perk that used to be free.**

In my day job I am a business strategy consultant. With that hat on, I applaud this move—monetizing an asset by bringing it in line with industry standards.

But in my nights and weekends, I try to help people have great Disney World trips. And for returning visitors in particular, I understand that prices have gotten increasingly out of line with benefits, and hence the value equation is diminishing, particularly at the resorts.

And putting my business strategy hat back on, repeat visitors are very important to Disney World, and at some point, the loss in goodwill will start to hurt. This particular change, as noted, is too trivial to make a difference when viewed in isolation. But when put in context with other moves…well, at some point they all may start to add up. Part of the problem is that the current set of leaders will be gone by the time such a potential loss in goodwill starts to have consequences, so someone else will have to fix the consequences of their dipshit moves.

See also Tom’s post on similar themes on Disney Tourist Blog here.

*Except for DVC members staying at a DVC resort with any payment means, or staying on points at another WDW resort. Also, I hear, guests reserving through Disney UK will be free from these charge through 2019. Moreover, one vehicle at the campsites (but apparently, not the Cabins, as I had wrongly thought) at Fort Wilderness is still free. Note that those staying at a Disney-owned hotel still get free parking at the theme parks…at least for now… Disney’s current parking policy is here.

** I can think of one way in which–at least in 2019–this money may make its way back into guest pockets. I’ll publish more on this thought, which has to do with length-of-stay pricing, later.

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UPDATED EDITION OF THE EASY GUIDE

Amazon has released the updated version of my and Josh’s The easy Guide to Your Walt Disney World Visit 2018, the latest edition of the best-reviewed Disney World guidebook in history.

We first published the 2018 edition in late August 2017, updated it in November, and updated it again with almost 50 pages of changes in early March 2018.

If you bought the 2018 edition you get this update (as a PDF) for free! If you’ve already sent in your email, we’ll start sending instructions on how to get the updated PDF this week.

If you bought the 2018 edition but have not yet forwarded your Amazon confirmation, then quit fooling around and get it to us! Here’s the instructions:

And if you haven’t bought it yet, what are you waiting for?

We’ve had almost 300 reviews of this Disney World guidebook series on Amazon, and more than 90% are five stars. You won’t find more informed, more thoughtful, more experienced, more judicious or more silly companions to the Disney World parks, resorts, or dining venues than me and co-author Josh. Ours is the most accurate and most up-to-date Disney World guidebook you can find.

Here’s the key changes in the March update:

Chapter 1: How to Use This Book

Chapter 1 has three purposes: introduce the rest of the book, summarize our recommendations for first-timers, and indicate what’s new for returning visitors.

Pursuing the third purpose, the big news of the rest of the update to the book is also noted here:

• The opening date of June 30 for Toy Story Land
• Seasonal pricing for multi-day tickets to come “later in 2018,” and
• The addition of FastPass+ at 60 days for Shades of Green, Extra Magic Hours for the Four Seasons, and both for the Disney Springs Resort Area hotels

Chapter 2: Why Age and Height Matter

The only material change here was the upcoming closure of the Children’s Activity Centers. We went to press before the Pixar thingy at the Contemporary was announced.

Chapter 3: How Long to Stay

The prices in this chapter are updated to reflect the ticket prices that came out in February. In some cases, the cost of adding a day actually went down.

Chapter 4: When to Go

Little changed in this chapter—we went to press after the start date for the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival (August 30) was announced.

Chapter 5: Where to Stay

• We updated the hotel advice and reviews of this chapter based on the additions of FastPass+ at 60 days and Extra Magic Hours to the various hotels noted above
• We also updated the refurb status of various hotels–e.g. the Dolphin, Pop Century, Caribbean Beach, Coronado Springs, Port Orleans French Quarter
• The announcement that the Disney resorts would charge for overnight parking for trips booked March 21 or later came out after we went to press

Chapter 6: How to Spend Your Time

We made dozens of changes to this chapter, our most important. Most were minor—but not all. A few worth noting

• A new entry on UP! A Great Bird Adventure, to debut at Disney’s Animal Kingdom on April 22
• Multiple revisions to the Hollywood Studios material related to challenges you’ll find seeing Toy Story Mania between now and when Toy Story Land opens on June 30, including a recommended touring plan for dates when FastPass+ for it can’t be booked
• Changes to FastPass+ priority at Magic Kingdom

Chapter 7: Where to Eat

“Where to Eat” always sees a ton of changes when we update because of Disney World’s constant pricing and menu changes. In addition

• We note that Dining Plan users can now use the plan to pay for Mobile Orders
• We introduce the dining options to come in Toy Story Land
• We note the coming two-credit prix fixe dinner menu coming July 27 to Be Our Guest
• We revise the entry on The Edison, and add new entries for Ale & Compass, Enzo’s Hideaway and Maria & Enzo’s Ristorante

Chapter 8: Which Tickets to Buy and What to Budget

We’ve revised all the material in this chapter to reflect

• The new ticket prices announced in February
• The move of Disney later this year to seasonal pricing for multi-day tickets

Chapter 9: How to Set Everything Up and Get Everything Done

We revised the To-Do lists in this chapter to reflect the addition of more hotels to 60 day FastPass+ eligibility.

Chapter 10: Where to Go Next

We made no significant changes to this chapter, as the places to go next remain easyWDW.com and yourfirstvisit.net!

We pride ourselves on having the most accurate and up-to-date guidebook available, and updates like this are what make that come to life! Already have yours?  Then write us a five star review on Amazon!

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