Category — p. News and Changes

Josh (of easyWDW.com) and I will be doing a meet-up, book signing, and giveaway at the Magic Kingdom tomorrow at the Tomorrowland Terrace at 5.30p.

The  location is circled in red on the map:

This time allows us to meet both those in the park for a regular day and also those who have come early for the first Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party later that evening.

We’ll sign any edition of the Disney World guide book we co-author, The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit–oh, honestly, we’ll sign anything. Plus we’ll have a few copies of The easy Guide to give away!!

The easy Guide is now also available in PDF format!

Come on by!

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As you may know, along with Josh Humphrey of easyWDW.com I co-author the best-reviewed Disney World guide book series ever published, The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit.

The 2016 edition of The easy Guide has been available as a paperback and a Kindle book for a few weeks now, and I’m delighted to announce that for the first time The easy Guide is available in PDF format!

WHY WOULD YOU EVEN WANT A PDF?

For guide books, I’m a real fan of printed books. It’s easier to flip back and forth to make comparisons; you can easily scribble notes to yourself on page or on the inside covers; and the images are easy to read. So for most, a copy of our paperback is going to be the best choice.

The main issues with a paperback are portability and access, and that’s why we’ve always made The easy Guide available as a Kindle Book as well. If you have one of Amazon’s apps, you can read a Kindle book on almost any device with a screen. Kindle books are also by tradition the least expensive way to get a book.

However, if you like to keep some material handy—like the step-by-step park touring plans in Chapter 6 of The easy Guide–you can’t print anything from a Kindle book. Images don’t come across as well in Kindles, and you can’t resize images (like our park maps and charts of the best times to go) to be able to see more of their details in Kindles or Kindle Fires.

Enter the PDF, which, while not perfect, combines a lot of the best of the above while avoiding most of their negatives.

• PDFs are the most ubiquitously readable document format in computing, so you can read our or refer to our book from almost any device with a screen, usually without having to take the extra step of downloading an app or a reader.
• You can zoom the view on a PDF, so you can see our images at any level of detail you wish to.
• And probably most handy, you can print anything from a PDF you want—from the entire book to a page or anything in between.

(Above is a screenshot of a zoomed page from our PDF edition.)

Do you mostly want to see our book on your devices, but also want to print the Disney World restaurant reviews in Chapter 6 to scribble all over them, or print the park touring plans in Chapter 5 to stick in your back pocket, or print the To-Do Lists, or FastPass+ step by step guides, in Chapter 8 so you can cross each step off when you’ve completed it? A PDF lets you do all that.

To get a copy of the PDF edition of The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit, click here!

(And to join our new affiliate program, see this.)

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Josh and I have set up a mechanism whereby all the people who so kindly share news about The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit can actually get a little pixie dust if anyone buys the paperback, Kindle edition, or PDF edition via specialized links that this page tells you how to set up.

THE KINDLE OR PAPERBACK EDITIONS

If you don’t already have an Amazon Associates account, set one up and use it to create links to the paperback and Kindle editions of The easy Guide.  It’s free, and requires only that you have an Amazon account.

The fee that Amazon pays you per sale will vary, but something like a dollar for each paperback or seventy cents for each Kindle edition is typical.

More on Amazon Associates accounts begins here.

THE PDF EDITION

To get credit for sales from you of our brand-new PDF edition (because we don’t share with Amazon, you get $4.99 per PDF sold via your links) you have to do a couple of things:

1. Set up a Gumroad account, if you don’t already have one (most don’t), and confirm it by clicking the link Gumroad will send you
2. After you’ve confirmed your email, then email me the email address that you used for your Gumroad account at davidhobartyfv@gmail.com
3. I will then use that email address to add you as an affiliate, and then Gumroad will email you the link to use to get credit for your sales

Once you are in, Gumroad is very easy to use, but the first minute or too is a little odd, so I’m gonna take you through the steps with some screenshots below.

Step 1: Go to Gumroad.com. You’ll note in the first couple of steps that all the copy implies that you are the seller/creator, not an affiliate.  No worries–it’s just that there’s only one account type. Click “Start Selling” in the top menu bar to get started.

Step 2: A window will open inviting you to sign up.  Fill in the right side stuff and click “Create Account.”

Step 3: A Welcome page opens, and asks for more info–if you’ve done anything like this before, your country, and, at the bottom, “What are you working on”–another feature aimed more at authors/creators than affiliates.

Answer the first two queries, and for the third, click the star at the far right “Nothing yet.”

Step 4: The “Get Started” page will open.  Ignore it, and instead click on, at the top right “My Account,” and from the drop-down menu, click “Settings.”

Step 5:  The Settings page will open. On its menu click “Payout” (circled in red)

Step 6: A page asking for details about how to pay you will open. Fill it in!

Step 7: Gumroad will send you an email asking you to confirm your email address. Click the link in the email to confirm it

Step 8:  Send me the email address you used to open your Gumroad account, to davidhobartyfv@gmail.com

Step 9: I will add you as an affiliate, and then Gumroad will send you your own link to use.  The email will look like the above–be sure to use the first link!!! Sales that occur from this link will earn you $4.99 per copy!

RECAP OF THE AFFILIATE OPPORTUNITIES

So to recap:

1. Set up an Amazon Associates account if you don’t already have one, and get from it a link for The easy Guide in Kindle and paperback
2. Set up a Gumroad account, confirm it by clicking the link Gumroad will send you, then email me at davidhobartyfv@gmail.com the email address you used for the account
3. Gumroad will send you a link after I enter you in; use that link for your PDF edition link.

WANT SOME PICTURES?

None of these links will do anything for you if you don’t post them somewhere–on your blog, your website, your Facebook page, twitter, a Disney World forum, Trip Advisor, etc.  If you want to add a photo to your material, I’ve got some you can right-click and save below!

QUESTIONS??

If you have a question, probably others will be wondering about the same thing. Just use the comment form below!!

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Josh (of easyWDW.com) and I will be doing a meet-up, book signing, and giveaway at the Magic Kingdom on Sunday, November 8.

We’ll be at the Tomorrowland Terrace at 5.30p.  This location is circled in red on the map:

This time allows us to meet both those in the park for a regular day and also those who have come early for the first Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party later that evening.

We’ll sign any edition of the Disney World guide book we co-author, The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit–oh, honestly, we’ll sign anything. Plus we’ll have a few copies of The easy Guide to give away!!

Come on by–and no, I won’t mind that you are really there to meet Josh, or my wife, the lovely Amy Girl.  I’ve gotten used to that!!

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Here are my thoughts on rides, hotels, crowds and such at Disney World in 2017.

NEW RIDES AT DISNEY WORLD IN 2017

After the February 2017 opening of the evening show Rivers of Light at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, 2017 will see an even deeper transformation at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, as the new land Pandora opens May 27.

Pandora–deeply themed to the moon of James Cameron’s Avatar–will include two new rides, one a spectacular banshee ride through the world of Pandora, the second a boat ride through bio-luminescent forests (Disney concept art below).

(c) Disney

While there’s not much to the movie Avatar itself, it does have gorgeous and stunningly creative settings.  I expect all elements of Disney World’s Pandora to lavishly recreate the experience of being there, and the rides to be well worth doing. Joe Rohde, the original lead designer for the Animal Kingdom, remains in that role for Pandora, and I expect a great performance from him and the team.

When combined with the eventual opening of Rivers of Light, the overall attractiveness of the Animal Kingdom will be transformed.

Construction of the new Star Wars and Toy Story areas will continue at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in 2017. I don’t expect anything much of these areas to be open until 2018 at the earliest.

DISNEY SPRINGS AND THE DISNEY RESORTS IN 2017

I don’t expect much material change at Disney Springs in 2017, nor at the current Disney resorts.

DISNEY WORLD CROWDS IN 2017

Presidents Day, February 20 in 2017, is almost as late as it can be, meaning more good January and early February dates, and fewer good late February dates.  Crowds for this week actually begin the Thursday before.

Mardi Gras in 2017 is the week after–February 28th.  A few southern school districts have it off as a single or multi-day holiday. This will lead to the weekend of the 25th being a little busier than usual, but the part of the week following the 28th will be just fine.

Easter in 2017 is late, on April 16. As a result, March breaks and Easter breaks won’t overlap, so later March will be a little better than past few years, but there will be fewer good April weeks.

Summer crowds will continue to be rough in 2017, as South Americans take advantage of their winter breaks to come to Disney World and join the hordes of US families on summer breaks.

Thanksgiving, November 23, is almost as early as it can be in 2017, giving more good late November dates but fewer good early November ones.

Christmas is on a Monday in 2017.

• Many, many school districts that take long holiday breaks will begin their breaks on Monday December 18, so holiday crowds at Disney World will begin to roll in on December 15th.
• Districts that take shorter breaks will be off something like Friday the 22nd through Monday the 1st. This means that the week between Christmas and New Years Day—always the worst of the year at Walt Disney World—will be an especially crazy mess in 2017.

DISNEY WORLD PRICING IN 2017

Disney World raised ticket prices in February 2017. Resort prices should not change again during the calendar year.

MORE ON 2017 AT WALT DISNEY WORLD

Disney World 2017 Crowd Calendar

Disney World 2017 Price Seasons

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THE PIRATE ROOM REFURB AT CARIBBEAN BEACH

I had the chance to stay in the newly-refurbed Pirate rooms at Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort in mid-October–my third stay in a Pirate room, and eighth overall stay at Caribbean Beach, since I started this site.

There’s a complete photo tour of one of these refurbed Pirate rooms here, and I’ve also here and there updated the full review of Caribbean Beach that starts here.

This post is just mean to highlight some of what’s new in these Pirate rooms—and what’s not.

Caribbean Beach is a great resort, especially for families with kids. There are some issues, though. The overall design of the resort yields too many bus stops, and a couple of the villages—specifically Barbados and Trinidad South, where the Pirate rooms are located—are a bit far from the central services, dining and main pool.

Caribbean Beach also was the last of the Disney World moderates to have full sized beds in its standard rooms. But after its recent refurb, standard rooms now have queens, and many of them have a fifth sleeping spot from a Murphy bed as well.

The Pirate rooms, however, kept their full sized beds and four person capacity. Refurbs here focused on new mattresses and new surfaces.

A lot of this refurb was quite successful. For example, pre-refurb the rooms had a heavy nautical theme but a light Pirate theme.

The refurb did not add a ton of pirate stuff, but in fact the simple addition of skull and crossbones pillows to the beds successfully amps up the overall pirate feel.

In the prior version of the room, the carpet was themed as ship planks. This never made much sense, as the bed-ships thus had the appearance of sailing on a ship’s deck.

The new carpet is more abstract, and works much better as a place for the bed-ships. Combined with the (sort of) sky blue of the new wall color (see the images at the top of the post), the overall sense of seafaring is heightened.

The bath shifted from a tiled floor…

…to a plank floor, and nautical detailing—posts, deck beams and their knee supports—was added to the closet.

Also worth noting was the addition of more power points to both the bedside and mini-fridge “barrels.” The net increase is seven more traditional power outlets and four USB charging outlets.

Overall, this is a minor but successful refurb.

However, the Pirate rooms are still distant and inconvenient, still have full beds, still sleep four rather than five, and are still a fair bit more expensive than more convenient standard Caribbean Beach rooms. (Most 2016 price seasons they are $50-$85 more per night than standard rooms.) So it’s pretty hard for me to recommend them for first time family visitors.

In addition to the room refurb, I saw another new thing at Trinidad South—a food truck.

The food truck menu (as always on this site, click it to enlarge it).

This food truck—if it sticks around—would go a long way to moderating one of the issues with the Pirate rooms—their distance from the dining venues at Old Port Royale.

The ESPN theming of the truck doesn’t help the overall piratical ambiance (unless it makes you think of the piratical price of your cable bill), and you won’t want to take every meal here—but having an option that doesn’t require a walk or bus or car ride does really increase the livability of Trinidad South.

For more on the Pirate rooms, see this.

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