Category — p. News and Changes

DISNEY WORLD 2016 PACKAGES RELEASED

Today Disney World released package pricing for 2016, which means you can book a Disney World vacation for any date in 2016 and get all your package elements and accurate pricing.

To book a 2016 package, contact my friend Kelly B at 980-429-4499 or kellyb@destinationsinflorida.com.

Kelly not only will book your trip, but also help you (for free) with

• Itinerary planning, including advising on and booking your FastPass+
• Dining suggestions and reservation planning
• Future discount searches – Ongoing searching for future discounts to apply to your vacation
• Free “Mouse Perks” – tips, updates, and fun freebies

And, for qualifying trips Kelly and her agency, Destinations in Florida, will get you a free copy of the 2016 edition of The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit, the best-reviewed Disney World guidebook in history, after it comes out later this year!

(It’s not too late to book a 2015 visit. If you do book a qualifying visit, you’ll get the most current version of The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit)

So for 2016 or 2015, contact Kelly at at 980-429-4499 or kellyb@destinationsinflorida.com.

Follow yourfirstvisit.net on Facebook or Google+ or Twitter or Pinterest!!

The latest edition of WDW Magazine, which focuses on recent and upcoming changes at Disney World, is out!

The magazine is available on iTunes, for Android, and on the web.

Editor Carl Trent has this to say about this month’s edition:

“Have you seen all the changes going on at Walt Disney World? It’s truly incredible. Fantasyland is brand new, and quite frankly, awesome. Downtown Disney is changing so much they are changing the name, as well as Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Animal Kingdom is getting a major makeover, and Frozen is coming to Epcot. Change is everywhere you look.”

My column for first-timers focuses on how first-timers can keep up with the changes that might affect their trip.

I also have an article on changes at the resorts, with a particular focus on what’s happened at the Polynesian and Caribbean Beach.

Curious?  Of course you are! Sample a free issue here. Also, now available is a preview function–check it out!

Follow yourfirstvisit.net on Facebook or Google+ or Twitter or Pinterest!!

Disney’s late summer and fall Free Dining and late summer room discount deals came out about two weeks ago.

The universal experience, so far as I can tell, is that even though more rooms opened for booking into the deal May 9, many fewer standard rooms were available for these offers—especially free dining at the moderates–than we’ve seen in the recent past.

Moreover, 2015’s free dining deal saw a new requirement: families had to add Park Hopper or Water Park and More add-ons to their (always previously required) base tickets to even get free dining.

For those who had not planned to buy these add-ons, that’ll cost a family of four more than $270 extra, and will, for those ten or older, blow a night of savings on the free regular dining plan or almost two nights on the free quick-service plan. Results are even worse for kids 3 to 9.

So what’s up? Well, what’s up is that Disney doesn’t need to discount so much anymore. See the chart:

Hotel revenues the last four quarters were more than $2.5 billion, including the first-ever two straight $650 million+ quarters. And despite major net capacity adds since the recession (Kidani Village, Bay Lake Tower, Grand Floridian Villas, Art of Animation), occupancy is running at levels not seen for years.

You will see some people who have not done the math—or don’t know what Sarbanes-Oxley means—saying that Disney is fudging this occupancy. But every quarter’s SEC filings include this at the end:

…and they also include something like this data:

You can understand almost everything about trends in the competitive position of Disney’s hotels from this data, with a little work.

The only thing that’s tricky is that not all quarters are the same length (most, but not all, are 91 days) so to get fair trend comparisons you should convert into “per night” figures instead of “per quarter” stuff (you also have do some arithmetic to tease Q4 out of the FY’s 10-K).

It’s then a pretty straightforward analytic task to turn this into relevant trend data, using where needed four quarter trailing moving averages to accommodate the major seasonality in prices and occupancy that Disney faces.

So here’s the results. (All are for Disney’s total domestic resorts—you can’t separate California and Florida. But there’s so few rooms in the three California hotels that it doesn’t much matter.)

Available rooms. Disney reports available rooms per quarter in thousands (again, subject to the penalties of Sarbanes-Oxley, so no fudging). Converted to available rooms per night, here’s the facts over the past years:

You see the kick up from the phased opening at Art of Animation in the second half of 2012, and then a slight trend down from various refurbs/conversions—especially at the Polynesian and Caribbean Beach.

But the down-trend is just not that big a deal. Available rooms peaked in Q3 2013 (roughly, April-June) at 29,154 per night, and in the last reported quarter (Q2 for fiscal 2015, roughly January-March) stood at 28,527.

That’s a difference of just 627 rooms per night, or about 2% compared to peak availability.

Rooms booked per night. Of more interest is rooms booked per night, which dropped to less than 21,000 rooms per night in Q2 2010 but in both the last two quarters exceeded 25,000 per night.

(Renting another 4,000 rooms per night is worth more than a million dollars of revenue a day to Disney.)

The upward trend is apparent, but so is the seasonality of these results. Showing a four-quarter trailing moving average cleans out seasonality to show pure trend:

Dividing rooms booked per quarter by rooms available per quarter is where the “occupancy” figures come from. And multiplying rooms booked per quarter by average per-room guest spend gives you revenues.

Per room guest spend.

Above is the per room guest spend by quarter…

…and as a moving average, so you can see the trend without seasonality. (This particular moving average is not an arithmetic average of the 4 reported numbers, but rather weights them by the number of rooms booked each quarter.)

The overall per room guest spend is going up as a combination of increased prices, reduced total discounts, better revenue management (Disney has focused a lot on this lately) and increased guest willingness to spend on extras.

Total room revenue. Multiplying per room spend by rooms booked gives you hotel revenue.

Here’s the results–note it bottoming towards $400 million in the depths of the recession, and heading for $700 million the last two quarters…

…and as a four quarter moving average:

So the reason the Free Dining is so hard to get, and is more expensive than it used to be, is the same as why some hotels are rarely offered as part of the deal anyway, or why there are still no coffee-makers in value resort standard rooms (I really needed one at my stay in All-Star Movies last week): Disney does not need to offer them to get the kind of results it is looking for.

And the future of Free Dining? Well, as long as results are this strong, I don’t see anything more in the future than it being as hard, or even harder, to get as it was this time.

Follow yourfirstvisit.net on Facebook or Google+ or Twitter or Pinterest!!

The latest edition of WDW Magazine, which focuses on fun outside the theme parks, is out!

The magazine is available on iTunes, for Android, and on the web.

Editor Carl Trent has this to say about this month’s edition:

“This month we take a close look at Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach; which are, in our opinion, the best water parks anywhere. It doesn’t get any better than the Disney water parks, but we also wanted to cover some of the other entertainment options around WDW. Check out our articles on WinterSummerland, Fantasia Gardens and DisneyQuest.”

My column for first-timers focuses on all the different out-of-the parks stuff that first timers might not know about. Curious?  Of course you are! Sample a free issue here. Also, now available is a preview function–check it out!

Follow yourfirstvisit.net on Facebook or Google+ or Twitter or Pinterest!!

(For the first page of this review of Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort, click here.)

REVIEW: THE POOLS AND BEACHES AT DISNEY’S POLYNESIAN VILLAGE RESORT

There are two pools and many beaches at the Polynesian.

• The larger Lava Pool, loaded with amenities
• The smaller Oasis pool with some nice amenities of its own, and
• Multiple beaches

I’ll cover each of these in this post.

 THE MAIN LAVA POOL AT THE POLYNESIAN

The main pool, known as the Lava Pool, is in the center of the resort, between Captain Cook’s and the beaches.  The Samoa longhouse is on one side, and the marina is on the other.

Some shots from around the Lava pool:

Under the waterfall is a slide.

The main slide.

The hot tub is on the Samoa side, and is elevated, a nice effect.

The zero entry area on the beach side.

The Lava pool at night.

Also here is a remarkable kids water play area.

It includes two slides, one on the left above…

…and another one on the right. As alert reader Josh notes, this is a tunnel slide, accessed from the top, so there is more to it than it seems.

In the back of the play area is this splash and play spot.

Also in the pool area you’ll find this bar. No real food, but the pool is right outside the Captain Cook’s quick service, so that doesn’t much matter.

THE OASIS POOL AT THE POLYNESIAN

The smaller Oasis Pool is nestled among Samoa, Hawaii, and Tokelau. Niue and Rarotonga are also close.

It has a zero-entry edge…

…a hot tub…

…a bar…

…and a grill with limited hours but an interesting menu.

A more up-to-date menu is on Disney’s website here.

Around the corner from the bar is a refillable mug station, also with limited hours. (Sorry about the humidity on my lens!)

THE BEACHES AT THE POLYNESIAN

Back in the day you could walk right from the pool deck to the beaches at the Polynesian.  Not anymore, as the pool is now fenced in behind the umbrellas on the left.

Another beach stretches along the DVC Bungalows.

The beach in front of the Hawaii longhouse has some play tools.

And there’s another stretch of beaches near Luau Cove, between most of the Poly and the Grand Floridian.

THE DISNEY VACATION CLUB AT DISNEY’S POLYNESIAN VILLAGE RESORT

This review continues here. 

TOPICS IN THIS REVIEW OF DISNEY’S POLYNESIAN VILLAGE RESORT

• Summary and overview of Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort
• Theming and Accommodations at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort
• Photo Tour of a Standard Room at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort
• Amenities at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort
• Dining at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort
• The Pools at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort
• The Disney Vacation Club at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort
• Photo Tour of a Studio at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort
• Photo Tour of a Bungalow at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort

OTHER KEY PAGES FOR WHERE TO STAY AT DISNEY WORLD

• Where to stay–the Basics
• Where first-timers should stay
• Reviews of all the Disney World resorts, based on my 150+ stays in them

Follow yourfirstvisit.net on Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest!!

ROOM RATE DEAL FOR LATE SUMMER 2015

Disney World has announced a deal for room rate discounts for nights August 15 through October 3, 2015.

This deal can be booked through August 7, 2015, but rooms are limited, so the sooner the better!

Contact Kelly to book it at 980-429-4499 or kellyb@destinationsinflorida.com.

Deluxe Resorts

• 30% off: Animal Kingdom Lodge (Standard/Pool View), BoardWalk Inn, Grand Floridian, Polynesian Village, Wilderness Lodge, Yacht Club
• 20% off: Animal Kingdom Lodge (Savanna View/Club Level), Beach Club, Contemporary

Disney Vacation Club Resorts

• 30% off: Boardwalk Villas, Old Key West, Saratoga Springs
• 20% off: Animal Kingdom Villas (Jambo and Kidani), Beach Club Villas, Villas at the Wilderness Lodge
• Excluded: Polynesian Villas and Bungalows, Bay Lake Tower, Villas at the Grand Floridian

Moderate Resorts

• 25% off: Caribbean Beach, Coronado Springs, Cabins at Ft. Wilderness
• 25% off 8/15 to 8/27; 20% off 8/28 to 10/3: Port Orleans Riverside
• Excluded 8/15 to 8/27; 20% off 8/28 to 10/3: Port Orleans French Quarter

Value Resorts:

• 20% off: All-Star Music, All-Star Sports, Pop Century, Art of Animation Family Suites
• Excluded 8/15 to 8/27; 25% off 8/28 to 10/3: All-Star Movies
• Excluded: Little Mermaid Rooms at Art of Animation

Contact Kelly to book it at 980-429-4499 or kellyb@destinationsinflorida.com.

Follow yourfirstvisit.net on Facebook or Google+ or Twitter or Pinterest!!