Category — p. News and Changes

GETTING A RESERVATION AT BE OUR GUEST

Among this site’s more than 4 million visitors are a lot of Disney insiders, who sometimes send helpful notes about various items.

One of the best is DisneyDiningAgent, who posted an important comment yesterday covering a lot of topics.

One of his (or her!) topics was why it’s so hard to get a table service reservation at Be Our Guest.

BE OUR GUEST IS BOOKING UP AS FAR OUT AS 190 DAYS OUT

Dining reservations at Disney World open at 180 days out, except for Walt Disney World resort hotel guests.  For these guests, bookings open at 180 days, but the window for booking extends from their arrival date through the next ten days.

This means they can book Be Our Guest up to 190 days out. And, according to DisneyDiningAgent, they are.

Now obviously not everyone is staying for ten days.

But what happens is that the people staying 5 days book it 185 days out, those staying 6, 186 days out, etc.  So when people call 180 days ahead and try to book Be Our Guest for the date 180 days in advance, the capacity 180 days out is often gone, so, if they are a WDW resort hotel guest, they then book it for later in their visit…and then people calling the next day have the same problem, and respond the same way.

There’s no great answer to this.

If you really want to do dinner at Be Our Guest (right now, until Fastpass+ emerges, the only reservable meal), your odds will be best if you stay at a Disney resort, aim to do Be Our Guest on the last day of your visit, and be on-line at 6a eastern the first day you can book.  If the on-line system isn’t working (all too common–more on that later), then start dialing the phone just before 7a.

What’s your Be Our Guest story?  Were you able to book 180 days out, or, if you stayed in a WDW resort, did you pick–or get stuck with–a date later in the reservations window?

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2014 DISNEY WORLD PRICES TO COME OUT JULY 10

Disney World’s 2014 prices and packages will be out, reportedly, on July 10.

If this happens (sometimes delays come up) and if things works as they have in the past, as of that date or shortly thereafter you’ll be able to book packages for 2014 up to 500 days ahead on Disney World’s website–through the week before Thanksgiving 2014.

(Note that you can always book “room only” 500 days ahead–just not always on the website…)

Once the prices come out, I’ll fix my 2014 price seasons forecasts, and use those–and an updated version of the 2014 Disney World crowd calendar, which I’ll also get out in July–to revise the 2014 week rankings, if needed.

MORE FREE DINING FOOLISHNESS

My post last week where, inspired by my conversations with the Mysterious “B” about the recent flood of free dining pin codes, I inched back a bit from my prediction that we won’t see general public free dining in 2013 after September, has gotten a lot of reaction.

See for example this disboards thread starting at the bottom of the page on post number 2055, and of course the comments on the page itself, most fascinating, a few foolish.

I still don’t think we’ll see general public free dining after September, but I am not so firm on it as I had been, thanks to the delay in MyMagic+ and the resulting shortage of anything interesting for Disney World marketing to talk about to engender bookings in the non-holiday weeks of the fourth quarter of 2013.

What we are seeing, though, is a spate of pin codes, with word of more rounds of pin codes to come, a lot of hints dropped by Disney World cast members about upcoming deals (these hints could be referring to room rate deals, or free dining, or both), and some really interesting ways that people are getting pin codes.

HOW TO GET A WALT DISNEY WORLD PIN CODE

[Read more →]

MORE FREE DINING AT DISNEY WORLD IN 2013?

So I’ve forecast a number of times—most recently here—that I don’t expect to see any generally available free dining in 2013 beyond the current deal for September.

But the possibility that we won’t see Fastpass+ until January 2014 has me re-thinking this a little.

Not much.  Just a little.

There’s several possibilities, all framed around how well bookings for October to mid-December are already going:

• Bookings for October to mid-December are going fine (which is still my guess, based on how strong attendance has been so far this year): if so, then no more free dining
• Bookings for then are running a little behind expectations: then expansion of the current individualized pin-code offer, probably around 8/1
• Bookings for then are running a lot behind expectations: then expansion of the pin-code offer, possibly well before 8/1, and also a limited general public free dining deal, probably after August 6th

Here’s why I think this.

THE LOGIC OF MORE DISNEY WORLD FREE DINING IN 2013 [Read more →]

TRUE-LIFE ADVENTURES ON WDW TODAY!

So Len Testa (of The Unofficial Guide and TouringPlans.com) invited me onto the WDW Today podcast that he, Matt Hochberg, Mike Newell, and Mike Scopa do.

We recorded the podcast last night, and it was released (minus my best joke!) this morning.

You can find the episode here.

I was nervous as hell and kinda had to pee during the whole recording—but they were really nice, and, for my first ever site-related interview, overall it went as well as it could have.  Some of my sentences were grammatical, and I only rarely mixed up March and May…

Give it a listen if you have 20 minutes to kill.  They said if they had enough positive feedback they might invite me back.

So put any positive feedback on the same link (look for the little comments button in the gray box lower on the page—you have to be registered to comment).

Negative feedback, and/or suggestions that the whole episode should be deleted, and the hard drive it was on destroyed with an axe, probably should go here—as we’ll all then find out about them eventually…

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EPCOT ITINERARY REVISIONS COMING SOON

Danny challenged me earlier this year to re-think my Epcot itineraries, and I’m in the middle of doing so.

Here’s some of my current thoughts—I’d love to hear everyone’s reactions!

This site is meant to help easily create the best Walt Disney World visit for first time visitors who may never return, and at multiple places encourages seeing almost everything.

But fitting all this into the site’s standard eight night itineraries—and still leaving some time for goofing off and recovering from the parks—is not always easy.

So I do in fact leave some things out—usually minor street events or character greetings (covered by character meals instead).

But at Epcot I’ve explicitly listed all kinds of stuff as

• To be sampled and only explored further based on reactions to the sample (e.g. World Showcase)
• As basically optional for families with kids (e.g. Agent P, Innoventions)
• As “skippable”

And some stuff (like Club Cool) I’ve just plain ignored.

This is actually a change from the early years of the itineraries, when wide swaths of Epcot—for example Innoventions and Agent P’s precursor, Kim Possible—weren’t even mentioned.

Slowly over the years I’ve added stuff to the Epcot itineraries, usually framed as optional or to be sampled–but if you do all these, and spend a lot of time in them, you won’t come even close to being able to meeting the suggested timetables of the site (which was one of Danny’s key points).

Moreover, with the re-do of Test Track, the best thing to do early on has changed.

There’s two problems with the new Test Track:

1. It is now even more popular than it was before the re-do, so it builds longer waits even earlier than it used to
2. Its Fastpass and single-rider lines give a profoundly different family experience than the standard “stand-by” line does.

Now personally, I don’t think that the “profoundly different experience” actually matters much—but that’s a personal call, and not one I’m willing to do on behalf of everyone else.

So the issue is adapting the day to doing the right things first thing, and incorporating somehow all the sorta-optional attractions.

Adapting the morning is fairly straightforward:

1. Be at the turnstiles by 8.30a—earlier in more crowded weeks
2. Go to Soarin and Fastpass it
3. Walk the ten minutes to Test Track and ride it
4. Go into Innoventions East, check out Sum of All Thrills, and if it looks like fun, ride it.
5. Head back to the Soarin side and do at least two of the three attractions in The Seas with Nemo and Friends Pavilion:  See The Seas with Nemo and Friends and Turtle Talk with Crush, and check out the Seas Main Tank and Exhibits.  Spend a much time with the exhibits as works for your family.
6. Go to the Land Pavilion, and catch your Soarin Fastpass; do Living with the Land if you have an interest in history, farming, vegetable gardening, or technology; and if you are a huge Lion King fan, or an ironist, see The Circle of Life…

Ok, see the problem? We aren’t at lunch yet, and there’s already four attractions that are basically optional.

The cool thing about Epcot is that it’s willing to go beyond pure play and try to capture the imagination and intellect of your family.  The problem with Epcot is that mostly as a result of this willingness, different families—and different members within a family—will love some stuff that others find just dull as dirt. And it’s hard to say ahead of time which will light a spark in your kids…

There’s four different types of attractions at Epcot

1. Ones most people will find lame—the Gran Fiesta Tour, Journey into the Imagination with Figment, Captain EO, the Norway Film, Circle of Life, much of Innoventions (VISION House, anyone?), etc.
2. Minor attractions—nothing wrong, but not worth a lot either—Maelstrom, The Seas with Nemo and Friends, Agent P’s World Showcase Adventure, etc.
3. Bi-modal attractions—some love them  and some find them unspeakably dull: the rest of Innoventions, Living with the Land, Ellen’s Energy Adventure, the Seas Main Tank and Exhibits, the American Adventure, the rest of the films in World Showcase, etc.
4. Attractions worth seeing for pretty much everyone 8 or older: Spaceship Earth, Soarin, Test Track, Turtle Talk with Crush, Mission Space, and Illuminations

So to get the best out of Epcot without spending two full days there, the trick is to have a sense of what might be your family’s “don’t-miss” attractions in addition to these last six, and see them either when they are right there at hand (like the ones in the Seas and Land pavilions) or later in the day—in times my itineraries right now mark as free time back at your resort.

WHAT’S COMING NEXT FOR THE EPCOT ITINERARIES

So I’ll be doing a couple of things to support this approach to Epcot.

• First, revising the early mornings so that they better respond to Test Track
• Second, publishing many more reviews of the rides at Epcot—with the focus being on the first three categories above, to help families with choices among them
• Third, grouping many of the rides from the first three categories above into new “optional” times that (optionally) re-capture time currently indicated as at the resorts, with as little back-tracking as possible

These changes and reviews will all be coming out over the course of the summer!

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