Category — p. News and Changes

2014 WALT DISNEY WORLD PLANNING TOOLS

The first draft of this site’s suite of planning tools for picking a date to visit Walt Disney World in 2014 is out.

The tools include 2014 weeks to visit, ranked in order, which is based on both the 2014 Disney World Crowd Calendar and the projected 2014 Price Seasons at Walt Disney World. Finally, there’s a basic overview of 2014 at Disney World as well.

The first three are drafts which will be updated as needed in the summer of 2013, and the fourth is a work in progress, which I’ll update as information emerges over over the next 14 months.

• The 2014 Crowd Calendar will be revised if needed as event dates firm up and more public schools release their 2013-2104 academic calendars. This update is typically in the summer, as not enough of the 180 or so school calendars that are tracked for this are out until then. 2014 is similar enough to recent years that I’m comfortable that the crowd calendar won’t change much.
• The 2014 Price Seasons are projections based on recent Disney World practice. The final 2014 price season will likely come out this summer, and this page will be updated then. Disney in recent years has both created and moved around price seasons, so if you are deciding between a couple of weeks based on price differences use the comment form below to contact me and I’ll weigh in on how solid I think a difference will turn out to be.
• Based on any summer 2013 updates to these two items, the 2014 Week Rankings will be revised if needed.
• The final recently published tool is Walt Disney World in 2014, giving an overview of the year and addressing all the most common questions. There’s not a lot to this yet, but as key 2014 info comes out, I’ll keep updating the page!

Some of you have been asking about the 2014 week picker—that won’t come out until the summer of 2013, when all the other revisions are set!

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 2012 weeks to visit, ranked in order, see this
  • For the 2012 Week Picker, see this
  • For 2013 weeks to visit, ranked in order, see this
  • For the 2013 Week Picker, click here
  • For 2014 weeks to visit, ranked in order, see this
• For forecasting crowds at Walt Disney World, see this
  • For the 2012 Crowd Calendar, click here
  • For the 2013 Crowd Calendar, click here
  • For the 2014 Crowd Calendar, click here
• For seasonal pricing at Walt Disney World, see this
  • For 2012 price seasons, see this
  • For 2013 price seasons, click here
  • For projected 2014 price seasons, see this
• For weather at Walt Disney World, see this

I’ve caught up recently on updating a lot of the pages on this site—incorporating not only 2013 prices (finally…) but also the updated value resort rankings with Art of Animation now fully open.

Some of these are deep in the site but potentially very helpful to particular families, so I thought I’d call them out here.

• Designing Your Walt Disney Vacation to a Target Budget is meant to help families on particularly tight budgets figure out what they can do for a certain amount of money.
• Large Families Looking for Value Pricing at Walt Disney World and Deluxe Options for Large Families at Walt Disney World have recommendations for families too large to fit into standard rooms.
• Beds and Sleeping Spaces at Walt Disney World builds on some of the same “large families” material, but is particularly designed for families worried as much—or more—about how many individual beds and private sleeping spots they get as they are about room capacity.
• …And of course What to Budget and Where to Stay are now up to date based on 2013 prices and the new top-ranking of Art of Animation.

There’s some other key new and updated pages–but more on those tomorrow!

2014 AT DISNEY WORLD

Below find the main topics for Walt Disney World in 2014, including

• Disney World 2014 packages and booking dates
• 2014 Disney World deals
• 2014 Disney Armed Forces Salute
• Free Dining in 2014 at Disney World
• The best weeks of 2014 to visit
• 2014 crowds at Disney World
• What’s new at Disney World in 2014, including FastPass+

[Read more →]

Disney World currently has a room rate offer that covers about half of November and two-thirds of December.

This deal needs to be booked by October 31, so if you are thinking about it you need to decide and act soon!

For more on the deal, see this.

Walt Disney World will be offering an additional set of passholder previews of the Fantasyland expansion.

More passholder previews of New Fantasyland will be held November 6-9 and 12-18.  For the time slots, see this.  You can sign up to try for as many as fit your schedule, and Disney will fill the slots randomly.

Sign up needs to happen by the end of October, and Disney will email results around November 2.

To sign up, login on the passholder website and click through the links.

RUMOR: BE OUR GUEST TO OPEN THIS SUNDAY

A trusted source tells me that a trusted source tells her that Disney World’s new restaurant, Be Our Guest, will begin offering counter service meals on October 28.

The quality of my sources suggests to me that this is a real intention   That doesn’t mean it will happen.  Operational challenges may delay the opening; if it does open, it could close at any time and not re-open until Disney thinks it is ready.

So I wouldn’t make a special trip to the Magic Kingdom Sunday based on this–but if you are there, check it out–and let me know if it’s open!