Category — p. News and Changes

DISNEY WORLD DEAL FOR SUMMER 2012

Walt Disney World has announced a new promotion for stays from mid-June though mid-August 2012.  Book between now and and June 14, 2012.

Details are sketchy, and there may be actually two deals–one room only, and one packages, with different dates.

But based on this and this, here’s what it looks like:

• Selected Value Resorts and Moderate Resorts: arrival dates 6/15 through 8/4/2012, 15% off values, 20% off moderates.
• Selected Deluxe Resorts and Disney Vacation Club Resorts: arrival dates 7/15 through 8/14, 20% off of some, 25% off of others.

I’ll revise and update this page as more details emerge…or I understand them better!

For Disney’s pages on this deal/deals, see this and this.

For other Disney World discounts, see this.

Recently this site completed its fourth full year of operation.

Readers of last year’s birthday message will recall I’ve decided that the official site anniversary will be April Fool’s day–it just seems fitting!

(This birthday post would have gone up on Sunday, April 1, 2012, but I had more important news to relay yesterday.)

By coincidence, the site will have its 1.5 millionth all-time visitor tomorrow–and a million of you have stopped by a for a spell over the last 12 months.

Even after four years, you continue to come to the site to get help, to ask questions, to suggest improvements or corrections, and you continue to tell your friends about it, to post about it on message boards, to pin it on pinterest, to recommend it in your books, and to link to it from your own websites.

Some of you–not many, fewer than there are stars in the sky, but a few more than there are planets in the heavens–even donate to help keep it running.

Thanks to all of you, the site is continuing to grow and help even more people.

I’m grateful for and humbled by your readership, your help, and your kind words…thanks!!

Dave

April 1, 2012: Word is leaking out of Walt Disney World that the next country to be added to Epcot’s World Showcase is Minnesota.

The Minnesota Pavilion, to feature mosquitoes and a thrill ride built around ice fishing, will be built halfway between Norway and Canada in Epcot’s World Showcase Lagoon, a location that honors Minnesota’s heritage, thousands of lakes, and general inaccessibility.

For those not familiar with Minnesota, the country is located between the U.S. and Canada. Settled largely by hapless Scandinavians who had been misled into thinking it habitable, its charming folkways have been celebrated in Lake Wobegon Days and other important ethnographies.

Minnesota’s economy is dominated by corn and beans, lovingly cared for during the 6 week growing season, and by strip mining for medical devices in the famous Duluth “Defective Lead Range.”

Its major metropolitan area includes the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, which formerly had professional sports, and may someday have them again.

People in Minnesota are famously nice. This makes it difficult to discover what they actually think—a habit of deception engendered by generations of denial about whether its climate is fit for human life.

Floating over this deceptiveness is extensive anxiety.

The one-percenters of Minneapolis desperately hope that they will be mistaken for Manhattanites; the citizens of St. Paul desperately hope to not to be confused for residents of Minneapolis; the farmers of the country are in a constant struggle to ensure that their tractors are bigger than their neighbors’ RVs—an arms race that has no end.

Some controversy has emerged over Disney World’s decision to install Minnesota as Epcot’s next country.

There’s concern among stock analysts that the capital costs of the ice-fishing ride may force Disney to defer its plans for high speed rail at the Animal Kingdom. Brazilians are disappointed, and some are whispering that Minnesota isn’t even a country. Contacted for a comment on this last point, Nancy Pelosi promised to check the Constitution and get back to us.

The Mouse For Less is reporting here that Disney will be releasing free dining for 8/25 through 9/29/2012 on Monday March 5.

DEAL AT WALT DISNEY WORLD HAS BOOKING DATES EXTENDED

A Disney World promotion offering discounts of 15-30% off of room rates for most arrival dates from April 13-June 14 2012 has had its booking window extended.

This deal’s booking window was to be closed on February 28, but Disney World’s website now shows booking available through March 31, 2012.

See this for more.

Meanwhile, one of my readers has heard rumors that late summer free dining at Walt Disney World will be offered by 3/5…see this for an apparent confirmation.

A couple of quick points:

• Disney’s current major Disney World discount available to the general public needs to be booked by February 28th.
• Multiple sources, including Mark Goldhaber at MousePlanet.com, are noting that Disney World will be upgrading its reservation systems beginning early in the morning Thursday 2/23. 

In the past, this upgrade has led to a bit of a mess, including trouble “with dining reservations records, dining plan credit records, and other resort systems.”   So bring paper copies and don’t expect to be able to use the systems the 23rd and perhaps even the 24th…

• Finally, I’ve been ill most of this week, so have gotten behind on new posts and on responding to comments…I promise to do better!