Category — q. Reviews

THE MAIN STREET ELECTRICAL PARADE

The evening parade at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, the Main Street Electrical Parade, re-opened in the summer of 2010.

Originally returned for the summer as part of Disney’s Summer Nightastic program, it has been now made the permanent evening parade, replacing Spectromagic.

The Main Street Electrical Parade ran at Walt Disney World for years, and then went to Disney’s California Adventure.

It has returned to Walt Disney World with a few new floats, and a general refurbishment.

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Where to Stay    Resort Features by Price    Kid Appeal    Large Families

The Value Resorts   Pop Century    Movies   Sports    Music   Art of Animation

OVERVIEW: DISNEY’S VALUE RESORTS

I’ve stayed at Disney’s Value Resorts more than twenty times, and in all five over the last couple of years.

These stays confirm the order in which the value resorts are recommended.

•  Disney’s Art of Animation Resort is number one among the values.

• After Art of Animation, the rank is, in order, Pop Century,  All-Star Movies, All-Star Sports, and All-Star Music.

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To go to the first page of this review, click here.

MORE ON DISNEY’S ALL-STAR MUSIC RESORT

Disney’s All-Star Music Resort officially pays homage to “classic music genres—including Broadway show tunes, calypso, country, jazz and rock n’ roll…Guest rooms are divided into 5 pairs of 3-story buildings—each bright, whimsical pair is themed after one of the featured music genres and decorated with massive musical instruments.

For larger families, Disney’s All-Star Music Resort is one of only two Disney Value Resort to offer family suites, which sleep up to 6 guests each. (Art of Animation also offers family suites.)

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Where to Stay    Resort Features by Price    Kid Appeal    Large Families

The Value Resorts    Art of Animation  Pop Century    Movies    Sports    Music

OVERVIEW: DISNEY’S ALL-STAR MUSIC RESORT

I’ve stayed at Disney’s Value Resorts more than 15 times.

These stays confirm the order in which the value resorts are recommended.

 Art of Animation is number one among the values.

After Art of Animation, the rank is, in order, Disney’s Pop Century Resort , All-Star Movies, All-Star Sports, and All-Star Music.

These rankings of the three All-Star Resorts are very close. Of these three,

• All-Star Sports is the most convenient, but kid appealing only if your kids are into baseball, football, basketball, surfing, or tennis
• All-Star Movies is the most broadly kid-appealing, and the most comfortable of the three
• All-Star Music is the most compact, most lovely, and the only one with family suites

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OVERVIEW: TOURINGPLANS.COM’S “CROWD CALENDAR 2.0”

The crew behind the Unofficial Guide—creators, among other things, of TouringPlans.com, Lines, and The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2011, have released a new version of their venerable daily crowd calendar.

The new release takes a great resource and makes it even better.

While it has many new features, the most important one is that the crowd predictions on the TouringPlans.com daily crowd calendar now match the most typical reason people look for crowd calendars. That is, the calendar now represents an estimate of general Walt Disney World theme park crowds on a given day.

Users of this site’s guidance on when to go, or its crowd calendar, or its itineraries, don’t need the touringplans.com daily crowd calendar.

But even so, it is a great and very affordable resource to use to double check my thoughts, valuable for all, and especially valuable for those designing their own itineraries.

MORE ON CROWD CALENDAR 2.0

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To go to the first page of this review, click here.

MORE ON DISNEY’S ALL-STAR MOVIES RESORT

Disney’s All-Star Movies Resort officially salutes “classic Disney films—including Disney·Pixar’s Toy Story, Fantasia, The Love Bug, The Mighty Ducks and One Hundred and One Dalmatians…the Toy Story section features a 27-foot-tall bucket of Green Army Men, a 30-foot-tall Woody icon and a 47-foot-tall Buzz Lightyear icon. The buildings are painted in bright colors and covered with playful details and hidden surprises.” [Read more →]