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Welcome back to Fridays with Jim Korkis! Jim, the dean of Disney historians, writes about Walt Disney World history every Friday on yourfirstvisit.net.

CATALINA EDDIE’S AT DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

By Jim Korkis

Many think that the Catalina Eddie’s quick-serve food and beverage location at the Sunset Market Ranch at DHS was meant to be a reference the popular 1988 feature film Who Framed Roger Rabbit where one of the plot points in the film was a past vacation detective Eddie Valiant and his girlfriend Dolores took to the island of Catalina. However, that is not the case at all.

The name is a reference to a Southern California weather condition known as the Catalina Eddy that sometimes occurs.

Here’s a description from the San Francisico State University Meterology site:

“The Catalina eddy, named for the Catalina Islands off the coast of Los Angeles, is an occasional phenomenon of coastal southern California south of Point Conception. It sometimes forms when the wind across the region in the lower atmosphere blows from the north or northeast.

“As air crosses the east-to-west oriented mountain ranges north of Santa Barbara (just east of Point Conception) and descends to the ocean, the pressure on the air increases, causing it to warm dramatically. As an indirect consequence of this warming, a region of relatively low pressure (compared to surrounding areas at the same altitude) develops in the lower atmosphere, south or southwest of the east-to-west oriented coastline.

“This warm, cloud-free region of relatively low pressure offshore draws cool marine air up the coast from the south. The marine air–which is often full of fog or low stratus clouds visible from space–then spirals around the low pressure center, creating the eddy and bringing cooling winds to the Los Angeles basin.”

(c) easyWDW

Catalina Eddie’s is part of the Sunset Market Ranch that includes a number of different counter service food venues like Rosie’s All American Cafe, Anaheim Produce, Hollywood Scoops and the Toluca Legs Turkey Company.

The Sunset Market Ranch was inspired by the original Farmers Market located at the intersection of 3rd and Fairfax in Los Angeles. During the summer of 1934, a group of farmers set up an informal market at that location.

The idea for expanding the space into a permanent marketplace with various stalls originated with two individuals, Roger Dahlhjelm, a businessman, and Fred Beck, an advertising copywriter. A complex of stalls and buildings quickly appeared in the formerly vacant area.

The market’s now iconic clock tower was built in 1941 and remains a part of the complex to this day, so its inclusion at the Sunset Market Ranch sets the time period as 1941 or later. Rosie’s All American Cafe establishes that the area is sometime during World War II.

The nautical pennants hanging overhead spell “CATEDDIES”. The slogan for the eatery is “Harbor Your Hunger”. Despite an anthropomorphic flying fish in a sailor cap on the sign, the location ironically does not sell any kind of fish item on its menu.

The image references the famed flying fish that soar out of the Island waters to heights of up to 30 feet and glide for distances as long as a quarter mile during the months approximately May to September every year.

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Thanks, Jim! And come back next Friday for more from Jim Korkis!

In the meantime, check out his books, including his latest, Call Me Walt, and his Secret Stories of Walt Disney World: Things You Never You Never Knew, which reprints much material first written for this site, all published by Theme Park Press.

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DISNEY WORLD NEXT WEEK: DECEMBER 30, 2017 TO JANUARY 7, 2018

The material below details next week’s Disney World operating hours, Extra Magic Hours, parades, and fireworks.

For more on January 2018 at Disney World, see this.

OPERATING HOURS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 12/30-1/7/18

The Magic Kingdom will be open from 8a-1a 12/30 and 12/31, 8a-11p 1/1, 8a-12MN 1/2ough 1/4, 9a-12MN 1/5, 9a-11p 1/6, and 9a-8p 1/7

Epcot will be open from 8a-10.30p 12/30, 8a-1a 12/31, and 9a-9p 1/1 through 1/7

Disney’s Hollywood Studios will be open 9a-10p 12/30, 9a-12MN 12/31, and 9a-9p 1/1 through 1/7

Disney’s Animal Kingdom will be open 8a-10p 12/30, 8a-9p 12/31, 8a-8p 1/1 through 1/6, and 9a-8p 1/7

EXTRA MAGIC HOURS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 12/30-1/7/18

Saturday 12/30 Morning: Magic Kingdom   Evening: Magic Kingdom

Sunday 12/31  Morning: Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom Evening: none

Monday 1/1 Morning: none  Evening: Epcot

Tuesday 1/2 Morning: Hollywood Studios Evening:  none

Wednesday 1/3 Morning:  none  Evening: Magic Kingdom

Thursday 1/4 Morning: Epcot Evening: none

Friday 1/5 Morning:  Magic Kingdom Evening: none

Saturday 1/6 Morning: Animal Kingdom  Evening: none

Sunday 1/7  Morning: Hollywood Studios Evening:  none

PARADES AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 12/30-1/7/18

The Magic Kingdom:  Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmastime Parade: noon and 3.30p 12/30 and 12/31; Festival of Fantasy Parade 3p 1/1 through 1/7

FIREWORKS AND EVENING SHOWS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 12/30-1/7/18

Happily Every After at Magic Kingdom: 9p 1/1 through 1/6; 8p 1/7

Fantasy in the Sky at Magic Kingdom: 6.30 and 11.50p 12/30 and 12/31

IllumiNations at Epcot:  10.30p 12/30; 6.30p 12/31; 9p 1/1 through 1/7

Special New Years Eve Fireworks at Epcot: 12/31 11.40p

Fantasmic at Disney’s Hollywood Studios:  7p 12/30 through 1/7

Star Wars Show and Fireworks at Disney’s Hollywood Studios:  10p 12/30; 12MN 12/31; 8p 1/1 through 1/7

Jingle Bell, Jingle BAM! at Disney’s Hollywood Studios: 6.30p 12/30; 6p 12/31

Rivers of Light at Disney’s Animal Kingdom 7.15, 8.30 and 9.45p 12/30; 7.15 and 8.45 p 12/31; 6.30 and 7.45 p 1/1 through 1/7

SHOW SCHEDULES FOR WALT DISNEY WORLD 12/30-1/7/18

See Steve Soares’ site here. Click the park names at its top for show schedules.

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You may not realize it, but tens of thousands of the folks who take care of the rides at Disney World, who drive the boats and buses, who check you in and prep your room, who cook your food and clean your sheets, make, on average, $11.28 an hour ($13.34 after overtime and shift differentials). That’s less than $24,000 a year.

This at a resort where twenty thousand rooms cost from $200 to over $1,000 a night, where four day tickets for a family of four will set you back more than $1,400, and where prices have been skyrocketing for years.

There are understandable reasons why cast member wages are this way, today, and understandable reasons why it’s been hard, until now, to make any material changes in this pay level.

But my back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest the new tax bill will save the Walt Disney Company around $1.5 billion to $2 billion a year, and that the company will in addition have the one time opportunity to repatriate perhaps another $3 billion to $4 billion in overseas earnings.*

So the opportunity is here for Disney to do the right thing, and bring everyone who earns a paycheck on its domestic properties (whether employed by Disney or by a firm to which Disney outsources work) to a minimum of $15 an hour before overtime or shift differentials.

Based on the numbers from here, it’s known that about 36,000 Disney World cast members average $11.28 an hour.  Getting them to $15 an hour would cost $3.72 an hour times 2080 hours times 36,000 people, or around $275 million a year.

Expanding this pay increase to all the other Disney World cast members, to the cast members at Disneyland, to all the folks in other domestic parts of the Walt Disney Company who make less than $15 an hour (for example, the folks behind ESPN sports rights negotiation strategy and Star Wars story continuity, it seems), fixing the resulting pay scale compression, taking care of pay-level linked benefits, and then factoring down to adjust for part-timers, I get to the nice round number of the cost to the company of $15 an hour being $500 million a year.

That’s a big number. But with the change in the tax environment, it’s time for a change in the pay environment.

Come on, Disney. It’s time.

*Analysts are still working on these numbers, and Disney may also have to write off certain no-longer-allowed deferred  tax assets.  But I don’t care, there’s enough.

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“I’ve long said that Dave has the absolute best Disney resort room information I have found!” –Didi Marie, DIStherapy

In November, when I checked out of my Studio at Bay Lake Tower, I completed my 150th different stay in (and review of) a Disney World owned room, studio, villa, suite, cabin, or campsite.

Anyone can ride all the rides. But most who write about Disney World have not stayed in all the hotels–not even close.  I’ve stayed in them all, and in every major room variant, multiple times–and recently.

This includes

• 30 value resort rooms and family suites, with Art of Animation and Pop Century in the lead with 8 and 10 stays respectively
• 35 rooms at the moderates, led by 10 stays at Port Orleans Riverside and 9 at Caribbean Beach
• 35 rooms at the deluxe resorts, led by 7 stays at the Contemporary and 5 at the Polynesian
• 46 different DVC studios and villas, led by Boulder Ridge Villas at the Wilderness Lodge and Kidani Village with 6 stays each
• Stays at 4 campsites at Fort Wilderness (my 5 stays in the Cabins are counted among the moderates.)

From my 2017 Pop Century stays.

In 2017 I stayed in (and published updated reviews of) twelve different Disney-owned rooms:

• Art of Animation
• Pop Century (twice)
• All-Star Sports
• Caribbean Beach
• Port Orleans Riverside
• Yacht Club (twice)
• Copper Creek Villas (twice)
• Kidani Village
• Bay Lake Tower

From my 2017 Yacht Club stays.

(In 2017 I also stayed in and published updated reviews of two on-site but non-Disney resorts–Four Seasons Resort Orlando and The Disney World Dolphin. In 2016 I stayed in 17 different Disney World-owned rooms, and in 2015 14 Disney World-owned rooms and 6 non-Disney on-site rooms.)

This experience matters because universally the weakest part of most Disney World guidebooks and websites is their material on where to stay, and that weakness what I am trying to avoid.

From my 2017 Copper Creek stays.

One person staying repeatedly in all the rooms and in all their major variants (e.g. at Port Orleans Riverside not only standard rooms, but also five-person rooms, and Royal rooms) is the only way to develop a complete, consistent, up-to-date and accurate picture of the hotel options and their strong and weak points.

Reading and copying other people’s experiences just won’t cut it, and those whose approach depends on this routinely publish howlers and generally get too many facts or judgements wrong. I can think of one site (whose owner has very little actual Disney World experience) that claimed that Fort Wilderness is a monorail resort, and that the Contemporary is one of the least expensive deluxe resorts!

From my 2017 Caribbean Beach stay.

Even having your own team of reviewers doesn’t work well, as they can’t compare across their own direct experiences the way a single reviewer can, leading them to miss comparative floor plan nuances or even major differences. Careful readers of a well-known 840 page guidebook will discover that Port Orleans Riverside has trundle beds, that Pepper Market uses stamped tickets, and a dozen other claims that just haven’t been true for years–or were never true. (My guide book, while not perfect, is much better.)

Consistently good and up to date material on the Disney hotel options is sadly rare, because it takes major, multi-year commitments of time and money.

Luckily, I have been able to create the time, and you, because of your support of the book, your patronage of the site’s various sponsors (like Kelly B and The Official Ticket Center), and your interest in the ads on this site, create the money that in turn I spend trying to keep this hotel material great and up to date.

For links to my reviews of all the Disney World-owned hotels, see this.

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Welcome back to Fridays with Jim Korkis! Jim, the dean of Disney historians, writes about Walt Disney World history every Friday on yourfirstvisit.net.

THE NA’VI SHAMAN OF SONGS

By Jim Korkis

“The Pandora attractions have very deliberate emotional moments crafted into them, the way a good story does, the way a good film does,” said Imagineer Joe Rohde. “It’s not as simple as just coming to a place that looks realistic. It’s a place that’s been deliberately imbued with the emotions of awe, of wonder, of respect, of harmony.”

The new Animal Kingdom attraction Na’vi River Journey opened in May 2017. In it, guests sail serenely down the Kaspavan River in a reed boat gently winding through a bioluminescent rainforest in the Valley of Mo’ara on the planet of Pandora. The Na’vi, the indigenous people of the planet, are seen throughout the ride in scenes where they are hunting and gathering.

Native wildlife can be seen on the nearby banks including the dangerous viper wolves and gentle woodsprites as well as mysterious glowing fauna.

According to Executive Creative Director Stefan Hellwig, “the queue begins on a path that winds its way around various textiles created by the Na’vi as well as their totems of the magical Shaman of Songs. The pieces are intricate works of art and give you a taste of the fascinating people you are are about to see.

“Above the queue is another intricate hand-woven piece that actually serves as a map of the river that winds through Pandora. The blue ropes represent the river, and the other areas represent the rest of the bioluminescent forest. At night, this piece takes on new life as it is illuminated with light that moves, showing where various life forms are as they journey down the river.”

All of the activity seems to be heading in the same direction and the lazy river journey culminates in the appearance of a figure who has a deep connection to the life force of Pandora and celebrates that connection through her music. Music is central to the culture of the Na’vi.

This is the Na’vi Shaman of Songs, who is radiating positive energy into the forest. The rough translation of her song basically thanks the Great Mother for the many gifts that allow the Na’vi to live well in the forest.

All of the other creatures have actually been presented as realistic projections on layers of screens that are positioned inside the magnificent scenery.

The Na’vi Shaman of Songs is the most complicated audio-animatronics figure ever created by Walt Disney Imagineering. Despite its sophistication and many functions, it is not a creation of Garner Holt Productions who have supplied many intricate audio-animatronics to the Disney theme parks.

During a robotics event in Boston, Disney provided a glimpse at the inner workings of the Na’vi Shaman, which is larger so it can hold more mechanics to provide more realistic movements and expressions.

“The shaman is even more extraordinary than we expected,” said Rohde. “Her facial expressions, little movements in the cheek, tiny movements in the eyelid – each one of these carries an emotion she’s capable of conveying.”

In the event of a malfunction of the audio-animatronics figure, a hidden scrim can be rolled down and then an image of the shaman projected onto it. Above the figure, where guests rarely if ever look, is a circular ring indicating how a screen curtain can be lowered and hide the actual figure.

“Na’vi River Journey is a very sweet, lyrical adventure through a spectacular visual environment that just becomes more and more spectacular as you go on,” explained Rohde. “The bioluminescent activity of the plants around you unfolds in richer and richer scenes in really just a very uplifting, wonderful kind of journey.”

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Thanks, Jim! There’s more on Na’vi River Journey here. And come back next Friday for more from Jim Korkis!

In the meantime, check out his books, including his latest, Call Me Walt, and his Secret Stories of Walt Disney World: Things You Never You Never Knew, which reprints much material first written for this site, all published by Theme Park Press.

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

DISNEY WORLD NEXT WEEK: DECEMBER 23 TO DECEMBER 31, 2017

The material below details next week’s Disney World operating hours, Extra Magic Hours, parades, and fireworks.

For more on December 2017 at Disney World, see this.

OPERATING HOURS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 12/23-12/31/17

The Magic Kingdom will be open from 8a-12MN 12/23 through 12/29, and 8a-1a 12/30 and 12/31

Epcot will be open from 9a-9.30p 12/23, 9a-10.30p 12/24 to 11/26, 8a-10.30p 12/27 through 12/30, and 8a-1a 12/31

Disney’s Hollywood Studios will be open 9a-9p 12/23, 9a-10p 12/24 through 12/30, and 9a-12MN 12/31

Disney’s Animal Kingdom will be open 9a-8p 12/23, 8a through 10p 12/24 through 12/30, and 8a-9p 12/31

EXTRA MAGIC HOURS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 12/23-12/31/17

Saturday 12/23 Morning:  Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom  Evening: none

Sunday 12/24  Morning: Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios Evening: Epcot

Monday 12/25 Morning: Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom   Evening: none

Tuesday 12/26 Morning: Magic Kingdom Evening:  Epcot

Wednesday 12/27 Morning: Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom  Evening: none

Thursday 12/28 Morning: Magic Kingdom, Epcot Evening: none

Friday 12/29 Morning:  Magic Kingdom Evening: none

Saturday 12/30 Morning: Magic Kingdom   Evening: Magic Kingdom

Sunday 12/31  Morning: Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom Evening: none

PARADES AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 12/23-12/31/17

The Magic Kingdom:  Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmastime Parade: noon and 3.30p 12/23 through 12/31

FIREWORKS AND EVENING SHOWS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 12/23-12/31/17

Happily Every After at Magic Kingdom: 9p 12/23 through 12/29

Fantasy in the Sky at Magic Kingdom:6.30 and 11.50p 12/30 and 12/31

IllumiNations at Epcot:  9.30p 12/23; 10.30p 12/24 through 12/30; 6.30p 12/31

Special New Years Eve Fireworks at Epcot: 12/31 11.40p

Fantasmic at Disney’s Hollywood Studios:  7p 12/23 through 12/31

Star Wars Show and Fireworks at Disney’s Hollywood Studios:  9p  12/23; 10p 12/24 through 12/30; 12MN 12/31

Jingle Bell, Jingle BAM! at Disney’s Hollywood Studios: 6.30p 12/23 through 12/30; 6p 12/31

Rivers of Light at Disney’s Animal Kingdom 7.15 and 8.30p 12/23; 7.15, 8.30 and 9.45p 12/24 through 12/30; 7.15 and 8.45 p 12/31

SHOW SCHEDULES FOR WALT DISNEY WORLD 12/23-12/31/17

See Steve Soares’ site here. Click the park names at its top for show schedules.

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