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(For the first page of this review of Bay Lake Tower, see this.)

STUDIOS AT BAY LAKE TOWER

Most Disney World studios put the kitchenette on one side of the entry hall and the bath (and sometimes the closet) on the other.

However, at Bay Lake Tower studios, both the bath and kitchenette are on the same side of the room, and the kitchenette is rotated 90 degrees from its more common layout.

This yields wasted circulation space in the kitchenette, and a quite short living area, making these rooms hard to live in when the sofa bed is unfurled.

In this view of the entry to a Bay Lake Tower studio, the bath and kitchenette are on the left, and the closet on the right.

Here’s the closet.

Note the large safe. My book is six by nine inches, and you could easily fit half a dozen in there–and probably should.

Across the hall you’ll find the bath, which includes a small sink…

…and all the usual other stuff, all in one space.  There’s another sink just outside in the kitchenette, so it functions almost as well as a divided bath.

The U-shaped kitchenette has all the basics on one side.

A closer view of the coffeemaker, toaster, and microwave.

Below all this are storage drawers…

…and the mini-fridge.

The other side of the kitchenette has storage shelves and a mirror. We don’t need to go into why there’s a blank wall to the left of the shelves and mirror–suffice it to say that it’s the relic of another design error, but one that Disney was able to fix.

Deeper in the room you’ll find the living space, with a queen bed and fold-out couch on one side.

This side of the room from the back.

A closer view of the queen bed. Note from the last two images how tight the bed is to the wall and couch, and how tight the couch is to the curtains.  This space is 30 inches or so too narrow for what it is trying to pull off.

A closer view of the couch…

…which folds out into a full bed that I measured as 54 inches by 76 inches with a four inch thick cushion. The room is so cramped with the couch unfurled that you’d be best off booking just three in it, if the third is short enough to sleep lengthwise on the un-opened couch.

Balconies are at the end of each studio.

Bay Lake Tower rooms come with three views–Standard, Lake or Theme Park. The Lake and Theme Park Views are of Bay Lake or Magic Kingdom. Standard views are either of something else, or are so low that they can’t be defended as having a specific view.

I’ve had higher floor Bay Lake and Magic Kingdom views at Bay Lake Tower, and the views at both were terrific.

Here’s an upper floor Bay Lake view.

My November 2017 studio was a second floor standard view room, and the daytime view was indeed weak.

However, I actually had an OK view of the Magic Kingdom fireworks.

The other side of the room has a dresser/TV thingy and table and chairs.

The TV side from the back.

A closer view of the dresser and (small) TV.

There’s six large drawers below, and shelves next to the TV.

Back in the room you’ll find this table and chairs.

Some Two Bedroom Villas are made up of a One Bedroom and a Studio via the connecting door near the entry, so we’ll look at a One Bedroom Villa next.

PHOTO TOUR OF THE LIVING/DINING/KITCHEN AREA OF ONE AND TWO BEDROOM VILLAS AT BAY LAKE TOWER

This review continues here.
 

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Update: these benefits have been extended into 2020.

Today I received a press release noting that the Disney Springs Resort Area hotels will be gaining access to Extra Magic Hours beginning January 1, 2018, and, those “who have booked a Walt Disney Travel Company package including a stay at one of [these] hotels, and theme park admission” with a linked, valid theme park ticket, can make FastPass+ bookings at 60 days beginning January 10, 2018.

While never called an experiment in the press release, the Extra Magic Hours benefit is explicitly referred to as lasting through December 31, 2018, and is noted as being “subject to change without notice.” The FastPass+ at 60 days discussion the press release does not contain such limiting language. But one rumor I’ve heard is that “these benefits are going to be temporary to help during all the Disney resort closures for construction.”

The seven Disney Springs hotels are all on the far (eastern) side of Disney World, to the east of Disney Springs itself. They have on the order of 3,700 rooms in total. They include (descriptions from the press release):

• B Resort & Spa – the stylish resort opened in June 2014 with 394 newly renovated guest rooms, the full-service B Indulged AVEDA Spa, and features American Kitchen Bar & Grill
• Best Western Lake Buena Vista – the 18-story, 325-room resort overlooks scenic Lake Buena Vista and the Walt Disney World Resort, and offers two restaurants, a lounge, and wireless internet
• DoubleTree Suites by Hilton Orlando – the luxurious resort hotel features 229 spacious suites, and is the only all-suite resort hotel in the Disney Springs Resort Area
• Hilton Orlando Buena Vista Palace –the 27-acre, newly renovated hotel features a beautifully redesigned pool area with four pools, seven restaurants and lounges, spa, and a Character Breakfast every Sunday
• Hilton Orlando Lake Buena Vista – the closest hotel to Disney Springs, the resort offers two pools, a Disney Character Breakfast each Sunday, seven restaurants and lounges (including Benihana Steakhouse), and 24-hour fitness center
• Holiday Inn Orlando – offers the ideal setting to stay and play, featuring modern Florida décor, a beach entry swimming pool, and complimentary Wi-Fi in all guest rooms and public areas
• Wyndham Garden Lake Buena Vista –  featuring a Disney Character Breakfast 3 days a week, 394 guest rooms, six dining options, and the Oasis Aquatic Pool Playground with interactive water features

While there has already been much concern–even panic–about the impact of these ~3,700 rooms gaining access to these Disney World perks, the overall increase in rooms with access to these benefits is only about 15%.

Not everyone in them is there for a Disney World vacation (most of the times I’ve stayed at the Disney Springs Hilton, it’s been for conferences). Moreover, on the 60 day FastPass+ issue, not even all those in these hotels aiming to go to Disney World will have booked their stays with a “Walt Disney Travel Company package.”

Note that in addition Steve Bell has reported on MilitaryDisneyTips.com that Shades of Green guests also now have access to FastPass+ at 60 days, and so do guests at the Four Seasons.

So what I expect is that what was already hard—for example getting FastPass+ for Flight of Passage or Seven Dwarfs Mine Train—will get a bit harder, and what was already crowded—evening Extra Magic hours and morning EMH at Animal Kingdom—will get a bit more crowded. But I don’t expect a huge change from the expansion of these perks.

I speculated a month ago about this possibility and what might be the thinking behind it. What we’ve seen—so far—is just a subset of the hotels that were rumored to possibly be part of this plan.

The long-time travel agent partner of this site, Kelly B., can help you book your Disney World vacation at a Disney Springs Resort Area hotel or anywhere else–contact her at KellyB@DestinationsInFlorida.com or 980-429-4499.

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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.

I’M GOING TO WALT DISNEY WORLD

By Jim Korkis

Disney refers to the famous marketing campaign that the rest of us know as “I’m Going to Walt Disney World!” as “What’s Next?”

After a series of game highlights set to the tune “When You Wish upon a Star”, the camera cuts to a player in the immediate aftermath of a Super Bowl win and an unseen narrator poses the famous question, “(Blank), you’ve just won the Super Bowl, what are you going to do next?”

The player looks gleefully into the camera and answers that he is going to Disneyland or Walt Disney World. The commercial ends with an image of fireworks exploding over Cinderella’s Castle at Walt Disney World, or Sleeping Beauty’s Castle at Disneyland.

The narrator is Mark Champion, a veteran radio play-by-play announcer for several football teams like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Detroit Pistons and the Detroit Lions. He got the job because a college classmate was a marketing director at Disney.

(c) Gretchen Carlson

Typically, the celebrity records two different versions, one mentioning Disneyland and the other Walt Disney World. Disney gives them an “MVP” all-expense paid trip, flying them on a private jet to Disneyland or Walt Disney World and then puts their family up in a suite for the duration of their vacation.  They also are made the Grand Marshall of a parade and take part in various events for Disney during their stay.

As former Disney CEO Michael Eisner recalled, “In January 1987, we were launching Disneyland’s Star Tours, an attraction based on Star Wars. After the ribbon-cutting ceremony, my wife, Jane, and I had dinner with George Lucas, as well as Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, who had just become the first people to fly around the world without stopping.

“It was late and the conversation hit a lull as we waited for our food. So I asked Dick and Jeana, ‘Well, now that you’ve accomplished the pinnacle of your aspirations, what could you possibly do next?’ Rutan responded, without hesitation, ‘I’m going to Disneyland’. And of course I go, ‘Wow, that’s cool! You made the right choice’ But my wife interjects: ‘You know, that’s a good slogan.’ And so that is how it all began.”

Just weeks later, Disney launched the series of commercials following Super Bowl XXI on January 25, 1987. That first commercial was done by reluctant quarterback Phil Simms who was paid $75,000 (later the price was dropped for others to around $30,000) and was the MVP for the game.

Simms played for the New York Giants who beat the Denver Broncos 39-20. Broncos quarterback John Elway had been offered a similar amount of money whether his team won or lost so Disney hedged its bets.

Disney had produced halftime shows for the NFL so had a good relationship with the organization and paid them for having access on the field after the game.

Disney then followed this up with making three more such commercials in 1987, following other major sporting championships.  These included hiring yachtsman Dennis Conner, after winning the America’s Cup; NBA star Magic Johnson, after the Lakers won the NBA Finals, and MLB player Frank Viola, after the Twins won the World Series that year.

Other commercials featuring non-Super Bowl participants included Bruce Springsteen, Gretchen Carlson (Miss America 1989), Santa Claus (1997), Michael Jordan, Nancy Kerrigan and even American Idol winners like Kris Allen, Lee DeWyze and Scotty McCrerry.

However, it is the NFL Super Bowl games that most people remember. The commercial has aired after every Super Bowl since 1987, except for one. In 2005, the commercial did not air although the reason for this absence has never been made clear.

*  *  *  *  *

Thanks, Jim! In the “small world” department, I once exchanged phone numbers with and asked out on a date someone who’s been part of this campaign–Gretchen Carlson. (Gretchen: if you are reading this (and why would you not be?)–think the Apartments at Nautica.)

But then I met the lovely Amy Girl, and we just celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary!

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 16 TO DECEMBER 24, 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 12/16-12/24/17

The Magic Kingdom will be open from 8a-12MN 12/16, 8a-6p 12/17, 9a-11p 12/18, 8a-6p 12/16, 9a-11p 12/20, 8a-6p 12/21 and 12/22,  and 8a-12MN 12/23 and 12/24

Epcot will be open from 9a-9.30p 12/16 through 12/23 and 9a-10.30p 12/24

Disney’s Hollywood Studios will be open 9a-6p 12/16, 9a-9p 12/17 through 12/23, and 9a-10p 12/24

Disney’s Animal Kingdom will be open 9a-8p 12/16 through 12/23, and 8a through 10p 12/24

EXTRA MAGIC HOURS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 12/16-12/24/17

Saturday 12/16 Morning:  Animal Kingdom  Evening: none

Sunday 12/17  Morning:  none Evening: Epcot

Monday 12/18 Morning: Animal Kingdom   Evening: none

Tuesday 12/19 Morning: Hollywood Studios Evening:  none

Wednesday 12/20 Morning: none  Evening: Magic Kingdom

Thursday 12/21 Morning: Epcot Evening: none

Friday 12/22 Morning:  Magic Kingdom Evening: none

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

Sunday 12/24  Morning: Hollywood Studios, Magic Kingdom Evening: none

PARADES AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 12/16-12/24/17

The Magic Kingdom: Afternoon Festival of Fantasy Parade: 2p 12/16 through 12/22; Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmastime Parade: noon and 3.30p 12/24 and 12/25

FIREWORKS AND EVENING SHOWS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 12/16-12/24/17

Happily Every After at Magic Kingdom: 9p 12/16, 12/18, 12/20, 12/23 and 12/24

IllumiNations at Epcot:  9.30p 12/16 through 12/23; 10.30p 12/24

Fantasmic at Disney’s Hollywood Studios:  7p 12/17 through 12/24

Star Wars Show and Fireworks at Disney’s Hollywood Studios:  9p 12/17 through 12/23; 10p 12/24

Jingle Bell, Jingle BAM! at Disney’s Hollywood Studios: 6.30p 12/17 through 12/24

Rivers of Light at Disney’s Animal Kingdom 7.15 and 8.30p 12/16 through 12/23; 7.15, 8.30 and 9.45p 12/24

SHOW SCHEDULES FOR WALT DISNEY WORLD 12/16-12/24/17

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

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I just completed and published my updated review of Disney’s Yacht Club Resort. The updated Yacht Club review begins here, and has six pages in total:

• Overview and Summary of Disney’s Yacht Club Resort
• Accommodations and Theming at the Yacht Club
• A photo tour of a Yacht Club room
• Dining at the Yacht Club
• Amenities at the Yacht Club
• Stormalong Bay, the Yacht Club’s main pool

The update includes a bunch of all-new photos from my March 2017 say in a not-yet-refurbed room and my November 2017 stay in a refurbed room.

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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 LAND MOSAIC

By Jim Korkis

Walt Peregoy was a color stylist and background artist for animated films including Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmatians and the Sword in the Stone. From 1977-1983, he worked at WED, and did work for The Land pavilion and the original Journey Into Imagination pavilion at Epcot’s Future World.

Peregoy designed the entrance mosaic for The Land pavilion, and answered my questions about it in a 2007 interview: “It is three thousand, six hundred square feet. Every celebrity in the world has gone through Disneyland, I’m sure, but there’s nothing obvious, that sticks out as a particular work of art. This does.

“For the Land pavilion, I designed the entranceway and the twenty-seven foot tall, 360 degree sky inside. I designed the three solid balloons that would go up and down with different foods. I designed the fountain below the balloons, but I didn’t get my way with the fountain. Jim Sarno sculpted it. Beautiful. He told me he left because the fountain wasn’t finished with the top the way I designed it. I intended that it all be different foods not only sculpted but painted.

“Orlando Ferrante called me one day and said, ‘This is about the mosaic’. I said, ‘Oh, I guess you’re not going to do it. I understand that’. He said, ‘No, we’re going to do it!’ 3,600 square foot mirror image. It’s fantastic! I’ve still got the original study plaque that I made of it.

“They blew up it up verbatim. I go over to see this German mosaicist. He lived up above Beverly Drive up in the hills until it finally became a dirt road. He was an ex-S.S. German. I told him, ‘My wife’s French’. He said to me, ‘You’ll have to come over to dinner. Bring your wife’. I said, ‘You’ve gotta be kidding! My wife will kill you. My young brother-in-law was beaten to death over a period of four years’.

“Every time I would leave him, he would come out to the garage with me and I would be in a car backing out, he would say, ‘See ya!’ and he would click his heels! He wasn’t being mean. He was just so German. I thought, ‘You got to be kidding!’ He clicked his heels.

“I have to admit he was good. I would go up to his house to see how the mosaic was coming along periodically but he would always click his heels when he said ‘goodbye’.

“When Disney said to me, ‘You can’t put your name on it’, I said, ‘Then his name doesn’t go on it either’. Eventually Disney said, ‘Mosaic originally styled and designed by Walt Peregoy’. Even when I’m dead, even when nobody ever knows me, I will still know.”

The transformation into a physical reality was the task of world-famed mosaicist Hanns-Joachim Scharff with his daughter-in-law Monika. Scharff studied art history at the University of Leipzig and was inspired and drawn to mosaics as a youth during a visit to Italy. He was also an S.S. interrogator for the Nazis during World War II.

In 1966, he did mosaic work for New Orleans Square in Disneyland. In 1970, he and his wife and daughter-in-law did the impressive mural inside the breezeway of Cinderella Castle which was one of the reasons he was asked to do this mosaic.

The Land Pavilion mosaic has approximately 150,000 individually cut and shaped pieces in 131 different colors. The pieces are made of marble, granite, slate, Byzantine glass, Venetian glass, real gold, mirror, ceramic and pebbles.

The mural is supposed to be a mirror image but there is one tile different in each side. One side has a ruby colored tile while the other has an Emerald colored tile. Hanns-Joachim worked on one side of the mural and Monika on the other. The different stones represent their birth stones.

*  *  *  *  *

Thanks, Jim! Jim has also written about Scharff  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.

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