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DISNEY WORLD CROWDS THE WEEK OF 12/16/2017

I messed up my Disney World crowd forecast for the week of December 16, 2017. I’d expected on the order of 30% of us schoolkids to be off by 12/16, like in 2016, but in fact only about 10% are.

As a result, I’ll be revising the crowd forecast for this week from “high” to “moderate-plus.”

Moderate-plus for the week of 12/16/17 represents the overall average of the nine days from 12/16 through 12/24–these dates will be better than that at the beginning, and worse than that at the end.

SHORTER PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR GETTING THE WEEK OF 12/16/17 AT DISNEY WORLD WRONG

For the first time since 2006—well before I began forecasting Disney World crowds—Christmas in 2017 is on a Monday. I didn’t have enough experience with Monday Christmases to get it right…

LONGER PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR GETTING THE WEEK OF 12/16/17 AT DISNEY WORLD WRONG

Every year I publish draft crowd calendar in the fall for the year that begins ~15 months ahead, and then update it the summer before.

The draft is based on experience and judgment, and the later update is based on analysis of actual school breaks for the coming year school year.

My school break analysis is based on the actual schedules of more than 15 million kids in more than 270 school districts, weighted by state based on that state’s proportion of the 12 million visitors to this site (as a proxy for the propensity of families from that state to go to Disney World).

It comes so late in the year because so many districts don’t publish their calendars for the upcoming school year until May or even June. (BTW, because district calendars are largely not out yet, most of Michigan is still missing in detail from my datasets, but required common county calendars let me get Michigan Christmas breaks for this analysis.)

Part of Christmas is easy to forecast, and part is harder.

This is because there are two typical Christmas breaks—short breaks and long breaks.

• Districts that take short breaks are out as close to December 25 to January 1 + a day or two as the calendar lets them be—a weekend New Year’s Day will put them back in school the Tuesday after it. Depending on the day of New Years, the shortest of the short breakers can have a break as short as 8 days. In 2017, the Monday holidays means the shortest possible break is ten days.
• Districts that take long breaks are also off during this period—which is the easy part of the forecast, the parks will be mobbed for December 25 though December 31. They typically take at least two full weeks—with three weekends—off, and so are out a minimum of 16 days.

Here’s the distribution of actual break lengths for the 2017/2018 holidays (it’s not weighted):

If you sum, you’ll find about half of districts are long-breakers, and a tad less than half are short breakers. (The rest are in the right-side tail of really long breakers…)

The long breakers are the problem, as the day of Christmas shapes whether their breaks starts well before Christmas or not. A Wednesday Christmas makes forecasting easier—the vast number of long breakers facing a Wednesday Christmas will start their break the weekend before, on 12/21, and end it two weeks later on 1/5. A Saturday Christmas is harder to forecast, but many districts will begin their breaks a week before, on 12/18, and end on January 4 (not the third, as the holiday will be observed then).

Here’s the same point made (well, perhaps it’s made) graphically, with the long-breakers in green:

In 2016, Christmas was a Sunday, and as a result many long breaks went from 12/17/16 to 1/2/17. Thirty percent of kids were off the week beginning 12/17/16.

With the Monday Christmas in 2017, I expected a similar pattern—but as noted above, this is the first Monday Christmas since 2006, so I did not have solid data.

Now I do—and have discovered that only 10% of kids are out on 12/16/17, and the more common long break in 2017-2018 is from 12/21, 12/22 or 12/23 through 1/7.

This shows the distribution of breaks in 2016-2017 and 2017-2018:

OK so now I know better, and promise to do better the next time we have a Monday Christmas, which will be in 2023…

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DISNEY WORLD CROWDS FROM LATER DECEMBER 2017 TO EARLY JANUARY 2018

Disney World sees its highest crowds and prices of the year in the later third of December and the beginning of January, in the weeks around Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

This is for a pretty basic reason: kids are out of school then.

However, not every school district has the same break schedule.

In 2017, as always, there’s more kids out the week between Christmas and New Year’s than before or after.

Unlike 2016, because of the Monday Christmas (the first since 2006), there’s not a lot of kids out the week before Christmas. Crowds the first part of the week of December 16 will be fine, but will build at the end of the week and be massive by December 23, 2017.

The week after New Years in 2018 has many more kids on break than usual, so I expect it to be heavily crowded through January 8, 2017.

SCHOOL BREAKS AND DISNEY WORLD CROWDS

Most years, there two typical sorts of breaks:

• Long breakers–districts that take at least 2 full weeks (and three weekends) off
• Short breakers–districts that take off as close to only December 25 to January 1 as they can

As a result, the period Christmas-New Years is always mobbed at Disney World, as everyone is out of school then, but the periods before and after vary from year to year depending on what day of the week Christmas falls.

In 2017, a Monday Christmas put long-break districts in the position having to pick when to schedule their second week–before Christmas weekend, or after New Years. Enough put it after New Year’s that I expect to see heavy crowds that week.

Note that I had originally forecast the week beginning 12/16/2017 as “high crowds.” However, more long-break schools than I’d expected put their second week in January rather than December, so I am now calling that a moderate-plus crowd week–which is the combined effect of moderate-minus early in the week and high late in the week.

ACTUAL 2017-2018 CHRISTMAS SEASON SCHOOL BREAKS

The chart above illuminates this.

It’s based on data from a weighted sample including more than 270 of the largest relevant US public school districts with almost a third–more than 15 million–of total US school kids included.

The holidays are red, the weekends black, and weekdays blue.  Click the image enlarge it.

You can see that some breaks begin Saturday the 16th, with hardly any kids on break before then. More kids go on break beginning the 2oth, and by the 23rd everyone is on break.

Pretty much everybody stays out of school through January 1, 2018, and while many go back to school January 2 or 3rd, almost 40% of US schoolkids remain on break through January 7.

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Welcome back to Fridays with Jim Korkis! Jim, the dean of Disney historians and author of Jim’s Gems in The easy Guide, writes about Walt Disney World history every Friday on yourfirstvisit.net.

THE ELECTRICAL WATER PAGEANT

By Jim Korkis

The Electrical Water Pageant first premiered in the Seven Seas Lagoon in October 1971.

Weather permitting, it is performed every night. The pageant barges are stored in the canal behind the Production Center building at Magic Kingdom located behind Splash Mountain.

The pageant includes two “strings” of seven barges each. Each string extends approximately 456 feet in length. The two together are barely one hundred feet shorter than the length of an aircraft carrier.

Each of the 14 barges features a twenty-five foot high, thirty-six foot long wire screen decorated with lights.

Five people are required to operate the fleet: two pilots, two co-pilots and one safety-boat operator. The job of the safety-boat operator is to handle any problems once the barges are underway as well as assisting in pushing the barges around corners since the turning radius is literally a quarter of a mile unassisted.

The crew reports to the Production Center at 8:30pm each night where they don headsets, radios and appropriate clothing in case of cold or foul weather. They head out to the barges roughly ten minutes later.

A pilot sits in a booth on the first barge and the co-pilot sits in a booth on the last barge of the string. Both are connected with the audio headsets. They untie the barges and take off to head for their first show at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort at approximately nine o’clock.

The loop continues with shows roughly fifteen minutes apart at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, Disney’s Wilderness Lodge, Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground, Disney’s Contemporary Resort and finally outside the entrance of the Magic Kingdom park.

The barges arrive just a few moments before each show primarily because of the wind. They can not simply sit in one spot because the screens act as sails so any wind can play havoc even though the pilots try to form a sort of rainbow arc. Basically, there are just platforms on pontoons so are more fragile than most guests suspect.

The show begins immediately everyone is in position. The first string will signal the second string by light, letting them know that the show is ready to go. The co-pilot on barge 14, the last barge on the second string, has master audio control.

He flips a switch and it pumps music through a transmitter from his string to the first string’s receiver so everything is in sync. The co-pilots on each string flip switches to activate the lights on each screen when he or she hears the music cues.

The Paul Beaver version of Gershon Kingsley & Jean Jeaque Perrey’s “Baroque Hoedown”, created specially for the Electrical Water Pageant, was used from 1971 until 1977. The very same soundtrack was later used by Disneyland’s original Main Street Electrical Parade from 1972 until 1974 when it was re-recorded and updated by Don Dorsey.

The Electrical Water Pageant that guests see today consists of much the same floats in the same formation dating back to 1977. The only difference is in 1996 a new musical score was created for both the opening and closing of the Electrical Water Pageant as well as each creature depicted in the pageant.

Going over the water bridge between Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake is “like dragging a garden hose through your house without touching anything” said coordinator David Kaumeier who operated the show for three decades.

“We can hear guests hooting and clapping 100 yards away and we get a great satisfaction from that. We’re the only crew that does this type of work in the world.

*  *  *  *  *

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

In the meantime, check out his books, including his latest, Secret Stories of Disneyland, his Secret Stories of Walt Disney World: Things You Never You Never Knew, which reprints much material first written for this site, and his contributions to The easy Guide to Your Walt Disney World Visit, all published by Theme Park Press.

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Older son yesterday received a pin code offer for Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort for, after taxes, $81.88 a night off of standard room rates.

“Pin codes” are non-transferable Disney World deals offered to a specific household and accompanied by a unique offer code.  They can come via email or mail, and you can also call to see if you have one in your file. You can’t get the deal if you don’t have the code.

The deal my son was offered was for only weekdays during the period July 2 through August 3, and can’t be combined with other offers.

This savings, to me, more than makes up for the issues of the current redo at Caribbean Beach.

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DISNEY WORLD NEXT WEEK: MAY 27 TO JUNE 4, 2017

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

For more on May 2017 at Disney World, see this, and for more on June, see this.

OPERATING HOURS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 5/27/-6/4/17

The Magic Kingdom will be open from 8a-11p 5/27, 9a-11p 5/28 through 6/2, 8a-11p 6/3, and 9a-10p 6/4

Epcot will be open from 9a-9p every day

Disney’s Hollywood Studios will be open 9a-9.30p every day

Disney’s Animal Kingdom will be open 8a-11p every day

EXTRA MAGIC HOURS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 5/27-6/4/17

Saturday 5/27 Morning:  Animal Kingdom Evening: Animal Kingdom

Sunday 5/28  Morning:  Hollywood Studios  Evening: Animal Kingdom

Monday 5/29 Morning: Animal Kingdom  Evening: Animal Kingdom

Tuesday 5/30 Morning: none Evening:  Epcot, Animal Kingdom

Wednesday 5/31 Morning: none  Evening:  Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom

Thursday 6/1 Morning: Epcot Evening: Animal Kingdom

Friday 6/2 Morning:  Magic Kingdom Evening: Animal Kingdom

Saturday 6/3 Morning: Animal Kingdom Evening: Animal Kingdom

Sunday 6/4  Morning: Hollywood Studios Evening: Animal Kingdom

PARADES AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 5/27-6/4/2017

The Magic Kingdom: Afternoon Festival of Fantasy Parade: 3p every day

FIREWORKS AND EVENING SHOWS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 5/27-6/4/17

Happily Every After at Magic Kingdom: 9p every night

IllumiNations at Epcot: 9p every night

Fantasmic at Disney’s Hollywood Studios: 9p every night

Star Wars Show and Fireworks at Disney’s Hollywood Studios: 9.30p every night

Rivers of Light at Disney’s Animal Kingdom 9.15p and 10.30p every night; additional 11.45p show for Extra Magic Hour attendees 5/27 and 5/28, and 6/2 to 6/4

SHOW SCHEDULES FOR WALT DISNEY WORLD 5/27-6/4/17

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

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THE BASICS OF THE REFURB AT DISNEY’S CARIBBEAN BEACH RESORT

(For the first page of this review of Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort, see this.)

Note 10/3: At least some dining will re-open on October 8, 2018!
Disney’s Caribbean Beach resort is undergoing a major redo.

Nine accommodations buildings have closed and are surrounded by construction fences.

Closed are all six buildings of Barbados, and the three northern buildings in Martinique.

All rooms at Caribbean Beach were refurbed recently, and many had a fifth sleeping spot added. The furniture for this fifth spot is being taken out of the rooms in the closed nine buildings and added to the 18 remaining queen bed buildings.

What this means is that in the remaining queen rooms (that is, in all villages except Trinidad South), it will be much easier to get a five person/three bed room.

The nine closed buildings are gone from the map, and will be replaced by a new stand-alone and separate DVC resort, Disney’s Riviera Resort. The absence of these ~562 rooms—more than 25% of Caribbean Beach’s pre-construction capacity—has already reduced crowds on the buses and at the main pool.

I spent some time on my June stay here (my 9th stay here) evaluating the buses. 80% of buses (the gold line) departed 20 minutes or sooner after the last bus to the same park had departed. The median (red line) time between buses was 15 minutes, implying a 7-8 minute average wait.

Your results may vary, and bus routes have changed, with the new sequence being Martinique–>Old Port Royale–>Trinidad North–>Trinidad South–>Jamaica–>Aruba, then a turn around and exit after passing Aruba and Jamaica again.

Construction is also happening at the Custom House area, including the addition of a large temporary building (the image shows its short side). This building has not been widely discussed, but seems to be offices for the new construction.

The shops, concierge services, table service restaurant, quick service restaurant, and other amenities at Old Port Royale are closed. They will be rebuilt near the same area but along the water. What this means is that the remaining buildings in Martinique will have demolition and/or construction at both their northern and southern ends, and should be avoided.

The bar has been converted to this weak-looking thing, but functions just fine.

Temporary replacement for the gift shops comes from a shopping truck near the main pool…

…and also from small “Island Markets” in converted rooms in Martinique (2509), Jamaica (4308), and Aruba (5524). (The first two digits of the room number indicate the building number.)

Concierge services are still available in the Custom House, and also in a converted room in Trinidad North, room 3109.

There’s a couple of replacements for the closed dining—current dining options at Caribbean Beach are covered in great detail here.

• The Island Markets have a narrow selection of breakfast supplies, cold sandwiches/wraps/salads, and snacks
• A food truck by the main pool offers breakfast, lunch and dinner
• An air-conditioned tent offers breakfast and dinner buffets with somewhat limited menus
• A small new quick service venue, Spyglass Grill, opened in Trinidad South in March 2018
• Pizza delivery to the rooms is also available

See this for much more on the dining options during the refurb at Caribbean Beach, but its summary is as follows

• Breakfast: Fine. Supplies for cold in-room dining are easily available, and the hot buffet, SPyglass Grill, and food truck offerings are entirely adequate.
• Lunch: Weak. Both hot and cold offerings are limited. The quality of the hot food is good, but options and capacity are each slim. Cold food is widely available in limited options and while the fruits and salads are OK, the cold sandwiches are weak.
• Dinner: Adequate for a meal or two.  Between the buffet, food truck, room service, and other options, most will find something to like, but the offerings at each option are limited, and capacity is tight except at the buffet.

Note that heavy rain can impede Disney’s ability to supply the buffet, force the closure of the food trucks, and overwhelm room service.

THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE REFURB AT DISNEY’S CARIBBEAN BEACH RESORT

There’s three major issues that come with this refurb:

• Visual blight from construction
• Noise from construction, once demolition kicks off
• Limited dining options until the new venues are built and running

The visual blight is inescapable, as it is present along the bus routes and, if you have a car, at the main entry. That said, this sort of thing happens at Disney World all the time and doesn’t matter a lot unless you are staying in Martinique.

The view from near Aruba 5641. The near part of this area used to be wetlands between Aruba and Barbados, and the far part Barbados.

Construction noise during demolition, and to a lesser extent construction, will be particularly a problem in Martinique, quite minor in the distant Pirate rooms in Trinidad South, and present elsewhere. Noise will be limited to the day, but may interfere with afternoon naps, or otherwise intrude into an otherwise peaceful afternoon in the main pool.

The limited dining is probably the most acute issue. While it could be made a little better with more options at the buffets, and the expansion of the breakfast and dinner buffet offerings to include a lunch buffet as well, unless that happens Caribbean Beach will not be a great choice for those planning more than one or two lunches or dinners at the resort.

To be clear, dining at Caribbean Beach is NOT a disaster except in heavy rain—it’s not a lot worse than that at Port Orleans French Quarter, there’s still more counter service than at the Epcot resorts, and one no more should pick a Disney moderate based on dining than one should pick a spouse based on sock color…

…but the current state of dining, when combined with the noise and visual blight, makes it hard to recommend Caribbean Beach when for just a little more money one could book one of the other Disney World moderates—especially Port Orleans French Quarter and Port Orleans Riverside (Coronado Springs is also seeing construction, though with no dining implications).

There are some minor new perks.

Mickey and friends visit at the main pool–I missed this, but did get evidence of their presence.

And bands have been playing in the evening–rained out my visits.

Spyglass Grill, new in March 2018, lessens the isolation of Trinidad South and adds an interesting–though limited–dining option to those near it.

My advice? Well, unless you have a pin code, effective prices go down, or dining options are strengthened

• If you have any qualms, change your resort. The potential for you to second-guess yourself is too high.
• If you are one of the seven people worldwide who chose Caribbean Beach specifically for Shutters or the food court, change your resort.
• If you never felt strongly about staying at Caribbean Beach anyway, change your resort.
• If you picked Caribbean Beach for its tranquility, consider how construction noise might affect that.
• If you plan more than one or two lunches or dinners at the resort, consider changing your resort

WHAT MIGHT BE NEXT AFTER THE REFURB AT DISNEY’S CARIBBEAN BEACH RESORT

The traditional issues with Caribbean Beach have been the number of bus stops, the distance of most of the resort from the check-in area at the Custom House, the distance of two villages—Barbados and especially Trinidad South—from the central services and pool, and the somewhat awkward layout of the quick service dining here.

This refurb holds the promise to fix almost all of this—particularly so if the a. the main lobby is moved to join the other central services in Centertown and b. in addition to the elimination of the Barbados (and Custom House) bus stops, the three stops serving what are now six accommodations buildings at Martinique, Centertown, and Trinidad North are combined into one.

Note that there a gondola system is being built that, among other things, will connect Caribbean Beach with Epcot and Hollywood Studios via a station between Jamaica and Trinidad South. Don’t expect this to be operational before mid 2019.

While this might require another bus stop (or maybe moving south both Jamaica’s and Aruba’s bus stops), the combination of Caribbean Beach’s current loveliness and playfulness and its great main pool with a gondola, new waterfront dining, fewer rooms, and a net smaller number of bus stops, would really make Caribbean Beach stand out among the moderates.

There’s great promise here. But at least until dining options—or effective room prices–improve, I would advise most who plan more than a lunch or dinner or two at Caribbean Beach to stay elsewhere.

Have you stayed here since the refurb started?  Let me know what you think in the comment form below!

VILLAGES AND THEMING AT DISNEY’S CARIBBEAN BEACH RESORT

This review continues here.

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