Category — w. Most Recent Stuff

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.

COSMIC RAY’S STARLIGHT CAFE AND SONNY ECLIPSE

By Jim Korkis
Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Café, a popular chain of intergalactic food and beverage franchises with a “galaxy of food choices,” has been open for business in Tomorrowland since 1994.

The restaurant was called the Tomorrowland Terrace until 1994. The original performer for the first decade was Michael Iseberg (aka Michael Iceberg) who amazed audiences with his frenetic performances using his early keyboard and synthesizer technology on his Amazing Iceberg Machine.

“This is the FIRST Earth Restaurant Franchise from Outer Space” proclaimed the original poster for what was the largest quick service location at the Magic Kingdom with its three food bays and extensive topping bar.

Guests dining in the Starlight Lounge Room on the lower level near the Alice in Wonderland tea cup attraction enjoy the song stylings and snappy banter of audio-animatronics lounge performer Sonny Eclipse (voiced by blues singer and songwriter Kal David) during his approximately twenty plus minute performance.

“Hey, speaking of planets, Donald Duck and Goofy were in here a few minutes ago looking for Pluto. Man, are they a few million miles off, or what?” remarks Sonny followed by the sound of canned laughter.

This Audio-Animatronics figure was actually modified from a similar figure, Officer Zzzzyxxx who was at the baggage screening desk outside of the Star Tours attraction at Tokyo Disneyland. Today, Disney refers to them as “cousins”.

Direct from Yew Nork on the planet Zork, Sonny Eclipse is the “Biggest Little Star in the Galaxy” according to his billing. The Bossa Supernova and Eclipso musical stylings of Sonny and his Astro Organ, along with his ethereal and invisible backup singers The Space Angels have entertained guests for over two decades. His unseen technician is named Mike Feedback.

During his act, Sonny mentions his six-eyed (all purple), twelve-nostrilled girlfriend who blows him away and he sings a little love song he wrote for her entitled “Oh Bright Little Star”.

The Metrophone booth from the Galactic Communications Network (GCN) located near the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover connects guests to nine possible hilarious one-sided conversations including one with Johnny Jupiter who is Sonny’s agent.

Kal David had been working in Los Angeles with George Wilkins, who wrote a great deal of music for Disney. Wilkins brought David in to sing the song Unhealthy Living Blues for the Goofy About Health section in the Epcot Wonders of Life pavilion in 1989 and it went so well that brought David back to do Sonny Eclipse.

It was all done out of Wilkins’ Southern California home where he had set up a studio. Wilkins did all of the music on his synthesizer except for the guitar parts that were done by David. David was even able to incorporate a little of his famous blues guitar style in the song Gravity.

David worked for about three days. His female backup singers were The Brunettes, a group that featured David’s wife Lauri Bono who still tours with him today. The women worked for one day and were crammed into a small vocal booth that included Wilkins’ washer and dryer and one of the singers, Amy, was pregnant at the time.

“Everything was all written for me. There was no ad-libbing,” remembered David. “It was just another short studio gig and then you went back to your real life. They showed me a drawing of the character and encouraged me to just be myself. I loved him immediately and I had played in many bars over my career so I understood the ‘feel’ of how he would be.

“I could have done a cartoony voice but they just wanted my real voice pumped up a little. I like the songs but they are not the blues. I am proud to be the voice of Sonny. It has turned out to be the steadiest performing gig I ever had.”

*  *  *  *  *

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

In the meantime, check out his books, including Secret Stories of Walt Disney World: Things You Never You Never Knew, which reprints much material first written for this site, and The Vault of Walt: Volume 4, and his contributions to The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit, all published by Theme Park Press.

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

DISNEY WORLD NEXT WEEK: APRIL 23 TO MAY 1, 2016

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

Note that typos happen, and schedules change! If something seems odd, or if you want to double check, use the calendar links near the bottom to get the latest official Disney World scoop.

OPERATING HOURS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 4/23-5/1/2016

The Magic Kingdom will be open from 9a-12MN 4/23 and 4/24, 9a-11p 4/25 through 4/27, 9a-10p 4/28, and 9a-12MN 4/29 to 5/1

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

Disney’s Hollywood Studios will be open 9a-9.30p 4/23 through 4/28, and 9a-10p 4/29 through 5/1

Disney’s Animal Kingdom will be open 9a-6.30p 4/23 and 4/24, 9a-6p 4/25 through 4/30, and 9a-6.30p 5/1

EXTRA MAGIC HOURS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 4/23-5/2/2016

Saturday 4/23 Morning:  Animal Kingdom  Evening: none

Sunday 4/24 Morning:  Hollyowood Studios  Evening: none

Monday 4/25 Morning: Animal Kingdom  Evening: none

Tuesday 4/26 Morning: none Evening:  Epcot

Wednesday 4/27 Morning:  none  Evening:  Magic Kingdom

Thursday 4/28 Morning: Epcot Evening: none

Friday 4/29 Morning:  Magic Kingdom Evening: Hollywood Studios

Saturday 4/30 Morning: Animal Kingdom  Evening: none

Sunday 5/1  Morning: Hollywood Studios Evening: none

PARADES AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 4/23-5/1/2016

The Magic Kingdom:

• Afternoon Festival of Fantasy Parade: 3p every day
• Evening Main Street Electrical Parade: 9p 4/23 and 4/24; 9 and 11p 4/25 through 4/27; 9p 4/28 through 5/1

FIREWORKS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 4/23-5/1/2016

Wishes at the Magic Kingdom: 10p every night

IllumiNations at Epcot: 9p every night

Fantasmic at Disney’s Hollywood Studios: 8.30p 4/23 throough 4/28; 9p 4/29 and 4/30; 9 and 10.30p 5/1

Symphony in the Stars at Disney’s Hollywood Studios: 9.15p 4/23 through 4/28; 9.45p 4/29 through 5/1

SHOW SCHEDULES FOR WALT DISNEY WORLD 4/23-5/1/2016

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

LONG RANGE WEATHER FORECAST FOR WALT DISNEY WORLD 4/23-5/1/2016

See this for forecasts.

DISCLAIMER

Everything is subject to change and typos! Check the Disney Calendars for updates and official schedules. These calendars can be found by clicking the following links:

• Magic Kingdom Calendar
• Hollywood Studios Calendar
• Animal Kingdom Calendar
• Epcot Calendar

Follow yourfirstvisit.net on Facebook or Google+ or Twitter or Pinterest

Like everybody else including Disney, I missed my crowd forecast for the week of April 2. What I (and everyone else) expected to be a fine week turned out to be pretty miserable.

There were two reasons for this.

• One was more people in the parks than anyone, including Disney, had forecast—about 25% more, which is not a huge amount—well less than Thanksgiving, for example—but enough to stress the systems, especially at the Magic Kingdom, which saw some days 35% more people than Disney expected. (How I build my crowd calendars and ways I can get my forecasts wrong are here.)
• The second reason was reduced operating hours, staffing, and capacity on Disney’s part. Much of the available capacity was given out to FastPass+, so almost all the extra demand went into standby lines, where it faced reduced numbers of ride vehicles, half of various rides shut down, not enough staff to load, and other problems. As a result, waits skyrocketed. Nobody knows quite why Disney is cutting back, but there’s some interesting hints here.

Josh (from whom I got the numbers) has multiple posts about what happened in the parks that week starting here.

(easyWDW image, used with permission but defaced as I chose)

But the cool thing is that you can complain to me in person!

The main opportunity will be Saturday April 23rd from 1p to 2p in Mexico at Epcot, where Josh and I (co-authors of The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit, where we also got the crowd forecast wrong) will be doing a meet and greet, giveaway, and book signing. See Josh’s post here for an image of the exact location.

Bu I’ll be around before then, so hunt me down to complain in the most convenient setting!

Wednesday after I arrive I’ll be checking out some current or just completed refurbs at Port Orleans Riverside, Port Orleans French Quarter, the Wilderness Lodge, and the Cabins at Fort Wilderness.

Then it’s off to the Studios to check out the new Storm Troopers Procession and Star Wars stage show.

Then I’ll check in to my refurbed Studio at Jambo House to test it for an updated review. I’ll likely end the evening at the great Animal Kingdom Lodge bar the Victoria Falls Lounge watching the Cavs.

Thursday Josh and I have a business meeting to work on the changes for the 2017 edition of The easy Guide, then in the evening I’ll be testing just how many Magic Kingdom attractions I can do between 7p and 2a, courtesy of the Disney After Hours thingy. Battery permitting, I’ll be tweeting my experience via @yourfirstvisit.

Friday lovely wife Amy Girl arrives, and after I sleep in we’ll likely hang at the Animal Kingdom Lodge pool and the Animal Kingdom itself until we go to dinner at Capa at the Four Seasons, for a review and date night. We’ll check into a one bedroom villa at Jambo to continue the tour of the refurbed Jambo House Villas.

Saturday is the big meet up at Epcot, and we’ll be at Epcot before and after too!

So lots of places for you to yell at me about blowing that week’s forecast. And I am, indeed, sorry…

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

My crowd calendars (examples below) are designed to guide first time visitors to WDW who may never return toward lower crowd weeks and away from higher-crowd ones.

My ranking system—in homage to Spinal Tap—goes from 1 to 11, and the “green” weeks (rankings 1-4) are forecast as good choices, “red” (rankings 8-11) bad, and black (5-7) in between.

Because I don’t think it helps first timers to be wishy-washy, I don’t aim for a normal distribution, but rather put very few weeks in the “in-between” category. Thus my rankings end up compressed into 4 and below and 8 and above.

Other good crowd calendars that put more of their dates into the center of the ranking distribution will have many more weeks ranked 5, 6, and 7 than I do. The way I try to guide first timers to better weeks, what others will show as average—or even slightly above average—crowds I will show as “low.”

For the same reason, my rankings are ordinal, not cardinal. A ranking of 1 is better than a ranking of 2, but not twice as good.

Moreover they are not tied to the same numbers in prior years—a 3 this year is not the same as a 3 at the depth of the recession. Rather, simply, each year, within the year, I am forecasting that a 3 is better than a 5, and not as good as a 1.

My crowd calendar forecasts are based on two principal inputs:

1. Disney World’s own crowd projections, as inferred from the variations in operating hours it offers over the course of the year, as modified by
2. Annual analysis of every break longer than a three day weekend for 10 million US schoolkids, weighted based on their propensity to visit Disney World.

When I first started this site, my crowd forecasts were based entirely on variations in operating hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom parks. (I left out Epcot because it sees fewer many changes in hours, and the Magic Kingdom because I could not figure out how to account for the Halloween and Christmas parties.)

After a few years of building up data, I would forecast the next 6 months based on Disney’s actual schedule and the 6 months after that based on the historic patterns I’d developed, modified for moving holidays.

Above is an example of the results of how I used to do it.

This worked OK for a while, but was not sharp enough in distinguishing spring break weeks and the beginning and end of the Christmas/New Years rush in particular.

Moreover it broke entirely later in the last recession when Disney started showing three months of hours rather than six, and then, after it returned to six months, it started showed limited schedules for the out months, with additions to hours coming close to the actual dates.

So in response, I began supplementing my crowd calendars several years ago with annual analysis of all school breaks longer than a three day weekend in ~180 school districts. These 180 districts are the 100 largest districts in the country, supplemented by 80 more large east-of-the Mississippi districts intended to better flesh out states with only a few or no districts in the top 100.

Analytically the way I work with the districts is that I weight districts in a state by kids per analyzed district, and then weight the results for the state based on their relative proportion of visits to this site, as a proxy for geographic interest in Disney World. The state weighting corrects as well as I can for propensity to visit Disney World compared to the distribution of the 180 districts—especially the top 100—across the states.

I use the results to sharpen my forecasts for June, August, the fall, Christmas, the week of President’s Day, and spring breaks. The week of President’s Day and spring breaks are particularly tricky because of higher visitation from snow-birds than either operating hours or school calendars would imply, but with experience I’ve gotten closer on these.

That last point suggests the role of judgement. In a Bayesian sense, my draft Crowd Calendars are the prior based on history, and they then get modified based on the results of the school break analysis, my recent experience (30-60 days in the parks a year, at all different times of the year), history, judgment and help from others—particularly Josh of easyWDW and Carl of Dad’s Guide to WDW and WDW Magazine. (Josh and I co-author The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit and within it co-create the crowd material it forecasts, and Carl and I co-author an annual crowd forecast in WDW Magazine.)

There’s no perfection in any forecasting, and I do make mistakes, especially about spring break crowds, where I get a week significantly wrong (more crowded than I predict) on average about once every two years.

Any fool can say “don’t go to Disney World in March or April” and take no risk of complaints. Instead, I try to find spring break weeks that are actually good. Rarely are my suggested spring break weeks ones that have no kids on break—rather, they are ones that are 1. before or after the March snowbird influx that 2. also have relatively few kids on break compared to the mass-break weeks in later March and before and after Easter.

There several ways these forecasts can go wrong.

First is sampling error—that the 10 million kids I analyze aren’t representative of the 40 million I don’t. This is particularly a potential issue when I use city school district calendars as the proxy for a state, and miss different breaks in its surrounding suburbs. These different breaks won’t matter if they match weeks that are already lousy, but they will matter if they match weeks where few of the 180 districts I currently analyze have breaks. I’ll be sharpening this up for 2017.

Second is a change in Disney operations. My forecasts assume that operating policies remain similar year to year. If Disney cuts staffing and per-hour capacity, waits will shoot up even on a day when an average number of people are in the parks.

Third is a differential change in propensity to travel on a given set of dates. There’s a couple of ways this could happen.

• One is a one-time effect from weather. For example a much warmer northeastern winter, or a winter with so much snow that northeastern travel shuts down, may push people from January and February into March and April, because they either don’t need the winter break as badly, or, despite how they need it, transportation shuts down.
• Fall breaks are another possible driver of changes in propensity to travel on a given set of dates. I can’t document that they are a lot more common than they were a few years ago, but what may be happening is that more people are realizing that they are a better time to go to Disney World than the traditional holiday seasons.

This raises another point. My Disney Experience and FastPass+ have made the internet an essential part of a Disney World experience, rather than an optional one. This, plus the fact that the core Disney World first-time planners (parents in their 30s) are in the “always knew about Google” generation may mean that more people may be searching for better and worse times to go, and acting on the advice they find, thus shifting the propensity to travel at certain times.

The final issue any crowd calendar faces is a mismatch of expectations and reality.

All the time I get comments along the lines of “Hey, you said last week was a low crowd week, but we waited 30 minutes Wednesday afternoon for Pirates of the Caribbean! You made a terrible forecast.”

Well, these days an afternoon standby wait of 30 minutes for Pirates is a marker of a low crowd day…

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

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 RICHARD F. IRVINE BOATS AT DISNEY WORLD

By Jim Korkis

When Walt Disney World opened in 1971, the Admiral Joe Fowler Riverboat plied the Rivers of America in Frontierland. It was joined in May 20, 1973 by the Richard F. Irvine Riverboat.

The primary difference between the two ships was that the Fowler had two smokestacks, while the Irvine only had one. They both had three decks and a capacity of roughly 450 guests. They were actually functioning steamboats, propelled by their enigines, although they were guided by an I-beam underwater.

The original Fowler riverboat was damaged during a refurbishment at a backstage dry dock in 1980. It was broken up for scrap and the Irvine Riverboat in 1981 became the sole operating riverboat. In December 1982 the bell from the Fowler ship was installed on the Roy O. Disney engine on the Walt Disney World railroad.

In 1996, the Irvine was completely refurbished and returned to service as the renamed Liberty Belle Riverboat. The name change was to make its theme more closely to Liberty Square and make the name easier to remember.

Subsequently in 1999, one of the ferries that transported guests across the Seven Seas Lagoon to the Magic Kingdom was re-christened Richard F. Irvine so as to continue to honor the late Imagineer’s contributions while the other was rechristened the Admiral Joe Fowler. (The third was a tribute to General Joe Potter.)

The Irvine riverboat had been named after Richard Irvine who was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on April 5, 1910. He moved with his family to Southern California in 1922.

He was the son of a prominent Los Angeles ophthalmologist, Alexander Irvine, who was Walt Disney’s personal eye doctor for years and was given a window on Disneyland’s Main Street.

“Dick” became an art director at 20th Century Fox and was hired by Walt in 1952 to act as liaison between Walt Disney Productions and an architectural firm that was being considered for designing Disneyland.

He had previously worked at the Disney Studios as an art director on Victory Through Airpower (194) and The Three Caballeros (194) so he knew how Walt worked and the Disney culture.

Imagineer John Hench recalled, “Because Dick had worked with movie set designs, creating structures and settings, he understood our needs more than standard architects.”

Dick headed design and planning for all Disneyland attractions, including significant contributions to the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean. He also guided the creation of attractions featured at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, including the it’s a small world attraction.

He went on to help shape the master plan and attractions for Walt Disney World and, in 1967, was appointed executive vice president and chief operations officer of WED Enterprises (now Walt Disney Imagineering).

Concerning Walt Disney World, Irvine told author Bob Thomas, “I often wonder how things would have been done differently if Walt had been alive. You know darn well, it would have been entirely different from what we did do.”

Before his death, Walt had put WED in charge of developing the theme park while he assembled a different group for the Epcot concept. Irvine was also involved in the creation and opening of California Institute of the Arts.

Irvine’s heart condition and resulting illness prevented him from attending the opening of Walt Disney World. He retired in 1973 and passed away March 30, 1976.

Irvine’s daughter Maggie Irvine Elliot became the Senior Vice President of Creative Administration at WDI. Dick’s son married Kim Thomas (now Kim Irvine, who currently is an art director at WDI) who is also Imagineer Leota Toombs’s daughter.

*  *  *  *  *

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

In the meantime, check out his books, including Secret Stories of Walt Disney World: Things You Never You Never Knew, which reprints much material first written for this site, and The Vault of Walt: Volume 4, and his contributions to The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit, all published by Theme Park Press.

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

A friend of the site just let me know that South American travel agents are posting about Free Dining.

Here’s what they are saying:

Free Dining will become available for booking April 25th

It will cover arrival dates of

• 8/14* up to 10/1/2016
• 11/15 to 11/21
• 11/26 to 11/28
• 12/10 to 12/21

It will require a three night minimum stay, and a minimum of two ticket days.

Value resorts will offer the Quick Service plan for free and moderates and deluxes the Regular Dining Plan

Excluded resorts will include Little Mermaid rooms at Art of Animation, All Star Movies, Port Orleans French Quarter, Bay Lake Tower, Polynesian Bungalows and Grand Floridian Villas.

This is just a rumor, but parts of it jibe quite well with some other stuff that’s come out the last few days, and my source is usually reliable!!

For more on Free Dining, see this, and to sign up for the free dining watch list, see this!

*Other rumors have it beginning 8/23

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