Category — w. Most Recent Stuff

Note: in late March, the eligible dates and book-by date for this offer were both extended through August 31.

This morning Walt Disney World released a room rate deal that covers stays April 1 through August 31, 2020 July 9, 2020.  It needs to be booked by August 31, 2020 July 9, 2020.  Savings range from 10% to 25% off standard rates per night, varying by both hotel and time period.

Basically this simply an “book-by” extension of an previous deal–except with a narrowed time frame, as it goes only through August into July, rather than September. The previous deal’s “book by” date was February 26.

2020 ROOM RATE DEAL AT THE DISNEY WORLD VALUE RESORTS

At Disney’s value resorts all room types are in the deal–including Little Mermaid rooms at Art of Animation, which until this year had been quite unusual. Savings are low, but better after late April.

Note that the same rates on the 4/26 through 7/9 right side now apply 4/26 through 8/31, and can by booked by 8/31.

2020 ROOM RATE DEAL AT THE DISNEY WORLD MODERATE RESORTS

At Disney’s moderate resorts all resorts are in the deal, but the Port Orleans options–especially French Quarter–see the lowest savings.

Note that the same rates on the 4/26 through 7/9 right side now apply 4/26 through 8/31, and can by booked by 8/31.

2020 ROOM RATE DEAL AT THE DISNEY WORLD DELUXE RESORTS

At Disney’s deluxe resorts, all are in the deal, but savings are quite varied.

Note that the same rates on the 4/26 through 7/9 right side now apply 4/26 through 8/31, and can by booked by 8/31.

2020 ROOM RATE DEAL AT THE DISNEY VACATION CLUB RESORTS

At Disney’s DVC resorts all the options except the Villas at the Grand Floridian are in the deal, at substantially varying savings.

Note that the same rates on the 4/26 through 7/9 right side now apply 4/26 through 8/31, and can by booked by 8/31.

Kelly, the long term travel agent partner of this site, can book you into this or another 2020 deal after figuring out which is best for your circumstance.

Contact her using the form below!

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

DISNEY WORLD NEXT WEEK: FEBRUARY 29 TO MARCH 8, 2020

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

For more on March 2020 at Disney World see this.

OPERATING HOURS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 2/29-3/8/20

The Magic Kingdom will be open from 9a-10p 2/29, 9a-9p 3/1, 9a-8p 3/2 through 3/5, 9a-9p 3/6 and 3/7, and 9a-10p 3/8

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

Disney’s Hollywood Studios will be open from 8a-8p 2/29, 8a-8.30p 3/1 through 3/2, 8a-8p 3/3, and 8a-8.30p 3/4 through 3/9

Disney’s Animal Kingdom will be open from 9a-8p every day

EXTRA MAGIC HOURS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 2/29-3/8/20

• Saturday 2/29 Morning: Animal Kingdom Evening: none
• Sunday 3/1 Morning: none Evening: Hollywood Studios
• Monday 3/2 Morning: Animal Kingdom Evening: none
• Tuesday 3/3 Morning: none Evening: Epcot
• Wednesday 3/4 Morning: none Evening: Magic Kingdom
• Thursday 3/5 Morning: Epcot Evening: none
• Friday 3/6 Morning: Magic Kingdom Evening: none
• Saturday 3/7 Morning: Animal Kingdom Evening: none
• Sunday 3/8 Morning: none Evening: Hollywood Studios

PARADES AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 2/29-3/8/20

Magic Kingdom: Afternoon parade: 3p every day

FIREWORKS AND EVENING SHOWS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 2/29-3/8/20

Happily Ever After  at Magic Kingdom: 8p 2/29 through 3/7; 9p 3/8

Epcot Forever at Epcot: 9p every day

Fantasmic at Disney’s Hollywood Studios: 8p 2/29 thorough 3/6; 8.30p 3/7 and 3/8

Star Wars Show and Fireworks at Disney’s Hollywood Studios: 8p 2/29 and 3/1; 9p 3/2 and 3/4 through 3/8

Rivers of Light at Disney’s Animal Kingdom: 7 and 8.15p 2/29; 7.15 and 8.30p 3/1 through 3/7; 8.15p 3/8

SHOW SCHEDULES FOR WALT DISNEY WORLD 2/29-3/8/20

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

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

(For the first page of this review of Disney’s Riviera Resort, click here.)

THE MASTER OR KING BEDROOM IN ONE AND TWO BEDROOM VILLAS AT DISNEY’S RIVIERA RESORT

The master bedroom, or king bed, side of both One and Two Bedroom Villas at Disney’s Rivera Resort is the same.

Taking layout cues from the Villas at the Grand Floridian, the king bed area at Disney’s Riviera Resort is accessed at one end from deep in the living room. The bath associated with the space is then divided, with a sink and soaker tub closer to the bedroom, then a full bath with a large shower that is also accessible from the villa’s entry.

PHOTO TOUR OF A MASTER OR KING BEDROOM IN ONE AND TWO BEDROOM VILLAS AT DISNEY’S RIVIERA RESORT

Here’s the king bed side from near the entry from the living room.

The king bed side from closer to the bath.

As had been the case in all recently re-done Disney rooms, the bed is a single mattress on a platform…

…with room underneath for luggage storage–not that you’ll need it; these villas have more closets than pre-Stonewall New York.

Next to the bed are this bedside table with power behind, and an easy chair…

…and just outside is a balcony, also accessible directly from the living room.

On the other side of the bed is this large desk with power. Its size lets it also function as the bedside table for this side of the king bed.

The TV side of the room includes a dresser with a 54” TV above, and a closet.

The TV side from the bath end of the room.

The nine dresser drawers have plenty of storage.

From the outside, the closet looks oddly proportioned, but it actually grabs some space from the kitchen
wall on the other side and ends up with correct dimensions inside.

The first part of the bath, accessible from both the king bedroom and the second part of the bath,
includes a sink on one side…

…and a large soaker tub with spray jets in its base on the other.

The second part of the bath is a full bath that’s also accessible from the rest of the villa. It includes a sink…

…and a toilet and shower.

The shower is large and has both rainfall and regular heads…

…and includes a seat at the back—along with in-wall toiletry bottles.

The hall from the entry to this bath has some important stuff, too—the image is shot from the entry, with the door to the bath directly ahead. On the left is a closet, and on the right, behind a set of doors, is the washer dryer.

The closet serves as the coat closet for everyone in the space, and the clothing closet for people sleeping in the living area (dedicated Two Bedroom Villas have an additional smaller closet, near the entry to the two-queen area). Note the soft focus, adding to the romance of the closet… You’ll also find in this closet spare linens for the living space beds, a vacuum for anyone who misses cleaning,* and a safe.

The safe is quite large—my book is six inches by nine inches—but perhaps not large enough for the nine people a dedicated Two Bedroom Villa will sleep (lock-off Two Bedroom Villas have another safe on their studio side).

Finally on this side of the room is this washer-dryer.

There’s nothing positive I can say about the carpet design, and overall the space is  a bit austere–although not as bad as the second bedroom of dedicated Two Bedroom Villas. But the layout and amenities of this space at Disney’s Riviera Resort are top-notch, and it is as good a master bedroom/bath combo as you will find in a One or Two Bedroom Villa DVC offering at Disney World, with only the Villas at the Grand Floridian in its class.

*Actually, people staying in these rooms with DVC points rather than cash get housekeeping service only every four days—hence the cleaning supplies. Folks staying with cash get housekeeping every day. Don’t forget to tip your maid. I tip $5 per bay per night, unless we’ve made an unusual mess.

PHOTO TOUR OF THE SECOND BEDROOM OF A DEDICATED TWO BEDROOM VILLA AT DISNEY’S RIVIERA RESORT

This review continues here.

The long-time travel agent partner of this site, Kelly, can book you at Disney’s Riviera Resort or anywhere else at Disney World.  Contact her using the form below!

PAGES IN THIS REVIEW OF DISNEY’S RIVIERA RESORT

• Overview of Disney’s Riviera Resort
• Theming and Accommodations at Disney’s Riviera Resort
• Photo Tour of a Standard Studio at Disney’s Riviera Resort
• Photo Tour of the Living/Dining/Kitchen Area of One and Two Bedroom Villas at Disney’s Riviera Resort
• Photo Tour of the Master Bedroom of One and Two Bedroom Villas at Disney’s Riviera Resort
• Photo Tour of the Second Bedroom of Dedicated Two Bedroom Villas at Disney’s Riviera Resort
• Amenities at Disney’s Riviera Resort
• Dining at Disney’s Riviera Resort
• The Pools at Disney’s Riviera Resort

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

(For the first page of this review of Disney’s Riviera Resort, click here.)

THE SECOND BEDROOM IN A DEDICATED TWO BEDROOM VILLA AT DISNEY’S RIVIERA RESORT

The ~238 bookable Two Bedroom Villas at Disney’s Riviera Resort come in two flavors, “lock-off” and “dedicated.”  About 60% are lock-off, and 40% dedicated.

• Lock-off Two Bedroom Villas are assembled from one One-Bedroom Villa and one standard Studio, with an entry from the hallways to each and an internal connecting door between them.
• “Dedicated” Two Bedroom Villas were designed from the start as one single unit, and almost all of their differences are in the second bedroom—the space that in a lock-off would be the Studio.

At Disney’s Riviera Resort, the second bedroom of dedicated Two Bedroom units has the following differences from a standard Riviera Studio:

• No direct entry from the outside hall—they are accessed through the main entry of the villa
• No microwave, mini-fridge or coffeemaker (all these can be found in the kitchen of the unit)
• A larger closet
• Instead of a queen and a fold-out or fold-down couch, they have two queen beds and no couch.
• No table.
• Instead of a fifth sleeping spot that unfolds from under the TV, they have a dresser here and sleep four.

This photo tour is of the second bedroom of a Dedicated Two Bedroom Villa at Disney’s Rivera Resort.  I’ll have a photo tour of a Studio here up later in March!

PHOTO TOUR OF THE SECOND BEDROOM OF A DEDICATED TWO BEDROOM VILLA AT DISNEY’S RIVIERA RESORT

In the floor plan, the second bedroom is the bay on the right side.

Entry is through a hall at the side of the main entry to the Two Bedroom Villa.

Once you enter, turn and you’ll find a medium-sized table with storage, in the space that in a Studio would be the entry door.

Turn around, and you’ll find a hall with the bath spaces on one side, the closet on the other, and the sleeping/living space and balcony  beyond.

The bath follows the design at the Villas at the Grand Floridian.  It is divided in half, but each half can be accessed directly from the hall, and there’s also a pocket door connecting the two spaces internally.  This gives the highest degree of flexibility to the bath space I can imagine.

One side has the toilet and a large shower.

The shower fixtures include a rainfall head.

There’s a seat in the back.

Toiletries, as is now trend at Disney World, are supplied in large wall mounted bottles.

The other half of the bath is accessible both from this half, as well as from the room’s hall.

It has a sink…

…and a tub/shower combo.

Across from the bath is this large closet.

One side of the closet.

The other.

Beyond these, in the main living-sleeping space, you’ll find two queen beds on one side.

This side of the room from the back.

A closer view of one of the beds.

On each of the far sides of the beds, there’s a shelf with power points. Between the beds is this bedside table, also with power…

…and with three small drawers, each large enough for your important books, and a foot or two.

As has been trend for a while now, the beds have a single mattress on a platform, which creates room below…

…for luggage.

Also at the end of each bed there’s a couple of built-in drawers.

The TV side of the room has a dresser with a 54” TV above and a couple of chairs.

The TV side from the back of the room.

I find this side of the room—and frankly, the entire room, despite some nice moldings behind the beds—a bit austere.  There’s some OK art on the wall between the bed area and the bath, but the blankness of the TV side (and perhaps the funereal color of the carpet) cries out for something.

Anyway, here’s a closer view of the dresser and TV.

There’s plenty of storage in the nine drawers in this dresser.

In fact, this room may have more storage than any other Disney World room I’ve stayed in.  Part of this is an leftover from much of this furniture (e.g. the bedside tables and under-bed drawers) being designed for a Riviera studio, which by Disney design practices has much less storage, as it will lose the dresser to a fold-down bed, the second set of under-bed drawers to a fold-down couch bed, and have a smaller closet as well.

Outside is a balcony.

I have nothing to object to from a livability point of view in this room.  It could, however, have much more interesting decor.

AMENITIES AT DISNEY’S RIVIERA RESORT

This review continues here.

The long-time travel agent partner of this site, Kelly, can book you at Disney’s Riviera Resort or anywhere else at Disney World.  Contact her using the form below!

PAGES IN THIS REVIEW OF DISNEY’S RIVIERA RESORT

• Overview of Disney’s Riviera Resort
• Theming and Accommodations at Disney’s Riviera Resort
• Photo Tour of a Standard Studio at Disney’s Riviera Resort
• Photo Tour of the Living/Dining/Kitchen Area of One and Two Bedroom Villas at Disney’s Riviera Resort
• Photo Tour of the Master Bedroom of One and Two Bedroom Villas at Disney’s Riviera Resort
• Photo Tour of the Second Bedroom of Dedicated Two Bedroom Villas at Disney’s Riviera Resort
• Amenities at Disney’s Riviera Resort
• Dining at Disney’s Riviera Resort
• The Pools at Disney’s Riviera Resort

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

Earlier in February, Walt Disney World increased its ticket prices for 2020. Since then, I’ve spent most of my time on ticket prices getting my Disney World Tickets page and my color-coded Disney World ticket price calendar right.

In this post, I will be commenting on the level of increases, and also how they flow in the year.

2020 prices were first released in June 2019, and I always expected at least one more increase in 2020 prices—for two reasons.

• First, for years now, Disney World has increased prices for the current year in the late winter, typically February, and
• Second, the 2020 prices released in June of last year went up on average only about 2% compared to 2019 prices. Given recent patterns in price increases, there’s no way Disney World would have left this stand

2020 DISNEY WORLD TICKET PRICE INCREASES BY TICKET LENGTH

Base Disney World tickets can be bought for between one and ten days in the theme parks. With the February 2020 price increase, prices for longer tickets in 2020 increased substantially more than prices for shorter tickets. Shorter tickets went up on average less than 2%, while tickets seven days and longer went up 8.4% to 10.6%.

It’s easy to over-interpret this. For example, you could say that people wandering in for a quick sample of the new offerings in Galaxy’s Edge aren’t much penalized, but folks on a longer vacation trying to see all of Disney World bear an extra burden. This is absolutely true, but that does not mean it was Disney’s intent.

It was widely reported after the February ticket price increase that both the least and most expensive one day tickets did not change.

This is simultaneously true, trivial, and simple-minded. Hardly anyone buys one day tickets. What these tickets represent is the price anchor of longer tickets, whose prices are calculated as a proportion of the sum of the one day tickets covered by the usage period of the longer tickets.

What Disney essentially did for longer tickets was change the proportions used to calculate their prices. That let it get some positive PR from the simple-minded for not increasing the lowest and highest one day tickets–at which point the analytic savvy of most observers stopped–while also extracting substantially more value from folks committed to longer visits.

Two things remain generally true: because you are not penalized for adding days to a ticket (so long as you add such days before your last day of use) it never pays to overbuy your tickets. Buy the minimum ticket you think you night need, and only add more to it after you are in the parks and know you need your extra days.

Second, it remains true that the per day cost of longer tickets is almost always lower than that for shorter ones. So one longer visit is still largely much less expensive than two shorter visits.

Now let’s turn to how these price increases vary over the remainder of 2020.

2020 DISNEY WORLD TICKET PRICE INCREASES BY TICKET LENGTH AND DATE

This section includes two charts. The first one shows price increases by first day of eligible use for every ticket length—so it plots more than 3,000 percentage changes:

For many of you, there’s too much data plotted on the chart to see much information.

I tried to make up for this in the second chart, above, by grouping the average price increases of three sets of ticket lengths—one to four day tickets, which all saw less than 2% average increases; seven through ten day tickets, which all saw average increases of over 8%, and five and six day tickets, about in the middle of the other two.

One thing that distinctively stands out is that there is less variability in price changes after mid-July.  Visually, this means that the ups and down of the price increases cover less of the vertical space of the chart. Analytically, the standard deviation of price increases, as a percentage of the mean, is twice as high before July 15 than it is after July 15.

There’s at least two possible explanation for why we see lower variance after July 15.  One is that Disney–in its judgement–got relative prices among the dates after 7/15 closer to correct.  The other is that Disney does not have enough information now to make fine grained adjustments later in 2020 the way it has done earlier in the year–you can see example of these finer grained adjustments in May, for example.

Since–despite the advice of folks like me–most Disney World trips are planned three months out or closer, my vote is for the second explanation.  Note that this increases the odds of a second price increase, affecting these dates, perhaps in the summer when 2021 ticket prices are announced.

Remember that Disney’s date based ticket price model has two purposes.

• First, it intends to use prices to incent people towards dates less in demand, and away from dates higher in demand
• Second, it seeks to extract the extra value from high demand dates that’s on the table from those who go during high-demand periods anyway

Unless fine-grained visitation patterns are highly stable, these purposes present a strong case for multiple price changes over the course of the year, not the one (or rarely two) that we are used to at Walt Disney World.

Note that once you have bought your tickets, so long as you don’t make any later changes, you are free from the consequences of future price increases that would otherwise affect your dates.

The long-time travel agent partner of this site, Kelly, can set up your Disney World vacation for you, locking down your prices, including those of your park tickets.  Contact her using the form below!

Analytic note. My percentage changes are based on comparing rounded per-day prices rather than complete-to-the-cents actual total prices—I do it this way because with more than 3,000 new prices to enter into my spreadsheet, it cuts data entry time by about 75%. This can add noise to the data at the level of 0.5% to 2% on any given data point, but the rounding errors it creates average out over the number of days I am looking at.

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

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 LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW

By Jim Korkis

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, written by Washington Irving in 1820, is a classic scary tale with iconic characters like Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman. Walt Disney decided to retell the story in the package animated film The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949).

On October 16, 1957, Imagineer Ken Anderson submitted to Walt a concept for the haunted house at Disneyland that included this frightening finale that guests would have seen outside a huge picture window in the living room:

“Commence with a windy moonlit night with the reflection of the moon in the bayou beyond the graveyard. The clouds will obscure the moon and distant flashes of lightning and sounds of thunder will next be heard. While the sky is darkening, the ghostly apparition of the Headless Horseman will fade into view or appear from behind a distant tree and gallop toward the graveyard and house from right to left foreground.

“He will disappear behind some trees to the left, but the sound of his horse’s approaching hoof beats will continue to grow louder. Suddenly, he bursts into view in the courtyard just outside the windows and gallops across from left to right… reining to a noisy halt just out of view below the balcony on our right.

“His cape is the only part of him we need to see at this last crossing, since the shrubs will obscure the horse. His cape must match in color and value with the previous projected mirage. Next, a bolt of lightning against the sky and a werewolf’s howl signal the appearance of the ghosts rising from the tombs, first one, and then two, and more, until ghosts are materializing from the earth around the tombs as well as the tombs themselves.”

When Liberty Square was being built at the Magic Kingdom in 1970, Imagineer Tony Baxter pitched the idea of a dark ride based on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow to help the transition of the intersection from Fantasyland to Liberty Square. Guests would have ridden in hollowed-out spinning jack-o-lanterns through a variety of scenes until the final confrontation with the headless horseman.

The exterior architecture of the Sleepy Hollow food and beverage location at the entrance to the land across the bridge from the Hub to Liberty Square is based on the tiny, two-room cottage that writer Irving purchased on ten acres along the banks of the Hudson River in Tarrytown, New York.

Irving spent many years remodeling and expanding the residence, combining elements of colonial New York architecture and buildings he knew in Scotland and Spain. He named it Sunnyside in 1841, and history shows that it was usually busy with lots of friends and family. The food and beverage location offers a collectible plastic drinking stein with a scared Ichabod on one side and the Headless Horseman on the other.

When the shop building opposite the Hall of Presidents was converted and reopened February 1996 as Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe, one of the new stores was devoted to music.

Outside the music shop was a sign stating “Music & Voice Lessons by appointment Ichabod Crane, Instructor”, something Ichabod did in the story to earn some additional money from his regular teaching assignment.

The spooky Headless Horseman rides from Frontierland to Main Street U.S.A. in advance of each performance of Mickey’s “Boo To You” Halloween Parade as part of the separately ticketed Mickey’s Not-So Scary Halloween Party.

In addition, during the Halloween season starting in 2017, the Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground offered “Return to Sleepy Hollow” that includes a group viewing of the Disney animated film inside the Tri-Circle-D Ranch stables. And during event nights, guests get to see galloping ghosts and experience an up close and personal encounter with the Headless Horseman.

Previously for several years during the Halloween season, Fort Wilderness offered a roughly twenty minute Haunted Hayride that was a spooky trip through the swamps down along Bay Lake with the climax being a close encounter with the Headless Horseman. Then it became Haunted Carriage Rides and then was completely discontinued after 2012.

*  *  *  *  *

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

In the meantime, check out his books, including his latest, Disney Never Lands, and about planned but unbuilt concepts, and 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!!