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I thought that last year’s version of the Unofficial Guide was the best Disney World guidebook in a decade…and this year’s is even better!

REVIEW OF THE 2014 VERSION OF THE UNOFFICIAL GUIDE TO WALT DISNEY WORLD

The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2014 is the annual revision to and update of the long standing leader among Walt Disney World guides. It was released in early August, and I read it almost cover to cover on my resort-hopping visit in mid-August.

The 2014 edition maintained the key improvements in usability that characterized the 2013 edition–nicely re-organized material on the Hollywood Studios and Universal parks, and a much more detailed table of contents–and added even more improvements.

As co-author Len Testa said in his blog post about what’s different in the 2104 version, “the front half of the book was edited and reorganized to ensure important topics are covered completely in a single section, instead of over several chapters.” This is another usability improvement, as it reduces the chance you’ll miss a key point if you don’t read every chapter.

Among many other new features in 2014 is an extended discussion MyDisneyExperience.com, of what Fastpass+ might look like, and how the second part of the Wizarding World–to open at Universal Orlando in 2014–will likely work.

These last two are necessarily somewhat speculative–and I sympathize with the Unofficial Guide team for having to go out on a limb now over developments that might not be fully clear until well into 2014–or even later, in the case of Fastpass+.

At least based on my limited knowledge, these sections track well to the best understandings of how these things will unfold, and don’t go in for much “maybe this maybe that.”

I guess one possible exception is the qualifiers in the page excerpted to the right, about how under Fastpass+ the best rides might eventually be allocated partly based on where you stay.

But if I had to make the call about sharing this possibly versus suppressing it in the chance–or with the hope–that it won’t happen…well, I’d publish it too.

The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2014 is not for those who like their material brief and uncomplicated.  Disney World is vast, and the choices to be made in fact are complex.  The Unofficial Guide covers all of it in all its complexity.  This helps for better decisions–but not easier ones!

SOME MINOR NITS, CAVILS, TYPOS, AND DISAGREEMENTS WITH THE 2014 UNOFFICIAL GUIDE

While the traditional suites at Disney World deluxe resorts (and at Coronado Springs) are indeed excluded from most discounts, the Family Suites at Art of Animation and All-Star Music are typically in the deals. (110)

I’ve been campaigning for years that TUG should label Coronado Springs as a “centrally located” resort (the link explains the logic of this)—and this year, Len emailed me that in fact they were doing so—as you can see at the top of 119.  However, mid-way through 119, Coronado Springs is included in the resorts labeled as “not centrally located…” and it is un-mentioned on the “Unofficial Tip” about centrally located resorts on the left bottom of 118

The floor-plan material that’s on 122-125 gets better every year, but I still see some issues with it:

• I don’t know why standard Jambo House rooms are labeled as holding 2-5 people.  Four people is the max in standard rooms at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, and while there are some 2 person rooms, there are king rooms at other deluxes (like the Polynesian) which are shown simply at their standard capacity (in the case of the Polynesian, 5), rather than with a range.  AKL rooms should be labeled the same as Wilderness Lodge rooms—“Rooms accommodate 4 guests, pus one child under age 3 in a crib.”
• The note (about DVC capacity) at the bottom of 123 so far as I can tell is totally correct—a nice development compared to prior years.  However, some of the studio floor plans have lost their detail—e.g. Old Key West, Bay Lake Tower, and BoardWalk Villas.
• Len was kind enough to give me a heads up ahead of time that he didn’t agree with my critique of last year’s Art of Animation Family Suites floor plan.  I had objected to showing the dining table chairs scattered about the suite, and Len noted that both in his suite and in Bob’s suite that that’s what they saw. I can’t argue with that—you have to write what you see.  But I’ve now stayed in the Family Suites three times, and here’s the layout of the dining table chairs what I saw when I entered the rooms on three different occasions:
• Finding Nemo, from June 2012
• Cars, from August 2013
• Lion King, also from August 2013
• Regardless of this point (which tells you more about how Disney geeks obsess over things than about what you will actually find in your own room), there’s a floor plan typo in the Art of Animation.  The dining table is shown as a sofa…
• Some other nits related to these floor plan pages: The floor plan for Coronado Springs should show a desk rather than a two person table, and no room air conditioner below the window; There’s more difference in the use of space in the All-Stars and AofA versus Pop Century than the plans imply—there’s more open space by the door in the All-Stars and Little Mermaid rooms, and more by the bath in the other two; The different scales with which the value resort standard rooms are displayed might mislead some; I continue to insist—but won’t be able to prove until I stay in both on the same visit (update: proved, see this)—that Pop Century and Little Mermaid rooms are the exact same size. (Why: because two of three Little Mermaid buildings were built the same time as Pop was…)

On 133, it would be great if the Moderates all had two queens, but that’s not true for Caribbean Beach among the traditional moderates—nor of course at the Cabins at Fort Wilderness.

The second sentence in the first full para on 134 (“At Disney’s Value…resorts…and Disney Vacation Club Resorts…each room’s exterior door opens into the great outdoors” was true a long time ago, but has not been true at the DVC resorts since the BoardWalk Villas opened in 1996, and not true at the values since the Family Suites at Art of Animation opened last year.

On 136, on-line check has been available beginning 60 days before check-in for a while, and this oughta be emphasized.

The sentence beginning the last para on 150 has lost its verb, and needs an “are.”

Shades of Green has two buildings, one three stories and one five—not “one three-story building” (154)

In my view, the five person capacity of the Alligator Bayou rooms at Port Orleans Riverside deserves more emphasis than it gets on 180—since these are the only traditional moderate rooms (at the moment—I hear rumors about Caribbean Beach) that can fit five.  On the same page, the fifth sleeping spot is now a murphy bed, not a “trundle bed.”

In the discussion of the layout of the Animal Kingdom Lodge, the map has been rotated, but not the references to it, e.g. Ostrich Trail is now on the right of the map on page 184, not the left as noted at the bottom of 185.

I’m not keen on the intro material on the All-Stars (198), which is written a little bit as though these are the only value resorts, just as the material on the Family Suites at All-Star Music (192) is written as though Art of Animation doesn’t exist. I also think the portion of the comment on 191 that says “our room was about 1 mile from the bus stop” should either be suppressed or addressed in the text, as it gives a factually incorrect opinion.  No room at the All-Stars is more than a thousand feet or so from the bus stops, and it’s not even a mile from the beginning of Sports to the end of Movies.

I really don’t like the first couple of sentences in the second para about Art of Animation on 197: “Like Pop Century, Art of Animation consists of four-story buildings and exterior-facing rooms…However, most of Animation’s accommodations are suites similar to those at Disney’s All-Star Resorts.”  While the para goes on to mostly correct itself, I’d revise it so that it begins with something like the current third sentence (‘[Art of Animation] has 864 standard rooms and 1,120 suites”) and then goes on with something like “The standard rooms are similar to those at Pop Century—in four-story buildings, with exterior corridors.  The Family Suites have some similarities to those in All-Star Music, but with different floor plans and interior corridors.”

I’m not liking the second part of the first sentence in the next para, either. It currently reads “Art of Animation suites are…the result of combining two value rooms into one suite.”  True of the family suites in All-Star Music, but not of Art of Animation, where these suites were designed from the ground up, with only the exterior envelope of the building carried over from prior work at Pop Century.

Some other minor points…

• The left side of the image at the top right on 322 cuts off the text at the right margin beside it
• The first sentence of the material introducing the Advance Reservations (#9 on page 351) is confusing—especially the material following the “moreover,” which is both redundant and not entirely true.
• The sentence ending the Akershus material at the bottom of 353 needs to be updated a bit to reflect the opening of the “castles” of New Fantasyland…

Hefty, long, missing photos, and with, as detailed above, some errors…even so, The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2014 is by far the best Walt Disney World guidebook you can buy!

(Disclosure: As noted here, since summer 2011 I’ve had a business relationship with TouringPlans.com, part of the Unofficial Guide intergalactic empire.)

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“MagicBands” are Walt Disney World wristbands that take the place of Disney World hotel rooms keys, park tickets, and–for now–Fastpass+.

MagicBands have been in a limited test for a while, and I’ll be testing mine in a couple of weeks, as part of a bigger September and October test.

(See this and its links for more on MagicBands and Fastpass+.)

In this post, I’m just detailing–memorializing for history??–the ordering and delivery process.

ORDERING AND CUSTOMIZING YOUR DISNEY WORLD MAGICBAND

To order a MagicBand, you have to be in the test.  See the link above to see how you find out if you are in.

If you are in, then you can customize your MagicBand on MyDisneyExperience.com once you’ve logged in.

There’s multiple color options you can choose from among–you can pick the same color for everyone in your group, or mix and match.  See the image at the top of the page for the colors available.

In addition, you can add text that will show on the inside of the Magic Band–both fun, and handy if your kids (or husband) all want the same color.

The text is limited to nine characters, so I couldn’t put on mine “Dave Shute”–just “Dave Shut.”  So I opted for “Dave.” (I hear there’s a movement to convince Disney add more characters, so that my MagicBand could read “Dave, Shut Up.”)

GETTING YOUR MAGICBAND FOR WALT DISNEY WORLD

A few days later this parcel–about the size of a shoe box–came in the mail.

Inside you’ll find the MagicBand box–which, frankly, I like even more than the MagicBand…

My trip is solo this time–though I’m hoping to connect with Josh, as I owe him lunch–so my MagicBand sat in regal yet lonely splendor in the box.

Here’s how it looks right out of the box…

…and on my wrist.

I’ll be using it–and my Fastpass+–in later September: the 20th at the Magic Kingdom, 21st at Hollywood Studios, and 22nd at Epcot.

So since I’ll probably be posting and tweeting about the MagicBand and my overall experience with Fastpass+ (which I haven’t had a chance to test til now), you should probably…

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DISNEY WORLD NEXT WEEK: SEPTEMBER 7 TO SEPTEMBER 15, 2013

The material below details operating hours, Extra Magic Hours, parades, and fireworks.

The same stuff is in the table, but organized by park, not by topic.

(And for more on September 2013 at Walt Disney World, see this.)

[Read more →]

There’s two room types in Disney’s Polynesian Resort

• “Smaller”–but still quite large–rooms, with a floor plan and photo tour that begins here, and
• Larger rooms, in the Polynesian’s Tahiti, Rapa Nui, and Tokelau longhouses, which are covered on this page.

Tokelau is the only one of these currently fully refurbished as part of the Polynesian’s 2012-2013 updates, and the images are from a refurbed Tokelau room.

(Tahiti, and perhaps Rapa Nui, may not get refurbs–they seem to be headed towards being converted to DVC rooms instead.)

FLOOR PLAN OF THE LARGER ROOMS AT DISNEY’S POLYNESIAN RESORT

The main difference between the large and smaller rooms is that the bedroom component of the large rooms is about three and a half feet longer.

This adds ~50 square feet to the room size–making it on the order of 465 square feet compared to the smaller room’s ~415 square feet.

At least in the room I stayed in, there’s no extra furniture that comes with this extra space–just a little more breathing space in the room, especially on the TV side, where the furnishings don’t seem so crowded together as they are in the smaller room.

There’s also slight differences in the layout of the bath–not making any material difference–and two panels to the balcony window rather than three.

(It’s also possible that this room is an inch or two narrower than the smaller rooms.  Steve and I need to measure one of these together to agree on final dimensions!)

Because the differences are minor, the photo tour of this room is very similar to the photo tour of the smaller rooms.

But I did get a new camera between my two 2013 visits to the Polynesian…so the new photos of similar furnishings are much clearer!

PHOTO TOUR OF A RENOVATED LARGER ROOM AT DISNEY’S POLYNESIAN RESORT

The hall and bath area is almost identical to that of the smaller rooms, other than minor layout differences in the bath.

As you enter, there’s two closets separated by a mini-fridge and coffee maker on one side, and the bath on the other.

Here’s the closet nearest the door…

…the mini-fridge/coffee maker and closet further from the door…

…detail of the further closet…

…and detail of the mini-fridge–I don’t know why I forgot to take this shot with my usual scaling objects.

On the other side of the hall is the bath, with double sinks and a toilet on one side.

Here’s detail of the sinks.

On the other side is the tub/shower combo.

Deeper in the room, on one side you’ll find a couple of queen beds, a bed table between them, and an easy chair and ottoman.

Here’s a closer view of one of the queens…

…and a closer view of the chair and ottoman.

You can see to the right of the chair the window wall that separates the room from a large balcony–above is the view from mine.

The other side of the room has a desk with a moveable table underneath, a TV on top of a dresser, and a couch which flips down to create a daybed.

These fit much better in the larger rooms than the identically-furnished smaller rooms.

Here’s a closer view of the couch (I forgot to tuck the bottom in after I tried sleeping on it–it isn’t as messy as this photo makes it look)…

…and the dresser, TV and desk.

(You can find more detailed shots and measurements–e.g. of the couch bed–in the photo tour of the smaller rooms.)

The three buildings with larger rooms at the Polynesian–Tahiti, Rapa Nui, and Tokelau–are also the only buildings there where every standard room has either a balcony or a patio, and are the rooms from which one can most easily access either the Epcot or the Magic Kingdom monorails.

Because of all these points, they’ve always been the buildings this site recommends.

Now, however, since Tokelau is the only one renovated, it is the recommended longhouse.  Stay there, and you’ll have a room quite like the one shown in the photos above!

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

Update April 2016: All major major construction at the Polynesian as part of its multi-year refurb is now complete.

While construction will continue on the east side of the Polynesian Resort into 2016, the major construction that affected everyone is now complete.

Specifically, here’s what’s done:

• Refurbs of the standard rooms
• The redo of the entrance to the main services building, the Great Ceremonial House
• The redo of the lobby and fountain
• The addition of Trader Sam’s
• The refurb of the main Lava Pool
• Construction of bungalows in Seven Seas Lagoon and re-opening of the beaches near here and the pool
• DVC refurbs of the old Rapa Nui and Tahiti, now Pago Pago and Moorea

What remains to be completed is

• Completing the DVC refurb of Tokelau–which looked almost done during my late April 2015 visit (e.g. the pictures were hung on the walls)
• Completing various pathway redos
• Most significantly, re-doing the smaller pool, the East Pool.

So pretty much everything I know about the big picture of what’s going on at the Polynesian comes from my bud Steve’s Tikiman Pages website dedicated to the Polynesian and his Facebook page, or our email exchanges. For the latest, check his sites.

It remains to be seen how much of a mess the East Pool refurb will make of the east side of the resort. Sometimes Disney will close rooms facing the refurb.  If it does so, then all are fine.

But until we know

• For standard rooms, avoid the east side longhouses Raratonga, Niue, Samoa, and south facing rooms in Hawaii (see the map, click it to enlarge it)
• If you are getting a DVC studio, avoid Tokelau (the un-named building on the east side of the East Pool on the map)

None of the construction that’s left is a big enough deal to suggest that the Polynesian is a bad choice for first time families who can afford it. Just avoid the east side!!

TOPICS IN THIS REVIEW OF DISNEY’S POLYNESIAN VILLAGE RESORT:

• Overview of Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort
• Photo Tour of a Standard Room at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort
• Amenities at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort
• Dining at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort
• The Pools at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort
• Accommodations at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort
• The Disney Vacation Club at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort
• Photo Tour of a Studio at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort
• Renovation and Construction at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort

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As you may have seen from What You Need to Know Now About FastPass+ and Frequently Asked Questions about FastPass+, one way to find out if you’ve been invited to Disney World’s tests of FastPass+ is simply to sign in to MyDisneyExperience.com, link up your reservations and tickets, and see what you are offered.

This is what I did, and how I found out about my own FastPass+ eligibility.

But you may also get an email, a UPS letter, or both.

EMAIL NOTIFICATION OF YOUR ELIGIBILITY FOR DISNEY WORLD’S MYMAGIC+ TEST

The email I got is below. Click it to enlarge it, and note that it’s personalized to our visit.

UPS NOTIFICATION OF YOUR ELIGIBILITY FOR DISNEY WORLD’S MYMAGIC+ TEST

I also got a letter from UPS–so if you are counting at home, I found out myself first and signed up then, then got a letter, and then got an email.

The UPS envelope has–on both front and back, though I’m just showing the back–something that’s different than most UPS mailings…note the left side, center.

The front page of the UPS letter (below) is similar to the first part of the email (as always, click the images to enlarge.)

The second page, below, is like the second half of the email–tightly personalized.

Note that both the letter and email have the steps you have to go through–which is what everybody needs!

So you might find out you are eligible for the FastPass+ test by logging in to MyDisneyExperience, you might find out via email, you might find out via UPS–and you might find out all three ways!

And, if you are eligible–once you go through and do everything…you’ll have your FastPass+ and your MagicBand!

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