Category — w. Most Recent Stuff

This site’s Disney World crowd calendars always show crowds dropping off in later August.

For example, in 2013, crowd rankings go from 9/high at the beginning of August down to 1/lowest in early September.

This page both explain how that comes about and also reviews how the site’s crowd calendars are built.

END OF SUMMER 2013 CROWDS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD

The highest-crowd periods at Walt Disney World all have one thing in common: they are convenient times for parents to take their kids to Orlando.  That is, they are times that kids are out of school and that parents traditionally can take off of work.

What’s not so clear until you do the numbers is that actual school vacation dates are much more varied than you’d think.  And there’s no good source you can go to that explains what all these varied dates are.

So every year about this time one of my nieces goes to almost 200 school district websites and captures all the key vacation dates for the upcoming academic year. (This time of year because you’d be surprised many districts don’t put their calendars up for the upcoming year until June; this year, about 180 had their calendars out by the time we agreed to stop collecting data.)

These include the 100 largest school districts in the U.S., plus eighty more of the next largest school districts in the more highly-populated states east of the Mississippi–that is, the states from which in particular Walt Disney World draws its visitors.

I then create a database that shows based on district enrollment every kid who is off on every date, sum these by state, and weight them based on the state’s proportion of total US visits to this website (because Disney won’t tell me actual visitation by state!) See the image above for a screenshot example.

Finally, I calculate percentage of total weighted kids on break by date and use that to inform the crowd calendars. (There’s about 12.6 million actual kids in the database.)

Above are the results of this for when kids go back to school in 2013.

So you can see that kids don’t start going back to school in real numbers until the week of 8/10; almost half are back in school the week of 8/17; almost 70% are back by the week of 8/24, and almost 90% are back in school by the week of 9/2.

Thus, in the 2013 crowd calendar, the week of 8/10 is rated 9/high crowds, the week of 8/17 6/moderate crowds, the week of 8/24 2/lower crowds, and the week of 9/2 1/lowest crowds!

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NARRATORS AND BOOKING DATES FOR THE 2013 CANDLELIGHT PROCESSIONAL AT EPCOT

Crack commenter DisneyDiningAgent has posted one of his—or her!—incredibly helpful comments here.

There’s a lot of “food for thought” there, which I’ll note more about later, but for now, focusing on the Candlelight Processional Dinner Package:

The Candlelight Processional Dinner Package starts booking tomorrow, 7/9/13 at 6a Eastern at disneyworld.com and 7a Eastern over the phone (407-939-3463).

And the Candlelight Processional 2013 narrators are as follows:

• TBD: 11/30-12/3
• Ashley Judd 12/4-12/5
• Whoopi Goldberg 12/6-12/7
• TBD 12/8-12/10
• Dennis Haysbert 12/11-12/13
• James Denton 12/14-12/16
• Edward James Olmos 12/17-12/19
• Trace Atkins 12/20-12/22
• TBD 12/23-12/25
• Blair Underwood 12/26-12/28
• TBD 12/29
• Amy Grant 12/30

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NEW LOGO; UPDATED 2014 STUFF; NEW PRICES; FREE DINING RUMORS

The top-secret “Lipstick on a Pig” team has been busy the past week or so developing the new logo at the top of the page.  Hope you like it!  The good bits came from a crack designer I’ve been working with and the weak parts from me.

Also over the weekend the final data set for 2014 school calendars at 180 US public school districts came in from my crack research staff—the older Test Niecelet (on the left). I’ve converted these into databases, and will be analyzing and reporting on the forecasted crowd results over the next week or so.  Based on this analysis, I’ll make any needed adjustments to the 2014 Disney World Crowd calendar.

Meanwhile, it’s widely expected that 2014 prices will come out mid-week from the crack Disney World revenue management team.  Based on these I’ll revise and finalize the 2014 Disney World price seasons, and will use both the revised price seasons and revised crowd calendars to finalize the 2014 Disney World week rankings.

Finally a number of crack observers have been predicting that Disney World will release free dining for October through December this week.  I still quite doubt it, but it is of course possible.  Major macro-economic indicators (especially bond markets, developing country currency markets, and the Lone Ranger) do suggest slight headwinds against overseas visits to the US and a slight increase in Disney’s need to more strongly drive later 2013 earnings…

And let me know what you think about the logo!!!!

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2014 DISNEY WORLD PRICES TO COME OUT JULY 10

Disney World’s 2014 prices and packages will be out, reportedly, on July 10.

If this happens (sometimes delays come up) and if things works as they have in the past, as of that date or shortly thereafter you’ll be able to book packages for 2014 up to 500 days ahead on Disney World’s website–through the week before Thanksgiving 2014.

(Note that you can always book “room only” 500 days ahead–just not always on the website…)

Once the prices come out, I’ll fix my 2014 price seasons forecasts, and use those–and an updated version of the 2014 Disney World crowd calendar, which I’ll also get out in July–to revise the 2014 week rankings, if needed.

DISNEY WORLD NEXT WEEK: JULY 6, 2013 TO JULY 14, 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 July 2013 at Walt Disney World, see this.)

[Read more →]

For the first page of this review of Disney’s All-Star Music Resort, click here.

Disney’s All-Star Music Resort completed a room refurb project before reopening from its pandemic closure in 2021.

The key positive features of the refurb are the change from full beds to queen beds and addition of coffee makers, which, until the latest round of value resort refurbs began at Pop Century, were unheard of in value resort standard rooms.

Less universally praised is the bright white color scheme–exacerbated by the loss of the colorful bed stripes, which has happened generally across Disney World resorts–and the fact that one of the queens is a fold down bed that disappears the table and chairs while it is down.

Here’s a photo tour and my observations–based on an identical refurbed room at All-Star Movies, as my resort material has gotten a little behind since the pandemic…

One side of the room has a thingy with the coffee maker above and the mini-fridge below, the dresser and TV, and a connecting door, if present.

This side of the room from the back.

The coffee thingy has multiple cubbies, a general feature of the value resort refurb program.

The drawer in the thingy contains the coffee and tea supplies, and also drinking and coffee cups.

The mini-fridge, as is common in new Disney World rooms, has a glass front so you can see what’s inside without opening it. I popped a shelf out of its supports with my book, but I fixed it later!

The dresser has drawers on one side and shelving and a safe on the other, is flanked with two sets of power points each of which can charge four devices, and is topped with a 54-inch TV.

The three drawers are 31 inches by 13 inches but only 4.5 inches tall.

There is still much more storage in these new rooms than in the pre-refurb rooms at the All-Stars–their pre-refurb dresser/ mini-fridge combo is shown above.

Back to the refurbed room, next to the drawers are shelves and a safe.

I measured the safe as 19 inches by 15 inches by 6.5 inches tall.

By the connecting door you’ll find this coat rack.

In the back of the room are the sinks, closet, and, in a separate space, the toilet and shower.

Following the details of the Pop Century here as in most other matters, the overall bath and dressing area are now closed off from the rest of the room with a sliding solid door, rather than the fabric curtain you’ll find in un-refurbed value resort rooms.

Here’s the sliding door closed.

Note all the crannies and cubbies around the sink.

The cubbies to the left of the sink have the hair dryer and iron.

On the right side of the sink you’ll find this new make-up mirror.

On the side of this space is a solid hanging closet. There’s 19 inches of hanging space inside.

The toilet and tub are enclosed by this two-part sliding door.

The tub is enclosed with sliding doors–a more straightforward arrangement for most than a billowing shower curtain, but an awkwardness for bathing children.

The shower has a rain fall head, but not the hand-held shower head that also comes with the Pop refurb. Other minor differences from the Pop refurb: no luggage rack and no extension to the clothes rod on the ironing board side of the closet.

The toiletries are in the bottles that we’ve been seeing in recent refurbs across the resort.

Back into the main area, the other side of the room has a table and chairs and a fixed queen bed.

The bed side from the back. Note the seven visible pillows–there’s one more in the closet.

A closer view of the fixed queen…

…and of the art above it.  Just with this, these refurbed All-Star Music rooms have more Disney theming than any previous version of Music…and there’s more to come.

Another feature of this refurbed All-Star Music room is space under the bed for storing your suitcases.  There’s 14.5 inches of clearance, which will fit most rolly bags. I stuck mine in sideways to show how much clearance there is.

There’s a table with a cubby below and power points above between the bed and bath wall…

…and another between the bed and table.

The distinctive feature of this room renovation concept is the fold down bed, found behind this table and chairs.

Stack the chairs in the corner…

…pull the two handles, and the table disappears and this bed replaces it.

Nephews also appear.

I measured the fold-down bed as 59 inches by 79 inches–just an inch short on both dimensions of being a queen, but it’s so much larger than a full (which would be 54″ by 74″) that none can quibble at calling it a queen.

The mattress is a full 12 inches deep–as deep as that of the fixed queen. This bed is entirely appropriate for adults, and in fact adults might prefer it, as they can put the kids in the fixed queen and use the table until they themselves are ready for sleep.

There is yet another table and cubby and power point between the fold-down bed and outer wall.

The addition of the queen-sized beds and coffeemaker is a clear win, as is the safe, the shower head, the sliding solid door to the bath area, and the make-up mirror. The loss of the table when both beds are down is a bit of a pain, but as noted there are a couple of work-arounds–e.g. putting the table users in that bed.

And I know I repeat myself, but queen beds and a coffee maker wildly improve the livability of these rooms.

THE FAMILY SUITES AT DISNEY’S ALL-STAR MUSIC RESORT

This review continues here.

MATERIAL IN THIS REVIEW OF DISNEY’S ALL-STAR MUSIC RESORT

• Overview of All-Star Music
• Accommodations and Theming at All-Star Music
• Photo Tour of a Standard Room at All-Star Music
• The Family Suites at All-Star Music
• Amenities at All-Star Music
• The Pools at All-Star Music

OTHER KEY PAGES FOR WHERE TO STAY AT DISNEY WORLD

• Where to stay–the Basics
• Where first-timers should stay
• Reviews of all the Disney World resorts, based on my 150+ stays in them

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