Category — w. Most Recent Stuff

DISNEY WORLD NEXT WEEK: JUNE 1, 2013 TO JUNE 9, 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.

Star Wars weekends continue this week and increasingly are mobbing the Studios, so avoid Disney’s Hollywood Studios the 1st and 2nd and the 7th through the 9th.

(For more on June 2013 at Walt Disney World, see this.)

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Sometime yesterday, one of you saw the fifteen millionth page viewed on this site since it opened a little more than five years ago.

The ten millionth pageview happened in October, so thanks to all of your links, likes, emails, and conversations, more and more people are getting the site’s help faster!  Thank you all so much!

Pageviews have been basically doubling every year for the last three years–which, for a site with no cat videos, is not a horrible trend.

I did a little digging into what you like to see.  There’s 23 pages that have had more than 100,000 views each, with the leader–at more than half a million pageviews–being the home page.

After that, every page in the top ten is related to “When to Go,” and if I group together the stats for the various years of “Week Rankings,” “Crowd Calendars,” and “Week Pickers” (grouping because new versions of these come out annually), each of these page types has had more than a million views.

Well, that’s just not good enough, is it?

Based on these weak results, I’m working on a new video series: “When Cats Say You Should Go to Walt Disney World!” 

I’ll be taking our cats Mudge and Marvin (that’s Mudge in the photo) though two-a-day training sessions starting soon, and the videos will be coming out shortly thereafter–right after I clean up the Epcot itineraries…

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The Value Resorts    Pop Century    Movies    Sports    Music   Art of Animation

OVERVIEW: DISNEY’S POP CENTURY RESORT

Hey, Pop Century is going through a building by building room refurb. As of late November, four buildings–7, 8, 9 and 10–are done, and 6 is being worked on. The new rooms bring queen beds and coffeemakers–both firsts in value resort standard rooms! A full photo tour of one of these refurbed rooms starts here.

Among my 150+ stays (so far!) in Walt Disney World resort hotels, I’ve stayed at Disney’s Pop Century Resort ten times, most recently in July 2017.

These stays confirm that for those who can’t afford a deluxe resort, Disney’s Pop Century Resort is the second best place to stay, after Disney’s Art of Animation Resort, and, for families with mobility issues who can’t afford a deluxe, it’s number one.

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FAVORITE NO-TICKET ATTRACTIONS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD

Welcome to the first stop aboard Magical Blogorail Teal. Enjoy the ride as this month we share our favorite WDW “attractions” that you don’t need a ticket to experience.

My friends on the Blogorail view this as just more evidence that I’m nuts–but my candidate for “favorite attraction that doesn’t need a ticket” is the Disney World buses.

Yes, the buses… [Read more →]

SPECIAL DEAL FOR AND ACCESS TO “MNSSHP” AND “MVMCP” FOR MILITARY FAMILIES

My friend Steve has posted about military discounts on the two late 2013 Magic Kingdom special parties, Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party (MNSSHP) and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party (MVMCP).

For his scoop on military family deals on the Halloween Party, see this, and for his scoop on the Christmas Party, see this.

Steve has also worked with Disney staff to make sure that these parties don’t turn military families away because of being sold out. The details are in the links–and thanks, Steve!!!

MEMORIAL DAY 2013

And on Memorial Day 2013–God bless our fallen defenders…especially those from our local 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines…

From a different war, I ran across this yesterday from a soldier’s last letter to his mom:

“How often you will have me near you when wood smoke drifts across the wind, or the first tulips arrive, or the sky darkens in a summer storm… Think of me today, and in the days to come, as I am thinking of you this minute, not gone or alone or dead, but part of the earth beneath you, part of the air around you, part of the heart that must not be lonely.”

–Caleb Milne, killed in the Tunisia campaign May 11, 1943, quoted in An Army at Dawn.

Thank you, and God bless…

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FALL FREE DINING MEANS SLIGHTLY LONGER LINES–BUT NOT ENOUGH TO MATTER

Every year shortly after the traditional fall free dining offer comes out, I start getting questions like Katie’s about whether free dining will make the parks more crowded than my forecasts.

The short answer is “no.” Free Dining this period has been happening forever, and is thus already built into the crowd forecasts.

The longer answer is a little more complicated, but still mostly no:

• Yes, free dining increases crowds more than they otherwise would have been (though, as noted, this is already reflected in the crowd calendars). But not much. If Disney sells 30% more of its hotel capacity because of free dining, that’s on the order of 30,000 more people in the hotels per night.  But divide this across four theme parks, the water parks, Downtown Disney, Universal, SeaWorld, and off days, and it’s a drop in the bucket!  And, to boldly repeat myself, this is already reflected in the crowd calendar.
• Because the free dining periods is shorter this year, it may have slightly more of a crowding effect in September 2013, as people who can do so–most can’t–move trips from the later August periods traditionally offered into September.  The effect of this is naturally capped by both the limited number of WDW hotel rooms, and resistance to taking kids out of school their first month back. Moreover, savvy travelers avoid going to Florida during the peak of the hurricane season–which (along with September being a tough time to take kids out of school) is exactly why Disney offers this deal!
• September crowds have been going up bit by bit for years now, principally because of growth in South American visitors on their “spring break” (recall that the seasons in South America are upside down). This actually has more of an impact than free dining, but it’s still small.
• Finally, because of the kick-off of Mickey’s Not-So-Halloween Party September 10, 2013 which days you go to the Magic Kingdom will really effect the level of crowds there.  See this.

Now when people like me talk about “crowds” we really mean “wait times.”

You may well see larger crowds in the streetscapes of the parks (you have larger street crowds during low-wait times, as not as many guest are in the lines!), and because of free dining, all the more fun restaurants will be booked solid.

But the wait times for rides will still be low compared to other times of the year. 

Now if you roll in at 11.30a, wait times will be high–as they always are by late morning.  Common sense and a good itinerary are still required. But wait times will still be much better than the equivalent times during the more crowded times of the year!