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OVERVIEW: DISNEY’S OLD KEY WEST RESORT FOR FIRST TIME VISITORS

Disney’s Old Key West Resort (a Disney Vacation Club (“DVC”) Resort) is a wonderful place for returning visitors to Walt Disney World to stay.

It’s the most spacious, most livable, and least expensive of the DVC resorts, and is my personal favorite among them.

For typical first-time visitors, I don’t recommend the Disney Vacation Club resorts.

That said, these “DVC” resorts can be a great choice for first time visitors with large families, needing extra sleeping spaces, or looking for a more comfortable place to stay.

Among the Disney Vacation Club Resorts, Disney’s Old Key West Resort ranks eighth overall for first time visitors, with its particular strengths being livability and value for money.

OLD KEY WEST AND THE DISNEY VACATION CLUB RESORTS

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OVERSEAS ROOM RATE DISCOUNTS FOR WALT DISNEY WORLD HINT AT U.S. DEALS TO COME?

Update 5/9/13:  This deal is now out!  See this.

The mysterious “J” let me know this morning that room rate discounts for South American and European residents will come out May 9 as well–this on top of the Disney World Free Dining deal that she says also will come out on May 9, 2013.

Here’s the scoop so far as “J” knows now:

• Booking window: May 9 till September 15
• For stays: from August 15 till September 28
• Includes: all rooms except Little Mermaid and 3 bedroom villas
• Room rate discount amounts: Still no details about the percentage of the discount

I’ll post more as I learn more, but for now U.S. residents should view this as a hint about what might be offered to them.

SOME US RESIDENT WILL GET AT LEAST SOME DISNEY WORLD FREE DINING IN AUGUST OR SEPTEMBER!

Lots of feedback and concern continues to come in about Tuesday’s news that Free Dining may open for overseas visitors for visits in September 2013. I’ll catch up with the comments soon.

Perhaps most importantly, Dad’s Guide accepted my Free Dining SmackDown. He thinks there will be no August or September free dining for US residents, while I’m forecasting that there will be.

Whoever is right on this prediction will have breakfast at Disney World bought by the other–so at least one of the two of us will get at least some free dining out of all of this!

By the way, I’ve gotten a ton of private messages that split evenly into two claims: there will be no U.S. resident free dining in August or September 2013, or that I’ve already won my breakfast!  So nothing profoundly useful in the mail…and I’m sticking with my forecast.

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DISNEY WORLD NEXT WEEK: APRIL 27, 2013 TO MAY 5, 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.

Note that there’s some unusual Extra Magic Hours this week.  See this if you are using one of this site’s itineraries.

(For more on April 2013 at Disney World, see this, and more on May 2013, see this.)

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TRADITIONAL FREE DINING IN 2013: WILL THEY OR WON’T THEY?

Update 5/9/13: This deal is now out! See this.

My bud Carl Trent* has taken issue with my continuing forecast that we will see some free Disney World dining in the traditional August-September period–which for reasons noted here I repeated as recently as Tuesday. His post is here.

Well, only one of us can be right, so we’ll see!  I do have to note though that when Carl and I disagree on something…he’s right more often than I am.

In my “day job,” I’m a strategist, and so deeply study how to forecast.

The basic rule of forecasting is that tomorrow will be like today unless there are differences in structure, conduct or performance that will lead the relevant actors to do something differently.

I don’t see such enough such differences to agree with Carl’s call.

We both agree that Disney is (and, from a business point of view, should be) cutting way back on free dining compared to recent years.

But I see this cutback as related to coming out of the recession–and the August/September free dining program well precedes the recession. 

So actions related to coming out of the recession can’t on the face of it be related to August/September free dining deal…or at least that’s my call in making the forecast I’ve made!

So one of us will be right, and the other wrong!  Free Dining Smackdown 2013!

(*Carl runs Dad’s Guide to WDW, which has been on this site’s list of Recommended Sites for years.  Check it out if you haven’t seen it.)

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LOEWS PORTOFINO BAY HOTEL AT UNIVERSAL ORLANDO

Loews Portofino Bay Hotel is one of three deluxe hotels in the Universal Orlando resort. (The other two are the Royal Pacific, reviewed here, and the Hard Rock Hotel.)

This site’s Instructions for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter suggest that families wishing to visit Harry Potter that can afford it book a room at at one of the Universal hotels.

This is because the Universal hotels give terrific perks at Universal Orlando to hotel guests.

Most relevant to Harry Potter is that the Wizarding World opens to guests of these hotels one hour before it opens to the general public.

(If you are staying just one night, this is true both your day of check-in and your day of check-out.)

This makes it particularly easy to fit in both Ollivanders and Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey without hours of waiting.

Another great perk is that Universal hotel guests can use their room key as the equivalent of a FASTPASS for many rides at any time.  This does not apply to the Forbidden Journey or Ollivanders--the only perk that applies to them is the early entry.

All three hotels are nice, convenient to both parks at Universal Orlando, and expensive. Loews Portofino Bay is the most gorgeous (and expensive) of them, but its village theme will go over the head of most kids.

We had the chance to stay at Portofino Bay in early March. Our stay wasn’t long enough for a full review of the hotel and all its services, so this is really just a review of our room (though as you’ll note there’s photos of the rest of the place above). [Read more →]

NEWS ON FREE DINING AT WALT DISNEY WORLD IN 2013…SORTA

One of my crack sources–the mysterious J–just emailed me to let me know that free dining for the fall of 2013 will be out shortly for South American and European visitors.

The booking window will open May 9, and the offer will cover arrival dates of September 2 through September 25.

At the values, the offer is the quick service dining plan for free, and at the moderates and deluxes,  the offer is the regular dining plan for free.

I refuse to read too much into the arrival dates right now, so my takeaway is that since this offer will soon be out for much of the rest of the world, we’ll see an August/September free dining deal out for US residents visitors in May as well.

Well, I hope it includes August…

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