Category — w. Most Recent Stuff

THANKSGIVING 2013 AT WALT DISNEY WORLD

Update October 23: New extended operating hours and 8a openings.

Thanksgiving week at Walt Disney World is busy–particularly Wednesday through Saturday.

While not as crowded as some other holiday weeks–Easter and Christmas, for example–it can be very challenging, and the material below gives some hints on how to deal with it.

[Read more →]

Update 5/1: The party dates are now out, and are as forecast. The pages linked to below now have the confirmed dates.

Disney’s November calendar is out, and based on it, I’ve completed the date forecasts for Mickey’s Not-so-Scary Halloween Party, and published the first set of date forecasts for Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party.

• For the forecasted dates for Mickey’s Not-so-Scary Halloween Party (“MNSSHP”), see this.
• For the forecasted dates for Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party (“MVMCP), see this.

DISNEY WORLD’S SPECIAL CHRISTMAS PARTY IN 2013

While Christmas itself is December 25 of course, Walt Disney World provides a special Christmas celebration at the Magic Kingdom many nights in November and December.

This celebration is called “Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, or “MVMCP” for short.

At the party, many of the Magic Kingdom’s rides are open, and cookies and hot chocolate, special events, and slightly different Christmas parades and fireworks, and even snow (!) are offered.

The official Disney World page for this event (where you can also buy tickets, when they become available) can be found here.  For a review of MVMCP, see this.

MORE ON MICKEY’S VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS PARTY

[Read more →]

DISNEY WORLD NEXT WEEK: APRIL 13, 2013 TO APRIL 21, 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.

(For more on April 2013, see this.)

[Read more →]

My dear sweet mom passed away late last night.

That’s her on the left, with her sister and best friend my Aunt Nancy on the right, sometime in the days when Frank Sinatra was king.

As a result, I’ll be even slower than usual in my responses to comments, and other than the every Friday “Next Week at Walt Disney World,” and other critical updates, won’t be publishing much new here for a bit…

THE HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS AFTERNOON PARADE AND DISNEY WORLD ITINERARIES

This site offers integrated eight night itineraries for every week of the year for first time visitors to Walt Disney World who may never return. The three central itineraries are

• The Summer Itinerary, for the operating patterns and issues faced during the summer and also during other very high crowd times of the year—some not so warm!
• The Basic Itinerary, for the operating patterns and Christmas programs available the three weeks after Thanksgiving, and
• The Autumn-Winter-Spring Itinerary, for operating patterns the rest of the year—although for some weeks some slight modifications are needed

In addition there’s nine variants of these itineraries— eight shorter, and one longer.

And each of these itineraries was designed so that people could see the afternoon parade at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, which had its last known run Saturday April 6.

Now Disney has not yet said whether or not there will be a replacement—although many have inferred that there may not be.

In the absence of confirmation of whether or not a new parade is coming, I’ve taken the Hollywood Studios afternoon parade off of the itinerary images, and will shortly be putting into the daily agendas notes about the cancellation.

MODIFYING HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS ITINERARIES IN RESPONSE TO THE ABSENT PARADE

There’s four different ways the Hollywood Studios parade was treated—see the image for examples of each.

Going left to right in the image, here’s the suggested response:

• Parade at the beginning of a late afternoon visit, on what is otherwise an “off” day: simply go to the Studios an hour later than indicated
• Parade in the middle of a full day in the Studios: just skip over the “parade” steps for an overall shorter and simpler day
• Parade as the last event in the first part of a two part day: simply leave the park around 2.30p rather than 3.30p
• Parade as the first event in the second part of a two-part day: arrive at the Studios at 3.30p instead of by 2.30p.

I’m gonna leave this fix up until it becomes definitive—either by Disney announcement, or simply the passage of time with continued silence—whether a new parade is in or out.

If the parade becomes definitively permanently out, I’ll then re-think the whole approach to the Studios, as Toy Story Mania (or a Fastpass for it) first thing, the parade, and Fantasmic times are the three fundamental beats to which a Studios plan for first time visitors who may never return has to be designed.

Thus the absence of a parade will create much more flexibility in all but the “all day long” itineraries—and might even make a difference there!

But in the meantime, I’m just gonna take these half-steps, so that the itineraries don’t suffer from too much whiplash in case a new parade comes out soon!

Follow yourfirstvisit.net on Facebook!