Category — w. Most Recent Stuff

OVERVIEW: AUGUST 2013 AT DISNEY WORLD

This page reviews August 2013 Walt Disney World crowds, prices, deals and discounts, weather, and operating hours; adds a few other notes; and ends with week by week summaries.

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Try the grey stuff
It’s delicious
Don’t believe me? Ask the dishes!

(Be Our Guest, from Beauty and the Beast, music and lyrics by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken)

THE ENCHANTED FOREST: A MISSED OPPORTUNITY, BUT STILL A GREAT ACHIEVEMENT

The Enchanted Forest is one of two areas–the other being Storybook Circus–that together make up New Fantasyland at Magic Kingdom.

It contains two attractions–Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid and Enchanted Tales with Belle, two dining spots–Be Our Guest and Gaston’s Tavern, and Ariel’s Grotto, a meet and greet opportunity.

Under the Sea is too slight for the opportunity this expansion presented, and that casts a sense of disappointment over all of the Enchanted Forest.

But Enchanted Tales with Belle is as good as anything Disney World has opened since 2005.

Moreover, although both Be Our Guest and Gaston’s Tavern have menu issues (Gaston’s is too limited, Be Our Guest is scarce on simple options for little kids), Be Our Guest is overall by far the best table service restaurant in the Magic Kingdom (and the first legit “date night” option there ever)–while Gaston’s is the most charming counter service option in the park.

Add to this the fact that the Enchanted Forest is incomplete, with the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train still to open (I had thought this would be in 2013, but it’s now looking like 2014), and what you’ve got is a work in process that despite the disappointment of Under the Sea, has already demonstrated greatness, with the potential for more greatness to come.

REVIEW: THE ENCHANTED FOREST IN NEW FANTASYLAND AT THE MAGIC KINGDOM [Read more →]

POP WARNER WEEK AT WALT DISNEY WORLD IN  2013 WILL BEGIN DECEMBER 7

Spurred by crack commenter Chasity, I asked my spies on Friday to see if Pop Warner dates for 2013 had, in fact, been confirmed.

The last time I wrote about this, in mid-November, the word was as follows:

“Both Disney and Pop Warner have told my sources that there is as yet no contract for Pop Warner to be at Disney World in 2013, and that therefore there simply are no official dates for 2013.

Pop Warner went on to tell my source that “it is always that first week in December and it will probably be the same next year.””

Well, yesterday my friends discovered that Chasity was right. After “changing and re-negotiating 2013 dates” the word now is that Pop Warner 2013 dates are confirmed for December 7-14, and that these are the “final” dates.

This means that my two top ranked 2013 weeks will swap places, because the crowd ratings for the respective weeks will also flip.

I’ve made the fixes…and Chasity, thanks again!

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DISNEY WORLD NEXT WEEK: JANUARY 12, 2013 TO JANUARY 20, 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 January 2013, see this.)

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FASTPASS+ AND THE APOCALYPSE

There’s been a ton of reaction to Tom Stagg’s Disney Parks Blog post on “MyMagic+” and “FastPass+” and to prior and subsequent press.

There’s not much new in any of this, other than the beginning of rollout—February; the length of rollout—all year; and the order of rollout– starting with Walt Disney World resort hotel guests, probably BoardWalk Inn guests at first, with the program expanded slowly to others.

But oh my, there’s been a lot of noise!

In general, any noise about this is good—I’ll come back to that in a bit—but the general tone out there is that the new program will be either a cataclysm, or the best thing since the forward pass.

LET’S ALL STAY CALM…THERE’S NOT MUCH TO SEE HERE

Well maybe it will be one or the other, but I doubt it; it’ll end up somewhere between, as do most human endeavors.

Moreover, there’s some key facts that just aren’t out yet, and some emergent behavior to observe that we’re all just gonna have to wait for.

The key missing facts are

1. How many daily FastPasses will be available to all guests, and
2. How these will be divided between those reserved for those who book them ahead and those that are available to anyone on the day of visit, just like today.

The answer to these questions will make a huge difference to the overall guest satisfaction with the program, especially for those who don’t, or don’t want to, reserve their rides ahead of time. (See this for more.)

Stay calm on this point, since as the link notes, Disney World could be on the way toward daily FastPass capacity triple what it offers today…plenty for advance reservation users and “unplanned” users too!

The behavioral question is will the “schedule from home” system lead more people to get up early if the only time they can reserve Space Mountain is at 9.15a? And if so, does that mean the time-honored strategy of getting to the parks at rope drop to beat the crowds will no longer work so well?

Stay calm on this too…mostly because we won’t know for a while, and in the meantime it’s best to bet on human nature, and thus tens of thousands still sleeping in…

Much of the cataclysmic thinking about FASTPASS+ comes from either those with privacy concerns (who, if this remains an issue for them, will need to opt out) or experienced Disney World visitors who have an approach that works for them, and are worried that the new system will get in the way of something they understand and are happy with.

I have a lot of sympathy with this latter group–as I’m in it too!—but that’s not what I’ve got my eye on.

Since I started thinking about this site, I’ve had one example family sharply in my mind’s eye:

They’ve been in line for Peter Pan’s ride for hours in the Magic Kingdom on an early July afternoon. They didn’t know that July was a bad time to go, they didn’t know that not sleeping in but rather hitting the park at opening was the best way to see Peter Pan without much of a wait, and they didn’t know that FastPasses are free with their ticket, and so don’t use them.

I want this family to have a great time, and FastPass+, if it lives up to its promise, can help them see great stuff without waiting so long…even on a July afternoon.

And that’s the reason I like the noise. The more noise, the more likely this family will find out how best to do Walt Disney World—however the new best way to do it emerges to be!

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FREE TRIP TO WALT DISNEY WORLD CONTEST

Disney has a contest going on right now that every day in January is awarding a free trip to Walt Disney World!

To enter, go here, click one of the five “favorite vacations” shown across the bottom of the page  (the part that looks just like the image to the right) and fill out the entry form.

One trip will be awarded every day through January 31.

You can only enter once per day…but you can enter every day.

Good luck…and let me know if you win!

(Thanks to this site’s Facebook friend Brian for reminding me to post about this.)