Category — w. Most Recent Stuff

My friend Steve at MilitaryDisneyTips.com has published recently a couple of important news items for military families:

• He’s broken the story that families can now use the 4 day Disney World Military Salute tickets back to back for a trip longer than 4 days. See this.
• He’s also recently posted on a new Universal Orlando military deal–the first since Harry Potter opened.  See this.

Thanks, Steve, for writing about these!

A VERY MINOR LANDMARK

So after thinking about doing so for years, last week I finally bought yourfirstvisit.com, and (after the usual comedy that happens when I get mixed up with technology) re-directed it so that if people type “yourfirstvisit.com” into their browser, they’ll get to the home page of this site instead.

What that means practically is that more people who mean to get here actually will get here. Emotionally, it brings me back to the days in early 2008 when the site’s first set of research and resulting material was done, and what was left were the questions of what name to use for it and how to pull the whole thing off technically.

So I’m gonna go back there for a bit, and then wander back to now…and yes, for obvious reasons I have created a whole new category for this post!

WHY THIS SITE BECAME YOURFIRSTVISIT.NET [Read more →]

THE REFURBISHED 5 PERSON ROOMS AT PORT ORLEANS RIVERSIDE

The only standard moderate resort rooms at Walt Disney World that can sleep five are in the Alligator Bayou section at Port Orleans Riverside.

Both the Port Orleans resorts have been refurbished over the past 18 months or so (for details, see this), with the main improvement being the replacement of the old full beds with queens.

In addition, the rooms in the Alligator Bayou section of Riverside, which used to sleep a fifth person on a trundle bed, now sleep the fifth person on a mini-Murphy bed.

I’ve finally had a chance to stay in one of these refurbished rooms.  I’ll post a full review later this month, but wanted to get the details on the new mini-Murphy out now. [Read more →]

DISNEY WORLD NEXT WEEK: NOVEMBER 3 TO NOVEMBER 11, 2012

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 November 2012, see this.)

[Read more →]

2014 WALT DISNEY WORLD PLANNING TOOLS

The first draft of this site’s suite of planning tools for picking a date to visit Walt Disney World in 2014 is out.

The tools include 2014 weeks to visit, ranked in order, which is based on both the 2014 Disney World Crowd Calendar and the projected 2014 Price Seasons at Walt Disney World. Finally, there’s a basic overview of 2014 at Disney World as well.

The first three are drafts which will be updated as needed in the summer of 2013, and the fourth is a work in progress, which I’ll update as information emerges over over the next 14 months.

• The 2014 Crowd Calendar will be revised if needed as event dates firm up and more public schools release their 2013-2104 academic calendars. This update is typically in the summer, as not enough of the 180 or so school calendars that are tracked for this are out until then. 2014 is similar enough to recent years that I’m comfortable that the crowd calendar won’t change much.
• The 2014 Price Seasons are projections based on recent Disney World practice. The final 2014 price season will likely come out this summer, and this page will be updated then. Disney in recent years has both created and moved around price seasons, so if you are deciding between a couple of weeks based on price differences use the comment form below to contact me and I’ll weigh in on how solid I think a difference will turn out to be.
• Based on any summer 2013 updates to these two items, the 2014 Week Rankings will be revised if needed.
• The final recently published tool is Walt Disney World in 2014, giving an overview of the year and addressing all the most common questions. There’s not a lot to this yet, but as key 2014 info comes out, I’ll keep updating the page!

Some of you have been asking about the 2014 week picker—that won’t come out until the summer of 2013, when all the other revisions are set!

MORE ON WHEN TO GO TO WALT DISNEY WORLD

• For when to go to Walt Disney World, see this
• For the next best dates, see this
• For the best and worst times to visit, see this
  • For 2012 weeks to visit, ranked in order, see this
  • For the 2012 Week Picker, see this
  • For 2013 weeks to visit, ranked in order, see this
  • For the 2013 Week Picker, click here
  • For 2014 weeks to visit, ranked in order, see this
• For forecasting crowds at Walt Disney World, see this
  • For the 2012 Crowd Calendar, click here
  • For the 2013 Crowd Calendar, click here
  • For the 2014 Crowd Calendar, click here
• For seasonal pricing at Walt Disney World, see this
  • For 2012 price seasons, see this
  • For 2013 price seasons, click here
  • For projected 2014 price seasons, see this
• For weather at Walt Disney World, see this

I’ve caught up recently on updating a lot of the pages on this site—incorporating not only 2013 prices (finally…) but also the updated value resort rankings with Art of Animation now fully open.

Some of these are deep in the site but potentially very helpful to particular families, so I thought I’d call them out here.

• Designing Your Walt Disney Vacation to a Target Budget is meant to help families on particularly tight budgets figure out what they can do for a certain amount of money.
• Large Families Looking for Value Pricing at Walt Disney World and Deluxe Options for Large Families at Walt Disney World have recommendations for families too large to fit into standard rooms.
• Beds and Sleeping Spaces at Walt Disney World builds on some of the same “large families” material, but is particularly designed for families worried as much—or more—about how many individual beds and private sleeping spots they get as they are about room capacity.
• …And of course What to Budget and Where to Stay are now up to date based on 2013 prices and the new top-ranking of Art of Animation.

There’s some other key new and updated pages–but more on those tomorrow!