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AN ALTERNATE VIEW OF THE BEST WEEKS OF 2013 AT WALT DISNEY WORLD FOR YOUR FAMILY

This site has a couple of easy ways and a hard way to figure out the best times to visit Walt Disney World in 2013.

The 2013 Weeks to Visit rankings are the easy way for first time visitors to pick a time, and the 2013 Week Picker takes a few more clicks but is great for returning visitors—and for first timers who weigh the key issues of crowds, prices, etc., differently than I do.

The harder way is to drill down yourself into weather, prices, crowds, ride closures, and the hurricane season, and use the conclusions you draw from this material to pick your time to visit Walt Disney World in 2013.

Or you could just go in later October… [Read more →]

PERSONALIZATION AND DISNEY WORLD’S NEXTGEN PROJECT

Disney’s NextGen project has several parts.  Most widely discussed is the planned ability to reserve ride times, parade spots, etc., from home months ahead (people are currently calling this the “FASTPASS+” program). The part people have been seeing for a while is enhancements to the experience of waiting in line for those not able to reserve a time.

And then there’s “personalization.”

Most speculation about personalization has focused on the potential ability of cast members and digital signs to recognize and respond to guests, keying off of identity data encoded in either an RFID device or—in the longer run more likely—two way communicating smart phones.  It’s a technologically enabled way to say “hi” before you’ve been formally introduced.

Well, OK on that…but personalization could involve a lot more…

PERSONALIZATION THOUGHTS SPURRED BY DISNEY’S 2012 ANALYTICS AND OPTIMIZATION SUMMIT

[Read more →]

THE 2013 UNOFFICIAL GUIDE: BEST DISNEY WORLD GUIDEBOOK IN A DECADE

The 2013 edition of The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World came out in late August.

This installment of the series of guidebooks that has been ranked #1 on this site since it opened is the best in a decade.

The 2013 update includes

• Nice material on potential ways FASTPASS+ will operate (85-86)
• Good updates on the Art of Animation Resort and on the Fantasyland expansion, and
• Some other updated frank assessments—e.g. sharp fresh material on the Downtown Disney Resort Area (197).

Most importantly, it’s finally taken the old presentation of the Studios—which combined it with Universal and Sea World, an approach that has made no sense since 1999 (when Islands of Adventure opened), and little sense even before then—and divided it so that each of these parks has its own section.

This puts the Studios at the same level as the other three Disney World theme parks, while at the same time giving appropriate prominence to the non-Disney parks.

Another nice change is much more detail in the Table of Contents, with 11 pages compared to last year’s 4, making it work nicely as a topical index, and the material of the Guide more findable.  (The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2013 still has almost 40 pages of indexes at the back, a page more than last year.)

These last two changes together fundamentally improve the usability of the Guide–and are why it’s the best Disney World guidebook released in the last decade.

The team also did a really nice job at fixing last year’s errors, although a few new ones have crept in (and/or I’ve noticed them for the first time). (Frequent readers of this site know that my expertise is more in creating errors than in noticing or fixing them…)

Overall, the work is nicely updated—including late breaking (at publication date) stuff like the 2013 shift of evening Extra Magic Hours from 2 hours to 3 (39). This makes it all the more surprising that there’s a lot of outdated or just incorrect schedule info—e.g.

• The schedule of “typical” Extra Magic Hours (40) is anything but—shifting the second Animal Kingdom morning EMH from Friday to Wednesday would have made it indeed typical.
• Neither of the first two sentences in the second full para on 539 “The evening parade is staged once or twice each evening, depending on the season. During less busy seasons, the parade is presented only on weekends…” is correct, and of course the first essentially contradicts the second. An accurate statement would be “Evening parade performances vary by season, happening as often as twice a night during the busy times of year, to two or three times a week during the less busy seasons.”
• The material on Fantasmic staging is less factually incorrect, but only because it uses the words “at least,” and in its overall impression is similarly outdated (618)

There’s many other updates and additions—see Len Testa’s highlights of what’s different for 2013 here.

OTHER TYPOS, ERRORS, AND QUESTIONABLE JUDGMENTS

Accommodations.  As usual, most of the errors I’ve noticed are in the “Accommodations” section…perhaps because I’m one of the few geeks on earth to have recently stayed for multiple nights in every single Disney World owned and operated hotel…

Errors, or questionable interpretations, in the 2013 material on accommodations include:

• I don’t see how the Port Orleans resorts are “centrally located,” but Coronado Springs is not. (115)  The Port Orleans resorts were centrally located until Animal Kingdom opened, perhaps…but Coronado Springs is about as close to Epcot, the Studios and Magic Kingdom as are the Port Orleans resorts, and is much closer to the Animal Kingdom. So both are central or neither is…
• The Cabins at Fort Wilderness are not “the most cost-efficient Disney lodgings for groups of five or six persons” (116).  For five people, the Alligator Bayou rooms at Port Orleans Riverside are the most cost efficient, and for six, the Family Suites at All-Star Music are the most cost efficient.
• The floor plan for the Contemporary (119) has been out of date for a while—although the write-up beginning on 146 is correct.
• The material at the bottom of 120 is much improved compared to the equivalent last year, but it still gets capacities of 4 vs. 5 and 8 vs. 9 wrong, and has comically promoted the Treehouses to Grand Villas
• The dining room chairs in the Art of Animation Family Suite floor plan have been randomly scattered around the suite (122), creating a false impression that the master bedroom can double as a conference room.
• Saratoga Springs has some real weaknesses, but it seems a bit much to ding it three times for lacking character meals (table on 168)
• The final sentence in the para on 178 that begins “Each of Riverside’s 2,048 rooms…”—“All rooms feature two queens or one king”—should be corrected to include the 5th sleeping spot in Alligator Bayou rooms.
• The material on the Animal Kingdom Lodge has a strong discussion of the Kidani vs. Jambo villas…but seemingly at the expense of enough material on standard Jambo rooms.
• The Family Suites at All-Star Music don’t have “two chair beds”—they have a chair bed and an ottoman bed.

Other errors

• Captain EO is “Not to be Missed” (554)? I fear this is a typo copied over from another book in the Unofficial Guides series, the “Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World for Zombies”
• There’s no “Magic Kingdom” at the Disneyland Resort…there’s a Disneyland! (94)
• The reader comment on free admission on birthdays (773) should be eliminated, since the program has stopped

The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2013 doesn’t have the gorgeous images and sprightly prose of The Complete Walt Disney World, nor the clarity and fun design of PassPorter’s Walt Disney World.

What is has, instead, is the most comprehensive and best-organized Disney World vacation information you can find in a guidebook. The 2013 edition started from a strong base, made it much better, and is in sum the best Disney World guidebook I’ve seen in years!

(Disclosure: As noted here, since summer 2011 I’ve had a business relationship with TouringPlans.com, part of the Unofficial Guide intergalactic empire.)

For the first page of this review of the Family Suites at All-Star Music, click here.

THE FAMILY SUITES AT ALL-STAR MUSIC FOR FIRST-TIME VISITORS

Resorts are ranked on this site for first time family visitors based first on their kid appeal, and then on their convenience.

On this basis, the Family Suites at All-Star Music are the second-best choice for larger families seeking value pricing, after the Family Suites at Art of Animation.

Art of Animation has much more kid-appeal than All-Star Music, and a bit more convenience. (For more on All-Star Music, the overall resort within which the Family Suites at All-Star Music are found, see this.)

However, the Family Suites at Art of Animation are not just a clone of those at All-Star Music.  There are differences in floor plans and livability that may make a difference to some families, and Art of Animation is on the order of 20% more expensive.

So I’ll do a space by space comparison by means of a photo-tour of the All-Star Music Family Suites. To avoid confusion, all the images on this page will be of Music; you can find the equivalents from Art of Animation here.

PHOTO TOUR OF ALL-STAR MUSIC FAMILY SUITES

Starting outside the room itself, the corridors at Music are outside, and the corridors at Art of Animation are inside. This means heated and cooled, so in general that’s a plus for AofA.

However, the design also means that any corridor at Art has twice as much traffic as at Music (because there are half as many of them…), and there’s more reason for people to use them (since they are heated and cooled).

This results in much more corridor noise at Art in general, and particularly on the first floor corridors that lead from the elevator bank to the direction of the main building, main pool, and bus stops.

Inside the rooms, Music has a larger and more livable living space than Art of Animation.

The smaller chair (the red one) is much larger than the equivalent chair at AofA, and as a result the chair and sofa together can seat 5, compared to 4 at AofA.

The two large, cushioned ottomans have no real equivalent at AofA.  Overall, the living room Music can comfortably seat a family of 6, while the living room at AofA can seat six, but not comfortably.

The other side of the Music living room has an area with drawers and a TV, and a small table and chairs.

The table is much smaller than the equivalent at Art of Animation, which has a real dining table, and  Music has only chairs for three (the third chair coming from the desk in the master bedroom).

The Art of Animation dining table will fit six–though two will be uncomfortable, as only four of its seating spots have knee space.

Art of Animation has a little more drawer space than Music, but this is a little deceiving, as Music has more overall storage space, with much larger closets, and many more storage shelves and cabinets in its mini kitchen than AofA.

The baths at Art of Animation win over those at Music in every way but one.  They have actual doors for privacy and quiet, and decor that’s both lovelier and more kid-appealing.

The dimension where some families may find a difference is that one of the two baths at AofA is entered from the master bedroom, while both baths at Music can be accessed without entering the parent’s room.

Some parents will prefer the AofA private bath; others, on the theory that the kids will use both regardless of their wishes, will prefer that at Music, where the kids don’t have to come into their room to use either bath.

The mini-kitchen at Music is much better than that at AofA.

At Art of Animation, it’s a 4×2 foot space in the corner of the living room; Music has an alcove mini-kitchen with much more counter and storage space.

For first time family visitors–who won’t be using this space much–it hardly matters, and both spaces have the same equipment.  But for families intending to really work out their microwave and store a lot of food, All-Star Music prevails.

Overall, the master bedroom at Music is better than at Art of Animation.

The beds are equivalent, but Music adds a desk and easy chair, both of which AofA lacks.

This lets the master bedroom serve better as a retreat from the kids than the equivalent space at AofA.

The master at Art of Animation has more in-room storage than Music, has closet rods in the room itself (at Music they are in the bath area) and, as noted above, has “private” access to the second bath.

So here’s where we are so far: compared to those at All-Star Music, Art of Animation Family Suites have MUCH better kid appeal, and slightly better convenience; the dining space at Art of Animation is much better and the baths largely better.  Music Family Suites have more livable living rooms and master bedrooms, and a more flexible mini-kitchen.

THE FAMILY SUITE BEDS AT ALL-STAR MUSIC

This review continues here.

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DISNEY WORLD NEXT WEEK: SEPTEMBER 8 TO SEPTEMBER 16, 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 September 2012 at Disney World, see this)

[Read more →]

THERE ARE FAMILY SUITES AT ALL-STAR MUSIC TOO!

With all the deserved hoopla around the opening of the Family Suites at Art of Animation, Disney World’s original family suites at All-Star Music are still worth considering by any family thinking about Art of Animation.

In general, Art of Animation will be a better choice for most, but there are some specific features of the Family Suites at All-Star Music that will make them a better choice for some.

REVIEW: THE FAMILY SUITES AT ALL-STAR MUSIC [Read more →]