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DISNEY WORLD NEXT WEEK: MAY 19 TO MAY 27, 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 May 2012 at Walt Disney World, click here.)

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ARMED FORCES SALUTE CONTINUES AT WALT DISNEY WORLD INTO 2013?

Steve at MilitaryDisneyTips.com notes in his blog here that a Disney spokesman has said that, regarding Disney’s Armed Forces salute, “hopefully we’ll have something to announce by early this summer.”

Don’t view that Disney statement as a promise–it’s not a promise about another continuation of this great program, nor even an exact date of when it might be announced. Depending on how you define it, “early summer” can stretch into the beginning of August…and negotiations between Disney and DOD have stretched out before…and Disney is trying to cut back discounts…

But that’s still really cool news, and makes me put my personal odds that there’ll be another program after the current one ends in late September 2012 to 75%…

LINKS FOR MILITARY FAMILIES AT WALT DISNEY WORLD

• Military Families at Walt Disney World
• Deals and Discounts
  • Military Discounts and Deals
  • Other Walt Disney World Discounts and Deals
• Shades of Green
  • Review of Shades of Green
  • Splitting Your Stay Between Shades of Green and Another Resort
  • Overflow Rates at Shades of Green
  • Shades of Green website
• Other Resources for Military Families
  • DisneyMilitarySales.com
  • Disneyworld.com/military
  • MilitaryDisneyTips.com

Walt Disney World is offering a free dining promotion for arrival dates from August 25th to September 29th 2012.

This deal must be booked by May 18, 2012–the end of this week.

So if you’ve been dawdling, book it now!

For more on the deal, see this.

This is the second page of this review of Disney’s Beach Club Villas. For the first page of this material, click here.

MORE ON DISNEY’S BEACH CLUB VILLAS

Disney’s Beach Club Villas is one of 8 official Disney Vacation Club resorts at Walt Disney World.

However, I count them as ten, because two of the resorts–Saratoga Springs and the Animal Kingdom Villas–have two very different areas.

In order of their appropriateness for first time family visitors to Walt Disney World, they are:

1. The Villas at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
2. Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas–Jambo House
3. Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas–Kidani Village
4. Bay Lake Tower at Disney’s Contemporary Resort
5. The Villas at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort and Spa
6. Disney’s Beach Club Villas
7. Disney’s Boardwalk Villas
8. Disney’s Old Key West Resort
9. Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort and Spa, main resort
10. Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort and Spa, Treehouse Villas area.

Disney’s Beach Club Villas comes in 6th on the list. These resorts are available to anyone to reserve through the regular Walt Disney World website or the resort reservations phone number at 407-939-7675.

They also are available to the general public at great discounts through renting points from a Disney Vacation Club member.

All Disney Vacation Club resorts have studio rooms, One-Bedroom Villas, and Two-Bedroom Villas.

Most have Grand Villas as well.

Disney’s Beach Club Villas does not have Grand Villas. The other three room types are covered on this page.

STUDIOS AT DISNEY’S BEACH CLUB VILLAS

At Disney’s Beach Club Villas, Studios sleep four and have a microwave and mini fridge.

The microwave is one of several ways Studios are different from regular rooms at the Beach Club.

• A second distinction is that the second bed is a full fold-out couch, rather than a queen.
• A third is that these rooms sleep one fewer person, and have one less sleeping space, than Beach Club rooms with two queens and a convertible couch (some Beach Club rooms don’t have the couch).
• The studios are about 30 square feet smaller than standard rooms at the Beach Club, and they feel even smaller than this, as the bath area of the studios (because of the choice of where to put the closet) is larger than that at in the standard Beach Club rooms.

These studios go for about the same price as regular standard Beach Club rooms.  I don’t see how the microwave makes up for the smaller living space and smaller second bed, so I can’t recommend these rooms over the Beach Club itself for first time family visitors.

ONE-BEDROOM VILLAS AT DISNEY’S BEACH CLUB VILLAS

One-Bedroom Villas at the Beach Club have a master bedroom with a king bed.

They have as well a full kitchen/dining/ living space, a washer/dryer, and sleep 4 in about twice the space of a studio.

The two additional sleeping spots are on a good-sized but thin fold-out couch in the living room space.

The bath is shared, with access to it from both sleeping spaces. The kids don’t need to enter the master bedroom to get to this bath.

One-Bedroom Villas are among the most comfortable ways to stay at Walt Disney World.

Depending on the price season, these villas are only around 40% more expensive than a standard Beach Club room, for twice the space.

The additional space, full kitchens, and living and dining furniture are hard to beat, even though if you are following one of this site’s itineraries you won’t be in your room much to enjoy them!

They aren’t for everyone…but the value is there if you can afford it and your family fits.

TWO-BEDROOM VILLAS AT DISNEY’S BEACH CLUB VILLAS

Two-Bedroom Villas add a second bedroom with a queen and a large 2 person sleeper sofa, and another balcony, to the amenities of a One-Bedroom, and sleep 8.

Two-Bedroom Villas can be either cramped or comfortable, depending both on how you use them and what you are comparing them to.

Like almost all DVC Two-Bedroom Villas, in Disney’s Beach Club Villas Two-Bedrooms there isn’t enough seating space in either the living room or in the dining spaces for all the people these rooms will fit. (Old Key West Resort and the Treehouse Villas are exceptions.)

The living room chairs will seat four to five people, with two more chairs available at the kitchen’s breakfast bar.

The dining table will seat at most five, taking the two chairs from the breakfast bar and adding them to the three spaces the table comes with.

So if you are filling a two bedroom with 8 people, things can get awkward, especially compared to the ease with which One-Bedroom Villas fit the people they can sleep.

These space and circulation issues are part of the reason why these rooms are only about 50-75% more expensive than One Bedroom Villas, even though they have double the sleeping capacity.

On the other hand, depending on the price season, a Two-Bedroom is around the same price as two standard Beach Club Inn rooms, but provides 50% more space, and, compared to those rooms, all that extra kitchen/dining/living space and furniture.

If your family’s sleeping needs will fit in the bedrooms–that is, if you don’t need to use the fold-out bed in the living space–Two-Bedrooms are a particularly comfortable option.

(To each of the capacity figures above, you can add one more kid under 3 at time of check in who sleeps in a crib.)

This review continues here.

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A CLUE ABOUT NEXTGEN INTERACTIVITY?

Disney NextGen project is reported to have a lot of parts to it, and most of the attention over the last year has been on the problem or opportunity of scheduling a new kind of FASTPASS months in advance.

But from the start of the rumors about this project, another part of NextGen has been expected to be “increased interactivity.” This has had a bunch of components, from stuff at Disney World recognizing you by name to more play opportunities in areas like waiting lines.

Last week’s announcement and demonstrations of Disney’s Touché technology may illuminate a little more how the interactivity may work.

The technology, developed by Disney Research, Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon, according to Carnegie Mellon’s website

“makes it possible to not only detect a “touch event,” but to recognize complex configurations of the hand or body that is doing the touching. An object thus could sense how it is being touched, or might sense the body configuration of the person doing the touching.”

In other words, the parks may know not only who you are but what you are doing–and can then respond to your touch and even your gestures…

This is much more interesting than only knowing who you are, and creates lots of opportunities for making the parks more fun–making an entire park an interactive playground.

The full possibilities of the idea–understanding your gestures–require two non-invasive sensors on a body–e.g. two wristbands–although some simpler approaches, such as understanding your touch, don’t require any sensors on the body of the guest at all.

DISNEY WORLD NEXT WEEK: MAY 12 TO MAY 20, 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 May 2012 at Walt Disney World, click here.)

[Read more →]