Category — w. Most Recent Stuff

This is the second page of this review.  For the first page, click here.

CONTINUED: THE 2012 EDITION OF THE UNOFFICIAL GUIDE TO WALT DISNEY WORLD: REVIEW

Known errors and things that just change because Disney changes them are tracked here (most of the below have been incorporated into this errata list since I first published this page).

However, there’s still a few more errors and typos in The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2012 than I believe reasonable (and frequent readers of this site understand that I am an expert on creating an unreasonable number of errors and typos).

POSSIBLE TYPOS AND ERRORS IN THE 2012 UNOFFICIAL GUIDE

My issues here include the following:

Typos

• Page 138, discussing the Polynesian, has two slightly different versions of the same paragraph (“Bathrooms are…”). The first was meant to replace the second, as the second’s reference to a moment in time (‘during refurbishment) is no longer needed.
• Page 146, on Bay Lake Tower, skips directly from studios (“Studios sleep…”) to two-bedroom villas. The third sentence of the two-bedroom para refers to one-bedrooms (“As with the one-bedrooms…) which suggests a para on one-bedrooms was inadvertently dropped.
• In the discussion of Coronado Springs Club Rooms on p. 183, the words “more than regular rooms” were dropped between “night” and “depending” in the phrase “These rooms cost around $100-$130 per night depending on the season.”

Minor Errors

• There are several errors on pp. 116-117 in the layouts of the DVC resorts. The Wilderness Lodge does not have Grand Villas (117) and the occupancy limits of the room types noted at the bottom of 116 are out of date given the multiple locations with occupancies of 5 in one-bedrooms and 9 in two bedrooms.
• The Art of Animation Family Suite floor plan on 118 is wrong. The correct floor plan can only be guessed at, but Disney had given enough details well before the publication date to know that Art of Animation would not be a copy of All-Star Music’s Family Suites. For the same reason, the room description of Art of Animation on 193 is wrong.
• On 147, while Grand Villas at Bay Lake Tower do have sleeping spots for 14 (as do many Grand Villas), the maximum occupancy is 12, as it is for other Grand Villas (and as 116 correctly notes.)
• On 169, the occupancy of 9 at the Treehouses is no longer “one more than ….at the other DVC resorts,” since Kidani Village, Jambo House, Bay Lake Tower, and Old Key West two-bedroom villas now sleep nine as well.
• On 170, the beds description of Old Key West one and two-bedroom villas is out of date, as it leaves out the convertible chair.
• Page 180 incorrectly claims that Kidani one and two bedroom units can hold “one more each than corresponding units at Jambo House,” since the Jambo Villas (other than the “value” villas) also have the sleeper chair.
• Re page 392—it’s been a while since buses at Old Key West and Saratoga Springs “often run every 45-50 minutes.” (388-389 get this right.)
• On 518, the “average wait in line per 100 people ahead of you” on It’s a Small World is a good bit less than 11 minutes.
• In the discussion of the Wishes Fireworks Cruise on 534, either the 180 days should be 90 or the 95 days should be 185, or I am very confused.
• In the discussion of Epcot operating hours on 547, Future World no longer “usually closes before World Showcase.”
• Hollywood Studios either takes 10 hours to tour (616) or three quarters of a day (619), but not both.

Perhaps errors, or perhaps just points of different judgment

• The Magic Kingdom hardly ever closes at 6p anymore (31)—this happened maybe 3 or 4 times last year.
• As the TouringPlans.com crowd calendar indicates, mid-August is not as good as it used to be (33) as Florida kids’ school return dates have shifted to later in the month over the past few years, and they thus no longer “go back to school pretty early.” This year, eleven of the state’s largest 14 districts returned during the last full week of August, and the three that didn’t were among the smallest of these districts. This last full week of August was the most common week for kids to go back to school in 2011 throughout the US…and thus not “early.”
• On 103, while you can indeed save “$15 to $50 per night or more …by visiting during the slower times of year,” that “more” is bearing too much of a burden, as the spreads between high and low nightly costs ranges from more than $80 a night at the values and moderates to more than $200 at the deluxes (plus tax!).
• Though an Animal Kingdom Area Resort, Coronado Springs, rather than being “not centrally located,” is actually very centrally located (112).  It’s the most centrally located of all the Walt Disney World resorts. A little work with a map, a calculator, attendance figures, and a ruler will tell you that the attendance-weighted center-point of Walt Disney World is just to the north of Coronado Springs. (Here again I geek.)
• On 198, it seems worth mentioning that the Campsites have a capacity of ten.
• On 368, the material on toll roads seems important enough to me to deserve more emphasis, and perhaps be brought to the beginning of this whole section on “Getting There”–that is, to page 363.

But these are easily fixable nits, and The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2012 remains a masterwork of its genre, and is the single most comprehensive, detailed, and consistently useful guidebook to Walt Disney World available.

Disclosure: As noted here, since summer 2011 I’ve had a business relationship with TouringPlans.com.

PAGES: Previous | 1 | 2

THE 2012 EDITION OF THE UNOFFICIAL GUIDE TO WALT DISNEY WORLD

The crew behind many landmark resources for Walt Disney World–including TouringPlans.com, Lines, the famous crowd calendar, and The Color Companion to Walt Disney World–released in late August the 2012 edition of The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World.

Details follow below, but here’s the short version: first time family visitors tempted to buy a guidebook should choose The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2012.

(Disclosure: As noted here, since summer 2011 I’ve had a business relationship with TouringPlans.com.)
[Read more →]

See Steven Ford’s wonderful appreciation of Steve Jobs and Walt Disney here.

WALT DISNEY WORLD OCTOBER-DECEMBER 2011 ROOM DEAL

Disney World has announced a new room rate discount for 2011 dates 10/30 to 11/18 (or 11/21–see below), and 11/26 to 12/23/2011.

To get this deal, you need to book by November 19.

Discounts off of standard rates include

• 15% off of All-Star Movies, and 20 percent off of the rest of the value resorts
• 15% off of Port Orleans French Quarter Resort and 20 percent off the rest of the moderate resorts
• 25% off of the Animal Kingdom Lodge and Polynesian Resort, and 30 percent off the rest of the deluxe and DVC resorts

For the values and most moderates, the first discount period ends 11/18.  For the rest–the Cabins at Fort Wilderness, the deluxes, and the DVC resorts–this first discount period ends 11/21.

For the official Disney World page on this deal, click here. For other discounts, see this.

(This material first appeared as a guest post on
MilitaryDisneyTips.com‘s Patriotic Disney series. Thanks, Steve, for letting me republish it here.)

This is the second page of this review; for the first page, click here.

FRONTIERLAND BEGINS IN LIBERTY SQUARE

The structures of Frontierland–rides, shops, and dining establishments–are all on your left as you walk from Liberty Square to Big Thunder Mountain.

The water–representing the great rivers that tied together the frontier, and especially the Mississippi and the Ohio–are on your right.

If you focus on the left, Frontierland begins at the Diamond Horseshoe Saloon, as the boundary between east and west.

However, if you focus on the right…Frontierland begins in Liberty Square. [Read more →]

OVERVIEW: APRIL 2012 AT DISNEY WORLD

This page reviews April 2012 Walt Disney World crowds, prices, deals and discounts, weather, operating hours, adds a few other notes, and ends with week by week summaries.

[Read more →]