Category — w. Most Recent Stuff

AJ of the Disney Food Blog is reporting here on changes to the dates of Disney World’s free dining offer.

Those who have already booked free dining are fine, even if their dates aren’t covered any more; new bookings MUST follow the new dates.

I’ve got both the old dates and the new dates here–the old dates are slashed through, like this.

Analysis shows that with one exception  the Disney World free dining arrival dates now begin a day earlier (on Saturdays rather than Sundays) and in all cases end two days earlier, on Thursdays rather than Saturdays.

The effect is to add 9  Saturday arrival dates and subtract 20 Friday and different Saturday arrival dates, for a net reduction of 11 arrival dates.

Shifting the end of each arrival date period from Saturdays to the Thursdays two days before will make it harder for many families to take advantage of these deals during some popular weeks.

(Note: Not all of the black-out dates are popular weeks–for example, the October, early December, and early February blacked-out dates should all have low crowds.)

Again, according to AJ, if you’ve already booked, you are fine–the changed dates apply only to new bookings.

For more on the free dining offer, including both the new and old dates, click here.

OVERVIEW: DISNEY’S ANIMAL KINGDOM VILLAS–JAMBO HOUSE FOR FIRST TIME VISITORS

Most room options at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas–Jambo House (a Disney Vacation Club resort) are wonderful places for returning visitors to Walt Disney World to stay.

For typical first-time visitors, I don’t recommend the Disney Vacation Club resorts.

That said, these “DVC” resorts can be a great choice for first time visitors with large families, needing extra sleeping spaces, or looking for a more comfortable place to stay.

Among the Disney Vacation Club resorts, Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas–Jambo House ranks second overall for first-time visitors, but specifics vary a little for by room type.

THE DISNEY VACATION CLUB RESORTS

[Read more →]

EDUCATION AND WALT DISNEY WORLD

Magical Blogorail Teal is writing this month about Education and Walt Disney World.

Welcome to those of you joining me from The World of Deej and those of you who have just hopped aboard. I am the 4th stop on our Magical Blogorail.

When the Magical Blogorail Teal gang started talking about education and Walt Disney World, my first thought was why not have kids spend nine months of the year at Disney World and only the summers in school?

Yes, this is kinda nuts, but there’s a point buried in it: a week at Disney World, when viewed in the long run, can be a lot more educational than a week in school.

The aim of education is not to accumulate classroom hours.

Rather–at least to me–the aim of education is to help develop a free person prepared to pursue happiness.

Classroom skills are critical to this—especially reading, writing and math.   And a week out of school can hurt older kids with these unless you are careful to work with your teachers to make sure your kid keeps up (more on this later).

But there’s other dimensions to the aim as well.  Enabling a free person to pursue happiness requires not just skills but also values and substantive knowledge, all aimed toward a life of autonomy, mastery, and purposefulness.

A key way to get from here to there is to help kids become fascinated by topics which will help them develop in these dimensions.  This is because fascination is the most powerful motivational force we have.

And there’s lots of opportunities to develop and build fascination at Walt Disney World.

Since this site’s recommended weeks are all during the typical school year (because that’s when prices and crowds are lower) most families will need to take their kids out of school to take advantage of them.

Is that a bad thing?  Absolutely not, given the educational promise of Disney World.

DISNEY WORLD AND EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES

Younger kids may simply enjoy Walt Disney Word purely in its direct presentation, and have as their educational experience what they learn about family life.

Older kids, in contrast, may find all kinds of things to be fascinated by besides the direct experience.

They can enjoy Disney World both in their direct experience of it and as a human-made artifact.

Almost any element of a liberal education can be tied to something about the presentation, design, management, history, or details of Walt Disney World.

Epcot and the Animal Kingdom present directly many potential topics of fascination—from marine biology to animal biology to conservation to car design to high-speed rail to why France and Morocco are different but related.

The Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios don’t stick such possibilities so directly front and center…but there’s still tons of things at them that can fascinate.

At these two parks in particular the opportunity is to understand the range of human capability by investigating the parks as designed and managed objects.

The basic questions that can help you get your kids there are “why?” and “how?”

To give just some “why” examples…

• Why are there names in the windows on Main Street?
• Why do some rides have FASTPASSES and others not?
• Why are some rides filled and others half-empty?
• Why are cast members so much more friendly and helpful than most other employees your kids may interact with?
• Why are some fireworks shows not on every night?
• Why is Disney World in Florida and not in our home town?
• Why is that building/structure designed to look the way it does?
• And that one?
• Why does the street look the way it does?
• etc., etc.

Walt Disney World is the sum of a set of human choices, insights, and actions, some long ago, and some constructed in the moment in front of you.

Anything you see there represents the totality of these choices, insights and actions  as manifested in this moment, and the “whys” and “hows” of all of them are open to fascination.

YOU GOTTA WORK WITH YOUR TEACHERS TO GET YOUR KIDS READY TO GO

Some teachers may have no expectations about work to make up for the missed days and not get behind the class, but most will, and the older your kids are, the more important this work will be.

Involve your kids in preparing for the time away from school, but take responsibility for it yourself.  If there’s work to be made up, your kids should do as much as possible before you leave.  While my itineraries have time off in them, schoolwork is not how you want to spend it.

While different teachers may have different preferences for how they handle kids away from class, the absolutely wrong answer is to expect them to do everything to prepare your kids for being away.

Instead, make it your key priority to help them out.  Find out how they like to handle make-up work, and then work with your kids to respond to these preferences.

For example,  put together a typical calendar for class—what subjects are covered what days, what typical homework assignments are given, what known tests are coming and when papers and projects are due, so that all the teacher has to do is mark it up.

Teachers–I particularly welcome your comments on how families can help with managing time out of school.  I’ve taught, but only at the university level, and my challenges there (hangovers) were different. Use the comment form below!

FINAL PREPARATION TO TAKE YOUR KIDS OUT OF SCHOOL FOR WALT DISNEY WORLD

The final step is to prepare yourself.

Your goal is to enable fascination by learning a little more about some ‘hows” and “whys” so that you can engage with your kids as topics come up.

The easiest way to do so is advance reading in Disney websites or guidebooks that focus on not only “what” but also why and how.  This site fits, as do a number of its recommended books and recommended websites.

MORE ON EDUCATION AND WALT DISNEY WORLD FROM MAGICAL BLOGORAIL TEAL

Thank you for joining me today. Your next stop on the Magical Blogorail is The Disney FAITHful.

Here is the map of our Magical Blogorail loop should you happen to have to make a stop along the way and want to reboard:

• 1st Stop ~ Disney-Lovin’ Spectrum Mom
• 2nd Stop ~ Capturing Magical Memories
• 3rd Stop ~ The World of Deej
• 4th Stop ~ yourfirstvisit.net
• Final Stop ~ The Disney FAITHful

I’ve been getting a lot of questions and comments about the potential impact of Hurricane Irene on Walt Disney World.

As I update this Thursday morning, it looks like Irene will cause little to no trouble at Walt Disney World.

Weather.com has an overview of Irene here and an Irene threat level map here.

Over this week, as the projected track has moved further east, the threat level for Orlando has moved from “medium,” to “low” to none.  The current expectation is for possible rain and wind gusts Friday morning.

Check the links above or below for up to date forecasts.

The local paper, the Orlando Sentinel, also has good info.

• For its weather page, click here
• For its hurricane page, click here
• For its cone of uncertainty for tropical storms and hurricanes, click here.

Storms like this are usually not a severe issue for Walt Disney World.

Even if they pass right over Disney World, their journey over land to Orlando dissipates their energy and makes them more like a really bad thunderstorm than like what most people visualize as a hurricane.

But things change, so stay up to date with the links, especially with the Irene threat level map and its cone of uncertainty.

For more on hurricanes at Walt Disney World, see this, and for some basic precautions see the lower part of my tornado page here.

INTERIOR PHOTOS OF ART OF ANIMATION RESORT PUBLISHED

Update: there’s an official 3-D drawing at about 1.14 of the Disney video that’s linked to on this page: http://wdwnewstoday.com/archives/8058.  Thanks to Barberella for the link! 

Disney recently published here the first available interior photographs of its new Art of Animation Resort (which I’ve written about previously here).

From  Disney’s photos you can see

• The kitchen and main living room
• The convertible dining room table
• This table converted into a bed
• The relationship of this cool bed to the master bedroom
• The master bedroom itself; and
• A bit of the master bath.

It seems–as previously speculated–that the entry is indeed from an interior hallway, and I saw no evidence of a balcony–although there could possibly be one off the master bedroom.

BUILDING A FLOOR PLAN OF THE ART OF ANIMATION RESORT FROM THESE IMAGES

What you can’t see from the photos is the entry itself, the kids’ bath, the closet, or the layout of either bath.

That’s not enough to stop me, so I built a rough floor plan tying together what I could see and speculating about what I couldn’t.

I’m sure it will be at best only moderately accurate–but it’s more accurate than the first set of speculative floor plans published here.

MORE ON WHERE TO STAY AT DISNEY WORLD

• For where to stay, see this
  • For your next best choices, in order, see this
  • For picking your resort based on appeal to kids, see this
  • For picking your resort based on convenience, see this
  • For where not to stay, see this

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• For what you get in each resort price category, see this
  • For Walt Disney World resort price seasons, see this
  • For resort reviews, see this
  • For the value resorts, see this
  • For the moderate resorts, see this
  • For the deluxe resorts, see this
  • For suites at the deluxe resorts, see this
  • For the Disney Vacation Club (“DVC”) Resorts, see this

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• For a (geeky) overview of comparative room size, see this

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• Large families should look at this, and also at
  • Large Families Looking for Value Pricing at Walt Disney World
  • Large Families Looking for Deluxe Accommodations at Disney World
  • Beds and Sleeping Spaces at the Walt Disney World Resorts
  • Renting Disney Vacation Club Points
  • Suites at Walt Disney World

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• Military/DOD families should look at this

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• Tightwads should look at this

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• Families seeking the most comfortable place to stay should see this

There’s a pretty special post up on Disney on Wheels.

It’s a guest post written by Drew, the husband of the site’s author, Melissa.

Check it out here!