Category — w. Most Recent Stuff

Frequent readers of my disclosure page 🙂 will have noted that last week I inked a deal to become an affiliate of TouringPlans.com.

I’ve been recommending the tools and resources of TouringPlans.com for more than three years.

Over the same period I’ve published at various times frank reviews of their stuff. I’ve never found TouringPlans.com to be perfect, just simply much better than any alternatives.

The affiliation won’t change this–I’ll still publish reviews and call ’em as I see ’em–but it does mean that if you sign up for a TouringPlans.com fee-based product after arriving there from a link from this site, TouringPlans.com will share a bit of the fee you pay with me.

I’m grateful that TouringPlans.com has created the opportunity to become an affiliate, as it permits me to be compensated a little for the time I put into this site while still recommending and reviewing their products.

THE HAUNTED MANSION

I review rides only when they are new or after they have changed, on the theory that first time visitors ought to try them all and hence don’t need reviews.

(For those without the time or energy to try them all, there’s a
comprehensive guide to Disney World rides and attractions here and also a list of Disney World rides that might be skipped here.)

The Haunted Mansion has had a couple of recent changes, to its queue and to some of the business of the ride at the end.

Some have objected to them–the queue enhancements in particular–for messing with the ride’s coherence.

That’s a stretch, as this ride has no coherence other than (mostly!) being set in and around a building.

The changes–to me at least–are fun, and make a great (incoherent) ride even better.

They also help further set the Magic Kingdom up for future FASTPASS changes related to Disney’s NextGen project.

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Lots of important news over the last few days…

DISNEY WEBSITE OPEN FOR BOOKING 2012

You can now book most 2012 dates on Disney’s website.

This is a couple of months earlier than Disney has made this possible in past years.

You still can’t book Disney World more than 500 days ahead, so the website only lets you book (as of today) through late October 2012.

This means that most 2012 Disney World prices are out as well–I’ll update this site over the next few weeks based on these prices. You can see the new Disney World 2011/2012 ticket prices here.

YOU CAN BOOK THE ART OF ANIMATION RESORT

Disney’s Art of Animation Resort is open for booking, for arrival dates beginning May 31, 2012.

See this on MousePlanet.com for more details.

DISNEY MILITARY SALUTE TICKETS: UNLIMITED USE?

Update 7/7: only a total of 12 tickets can be used over the 2011-2012 period, wth no more than 6 activated at a time.

Steve at MilitaryDisneyTips.com is reporting here, based on new instructions to Disney ticket window staff that he has seen, that the discounted Military Disney ticket offer can be used multiple times–“unlimited” times–so long as no more than 6 tickets are purchased each time.

The details of the extension of this deal to 2012 are still not on Disney’s website; MilitaryDisneyTips.com has a lot of the specifics of them here.

For the first page of this review, click here.

MORE ON DISNEY’S CONTEMPORARY RESORT

There are currently 8 official Disney owned and operated deluxe resorts at Walt Disney World.

In their recommended order for first time family visitors, they are

1. Polynesian
2. Wilderness Lodge
3. Animal Kingdom Lodge
4. Contemporary
5. Grand Floridian
6. Beach Club
7. Yacht Club
8. BoardWalk Inn

Many of these also offer Disney Vacation Club (“DVC”) studios and villas, all for rent to the general public–see this for more on the Disney Vacation Club resorts.

For more on the Contemporary’s DVC offering, Bay Lake Tower, click here.

ROOMS AT DISNEY’S CONTEMPORARY RESORT

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DISNEY WORLD TICKET PRICES GO UP A FEW MONTHS EARLY

Now that WeinerStep seems to have petered out I’ve shifted my attention to rising Walt Disney World ticket prices.

In recent years, Disney has increased its ticket prices in August, but it announced Friday a set of (in some cases stiff) ticket price increases effective today.

You can find the effective new Disney World ticket prices here.  For even more detail, see this.

STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN WALT DISNEY WORLD TICKET PRICES

All prices except one are rising.

In particular, the per person, per day, cost of days after the third has gone up ~50%, from around $6 to around $9.

This is still a bargain compared to the $80-$90 per person per day costs of the first three days of a ticket, so it doesn’t affect any of this site’s recommendations.

Also, the structure of the park hopper add-on has changed.

• It’s still a flat amount per ticket (around $58 after tax) for tickets of 2-10 days, but
• The cost of adding it to a one-day ticket is now only $35 plus tax rather than last year’s $55

This is interesting, but also does not affect any of this site’s suggestions, as there are no one day adventures included in it!

OVERVIEW: WALT DISNEY WORLD ADMISSION TICKET PRICES 2012

(Updated to reflect a policy change–the update is below in red.)

Three types of Walt Disney World prices are important to think about:

• Walt Disney World theme park admission ticket prices—the tickets that grant you admission to the parks
• Walt Disney World resort hotel prices, and
• Park and hotel food prices

This page focuses on Walt Disney World theme park admission ticket prices for 2012 until the summer of 2012, when they typically go up.

MORE DETAILS ON WALT DISNEY WORLD ADMISSION TICKET PRICES 2012: HOW THE TICKETS WORK

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