Category — w. Most Recent Stuff

DISNEY WORLD NEXT WEEK: JULY 7 TO JULY 15, 2018

The material below details next week’s Disney World operating hours, Extra Magic Hours, parades, and fireworks.

For more on July 2018 at Disney World, see this.

OPERATING HOURS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 7/7-7/15/18

The Magic Kingdom will be open from 9a-10p 7/7 through 7/10, 9a-11p 7/11, 9a-10p 7/12 and 7/13, 8a to 10p 7/14, and 9a-10p 7/15

Epcot will be open from 9a-9p every day

Disney’s Hollywood Studios will be open from 8a-10.30p every day

Disney’s Animal Kingdom will be open from 9a-10.30p 7/7, 9a-10p 7/8, 9a-10.30p 7/9 through 7/12, and 9a-10p 7/13 through 7/15

EXTRA MAGIC HOURS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 7/7-7/15/18

Saturday 7/7 Morning: Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios Evening: none

Sunday 7/8  Morning: Hollywood Studios Evening: none

Monday 7/9  Morning: Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios Evening: none

Tuesday 7/10 Morning: Hollywood Studios Evening: Epcot

Wednesday 7/11 Morning:  Hollywood Studios Evening: Magic Kingdom

Thursday 7/12 Morning: Epcot, Hollywood Studios Evening: none

Friday 7/13 Morning:  Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios Evening: Hollywood Studios

Saturday 7/14 Morning: Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios Evening: none

Sunday 7/15  Morning: Hollywood Studios Evening: none

PARADES AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 7/7-7/15/18

The Magic Kingdom: Afternoon Festival of Fantasy Parade: 3p every day

FIREWORKS AND EVENING SHOWS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 7/7-7/15/18

Happily Every After at Magic Kingdom: 9.15p every night

IllumiNations at Epcot:  9p every night

Fantasmic at Disney’s Hollywood Studios: 9 and 10.30p every night

Star Wars Show and Fireworks at Disney’s Hollywood Studios: 10p every night

Rivers of Light at Disney’s Animal Kingdom: 9.15 and 10.15p every night

SHOW SCHEDULES FOR WALT DISNEY WORLD 7/7-7/15/18

See Steve Soares’ site here. Click the park names at its top for show schedules.

Follow yourfirstvisit.net on Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest!!

REVIEW: SLINKY DOG DASH IN TOY STORY LAND AT DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

Slinky Dog Dash, one of two new rides in the new Toy Story Land at Disney’s Hollywood Studios (my review of the other, Alien Swirling Saucers, is here), opened on June 30, 2018, and I had the chance to ride it that day and the next.

The ride is an open-air roller coaster that dominates Toy Story Land both visually and kinetically. If you are a coaster fan, it is delightful without being distinctive.

Rocketing up, around, and over Toy Story Land, with two different launch points, it provides a moderate amount of thrills that will make it appeal to a pretty wide range of folk–all but the coaster-phobic and those who need the promise of loops and inversions to justify getting out of bed in the morning. I have a light touch of motion sickness, but saw zero motion sickness symptoms. Those with moderate or worse motion sickness should avoid it.

For those familiar with Disney World, I’d mark it’s thrill level as somewhere between Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Big Thunder Mountain.

It’s not as smooth as Seven Dwarfs, nor as jarring as Big Thunder. Part of its thrill comes from it being in the open air, so that more so than most Disney coasters except Space Mountain, you can have the sense of your vehicle barely being controlled by its infrastructure.

The notion behind the ride—as in all of Toy Story Land—is that Slinky Dog Dash is a found toy from Andy’s Backyard. He assembled the ride from a toy roller coaster set—his designs are featured in the loading area—and then planted his Slinky Dog as his imagined ride vehicle.

It’s a cute concept, and the actual ride vehicles are quite darling:

The queue, rather than being much themed itself, is set in the more broadly themed concept of “Andy’s backyard.”

Perhaps as a result, it is largely un-protected from the sun (you will find roofs at the end, and scattered umbrellas along the way), and other than some fans, not conditioned.

If only Andy had played with miniature air conditioners…*

Our forebears called this type of environment “life,” yet in our softer age, it can feel pretty miserable. A parasol and some sort of portable personal fan are welcome accessories if you are unable to book a FastPass+, which I highly recommend. Until FastPass+ tiers here change, for those not afraid of coasters, Slinky Dog Dash is the highest priority FastPass+ at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

I loved it. It has a friend in me.

Ride vehicles seat 20 in ten two-across rows. Each row has its own lap bar, meaning big and little folks can sit next to each other.

Kids need to be at least 38 inches tall to ride it at all, and over 7 to ride it unaccompanied by an older person.

Like the rest of Toy Story Land, Slinky Dog Dash gains additional visual appeal and fun after dark.

In particular, the passage of the vehicle changes the lighting of the track.

I timed multiple consecutive runs as Slinky Dog flew by over my head on the evening of Sunday July 1, and got an average of 65 seconds between vehicles, with a range of 49 to 94 seconds and a median time between vehicles of 61 seconds.

With vehicles filled to their 20 18 person capacity (thanks Ryan!), that’s around 1,000 people per hour, far fewer than the number of people who want to enjoy the ride, so expect long waits if you can’t score a FastPass+.

*These do exist; I have 1/87 scale air conditioners for my model trains…
 

Follow yourfirstvisit.net on Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest!!

REVIEW: ALIEN SWIRLING SAUCERS IN TOY STORY LAND AT DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

Alien Swirling Saucers opened in the new Toy Story Land at Disney’s Hollywood Studios at the end of June 2018.

Very much the lesser of the two new rides that opened at Toy Story Land (my review  of the other, Slinky Dog Dash, is here), it does delight kids!

According to Disney, “inside a play set that Andy won at Pizza Planet, the Aliens have powered up their flying saucers—and they’re ready to spin you on a wild ride into space! Hold on for some wild fun as your toy rocket takes off, all while electronic space music provides an intergalactic soundtrack. And if you’re really lucky, you might just get “chosen” by the claw.”

So just to be clear, you won’t be chosen by “the claw”—the claw plays no role in the ride, and you might miss its presence entirely.

Rather, Alien Swirling Saucers is simply a fun, carnival style spinning–well, swirling–ride.

You ride in the back part of a two-part ride vehicle. which will seat two or three people.

One seatbelt is shared by all.

The front part of the vehicle rides a track that shifts it from circle to circle, and the back part, where you sit, moves more freely, including by centripetal force, with a fun but not trivial “crack-the-whip” motion in your part of the ride vehicle.

The most similar ride at Disney World is the teacups of the Mad Tea Party at Magic Kingdom, but at Alien Swirling Saucers the “whip” creates more energy and kinetics, and there is, thank God, no means for your kids to speed the circular motion of the ride.

Like the rest of Toy Story Land, Alien Swirling Saucers takes on added charm at night—although perhaps not as much as does the rest of the land.

Overall, I’d rate as more fun than the teacups—but the ride’s extra energy and kinetics is perhaps why, unlike the teacups, it has a height restriction, 32 inches.

There are two sides to Alien Swirling Saucers, each with eleven vehicles. The vehicles can take three people, if two are little—you will more commonly see two riders, or perhaps a lonely blogger all by hisself. Kids younger than seven need an older person with them, and there’s no sitting on laps.

So with 22 vehicles and around two people in each, call the capacity about 44 folks. The entire ride cycle, when I timed it, was 3 minutes—90 seconds to unload and load, and 90 seconds for the ride itself. That makes for an hourly capacity of about 900 people. At least at open, many more than that wanted to ride it, so standby waits can get long.

Alien Swirling Saucers is one of three rides at the Studios in Tier One of FastPass+–meaning you can pre-book only one of the three.

There will be very, very few people for whom it is the best choice—from among the other two Tier Ones those up for a thrill should pick one of Slinky Dog Dash, and those looking for tamer fare should pick Toy Story Mania.

That said, I saw only smiles on this ride, especially from youngsters. (Above, by the way, is the worst photo I’ve posted on this site, which is saying a lot.  But I loved the smile on that youngster.) So it’s worth a bit of a wait.

Follow yourfirstvisit.net on Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest!!

DISNEY WORLD 2019 SUMMER CROWDS: THE PRINCIPLES

Walt Disney World summer crowds recently have been governed by three factors:

• Public school summer break calendars, which have start and end dates more varied than you might think
• The block-out dates of the “Silver” annual passes that have a high penetration among locals
• The beginning of the peak of the hurricane season, in mid-August

BLOCK OUT DATES

Disney changed block out policies on certain annual passes that are highly valued by locals in 2015, in time to affect the summer of 2016.  All of July, most of June, and some of August were blocked out in the popular (because lower cost) Silver Pass in 2016 and 2017. Crowds both summers were lower than expected, likely largely because of this.

For 2018, the planned early June block out was lifted through June 29, and June 2018 saw higher crowds (according to the historical data on TouringPlans.com) than June 2017. The higher crowds may disappear now that the block out dates are back, and they may or may not appear next year.

For the summer of 2019, the Silver Pass block out dates begin June 3.  If the summer of 2019 is like 2016 and 2017, you may see as a result lower crowds–more at the moderate level–than I forecast below.  I’ll keep my eye on this s the summer of 2018 unfolds and update this if necessary. You will, however, still be in Florida in the heat, humidity, and rain of summer–and I can’t possibly recommend that…

So…back to the other two drivers of summer crowds–school breaks and the peak of the hurricane season.

Pretty much all kids are off all of July. As a result, July is typically the busiest summer month, and during it, the week that includes the 4th of July the busiest week.

Varied dates for when summer breaks begin means June can start well, and then build to high crowd levels.

August has the opposite pattern, beginning with high crowds, but, through the combination of a trickle turning to a flood of back-to-school dates, and savvy travelers avoiding the peak of the hurricane season, it ends quite un-crowded.

Families that can only visit in the summer (for example, school teachers) should go as early in June or as late in August as their schedules permit. [Read more →]

While I was caught up in my day job—I just started up with a new strategy and management client, and it’s a lot of work to get it off the ground—a new Disney World deal came out, and another had its “book-by” date extended.

First, before getting into the details of the new deal—the “book-by” date for Disney’s popular Free Dining promotion has been extended to August 1, from its former July 7.

The new deal is a room-only discount that comes in two parts.

• For stays booked by October 7 that include stay dates October 8 through November 8, the discount applies to “most” Sunday through Thursday nights—that is, Fridays and Saturdays are not discounted.
• For stays booked by December 24 that include stay dates November 11 through December 24, the discount applies “most” nights—that is, Fridays and Saturdays are not explicitly excluded.

As always, there’s a limited inventory of rooms available, and not all resorts or room types are included.

VALUE RESORTS DEAL

No resort is totally excluded, but at Art of Animation, as usual only Family Suites are included.

MODERATE RESORTS DEAL

No moderates are excluded, but the deal is less valuable at Port Orleans Riverside and Port Orleans French Quarter.

DELUXE RESORTS DEAL

No deluxe is excluded, but you will find not as good a discount at the Polynesian Village, Contemporary Resort, and Wilderness Lodge.

DISNEY VACATION CLUB RESORTS DEAL

At the DVC resorts, the Villas at the Grand Floridian and Bay Lake Tower are excluded, and at the Polynesian Village only the Studios are in the deal.

Moreover, among those in the deal, the Polynesian studios and Boulder Ridge at the Wilderness Lodge (but not Copper Creek there) are at a lower discount.

HOW TO BOOK THERE DISNEY WORLD DEALS

Full reviews of each of the resort options begin here.

Go to Disney World’s pages on these deals– here for the room rate deal, or here for Free Dining.

Or the long-standing travel agent partner of this site, Kelly, can book it for you—and she will also check to see if this is the best deal for you among your options. Contact her by using the form below:

Follow yourfirstvisit.net on Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest!!

Welcome back to Fridays with Jim Korkis! Jim, the dean of Disney historians, writes about Walt Disney World history every Friday on yourfirstvisit.net.

THE REDHEAD AT PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN IN MAGIC KINGDOM

By Jim Korkis

For fifty years, since 1967 at Disneyland, guests drifted by a scene in Pirates of the Caribbean in Disney parks where intimidating pirates are holding female captives and putting them on an auction block with a huge banner above their heads proclaiming, “Auction. Take a Wench for a Bride.”

Starting in 2018, no longer are the women auctioned off. The banner is changed to read “Auction. Surrender Ye Loot.” One of the most distinctive women in the scene, a self-assured redhead now known as Redd, has become a musket-carrying pirate with a bottle of rum on her hip, helping in overseeing the surrender of the town’s “loot” and auctioning it off to her fellow pirates.

Kathy Mangum, senior vice president of Walt Disney Imagineering, stated: “Our team thought long and hard about how to best update this scene. Given the redhead has long been a fan favorite, we wanted to keep her as a pivotal part of the story, so we made her a plundering pirate! We think this keeps to the original vision of the attraction as envisioned by Marc Davis, X Atencio and the other Disney legends who first brought this classic to life.” [The changes were already in motion before the #MeToo movement burst on the scene, becoming more poignantly well-timed because of that—Dave.]

Of course, the attraction was never meant to be historically correct. It is doubtful that pirates ever auctioned off women. It is more likely they simply took whatever they wanted by force whether it was loot or physical female companionship.

However, especially recently, the issue of sexual slavery has become a more prominent issue even though it has existed for centuries. Some claim that the attraction shows tacit approval of such an action, even if it is cloaked in the aura of fantasy and that the pirates get their tragic comeuppance.

Something that rarely occurs to guests is that the Redhead is the only female with the color red in the scene. Her clothes are more expensive, emphasizing a pronounced bust. Her hat is very stylish. She wears more make-up. She even originally had a beauty spot on her right cheek. She doesn’t reflect any of the awkwardness or fear of her fellow companions.

Even the auctioneer has to reprimand her, “Strike yer colors, ya brazen wench! No need to expose yer superstructure!”

Based on Davis’ original research and early sketches, she is obviously a popular and well-off lady of the night, the town prostitute, who is well aware of what her fate might be and is already negotiating to get top dollar, realizing that she is much smarter than whoever purchases her.

She is not a victim. In fact, she realizes that the drunker these unsavory scoundrels get, the more in control she can be of the situation, even to the point of being able to escape.

Marc Davis told me that he believed that after she was sold, she became a pirate herself and took over the ship. He suggested that the eye-patched woman wearing a pirate hat in the painting over the bar in the early part of the attraction was what happened to her in later years. However, her new costume in the new scene is much more demure than real life female pirates Anne Bonney and Mary Read, who Davis sketched for the original walk-through attraction.

Walt Disney had initially expressed some concerns to Imagineer Claude Coats about whether the scene was appropriate, but it was pointed out that the scene was purposely staged with humor so that the men seemed like raucous boys rather than real threats.

By putting up the banner to buy a bride, it transformed them from licentious reprobates to lonely men who couldn’t get a wife on their own. Whether any of this alleviates anything in this day and age is debatable.

*  *  *  *  *

Thanks, Jim! And come back next Friday for more from Jim Korkis!

In the meantime, check out his books, including his latest, More Secret Stories of Disneyland, and his Secret Stories of Walt Disney World: Things You Never You Never Knew, which reprints much material first written for this site, all published by Theme Park Press.

Follow yourfirstvisit.net on Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest!!