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

YOUR DISNEY LIBRARY: LOU MONGELLO’S WALT DISNEY WORLD TRIVIA BOOK SERIES

By Jim Korkis

• The Walt Disney World Trivia Book: Secrets, History & Fun Facts Behind the Magic by Lou Mongello (Volume 1) (2004)
• The Walt Disney World Trivia Book: More Secrets, History & Fun Facts Behind the Magic by Lou Mongello (Volume 2) (2006)

I decided to write about these books because I know Lou is finishing up the third and final promised volume in this series. I am a friend of Lou’s and a frequent guest on his popular podcast, but I don’t think that disqualifies me from writing about these books.

On the contrary, I think my connection has given me a better perspective on exactly how much work he had to do to write these books and the validity of his sources. I bought both of these books. They were not gifts. And I look forward to the final volume. I have not read his 2014 book 102 Ways to Save Money For and At Walt Disney World.

For those unfamiliar with Lou Mongello, here is his short biography from his website WDWRadio.com:

“Lou Mongello is former attorney and owner of an IT consulting firm who left the practice of law to move with his family to Florida, pursue his passion, and share his love for Disney with others. He launched WDWRadio.com in 2003 and has been awarded Best Travel Podcast for nine consecutive years. He is also the author of several books and seven audio tours of Walt Disney World.”

A social media pioneer and one of the leading authorities on Disney, Lou has been featured on numerous television shows and quoted in magazine articles as a Disney expert.

[Read more →]

“We’ve announced that already, right?”

–Bob Iger, Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference, 2/26/18

Free Dining may drop as early as Monday April 23, later that week, or as late as Monday April 30. The earlier dates (that is, the 23rd or 24th) are widely believed to be the most likely.

Update 4/23: No free dining today. Many rumors that it will come out tomorrow! Rumors also that the first eligible check in date for the general public will be 8/20.

The rumor I posted about last week had it coming out April 27. The source of that rumor—a post from a Brazilian travel agent—has been taken down.

There’s a couple of ways you can check to see if it’s out and what the details are.

• I’ll have it on the list of new posts on the home page of this site as soon as I can (my day job may get in the way)
• You can also go to Disney World’s special offers page (refresh it, just in case), or
• Go to your favorite high-volume Disney World forum. I’d suggest Josh’s forum but the earliest mentions are likely to be on this thread on Disboards*.

However, I can think of one reason why Free Dining might come out later than the common view of April 23 or 24th. Recall that when Disney raised ticket prices in February, it noted that “later this year” it would be shifting multi-day tickets to seasonal pricing—in effect, a ticket price increase, at least for certain dates.

I’ve thought since that announcement that one of the most sensible times for Disney to move to seasonal multi-day ticket prices would be after the Toy Story Land mania started, but before Free Dining was announced. That way, the new ticket prices would be in effect for many free dining packages.

Well, with the announcement of FastPass+ tiers at Toy Story Land earlier this week , I think we are in that period. So I would not be surprised to see the new set of multi-day ticket prices come out on Sunday April 22 or early next week, and Free Dining to come out in turn a few days after that—so that folks have some time to calibrate their free dining plans in the context of the new ticket prices.

I am posting this as speculation—it’s based neither on a rumor nor a leak. The Walt Disney Company has been—with one exception—pretty tight-lipped about its timing plans for the new ticket pricing other than “later this year.”

The exception was a comment by Bob Iger in late February at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference that “we have talked about putting into place flex pricing on the multi-day pass, and that’s coming sometime towards the end of the year.”

The bald words make an introduction of multi-day pricing in April perhaps look unlikely, but there were a couple of times during this conference when Iger seemed not fully in command of his memory (see the quote at the head of this page). So it is at least conceivable to me that he misspoke…or that seasonal multi-day ticket pricing would go into effect for visits after, say, August 31, still “towards the end of the year,” but announced in April…

If something else happens, which I suppose is likely, you can complain to me in person on April 28 at Epcot.

*Note by the way that you can no longer link to this site from Disboards, because an inadvertent, but totally real and totally my fault, violation of its terms of service has led to my site being censored on it until the Second Coming. And don’t try to get around the filters, or the entire thread you are posting on might be removed—there’s a reason why the free dining thread there is now on its third iteration…

You can still refer to “Dave Shute’s site” with no link.

However, I’ve not yet been banned from Josh’s forum, so there’s that…

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Josh of easyWDW and I, co-authors of The easy Guide to Your Walt Disney World Visit, will be meeting and greeting and signing copies of our books (or someone else’s book, or your T-shirt, we’re easy) on Saturday, April 28, 2018.

We’ll be at Epcot, on and outside of the Mexico pyramid to the right, from roughly 1p to 2p.

Our book combines…

• the un-matched insights of Josh into the parks and dining (he’s in the parks several days a week) with
• my un-matched insights into the Disney hotels (I’ve stayed in more than 150 Disney World-owned hotel rooms, suites, studios, villas, cabins and campsites)
• other stuff we are both just wizards about

…into the best-rated Disney World guidebook series ever published (our Disney World guidebooks have had almost 300 reviews on Amazon, of which 91% have been 5 stars).

There’s not a better way to spend an afternoon hour on Saturday than reading our book. But if you are at Epcot instead, come on by–we’d love to meet you and thank you!

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DISNEY WORLD NEXT WEEK: APRIL 21 TO APRIL 29, 2018

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

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

OPERATING HOURS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 4/21-4/29/18

The Magic Kingdom will be open from 9a-11p 4/21, 9a-10p 4/22, 9a-11p 4/23, 9a-10p 4/24 through 4/26, 9a-11p 4/27, 8a-12MN 4/28, and 9a-10p 4/29

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

Disney’s Hollywood Studios will be open 9a-9p 4/21 through 4/28, and 9a-9.30p 4/29

Disney’s Animal Kingdom will be open 8a-10.30p 4/21, 9a-10p 4/22, 9a-9.30p 4/23 through 4/27, and 9a-10.30p on 4/28 and 4/29

EXTRA MAGIC HOURS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 4/21-4/29/18

Saturday 4/21 Morning: Hollywood Studios Evening: none

Sunday 4/22  Morning: none Evening: Magic Kingdom

Monday 4/23  Morning: Animal Kingdom Evening: none

Tuesday 4/24  Morning: none Evening:  Epcot

Wednesday 4/25 Morning:  none  Evening: Magic Kingdom

Thursday 4/26 Morning: Epcot Evening: none

Friday 4/27 Morning:  Magic Kingdom Evening: none

Saturday 4/28 Morning: Animal Kingdom Evening: none

Sunday 4/29  Morning: Hollywood Studios Evening: none

PARADES AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 4/21–4/29/18

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

FIREWORKS AND EVENING SHOWS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 4/21-4/29/18

Happily Every After at Magic Kingdom: 8.55p 4/21 through 4/28; 9p 4/29

IllumiNations at Epcot:  9p every night

Fantasmic at Disney’s Hollywood Studios:  8.30p 4/21 through 4/28; 9p 4/29

Star Wars Show and Fireworks at Disney’s Hollywood Studios: 9.15p 4/21 through 4/28; 9.30p 4/29

Rivers of Light at Disney’s Animal Kingdom: 8.45 and 10p 4/21 through 4/28; 9.15 and 10.30p 4/29

SHOW SCHEDULES FOR WALT DISNEY WORLD 4/21-4/29/18

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

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Yesterday, Disney World confirmed that each of the three Toy Story Land rides—Toy Story Mania and the new rides Slinky Dog Dash and Alien Swirling Saucers—will all be in FastPass+ Tier One, and be the only rides in Tier One, after Toy Story Land opens June 30.

(c) Disney

At the same time, it made a couple of points about the summer schedule at Disney’s Hollywood Studios:

• From June 30 through August 25, regular park hours will be from 8a to 10.30p
• Over that same period, there will be morning Extra Magic Hours from 7a-8a every morning, and evening Extra Magic hours every Friday from 10.30p to 12.30a

A couple of other things I gleaned from the post-Toy Story Land 6/30 to 8/25 schedule:

• Fantasmic is on twice every night, at 9 and 10.30p until 8/18, and then 8.30 and 10.30p 8/19 through 8/25.
• Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular is on every night at 10p
• Many Hollywood Studios shows have added schedules compared to say today—for example, Indiana Jones has its first show at 10.45a rather than noon, Beauty and the Beast adds a 6p show, the Frozen Sing-Along shows at various times from 9.30a to 8.30p rather than 10.30a to 7.30p, Disney Jr. Live on Stage goes to 6.40p instead of 5.40p, etc.

I’ve revised based on this my draft touring plans for summer visits to Hollywood Studios for those using my itineraries–you can see the new draft Hollywood Studios Touring plans here.

Some other observations:

• The added shows are welcome, but are probably not commensurate with the number of extra people who will be in the park. Just one more Indiana Jones and two more Frozen Sing-alongs seems not enough. This will make stacking your pre-booked FastPass+ earlier in the day, so that you have an earlier opportunity to refresh and look for more, more valuable.
• With the first Fantasmic at 9p or 8.30p, and Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular at 10p, through 8/25 guests will be able to see both shows on a single night—although the first Fantasmic will be mobbed
• There should be a pretty good opportunity to get in line for some priority attractions between 10 and 10.30p, with many of those who arrived for EMH long gone, others leaving after the first Fantasmic, and a large proportion of who’s left busy either seeing Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular or in line for the 10.30p Fantasmic.

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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 ABC STUDIO COMMISSARY

By Jim Korkis

Imagineer Eric Jacobson explained, “A commissary is really just a studio cafeteria, a place on the lot where everybody involved in making movies has their meals, but it has become glamorized in the public mind because of that association and the possibility of meeting movie stars.

“We wanted to give guests a commissary that would fulfill those expectations. We wanted to play on the enduring myth of the glamour and excitement of a Hollywood movie studio.

“However, there was also a more operational need for the restaurant. Disney MGM Studios [now Disney’s Hollywood Studios—Dave] was originally designed for five million guests per year but we were amazed at how many came just that first year. We were insufficient in facilities almost right away. In food alone, we needed another thousand meals per hour so we had to make that happen quickly.”

The ABC Studio Commissary opened under budget December 1990, roughly a year and a half after the theme park itself, after an aggressive design phase of two and half months.

The concept was to use classic, sleek Art Deco stylings popular in the 1930s to create a timeless sense of classic Hollywood where guests might reasonably expect that a movie star could nonchalantly stroll in during a break in filming. The building was located on a newly created street dubbed Commissary Lane.

“One of the biggest challenges was the site,” said Imagineering architect Joe Kilanowski. “It had to be a long horizontal building with the center in the middle of the mass. Our design solution came from a beautiful old hotel in Miami that breaks up its entrance with a tower and receding tiers. The large, soaring marquee is a bit overstated for a working commissary but it gives a feeling of excitement.”

The building is decorated with film posters from the past and present, props and autographed photos and television monitors that promote the latest ABC television shows since the 1996 merger with that company.

On its opening, both Michael Eisner and Frank Wells proclaimed it “the best we’ve ever seen” although it probably never matched Paramount’s Café Continental or MGM’s Lion Den commissaries in their heyday.

(c) easyWDW. Used without permission but it’s ok.

The marquee was designed by Jim Bockstall, juts thirty-five feet into the air, and is polished stainless steel to echo the Art Deco condensed-type style.

Once past the faux palm-tree lined atrium entrance, there is always plenty of seating and air conditioning. The palms are ten feet tall and are meant to frame the ordering counter. There is a fifty foot long mural that features many of the major landmarks of the original Disney MGM Studios designed by Han Woo Lee. It was painted by Bill Anderson to look like copper bas-relief, a popular Deco design motif.

“We envisioned this as a place where we could focus on the company’s movie and television divisions,” said Barbara Dietzel who was the principal interior designer. “We placed etched glass panels featuring the logos of those divisions along the entryway and posters on the walls feature our latest movies and television shows.”

For the interior, landscape designer Joe Parinella brought in palms and added planters with a variety of seasonal plants to establish a “garden-like” atmosphere that would seem more inviting than the stark, functional interiors of some traditional studio commissaries.

“I think this project is a great showcase of the Imagineering team process,” said Jacobson. “Even though it’s not a high-profile, marketing-driven attraction, the entire team gave it every bit of the same attention to detail. In this restaurant, we’ve created an experience we can all be proud of.”

*  *  *  *  *

Thanks, Jim! Menus are here. My co-author Josh has reviews of lunch at ABC Commissary (at the end of the post) and dinner at ABC Commissary (keep going through the “it used to be terrible” section).

And here’s the note on ABC Commissary from the mighty-fine The easy Guide to Your Walt Disney World Visit:

And come back next Friday for more from Jim Korkis!

In the meantime, check out his books, including his latest, Call Me Walt, 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.

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