Category — w. Most Recent Stuff

(Updated 3/20 to add the Cabins back in to the list of that which will be charged for–I had erroneously excluded them.)

The last few weeks, while I’ve been focusing on the March update to the unparalleled The easy Guide to Your Walt Disney World Visit 2018, some resort news has come out.

• Four Seasons has gained access to Extra Magic Hours
• A Pixar-themed children’s activity experiment has debuted at the Contemporary

But the big news is that parking at the Disney-owned resorts is no longer free.* For trips booked March 21 or later, parking at the Disney owned hotels will now be charged, per night:

• $13 at the values
• $19 at the moderates, and
• $24 at the deluxes

There have been two sets of reactions to this move:

• It’s a dipshit, unwarranted, and unearned money grab by Disney World
• What took them so long to make such a tiny change? At typical occupancy, the charge is $4-$8 per person per night, and every other resort on property (Shades of Green, the Swan, the Dolphin, the Four Seasons, and the seven Disney Springs Resort Area hotels) charges for parking

As usual these days, there’s been more heat than light in the negative reactions, but both reactions are valid. For years now Disney has been raising park and hotel prices at a level well in excess of inflation that I can’t defend compared to increases in the benefits (rides, entertainment, hotel refurbs) it has been offering.

• Part of this is strategic—Disney is trying to increase enjoyment by using price to limit—just a bit—crowds
• Part of it is Disney trying to recoup its capital investments in e.g. New Fantasyland and Pandora and the other enhancements at Animal Kingdom, and the still-to-come Toy Story Land and the Star-Wars themed Galaxy’s Edge.
• Part of it is a dipshit money grab—Disney is raising prices because it has so much demand that it simply can.
• And related to this last point, part of it, I suspect, is Parks and Resorts leadership improving operating economics in the parks so leadership looks better to the corporation and its board.

And when combined with the extension of some perks that used to come largely (but not solely) from staying in Disney-owned resorts to other on-property hotels, such as EMH going to Four Seasons and the Disney Springs Resort Area hotels, and 60 days FastPass+ access going to Shades of Green and the Disney Springs hotels, well, even though this is actually a small net increase in access to these (on the order of 15% more rooms), there’s still  a lot of heat out there.

For first timers, these changes don’t much matter. There’s not enough meat to them. But for returning visitors who have been paying attention, cumulatively they are extremely annoying, and the taking away of a previously free benefit, even if at a fairly trivial level, has some real, painful symbolism.

There’s on the order of 10,000 value resort rooms, 7,000 moderate rooms, and 5,000 deluxe rooms. (Ignore the various posts going around by the math- or fact-challenged that there’s 35,000 such rooms in total.) If you adjust for ~85% to 90% occupancy and then assume that half of the guests bring cars, then do the math, this is about another $60 million to Disney’s bottom line every year—coming out of its customers’ pockets for a perk that used to be free.**

In my day job I am a business strategy consultant. With that hat on, I applaud this move—monetizing an asset by bringing it in line with industry standards.

But in my nights and weekends, I try to help people have great Disney World trips. And for returning visitors in particular, I understand that prices have gotten increasingly out of line with benefits, and hence the value equation is diminishing, particularly at the resorts.

And putting my business strategy hat back on, repeat visitors are very important to Disney World, and at some point, the loss in goodwill will start to hurt. This particular change, as noted, is too trivial to make a difference when viewed in isolation. But when put in context with other moves…well, at some point they all may start to add up. Part of the problem is that the current set of leaders will be gone by the time such a potential loss in goodwill starts to have consequences, so someone else will have to fix the consequences of their dipshit moves.

See also Tom’s post on similar themes on Disney Tourist Blog here.

*Except for DVC members staying at a DVC resort with any payment means, or staying on points at another WDW resort. Also, I hear, guests reserving through Disney UK will be free from these charge through 2019. Moreover, one vehicle at the campsites (but apparently, not the Cabins, as I had wrongly thought) at Fort Wilderness is still free. Note that those staying at a Disney-owned hotel still get free parking at the theme parks…at least for now… Disney’s current parking policy is here.

** I can think of one way in which–at least in 2019–this money may make its way back into guest pockets. I’ll publish more on this thought, which has to do with length-of-stay pricing, later.

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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 NEW FANTASYLAND OF 2009

By Jim Korkis

Sometimes Walt Disney World announces upcoming attractions with great fanfare and detailed concept art, but several factors can prevent those dreams from becoming a reality. On September 12, 2009 at the D23 Expo held at the Anaheim Convention Center in California, then Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Chairman Jay Rasulo revealed detailed plans for a massive expansion of WDW’s Fantasyland that would open in 2012 and be completed by 2013.

Rasulo told an eager crowd: “There have been a lot of rumors online, and I don’t know where they come from, and I don’t even know where they get started, but it’s about a big expansion of Fantasyland at Walt Disney World.

“Well, these rumors are absolutely — true. We are doubling the size of Fantasyland to include more of your favorite princesses. Meeting a Disney princess is always a very special highlight of any visit to the Magic Kingdom.

“Now those visits are going to be more entertaining than ever. You’ll meet Disney princesses in their own fairy tale worlds. You’ll be immersed in the sights, the sounds and the magic that make every princess story so memorable.”

With the continuing success of the Disney Princess franchise that started in 2008, the expansion would emphasize these popular Disney characters in order to synergize with merchandise sales.

Cinderella’s country chateau would be where she lives with her stepmother and stepsisters in a forest setting.  At the Cinderella Chateau, guests would have observed the Fairy Godmother magically prepare Cinderella for the royal ball and then guests would be able to share a dance to prepare for the ball.

At the Sleeping Beauty Cottage, participants would have helped celebrate Briar Rose’s surprise sweet sixteen birthday party with the help of the good fairies Flora, Fauna and Merryweather. Among other things guests would make birthday cards for the princess and then greet her with a big surprise.

Belle would host a “comical retelling” of her story with the Beast in her father’s cottage.

In addition, Dumbo would be moved to brand new circus grounds and expand into two spinning attractions. Be Our Guest would be an elaborate dining facility with multiple rooms in Beast’s castle. Under the Sea: Journey of The Little Mermaid would be similar to the one being built for Disney’s California Adventure and would also feature a meet-and-greet location with Ariel.

Tinker Bell and her fairy friends would reside in Pixie Hollow where guests would shrink to the size of a pixie and play among towering blades of grass and flowers.

Concerns from fans that the additions were too “girl-centric” resulted in Disney making some changes while retaining some of the originally announced items when Tom Staggs, who had three young sons, replaced Rasulo.

“One of the things that I thought the early design did fantastically was delivered on that princess experience. And that does tend to skew toward girls. We’ve kept that intact – not exactly necessarily the way it was presented – but that appeal is there,” Staggs told the Orlando Sentinel in August 2010. “I think we’ve added some things that aren’t just princess-focused, and that’s a good positive.”

The Snow White Seven Dwarfs Mine Train took the place of the princess cottages and Storybook Circus took over the area for Pixie Hollow. However, the concept of Princess meet-and-greets was retained with the creation of the Princess Fairytale Hall and Enchanted Tales with Belle.

When the plans were significantly changed for the area, there was discussion to move Pixie Hollow over to Epcot as part of the Flower and Garden Festival or to find a more permanent home according to The Orlando Sentinel newspaper at Disney’s Hollywood Studios to tie-in to the Tinker Bell animated films. Neither happened.

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Thanks, Jim! 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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DISNEY WORLD NEXT WEEK: MARCH 17 TO MARCH 25, 2018

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

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

OPERATING HOURS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 3/17-3/25/18

The Magic Kingdom will be open from 8a-12MN 3/17, 9a-10p 3/18, 9a-11p 3/19 through 3/22, 8a-11p 3/23 and 3/24, and 9a-10p 3/25

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

Disney’s Hollywood Studios will be open 9a-9p every day

Disney’s Animal Kingdom will be open 8a-10p  3/17, 8a-9.30p 3/18 through 3/23, and 8a-10p 3/24 and 3/25

EXTRA MAGIC HOURS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 3/17-3/25/18

Saturday 3/17 Morning: Animal Kingdom   Evening: none

Sunday 3/18 Morning: Hollywood Studios Evening: none

Monday 3/19  Morning: Animal Kingdom Evening: none

Tuesday 3/20  Morning: none Evening:  Epcot

Wednesday 3/21 Morning:  none  Evening: Magic Kingdom

Thursday 3/22 Morning: Epcot Evening: none

Friday 3/23 Morning:  Magic Kingdom Evening: none

Saturday 3/24 Morning: Animal Kingdom  Evening: none

Sunday 3/25  Morning: Hollywood Studios Evening:  none

PARADES AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 3/17–3/25/18

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

FIREWORKS AND EVENING SHOWS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD 3/17-3/25/18

Happily Every After at Magic Kingdom: 8.55p every night

IllumiNations at Epcot:  9p every night

Fantasmic at Disney’s Hollywood Studios:  8.30p every night

Star Wars Show and Fireworks at Disney’s Hollywood Studios: 9.15p every night

Rivers of Light at Disney’s Animal Kingdom 8.45 and 10p 3/17 through 3/20; 8.45p 3/21; 8.45 and 10p 3/22 through 3/25

SHOW SCHEDULES FOR WALT DISNEY WORLD 3/17-3/25/18

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

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UPDATED EDITION OF THE EASY GUIDE

Amazon has released the updated version of my and Josh’s The easy Guide to Your Walt Disney World Visit 2018, the latest edition of the best-reviewed Disney World guidebook in history.

We first published the 2018 edition in late August 2017, updated it in November, and updated it again with almost 50 pages of changes in early March 2018.

If you bought the 2018 edition you get this update (as a PDF) for free! If you’ve already sent in your email, we’ll start sending instructions on how to get the updated PDF this week.

If you bought the 2018 edition but have not yet forwarded your Amazon confirmation, then quit fooling around and get it to us! Here’s the instructions:

And if you haven’t bought it yet, what are you waiting for?

We’ve had almost 300 reviews of this Disney World guidebook series on Amazon, and more than 90% are five stars. You won’t find more informed, more thoughtful, more experienced, more judicious or more silly companions to the Disney World parks, resorts, or dining venues than me and co-author Josh. Ours is the most accurate and most up-to-date Disney World guidebook you can find.

Here’s the key changes in the March update:

Chapter 1: How to Use This Book

Chapter 1 has three purposes: introduce the rest of the book, summarize our recommendations for first-timers, and indicate what’s new for returning visitors.

Pursuing the third purpose, the big news of the rest of the update to the book is also noted here:

• The opening date of June 30 for Toy Story Land
• Seasonal pricing for multi-day tickets to come “later in 2018,” and
• The addition of FastPass+ at 60 days for Shades of Green, Extra Magic Hours for the Four Seasons, and both for the Disney Springs Resort Area hotels

Chapter 2: Why Age and Height Matter

The only material change here was the upcoming closure of the Children’s Activity Centers. We went to press before the Pixar thingy at the Contemporary was announced.

Chapter 3: How Long to Stay

The prices in this chapter are updated to reflect the ticket prices that came out in February. In some cases, the cost of adding a day actually went down.

Chapter 4: When to Go

Little changed in this chapter—we went to press after the start date for the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival (August 30) was announced.

Chapter 5: Where to Stay

• We updated the hotel advice and reviews of this chapter based on the additions of FastPass+ at 60 days and Extra Magic Hours to the various hotels noted above
• We also updated the refurb status of various hotels–e.g. the Dolphin, Pop Century, Caribbean Beach, Coronado Springs, Port Orleans French Quarter
• The announcement that the Disney resorts would charge for overnight parking for trips booked March 21 or later came out after we went to press

Chapter 6: How to Spend Your Time

We made dozens of changes to this chapter, our most important. Most were minor—but not all. A few worth noting

• A new entry on UP! A Great Bird Adventure, to debut at Disney’s Animal Kingdom on April 22
• Multiple revisions to the Hollywood Studios material related to challenges you’ll find seeing Toy Story Mania between now and when Toy Story Land opens on June 30, including a recommended touring plan for dates when FastPass+ for it can’t be booked
• Changes to FastPass+ priority at Magic Kingdom

Chapter 7: Where to Eat

“Where to Eat” always sees a ton of changes when we update because of Disney World’s constant pricing and menu changes. In addition

• We note that Dining Plan users can now use the plan to pay for Mobile Orders
• We introduce the dining options to come in Toy Story Land
• We note the coming two-credit prix fixe dinner menu coming July 27 to Be Our Guest
• We revise the entry on The Edison, and add new entries for Ale & Compass, Enzo’s Hideaway and Maria & Enzo’s Ristorante

Chapter 8: Which Tickets to Buy and What to Budget

We’ve revised all the material in this chapter to reflect

• The new ticket prices announced in February
• The move of Disney later this year to seasonal pricing for multi-day tickets

Chapter 9: How to Set Everything Up and Get Everything Done

We revised the To-Do lists in this chapter to reflect the addition of more hotels to 60 day FastPass+ eligibility.

Chapter 10: Where to Go Next

We made no significant changes to this chapter, as the places to go next remain easyWDW.com and yourfirstvisit.net!

We pride ourselves on having the most accurate and up-to-date guidebook available, and updates like this are what make that come to life! Already have yours?  Then write us a five star review on Amazon!

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In my January stay at All-Star Music (updated review of All-Star Music begins here), I spent an hour and a half in the middle of the day timing the buses, and noting which were dedicated to Music and which were shared.

(You do that on your Disney World trips too, right?)

I did this because shared buses mean longer trips, because of the extra stops, and create some chance that those waiting at the last stop, All-Star Movies, won’t find a spot.

I timed a total of 32 buses, and here’s the results of my observations:

• All buses to Epcot and ESPN Wide World of Sports were shared
• All buses to Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and Disney Springs were dedicated to All-Star Music
• Buses to Disney’s Animal Kingdom were about half shared and half dedicated

I had 21 intervals for theme park buses. The average interval was 16 minutes—which means the average wait was 8 minutes.*

However, during my observation there was variation among the parks. The average wait (that is, half the average interval) in my dataset was for Animal Kingdom 4.5 minutes, for Epcot 7 minutes, and 11.5 minutes for each of Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom.

While the small sample size means you ought not to read too much into the exact numbers, shared buses had an average wait of 6 minutes and dedicated buses an average wait of 9 minutes.

That suggests pretty comparable experiences in terms of total transportation time, as the shared buses had one more stop to make (at All-Star Movies) than the dedicated buses.

Here’s the overall results, shown my usual way—these are intervals, not waits. Note that almost 80% of buses had an interval of 20 minutes or fewer.

*Because you have an equal chance of arriving anytime during the interval, the average wait is half the interval. The precise math is below:

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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.

VOYAGE OF THE LITTLE MERMAID AT DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

By Jim Korkis

Voyage of the Little Mermaid is a multimedia indoor stage show at Disney’s Hollywood Studios that incorporates live performers, character costumes, a variety of puppets, water effects, lasers, a huge animation screen backdrop, and more, to immerse audiences into an approximately fifteen minute re-telling of the popular Disney animated feature The Little Mermaid (1989).

Here Come the Muppets ran in the same Animation Courtyard Theater from May 25, 1990, to September 2, 1991. The device utilized for that show to have the front of a monorail crash onto stage with the Muppets and later retract is the same one used now to move Ariel’s rock.

(C) Disney

The Voyage of The Little Mermaid was meant to be a temporary placeholder show, designed to last perhaps two years. It was only budgeted at approximately five and half million dollars.

The director was Fran Soeder, who also directed The Legend of the Lion King puppet show at the Magic Kingdom and The Hunchback of Notre Dame show at the Studios, among many other accomplishments. Once the show was up and running, Michael Korkis took over as maintenance director for the next five years.

In the pre-show, low-ceilinged (to help establish a feeling of going under the sea) waiting area, guests are surrounded by a nautical theme and many clever artifacts including one of Captain Nemo’s diving suits and a peg leg worn by L.J. Silver (the pirate Long John Silver from Disney’s live action feature Treasure Island).

King Triton’s trident hangs on the wall leading into the theater and glows when it is time to enter. The Heffelginger Brain Coral is a reference to Jim Heffelfinger who was the General Manager of Entertainment at WDW.

Ariel is a live performer with a microphone attached to her wig so that she actually sings. The performer has previously recorded a safety track so if during a show she experiences vocal problems, she can lip sync if needed. All the other singing in the show is pre-recorded.

The original Ariel was performed by Leanza Cornett, who eventually became Miss Florida and then later Miss America in 1993.

She was hired for the role in November 1991 along with Michelle Martin and a singer from the northeast named Jenny to cover all the shows. Even though Cornett won the pageant in September 1992 and left the role, she feared she would be unable to find a job after her reign so came back during her Easter break in 1993 to do the role again to keep her character status. She went on to be one of the hosts on Entertainment Tonight in 1994.

Miss Tampa, Nicole Padgett, a senior at University of South Florida majoring in psychology, who won the Miss Florida crown in 1993, also portrayed Ariel during the summer of 1993.

Originally, Ariel sat down in a hole on that big clam shell on a bicycle seat with pedals so she could manipulate the tail. That is not the case today.

There are over a hundred different puppets in the Under the Sea musical number with puppeteers responsible for some puppets connected together. The puppeteers are clothed completely in black so when the black light is on, the audience only sees the movement of the characters.

The Ursula puppet is impressively twelve feet tall and ten feet wide, and while her head turns, her tentacles have limited mobility.

The attraction went through a significant rehab in 2004. In 2007, there were rumors of the attraction closing so as not to be in conflict with the upcoming Broadway production based on the animated feature. However, the attraction continues to consistently bring in so many guests that it remained open.

*  *  *  *  *

Thanks, Jim! 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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