Category — The easy Guide

The easy Guide to Your Walt Disney World Visit 2017, the latest edition of the best-reviewed Disney World guidebook series, ever, has a new title, and a new way for purchasers to get free updates!

NEW TITLE MAKES VALUE TO RETURNING VISITORS MORE CLEAR

Even though we initially wrote the book (at the invitation of our publisher, Bob McLain of Theme Park Press) for first-time visitors, we’ve always known that it’s incredibly useful for returning visitors as well.

For example, the four key chapters that make up more than 80% of the book (Chapters 4 When to Go, 5 Where to Stay, 6 How to Spend Your Time, and 7 Where to Eat) are as valuable for returning visitors as they are for first timers.

Also really useful to returning visitors who have not been during the era of FastPass+ is the material on how to set up your My Disney Experience account and how to book your FastPass+.

So for 2017 we’ve dropped the word “First” from our title, which in prior editions was The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit.

We have not taken out a word of advice for first timers, so the book is still a great choice for them. But dropping “First” from the title makes it a little more clear how helpful the book is to returning visitors as well.

GETTING FREE UPDATES OF OUR 2017 EDITION

Josh and I update the book two to four times a year, as enough important Disney World changes accumulate to require us to provide new guidance.

One of the reasons we’ve always made the Kindle version free (via Amazon’s MatchBook program) to people who bought the paperback editon is our hope that after these updates, Amazon will force through an update to the Kindle versions, so that everyone will get the latest version.

However, Amazon does these forced updates based on its own whims, and so far I don’t think any older Kindle editions actually got updated.

So for buyers of the 2017 edition, we have a new approach:

If people forward their 2017 edition Amazon purchase confirmation to us as instructed in the book, we will let them know on that email address how to get a PDF version of our updated book!

Here’s explicitly what the book says about updates:

Ok, that’s it for now. More to come on other changes in the 2017 easy Guide later! Meanwhile, buy the book, OK?

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The easy Guide to Your Walt Disney World Visit 2017, the latest installment in the best-reviewed Disney World guide book series, ever, became available on Amazon on August 4th.

Particularly useful for first-timers, those who haven’t visited recently, and for recent visitors looking for help with all the new attractions, restaurants and hotel refurbs of the last year or so, The easy Guide to Your Walt Disney World Visit 2017 helps you with all the key decisions you need to make to have a great Disney World visit.

In The easy Guide, my co-author Josh of easyWDW.com and I take you by the hand through each major planning topic.

We give specific advice on which choices to make, and for those who can’t or won’t follow our advice, we give all the additional details to help you make your own plans.

A few examples:

• In Chapter 6, besides giving multiple detailed step by step itineraries, we also review all the Disney World attractions, including all the new or re-imagined ones that opened this summer, advising you on what they are, how appropriate they are for your group, when to ride them, and even where to sit!
• In Chapter 5, besides recommending specific hotels by price level, we also give detailed reviews and floor plans of all the Disney-owned hotels and the key non-Disney ones, including the recently-opened hotels and all the latest refurbs
• In Chapter 4, besides recommending specific periods of the year to go to Disney World, we also lay out all the details of 2017 with specific month by month overviews
• In Chapter 7 we recommend specific restaurants, but also review them all, including the astonishing set that has opened in Disney Springs, the Animal Kingdom, and Magic Kingdom over the last year or so

Disney World has profoundly changed in the past few years.

First came its Fantasyland expansion, then the all-new FastPass+ program that has transformed how and when to plan for Disney World, then all the new attractions and restaurants that have come on line, then all kinds of price increases and changes in price seasons.

As a result, a good Disney World plan has never paid off more, and the failure to plan has never hurt more.

Josh and I have unparalleled experience with Disney World—he’s in the parks several times a week, and I just stayed in my 129th different Disney World-owned room, studio, villa, suite, campsite or cabin–and we bring tested judgement from helping tens of millions of people plan their Disney World visits, on this site and on easyWDW.com.

We apply this experience and judgment together to The easy Guide to Your Walt Disney World Visit 2017 to make your Disney World planning straightforward, sensible… and easy!

The easy Guide is available as a paperback on Amazon.com here. A Kindle version will come out soon, as will a PDF version.

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This morning, the paperback version of the 2017 edition of The easy Guide to Your Walt Disney World Visit became available on Amazon. (Kindle and PDF versions will be available soon.)

Totally updated to reflect all the new rides and restaurants and hotel refurbs, it’s your best place to start planning for a 2017 visit to Disney World!

And for those going in 2016, it’s a better choice than our 2016 edition, particularly because all the park plans have been heavily updated.

To learn more about it, click here or click anywhere on the cover!

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Josh and I will be doing a meet and greet, book signing, and giveaway today in Epcot!

We’ll be in the Mexico Pavilion from 1 to 2p.

Come by and say hi! For an image of exactly where, see Josh’s post here.

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Like everybody else including Disney, I missed my crowd forecast for the week of April 2. What I (and everyone else) expected to be a fine week turned out to be pretty miserable.

There were two reasons for this.

• One was more people in the parks than anyone, including Disney, had forecast—about 25% more, which is not a huge amount—well less than Thanksgiving, for example—but enough to stress the systems, especially at the Magic Kingdom, which saw some days 35% more people than Disney expected. (How I build my crowd calendars and ways I can get my forecasts wrong are here.)
• The second reason was reduced operating hours, staffing, and capacity on Disney’s part. Much of the available capacity was given out to FastPass+, so almost all the extra demand went into standby lines, where it faced reduced numbers of ride vehicles, half of various rides shut down, not enough staff to load, and other problems. As a result, waits skyrocketed. Nobody knows quite why Disney is cutting back, but there’s some interesting hints here.

Josh (from whom I got the numbers) has multiple posts about what happened in the parks that week starting here.

(easyWDW image, used with permission but defaced as I chose)

But the cool thing is that you can complain to me in person!

The main opportunity will be Saturday April 23rd from 1p to 2p in Mexico at Epcot, where Josh and I (co-authors of The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit, where we also got the crowd forecast wrong) will be doing a meet and greet, giveaway, and book signing. See Josh’s post here for an image of the exact location.

Bu I’ll be around before then, so hunt me down to complain in the most convenient setting!

Wednesday after I arrive I’ll be checking out some current or just completed refurbs at Port Orleans Riverside, Port Orleans French Quarter, the Wilderness Lodge, and the Cabins at Fort Wilderness.

Then it’s off to the Studios to check out the new Storm Troopers Procession and Star Wars stage show.

Then I’ll check in to my refurbed Studio at Jambo House to test it for an updated review. I’ll likely end the evening at the great Animal Kingdom Lodge bar the Victoria Falls Lounge watching the Cavs.

Thursday Josh and I have a business meeting to work on the changes for the 2017 edition of The easy Guide, then in the evening I’ll be testing just how many Magic Kingdom attractions I can do between 7p and 2a, courtesy of the Disney After Hours thingy. Battery permitting, I’ll be tweeting my experience via @yourfirstvisit.

Friday lovely wife Amy Girl arrives, and after I sleep in we’ll likely hang at the Animal Kingdom Lodge pool and the Animal Kingdom itself until we go to dinner at Capa at the Four Seasons, for a review and date night. We’ll check into a one bedroom villa at Jambo to continue the tour of the refurbed Jambo House Villas.

Saturday is the big meet up at Epcot, and we’ll be at Epcot before and after too!

So lots of places for you to yell at me about blowing that week’s forecast. And I am, indeed, sorry…

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In recent years an average day sees more than 30,000 people in Epcot (likely fewer in 2016, as the refurb of Soarin has cut back on crowds and sent them to the Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom instead).

Among these guests odds are that at least a few will be celebrated authors, and you—yes, you—can find them by asking everyone you see “Are you a celebrated author—No? Then are you? What about you?”

If the search for celebrated authors doesn’t work, or for some reason you are unwilling to ask, you could give up and meet me and Josh instead.

Josh (of easyWDW) and I are the un-celebrated co-authors of The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit, the best-reviewed Disney World guide book ever published, and we’ll be meeting folk, signing anything you might want us to sign, and giving away a few books as well.

We’ll be at Epcot on Saturday April 23 at the ledge outside the Mexico Pavilion from 1p until 2p or so. Come by and chat!

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