Category — zzz. Stuff No One Cares About but Me

Josh and I will be at Epcot today and the Magic Kingdom tomorrow to meet and greet and sign any copies of The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit that might show up.

The easy Guide is the best-reviewed Disney World guidebook in the history of the universe.

See the image–which stretched my powerpoint skills beyond their safe zone–for the basic details. Note that the glop at the top right is is not meant as a required sequential set of steps–you don’t have to rip up your signed easy Guide to win something!!

We will be giving away five copies of The easy Guide today, and five more tomorrow. (Thanks to Bob McLain of Theme Park Press, our publisher, for providing these copies for us to give out!!)

Josh has more specific guidance on how to find us on his easyWDW post here.

Be there, or be square!!!  Especially you, the Hicks family!!

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Last weekend I had a ball recording an interview with Kristen and Aljon of the WDW Tiki Room show on Sorcerer Radio.

In it we cover  a lot of ground, but the show is mostly about The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit–the best-reviewed Disney World guidebook in the history of the universe.

The resulting show–perhaps edited to remove our fight about The Lion King–will be on tomorrow at 8 am and 7 pm Eastern on Sorcerer Radio – SRSounds.com.

And don’t forget to drop by Saturday or Sunday for the meet-up and signing!!

If you don’t know about Sorcerer Radio, you should–it’s the #1 Disney fan-run online radio station playing on LIVE365. Sorcerer Radio plays your favorite Disney park music 24 hours a day as well as seven hosted shows. Tune in to Sorcerer Radio at SRSounds.com or by downloading the Sorcerer Radio app.

WDW Tiki Room is one of the Sorcerer radio shows.  Hosts Kristen and Aljon discuss on Fridays at 8 am and 7 pm Eastern the Disney Parks, Disney movies, Marvel, Star Wars, ABC television, Disney news, travel deals and interviews.

The show is also joined by special correspondents Natalie Henley (Strategies for Saving for Disney), Steve Sanders (celebrity reporter), Dan Barnes (Disney pop culture), Mike (Disney Geek Report) and Ryan Kennedy (Bonus Levels).

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I’ve recently published the final revision of the weeks of 2015 ranked in order of how good they are for a family on their first visit to Walt Disney World who may never return.

This page explains how they are built.

HOW THE WEEK RANKINGS ARE BUILT

Basically, I chunk up the weeks of the year based on certain criteria I’ll get to in a minute, and then sort within each chunk based first on crowds, and then, within the same crowd level, prices.

“WEEKS TO AVOID” AT WALT DISNEY WORLD

The worst chunk for first time visitors who may never return is the ride closure season—early January to shortly before President’s Day.

There’s some great weeks among the affected six 2015 weeks for returning visitors, but for those who may be on their only visit ever, times when terrific rides are commonly closed are to be avoided, and show up at the bottom of my list.

The next-worst chunk is the weeks with high crowds—twenty summer, spring break, and holiday weeks. These show up next to last—sorted, as are the ride closure weeks, first on crowds, and then on prices.

These two chunks together I class as “Weeks to Avoid.”

Taking out these two chunks leaves 27 low to moderate crowd weeks that aren’t in the ride closure season

“WEEKS I’M NOT SO KEEN ON” AT WALT DISNEY WORLD

From these, the first chunk taken out is the 8 peak hurricane season weeks.

Like the ride closure weeks, there’s some great options among these for returning visitors, but the (admittedly low) risk of vacation disruption from hurricanes leads me to downgrade these for those who may never return.

This leaves 19 low to moderate crowd weeks that are in neither the ride closure season nor the peak of the hurricane season.

The worst rated of these 19 weeks are in the chunk of 5 weeks with moderate crowds.

These two chunks together I class as “Weeks I’m not so keen on.”

“RECOMMENDED WEEKS” AT WALT DISNEY WORLD

That leaves 14 weeks with low crowds which are in neither the peak hurricane nor ride closure seasons. These weeks are this site’s “Recommended Weeks.”

They are divided into two groups—those in the Christmas program season and those outside of it.

The 3 Christmas program weeks are top-ranked; the remaining weeks are then sorted as usual based first on crowds and then on prices.

MORE ON WHEN TO GO TO WALT DISNEY WORLD

• For when to go to Walt Disney World, see this
• For the next best dates, see this
• For the best and worst times to visit, see this
  • For 2014 weeks to visit, ranked in order, see this
  • For the 2014 Week Picker, see this
  • For 2015 weeks to visit, ranked in order, see this
• For forecasting crowds at Walt Disney World, see this
  • For the 2014 Crowd Calendar, click here
  • For the 2015 Crowd Calendar, click here
• For seasonal pricing at Walt Disney World, see this
  • For 2014 price seasons, see this
  • For 2015 price seasons, see this
• For weather at Walt Disney World, see this

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Josh and I will be meeting our fan (if he or she can make it) and signing copies of The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit August 16 and 17!

We’ll be at Epcot on Saturday August 16 at 2p, at the outdoor tables near the Liberty Inn counter service at the left of the American Pavilion in Epcot’s World Showcase.

Then we’ll be at the Magic Kingdom at 5p on Sunday the 17th. We’ll be in or near the Tomorrowland Terrace.

Though we are both shy, even so we’ll chat and sign copies of The easy Guide you bring with you, or anything else for that matter.

We’ll have some kinda giveaway–details TBD, but likely a few easy Guides we’ve both signed–and, possibly, break out into parody versions of Frozen songs– e.g. “Buy our Book” to the tune of “Let it Go.”

Despite rumors to the contrary, we are not expecting Anna to read aloud from The easy Guide…

…nor Elsa to be there and add her signature, too.

But even so, hope you can come!  After all, I am getting a haircut and everything…And if you can’t come, hope you can help spread the word!

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Getting a bit off topic here, but I’ve lived in Northeast Ohio since 1988. Below is the front page of today’s paper.

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Josh and I did an interview with Matthew Peddie, News Manager for WMFE, Orlando’s National Public Radio affiliate, at the end of June which (after the couple of weeks it took to edit out my clumsier expressions) was broadcast this morning.

The main topic of course was The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit, but we also talked more broadly about Disney, Universal, and Anna and Elsa!  Check it out.

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