WDW Tips

This is a picture taken by an online friend of ours. She just returned from a few days at the Magic Kingdom, SeaWorld, and Universal. I was pretty bummed that we were not at Disney this past weekend but after seeing these pictures…..well we both would have just been stressed out. On a side note it is good to see crowds like this now. Between gas prices and the unsure economy I was worried about the parks. Let’s just hope it is no where near this crowded in Oct! (by szlea)

Here’s the link from when Sig, Edgar, and Norman Hansen were at the Norway Pavilion earlier this month. There are some pretty good pics on their flickr account as well. Boy do I wish we could have been there!

Sig Hansen, captain of the F/V Northwestern will be making appearances at the Norway pavilion at EPCOT from July 10-13th. Sig and his brothers will be appearing at the Puffin’s Roost each day to pose for pictures and sign autographs. link

I think this is pretty cool. My husband and I love watching the Deadliest Catch and this would be something we would both love to be at.

Well, what can I say other than “this sucks!” I know that there had been rumors of this happening, but I honestly thought they would leave Adventurer’s Club alone. Unfortunately that is not the case as it was confirmed today that it too would close on September 27th. Distant Creations has some concept art while The Disney Blog has the press release.

I am just sick over this. We loved going to the Adventurer’s Club on each trip. We would spend most of the night there taking in as many shows in the Library, Mask Room, or Trophy room as we could. We loved the personal interaction with the Pamela, Hathaway, and Emil to just name a few. I am so sad that I will not be there before it closes to have one more Kungaloosh. This was truly an unique experience for Disney and one that will be missed by many, many guests.

Our next upcoming trip is what I lovingly refer to as the “Grizwald” Family Vacation. This is the 1st family vacation my family and I have taken as adults. The attendees are as follows:

Me(33)- Disney Veteran of 30+ trips. I am the master planner for this vacation

Jim (35) (DH)- Disney Veteran of 20+ trips.

Dad(54)-15+ trips to world but last was in 2002; Sometimes referred to as Jed Clampitt

Mom(54)-same as dad; we will be celebrating her 55th birthday while there

Chris(Brother)(27)-10+trips to WDW, Only one of us who has been to any overseas parks (Tokoyo Disneyland) Currently stationed in Hawaii; will be deployed to Iraq again this fall for the 4th time

Crystal (Sister in Law)(28)-2nd trip ever to the world

Patsy(Grandma)(75)-3rd trip

Possible Attendee: Cousin Melissa(26)-never been to Disney;currently live in NC. Undecided if she will be joining us

Background:
My immediate family has not all been together since 2004. My brother is currently in the Marine Corps and has been stationed in NC and HI. In 2005, both my parents and my husband and I lost our homes in Katrina, 3 days after my brother was deployed to Iraq. While both me and my brother have been home since then, neither of us have been back to MS at the same time. Late last year my parents sold their property to a casino developer and were able to purchase a new home and basically be financially secure into their retirement years. My parents are taking both their kids and spouses as well as my dad’s mom on an all expense paid trip. We will be celebrating my mother’s 55th birthday while at Disney and well as enjoying being together before my brother is once again deployed. Also last August we lost my grandfather while my brother was in Iraq and was unable to come home for the funeral. This is the first time he will be seeing my grandmother since then. This is also my grandmother’s 1st trip without my grandpa.

Accommodations:
We are currently booked at Old Key West in a 2-bedroom villa. This is the same place we stayed in 2002 when we took my grandparents on their first Disney vacation. I would have liked to be at a different DVC resort but this was the only thing available when we made the reservation and also when AP rates were released. We will be there for 7 nights. I also tried to get a bounce back rate while at the Poly in Feb, but again nothing else was available. I have also inquired into a Grand Villa but have had any success with price and/or availability

Travel:
Obviously since my Brother and SIL live in Hawaii they will be flying. They are actually flying in 2 days before everyone else and will be staying at All Star Sports for their first night on property.
My husband and I will be flying in but not arriving until 11:30pm the first night
My mom, dad, and grandmother will be driving from MS and arriving approx 3:30pm the first day

All flying travelers will be using Magical Express.

Advanced Dining Reservations:
April 4th
Whispering Canyon-Lunch
Chef Mickeys-Dinner

April 5th
Yak and Yeti-lunch

April 6th (Mom’s Birthday)
Hoop Dee Doo 9pm Show

Apirl 7th
LeCellier Dinner

April 8th
No ADR’s

April 9th
Ohauna Dinner

April 10th
check out day No ADRs

Other info
Our park plans will basically follow the ADR’s. We are not planning any water parks. There will probably be a few night for us to go to Pleasure Island and the marketplace. I have an EPCOT fireworks cruise booked on the Breathless on the 5th. At the time it was booked we did not think that my grandma was going to want to go to the parks with us so the 6 person limit on the Breathless was not an issue. We are still not sure how we are going to handle this but I am not wanting to cancel it. Maybe we will draw straws..who knows. I am hoping maybe there will be a cancellation with a pontoon boat and then the problem will be solved. We are also wanting to have a photo session at the Grand Floridian seeing as all of us have not been together in such a long time. I will book that over the next 2 days.

Well that’s the plan so far. I’ll keep you updated on any changes.

My husband and I spent the past several days at the Polynesian Resort in the Club Level (Concierge). Although we had booked a standard garden view, we were pleasantly surprised to find we were upgraded to Club Level. Up until this trip we had little desire to stay at this resort. We enjoy the convenience and proximity of the EPCOT resorts and felt that the Boardwalk was “our” resort of choice. Well, this has all changed. I had been told in the past that there are people who ONLY stay at the Poly and only in the club level. They would even chose a shorter vacation just to stay there rather than staying at a lower level resort. I can completely understand this thinking now. I honestly don’t want to stay anywhere else now when I travel to Disney. You just feel like you are on vacation at the Poly

When we arrived we were greeted with leis and a very friendly “aloha” We headed to the front desk to check in and were quickly told that we had been upgraded. The tears quickly welled up in my eyes and I could not tell them Thank you enough. They gave us our gold room keys and we headed to the Hawaii building. I had requested that we be on the 3rd floor and that is just what we got, 3rd floor garden view. One downside is we were the very last room on the 3rd floor, basically as far away from the concierge lounge as you could possibly get. After finding our room we headed to the lounge to check things out. It is stunning and breathtaking. There is a 3 story picture window which overlooks the 7 seas lagoon: to the right is the Contemporary Hotel, straight head is Cinderella Castle and to the left is the Grand Floridian.

We enjoyed and made great use of the lounge the next several days. We had breakfast every morning. It was your standard continental breakfast fare, cinnamon rolls, bagels, crossaints, danishes, cereals, etc. Afternoon snacks were usually cookies, goldfish crackers, chips/salsa and mixed nuts. The evening service was amazing. We basically made this our dinner on several nights and the menu changed nightly. Then for the after dinner service we had some great desserts which also changed nightly.

For Super Bowl sunday, the staff threw a party complete with decorations. The Giants fans watched from the 3rd floor tv, while most of the Patriots fans were on the 2nd floor. The food, drinks, and beer were readily available all evening. In fact the chef had to remind my husband to save room for dessert.

We had a great view on the beach (if not better than Main Street) of Wishes and the music is piped in so you feel like you are part of the fireworks. We also watched the Electrical Water Parade on several occasions from the lounge.

One of the concerns with staying at the Poly was the ease to get to the parks. Let me say that is was very easy to get where ever we were going. We primarily go to MK and EPCOT and we used the monorail and/or boat to very quickly get there. The walk to the TTC was quick and beautiful. We only rode buses to get to Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, and Downtown Disney.

We have stayed at Club level before at the Boardwalk. While our room at the Boardwalk had a much better view and more room, the club level there seemed like an afterthought. At the Poly everything is so laid back and like I said you just feel like you are on vacation. There was no stuffiness to the club level or anywhere else for that matter. Everyone at the resort was friendly and greeted you with an aloha anytime they saw you. Like I said we will be staying here again, and again, and again, and again. A+++++++++

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, I pre-purchased a Photopass CD before our trip. We split the cost between the 4 of us which made the $100 price very reasonable. It also ensured that all 4 of us would be in the pictures and not have 3 of us in the picture and 1 taking the picture.

While at Disney we made sure that everytime we saw a PhotoPass Photographer we stopped to take our picture. Since beginning this service several years ago, Disney has increased the number of photographers. No longer is it just the person taking your picture when you enter the park. They pretty much have someone anywhere you might want to get your picture made. We took pictures in just about every country in world showcase (drinking our way around the world), in front of several attractions, and with just about every character. When you visit a character most of the photographers take more than just the standard “pose” picture. We have pictures of us walking up to the characters, getting hugs, and even kisses on our hands. The photographers seem to make sure that the casual aspect is covered as well.

After we got home we had around 100 pictures that had been take on our Photopass card. After we cropped and added boarders it came to around 220 pictures that were included on our CD. The boarders are pretty neat. You can add a generic “2007″ banner across the bottom or depending on what park you can add a dated logo for that location. I thought it was pretty neat that for EPCOT you can add either the EPCOT banner or a special 25 Years EPCOT logo with Figment and Mickey. Also when you take a picture with certain characters (Fab 5) you can add a signature like “love, Mickey Mouse” to the corner of the picture. You can’t however add 2 boarders. We got a magical moment picture with Donald, Goofy, and Pluto and it would only let us add one autograph to the bottom.

One thing I did not like about the Photographers is that they were usually insistent that you take your sunglasses off for the picture. In several of our pictures you can’t even see our eyes because we were squinting. I think next time I will just leave my sunglasses on. I think the pictures will be better that way.

Also since we went to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, we were given a different Photopass card which offered a special discount of 40% off any pictures that we purchased from that night. We were told that we would not be able to add the MNSSHP boarder to those pictures if we did not do it that night. However, I did not have any issues with adding them to my account/CD.

I ordered the CD on Friday and received notification that it has shipped today and would have it by the end of the week.

Just got back from 5 great days at WDW. I had the pleasure of attending the festivities on Monday for EPCOT’s 25th. I arrived at EPCOT around 7:30am and was about 1 of 100 or so people who had lined up to be there at park opening. It was pretty neat being there around all the other disneyphiles while waiting in line. They opened the turnstiles around 8am and everyone entering recieved a retro guide map and a 25th anniversary button. I walked quickly with the rest of the people to the gift shop on the left hand side of Spaceship Earth. I purchased a Figment (#999 of 1200 cool number huh) and a T shirt. The watch had the wand on it so I wasn’t really interested in it. Of course there were pins, but I don’t really collect them either so I didn’t even see what they were. Although there had been speculation that Disney would have several limited edition items which would include some mouse ears, the only things that were available were a opening day replica T shirt (edition 1982), a Figment Plush (edition 1200) and a watch (edition 250).

While I was standing in line I saw Deb Wills of allearsnet.com After I purchased my items I walked around Innoventions Plaza and waited for the rope drop. I ran into Deb while I was out there and told her how much I loved her web site. She gave me an all ears hat and pen.

After the rope drop I went straight to the front on the stage to wait for the 10:01 am re dedication ceremony. I was surrounded by several guys who have Disney podcast (the big D podcast and Beyond Main Street) I also think I saw Rickey Brigante (Inside the Magic). The ceremony started and the 2007 Disney Ambassador Michael Kelly introduced Jim McPhee who then introduced Disney Legend Marty Sklar. I didn’t realize this but Marty is the only castmember who has been involved in all 11 Disney theme parks. They had castmembers representing all the Future World attractions and then they had castmembers international castmembers bringing water from the different lands to pour into the fountains of nations. The ceremony was pretty much over after that. After the ceremony was over, I booked it over to the Land Pavillion to get my spot for the Marty Sklar lecture. I cannot begin to tell you how amazing it was. Marty had several old photos and lots and lots of original videos/music. I was pretty choked up by the end of it. I was strange to be that close to someone who has had such a huge impact on the Disney company and theme parks in general.

I do have to say that although it was pretty neat to be there for the 25th anniversary, I think that the Disney company really could have done much a better job. It was clearly thrown together at the last minute. I was very disappointed that Bob Iger was not there and the selection of merchandise was horrible. The other thing that I felt was odd was Spaceship Earth was not open and still under refurbishment. Horrible planning on Disney’s part.

Here is what I have come up with for my upcoming trip

Wednesday September 26
My friends fly into Sanford Airport and arrive in Orlando at approx 8pm.
Staying offsite with a friend for the night

Thursday Sept 27
I fly into MCO and arrive approx 11am
Meet at All Star Sports around 1pm
Tour Boardwalk, Contemepary, Poly, and Grand Floridian
Dinner at Downtown Disney
Pleasure Island after dinner

Friday September 28
Start at Animal Kingdom
Early Evening Magic Kingdom-Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party

Saturday September 29
Epcot morning
Dinner LeCellier 7pm

Sunday September 30
Morning Magic Kingdom
Evening Disney Studios-Extra Magic Hours

Monday October 1
Check out of hotel
Me-head to Epcot for Rededication Ceremony
Everyone else-sleep in check out of hotel
Meet at Beaches and Cream for lunch
Everyone else-shuttle/taxi to airport
Me leave at 5pm for airport

Trip over! BOO!

So that’s the plan. Pretty quick trip just to get my “fix” Hopefully next year there will be several trips now that we are living close to a major airport.

While this has been speculated on for years, Disney finally made it official. I don’t really know how I feel about this change. I sorta expected it to be the Disney-Pixar Studios, but I guess the Hollywood name fits where they are going with the direction of this park. Here is the press release:

On With the (Even Bigger) Show! New Name, More Magic to Transform Disney Theme Park New Attractions, Experiences at Disney’s Hollywood Studios

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (Aug. 9, 2007) — In the Walt Disney World theme park famous for all things Hollywood, it’s curtain up on the launch of new attractions, new looks, new breakthrough experiences…

…and a brand-new name.

Disney-MGM Studios will be renamed Disney’s Hollywood Studios, effective January 2008, announced Meg Crofton, president of Walt Disney World Resort.

“The new name reflects how the park has grown from representing the golden age of movies to a celebration of the new entertainment that today’s Hollywood has to offer — in music, television, movies and theater,” she said.

Framed by the park’s supporting cast of classic Hollywood architecture are shows and attractions straight from contemporary Hollywood, such as Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith, “Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show” and many more. Disney’s Hollywood Studios is also the place to meet favorite character stars of today including Lightning McQueen and Mater from Disney-Pixar’s “Cars,” Power Rangers and Little Einsteins.

With exciting coming attractions and experiences, the best and brightest of Hollywood is about to emerge for park guests, Crofton said.

“As Disney continues to grow and invest in our family entertainment business, we constantly explore new ways to deliver high-quality, immersive experiences for our guests,” she added. “As a park all about entertainment, Disney’s Hollywood Studios will deliver like never before. Now we can say that Hollywood is literally our middle name.”
New Attractions, Experiences

* Toy Story Mania! Guests get sporty in a new, interactive “Toy Story” competition inspired by Disney-Pixar’s “Toy Story” films and hosted by characters like they’ve never before experienced. Past a queuing area featuring a giant Mr. Potato Head, guests grab 3-D glasses, board fanciful ride vehicles and zip into a world of exciting midway-style games hosted by many of their favorite “Toy Story” characters including Woody, Hamm and Rex. Once inside “Andy’s Toy Box,” the competition heats up. Who can rack up the most points? Using spring-action shooters, guests launch darts at balloons, rings at aliens, eggs at whimsical barnyard targets. Toy Story Mania! takes the interactive ride-game experience to infinity — and beyond. (summer 2008)

* “Block Party Bash.” Play, party and dance as the Disney-Pixar Film Pals present “Block Party Bash,” the wildest, most interactive parade in Disney history. New to Disney’s Hollywood Studios, “Block Party Bash” will invite guests to rock to retro tunes, be dazzled by high-flying acrobatics and join in the fun as more than 20 partying Disney-Pixar Film Pals fill the theme park streets. This immersive rolling spectacle will feature favorite characters from “The Incredibles,” “Toy Story 2,” “Monsters, Inc.” and “A Bug’s Life.” (spring 2008, replaces “Disney Stars and Motor Cars” parade)

* “Playhouse Disney-Live on Stage!” A whole new cast of friends from Playhouse Disney fills the popular Playhouse Disney stage. Children will be on their feet singing, clapping and dancing to performing stars from “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse,” “Little Einsteins,” “Handy Manny” and more. (”Playhouse Disney-Live on Stage!” will be dark most of January 2008, reopens February 2008)

* “Disney High School Musical 2: School’s Out!” With new songs and a rollicking new spirit, the Disney Channel Original Movie “High School Musical 2″ comes to life on the streets of Disney’s Hollywood Studios. It is interactive fun as high-energy performers on a traveling stage invite all ages to catch Wildcat fever by singing and dancing. (fall 2007, replaces “High School Musical Pep Rally”)

* Meet and Greet Adds Handy Manny. And what would a Disney theme park be without characters? Disney’s Hollywood Studios is center stage for character meet and greets. Disney Channel stars JoJo and Goliath and the Little Einsteins welcome guests in the Animation Courtyard next to “Playhouse Disney-Live on Stage!” and will be joined for the first time by Handy Manny later this year. (November 2007)

Part of the Disney’s Hollywood Studios magic includes events for which the park is famous. To a stellar lineup including ABC Super Soap Weekend, the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights, ESPN the Weekend and Star Wars Weekends, the park reprises the Playhouse Disney in Concert series with dynamic concerts and special entertainment for little ones.

Headliners include favorite children’s acts The Doodlebops, Imagination Movers, Dan Zanes and Friends, and Johnny and the Sprites. The fun happens on select dates Aug. 30-Oct. 28, 2007, during Little Ones Travel Time in a 10,000 square foot, air-conditioned performance venue. For the complete show schedule: disneyworld.com/pdic.

In addition, holidays at Disney’s Hollywood Studios will have a special sparkle this year as the park hosts the Harlem Gospel Choir Nov. 30-Dec. 25, 2007.

“This is easily one of the most ambitious attractions rollouts in the 18-year history of the park,” Crofton said. “With so many great coming attractions, we are thrilled to be launching a Studios year unlike any other. Wrapped in a brand-new name…Disney’s Hollywood Studios.”

via The Disney Blog