Thursday's Tip

It's our first official week of summer vacation, so I'm going to keep my post brief and fun. Here's a great tip this Thursday: when staying at Walt Disney World property, be sure to carve out some time to visit your resort's fabulous pool(s)! Disney has some of the most fun, unique "watering holes" in the country, and you'll want to take advantage of them, providing the weather cooperates. Here are a few of our favorites:

the "dragon" pool at Port Orleans French Quarter

 

Yacht & Beach Club

 

Ariel at the Piano Pool (All-Star Music)

 

The Big Blue Pool (Art of Animation)

 

Grand Floridian

Avoiding the Crowds During Disney's Unofficial Gay Days

If you're a family who has unknowingly scheduled your Walt Disney World vacation during the unofficial Gay Days (May 30 through June 2), the following information will help you avoid the crowds and perhaps a conversation that you're not ready to have with your little one. Gay Days at Disney often provide displays that can cause even the most liberal and open among us to blush--regardless of whether they are perpetrated by hetero- or homosexual couples. And while Disney does not officially sponsor this event, they do not discourage it and they even provide event-themed merchandise. If you find my advice to avoid the event to be homophobic, perhaps you'll accept the same advice in this post, coming from a gay man who lives in Orlando. I have no political, moral, or religious agenda in this post (although I certainly have one, and I'd be happy to share it with you!); I simply provide the information below as a service to my readers. Here are the Parks and dates hosting Gay Days events:

May 30—Animal Kingdom
May 31—Disney's Hollywood Studios
June 1—Magic Kingdom
June 2—Epcot

 

Friday Photo

End-of-school-year nostalgia. My big girl is now in the 5th grade!

 

Summer Refurbishments

There have been several recent changes to the Walt Disney World refurbishment schedule. Here's what's coming up for summer:

• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad will be closed June 22 and 23.


• Pirates of the Caribbean will be closed July 27-30.


• The Prince Charming Regal Carousel refurbishment that was previously scheduled for June has been moved out to August 1-21.


• The Liberty Square Riverboat will close August 5-9.


• MuppetVision 3D will be closed August 6 through September 2.


• The Jungle Cruise will be closed August 19 through September 30.


• Remaining closed until August 1 is Fountain View Ice Cream. It will reopen as a Starbucks location.


• Also getting the Starbucks treatment is the Main Street Bakery. It will reopen June 18.


• The California Grill will reopen after its lengthy refurbishment on August 31.

Also closing briefly May 30-June 1 is the Grand Floridian's Beach Pool. The slide will be closed beginning May 27. That about covers it!

 

Thursday's Tip

Today's tip is rather vague...but I will illustrate it with a real-life example (thus making it worthy of a blog post). Here it is: Plan your trip in as much detail as you can tolerate. OK, I'm not suggesting that you create a spreadsheet with a to-the-minute schedule (although, I was almost that meticulous on our first few trips as a family...I'm better now). But it is a good idea to have a plan, a framework. Know which Park you'll visit on which day, have an idea of what restaurant you'll eat at for at least one meal (if it's table service, you'll need to book ADRs anyhow), and know your top three or four attractions that you don't want to miss so that you can give them priority. Without a plan, you'll be spending too much time hemming and hawing about what to do next.

And, really, isn't this the way it is with any undertaking? Case in point: As a homeschool family, I find that we accomplish so much more when we have a plan in place. I am a big fan of The Well-Planned Day homeschool planner. In my first year of homeschooling, I wrote extensive and very detailed lesson plans for each subject in this handy book. I probably went overboard. By my second year, my approach was less stringent as I merely wrote the framework for what I wanted to accomplish within the week. This worked well--it gave me goals to strive for but didn't make me feel trapped into a set schedule. This year we moved to a new home in the middle of the school year. It was a "fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants" kind of year. I barely kept track of how many hours we were in school, and I certainly didn't have a daily plan for each subject. Yes, we covered math, language arts, science, and social studies, but there were definitely some gaps in our learning this year. And while I'm still confident that my children are getting a quality education and that we covered the core concepts for each of their grade levels, I feel less certain that they excelled. In fact, this is the first year EVER that we've come to the end of our 180-day school year and I still have pages left to cover in some of our textbooks. Usually, we've completed all curriculum well before our 180 days are completed. (FYI, the 180-day school year is a state mandate for homeschoolers in Tennessee. While we have at least 180 official days of school, we try to foster an atmosphere of learning all year long. We focus primarily on academic subjects during those 180 days and use our summers to fill in gaps with enrichment activities such as drama, piano, and foreign language.)

Back to the planning. If I had properly used my very efficient The Well-Planned Day planner this year, I would likely feel better about how we're finishing the school year. Not having a clear plan has caused me to suffer self-doubt and will likely cause us all to play catch-up this summer. A few extra minutes of planning each week would have saved us all some trouble. Lesson learned.

I could easily spend many hours (and often do) planning a Walt Disney World vacation. But even a few minutes of researching Park hours, attractions lists, refurbishment schedules, restaurant menus, and crowd calendars online before you go can save you HOURS in the Parks. You really can't over-plan a Disney vacation. Good planning is really what allows for spontaneity.

By the way, you can click below to purchase The Well-Planned Day. It really is a great tool.

Disney Is Everywhere!

The Cabletv.com blog sent me this cool graphic a couple of weeks ago...yes, I'm still getting around to unpacking my email in-box. I thought it was a creative way to demonstrate the reach of the Disney holdings. What I like about this is that it isn't an attack on Disney for what some would see as wide-spread greed; nor is it singing the praises of Disney for being all things to all people. It is simply an un-biased look at how Disney is marketing to different generations. And it's a pretty cool visual too, isn't it?



 

Hidden Mickey Monday

OK, so this isn't exactly a hidden Mickey...because it was right out in the open. And, it's not exactly a Disney-licensed version of the Mouse. But we saw several of these Mickey ride-ons in Chinatown.

Great Lineup for "Eat to the Beat" Concerts

If you're visiting WDW this fall for the Epcot Food & Wine Festival, you might want to take in one of these fun "Eat to the Beat" concerts. There are definitely a few on the list that I'd love to see--especially Manhattan Transfer, the Go-Go's, and Boys II Men! Here's the lineup:

Sept. 27-29: Starship starring Mickey Thomas
Sept. 30-Oct. 1: Go-Go’s
Oct. 2-4: Air Supply
Oct. 5-6: Sister Hazel
Oct. 7-9: Sugar Ray
Oct. 10-11: Edwin McCain
Oct. 12-13: Manhattan Transfer
Oct. 14-15: Wilson Phillips
Oct. 16-17: The Pointer Sisters
Oct. 18-20: Night Ranger
Oct. 21-23: Boyz II Men
Oct. 24-25: Survivor
Oct. 26-27: 38 Special
Oct. 28-30: Smash Mouth
Oct. 31-Nov. 1: Spin Doctors
Nov. 2-3: Christopher Cross
Nov. 4-5: Hanson
Nov. 6-8: Dennis DeYoung
Nov. 9-11: Big Bad Voodoo Daddy

Friday Photo

While visiting New York last week, there was one place that was high on my "must-see" list: the Disney Store in Times Square. Our hotel was just a few blocks from there, so I was looking forward to doing a little shopping in my spare time. To my great disappointment, this sign was on the door:


 

Our flight home was on May 10. This certainly was a "glitch" in my plan. :(  I did manage a tiny peek inside the door on the following day when someone just happened to be doing some sort of repair on the doorframe. Wish I had my camera ready. But I did manage to snap these pics of Mickey, Minnie, and Woody. Yes, I know...not the real characters. In fact, Mickey was "headless" part of the night--definitely not how a true Disney character would act. And there were about 4 Woodys and 3 Mickeys within a two-block radius of each other...definitely not the Disney way. The pic below, however, is the only Minnie we saw on our trip.





 

Another Disney Connection

As I mentioned, we were in NYC last week seeing my cousin perform in Cinderella on Broadway.  While getting a backstage tour after the show (so very cool!), my cousin informed me that we were standing on sacred Disney ground. You see, the Broadway Theatre (yes, that's the name, not just a description) where patrons come to see Cinderella was once a movie theatre. And can you guess what 1928 short film premiered there? Steamboat Willie! Of course, back then it was called Universal's Colony Theatre (and later called  B.S. Moss' Broadway Theatre...then Earl Carroll's Broadway Theatre...and Ciné Roma), but it's the same place. Here are a few pictures, both inside and out:



 



 



 

 

 

While I Was Away...

Here's the news from Walt Disney World over the last week:

• Merida officially became a Disney Princess in a coronation ceremony at the Magic Kingdom on May 11. This brings the official court to eleven Disney Princesses. (Have I mentioned that 11 is my favorite number? My husband and I were married on 11/11/00, after exactly 11 months of dating. We celebrated our 11th anniversary on 11/11/11!)


• Free dining and room discounts for fall dates were released to the general public, following a brief exclusive release for Disney Rewards Visa cardholders. You can check out the discounts on the "Offers" page on the WDW website.


• PIN codes for free dining--with a wider range of dates--also went out to a ton of previous Disney guests. I got mine! Did you get one?


• Constructions walls went up at the former Pleasure Island section of Downtown Disney, so that work can begin on the new Disney Springs area.


• The new castle projection show, "Celebrate the Magic," was announced and will coincide with the May 24 "Monstrous Summer Event."


• Wendy and Peter Pan are together again! The duo can be found near the queue to Peter Pan's Flight for daily meet-n-greets. Peter Pan was formerly greeting guests alone in Adventureland.


• La Nouba (Cirque du Soleil) is closed until the end of the month for refurbishment.


• After just a few months in operation, Be Our Guest Restaurant menus are already being tweaked--and some prices are going up. Ouch.

That about covers what you might have missed while I was away!

 

Hidden Mickey Monday

Soooo...I've been a bit absent from the cyber world this week. Our family was visiting New York City to see my cousin Cody Williams perform in Rogers & Hammerstein's Cinderella on Broadway. The show was amazing, and we thoroughly enjoyed going backstage and seeing all the behind-the-scenes "magic." While we enjoyed our time in the Big Apple, seeing sights that you just won't find anywhere else, we realized why we love living in the South too. (How's that for diplomatic?) It's good to be home!

Our "Hidden Mickey Monday" comes to you straight from the streets of NYC. My youngest daughter spotted it. And, yes, that is gum. Awesome, right?

 

Disney Visa Late Summer Room-Only Discount

And the discounts just keep coming! Disney has just released a room-only discount for Disney Rewards Visa card members, with travel dates August 15 through September 28. (Don't worry; the discount will go public later this week.) You can add park tickets to this package and a slight discount will apply.  The offer must be booked by July 31, and the discounts are as follows:

• 
  

  Save 30% at most Deluxe Resorts (excluding Polynesian, Grand Floridian, and Contemporary) and Villas.

  
  


• 
  

  Save 25% at most Moderate Resorts (excluding Port Orleans French Quarter), including the cabins at Fort Wilderness.

  
  


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  Save 20% at the Polynesian, Grand Floridian, Contemporary, All-Star Sports , All-Star Music and Pop Century.

  
  


• 
  

  Save 15% at Art of Animation Resort family suites (excludes standard rooms).

  
  


• 
  

  Save 5% at All-Star Movies, Port Orleans French Quarter, Animal Kingdom Lodge (Savanna view and club level), Contemporary (theme park view and club level rooms), Bay Lake Tower and Animal Kingdom Villas.

  
  

This discount cannot be combined with the Free Fall Dining discount.

 

It's Free Fall Dining Time!

If you're a Disney Rewards Visa cardholder (and why wouldn't you be?), you can book at WDW package and get the dining plan free! Of course, if you don't have the DRV, you'll need to wait a few days to get this same discount. (Check Disney's online "offers" page May 9.) The details are similar to past years, although the travel dates seems to be getting more limited each year:

• Valid for travel dates September 2-25; that just means that you must check in during those date--your stay can extend beyond September 25.


• Must be booked by July 31.


• Suites, villas, and campsites are excluded.


• There is a 3-night minimum stay and a 14-night maximum.


• You must purchase at least a 2-day Magic Your Way ticket for every guest staying in your room.


• Guests staying at a Value Resort will receive the Quick Service Dining Plan free. Those staying at Moderate or Deluxe Resorts will receive the Disney Dining Plan free.


• You can upgrade to any of the other available plans for a charge.

That about sums it up. If you're a DRV cardholder, I recommend booking BEFORE this is released to the general public to ensure that you get the resort of your choice.

 

Worlds Collide! Storybrook Meets Fantasyland

If you're a fan of ABC's Once Upon a Time, you'll want to be sure to watch tonight's episode--and stay in the room for the commercials! A promo for the new Fantasyland, featuring the Evil Queen herself (as portrayed by actress Laura Parrilla) will be aired. If this behind the scenes look is any indication, this will be a really fun promo that you won't want to miss!

 

Happy Star Wars Day!

Happy Star Wars Day--and May the Fourth be with you! (And to all my fellow Kentuckiana natives, happy Derby day too!) To celebrate this auspicious occasion, Walt Disney World has several "Limited Time Magic" offerings for guests today. You can find more information on the events HERE.

In other Star Wars related news, Star Wars Weekends will be back beginning May 17 and running through June 9 at Disney's Hollywood Studios. You can get more information HERE.

 


 

Thursday's Tip

I've shared this tip before, but in light of a sale going on at DisneyStore.com, I thought it was worth re-sharing. If you want to bring a little extra magic to a Walt Disney World vacation for your child, it's fun to offer a small gift for each day of your trip. Sometimes I've found Disney-themed trinkets and toys at Dollar Tree, Target, or Walmart. But my favorite are from the Disney Store.

Right now, there are several great options for small toys and plush dolls on sale at DisneyStore.com. Click on this link to take you directly to the page of items eligible for coupon code BONUS, which will give you 40% off of prices listed. I actually ordered several of the adorable bear dolls for gift bags at my daughter's Brave-inspired birthday party coming up in June. (I'll be sure to post details after the party!) They were originally $9.50, but after sale and coupon code, they were just $2.39 each! They also have mini bean bag plush of several of the Sugar Rush characters from Wreck It Ralph for around $3.50. You'll also find character silverware, plates, and water bottles all for under $5. The less expensive items seem to go quickly, so log on now to snag your bargains!

 

Tickets on Sale for Halloween and Christmas Parties

Tickets are now on sale for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party and Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party. If you're planning a trip during these dates, you'll want to note that the Magic Kingdom closes early on Party days to regular guests. Only those with tickets to these events will be permitted to stay in the MK after official closing. Dates and Prices are below. Call 407-WDISNEY to purchase.

Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party

• Dates: September 10, 13, 17, 20, 24, 27, 29; October 3, 4, 6, 10, 11, 14, 17, 18, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27, 29, 31; and November 1


• Child tickets on most nights range from $54 to $57 + tax, depending on when you go. (September dates are cheapest.)


• Adult tickets on most nights range from $59 to $62 + tax.


• October 31 is considered a "Premium" night and tickets are $68 + tax for children and $73 + tax for adults. This night will sell out early, so get your tickets ASAP.


• Disney considers anyone 10 or older an "adult"--at least where ticket prices are concerned. Children under 3 are free.


• There are discounts available some nights for annual passholders and DVC members.

Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party

• Dates: November 8, 11, 14, 15, 17, 21, 22 and December 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 15, 17, 19, 20


• Child tickets range from $57 to $66 + tax (that includes "Premium" pricing, although it was not clear which events fit this classification).


• Adult tickets range from $62 to $71 + tax, including "Premium" nights.


• As before, Disney considers anyone 10 or older an "adult" and children under 3 are free.


• There are discounts available some nights for annual passholders and DVC members.