I used to be a Tables in Wonderland discount dining card holder, and if my finances ever allow, I will join up again. The food discounts are totally worth it if you enjoy sit-down dining at Walt Disney World’s parks and resorts. But the benefits don’t end there. Tables in Wonderland often has some amazing food and drink based events that are truly a Disney fans dream.
Their latest event will take attendees to the set of the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular for a themed dinner that only Disney can produce. The event is April 30th and the $160 tickets are on sale right now. You must be a member to attend.
While looking for that last Videopolis featuring Fantasmic from a Marching Band, I was reminded of all those Orange Bowl halftime shows that Disney used to put on back in the day. Searching for some of those I stumbled upon this bit of Disney weirdness.… Read More »Main Street Electrical Parade Halftime Show, 1978
According to the Disney Parks Blog, the Easter Bunny and his wife, Mrs. Bunny, will visit the Walt Disney World Resort for to meet with guests in the days leading up to Easter’s annual holiday basket delivery. The Bunnies will do their meeting and greeting… Read More »Visit The Easter Bunny and Mrs. Bunny at the Magic Kingdom
Disney has provided this video highlighting the process of creating and recording a soundtrack for the next attraction to arrive at California Adventure – The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Undersea Adventure. The same attraction will open as part of Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom’s Fantasyland Expansion… Read More »Scoring the new Little Mermaid Attraction
The hotel that was originally planned as the Legendary Years and the second half of Pop Century sat abandoned and forlorn for many years. Eventually it became known as Disney’s ghost hotel with the occasional brave soul venturing inside to take spooky videos of the partially constructed buildings.
Now Disney is in the middle of finishing the hotel, but not as the Legendary Years. Instead it will become the Art of Animation Hotel and feature some regular value rooms, but also a new type of room at Walt Disney World, the family suite.
Here’s a video from Jeff Lange showing construction going on at the site earlier today.
Starting in the lobby, there is a great new ‘mosaic’ on the floor. The 1901 is a hidden reference to the year of Walt Disney’s birth. Thankfully Disney has resisted the urge to use every square foot of the lobby for selling things. The lobby, as it stands now, has a good balance between the waiting area for Tony’s restaurant, the photo shop, and the entrance to the meet and greet queues. The flow worked nicely.
If you look in the door of the queue to see how long the wait is, you’ll get a pretty good feel for the Mickey Mouse queue. As I mentioned, it never grew over 10 minutes the Saturday we were there. But if you look to the back and see no queue for the princesses, keep in mind that there is an extra hidden room that hides a wait of up to 35 minutes (depending on Fastpass volume). I know the princesses are only in this location temporarily, but this blue room is worse than soulless, it’s mind numbing. Can they at least bring in one or two monitors and some wall art like they had in the old location? Better yet, have a play area for the kids and a queue for the adults like at Pooh.
Once you get through this area, you may have an even longer wait in the single room for the Princesses. Which brings me to my other chief complaint about the Princess Meet and Greet. Because there is only one room for the Princesses (as far as I could tell), they only way to speed up the queue is to reduce the interaction time with each Princess. The day I went the queue was pretty small (never longer than 30 minutes) so the the Princesses were generous with their time. But I can see pressure turning this into a photo factory.
Alright follow me below the jump back to Mickey, where the magic is happening:
The biggest project being worked on in the renowned underground bunkers of Walt Disney World is the ultra-secret Next-Gen system. Known as NGE internally, to differentiate it from the Next-Gen interactive queues that are part of a separate project from WDI, development costs are reportedly as much as building two brand new theme parks. So it better be good right?
This morning I had the chance to sit down with two Disney executives who recently left the NGE team to start up their own company. The pair definitely had some interesting things to say, things that might just turn your ideas about the Walt Disney World Resort on its head.