Wal-Mart near WDW

The area at the end of 192-west (where it meets 27) is a hotspot fir British tourists especially for some reason.

Accordingly, the International Foods aisle has loads if British brands.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Free Speedway!

For Disney World annual passholders:

Stop by Walt Disney World Speedway now until March 31 and receive a complimentary Ride Along*that's three laps riding shotgun in a NASCAR-style race car with a professional driving instructor around the one-mile track, reaching speeds up to 140mph
(taken from passholder newsletter)

Disney Marathon FREEZE

The half marathon on Friday night/Saturday morning promises to be cold. Here's the Kissimmee forecast, which should approximate the weather at WDW:
Low: 33°F RealFeel®: 26°F
Mostly cloudy and colder with showers

... leading to a Saturday of:
High: 44°F RealFeel®: 32°F
A bit of rain and sleet in the morning; otherwise, cloudy, breezy and colder. It appears likely to rain at 8am, when the temp should be 36 degrees (no snow).

Then, Saturday night, when the full marathon folks wake up and stand around the epcot parking lot:
Low: 26°F RealFeel®: 11°F
Clear and colder; breezy late; watch for a hard freeze

Um, ouch. The rest of Sunday says:
High: 50°F RealFeel®: 41°F
Windy and very cold with times of clouds and sun

Good running weather, on the one hand. I will be volunteering and thus standing around. Pity me, instead!! :)

Ch-Ch-Changes

Let's see, 2010 is all of seven days old, and WDW has already done numerous things.

Additions: fast food pizza under construction in Epcot's Italy pavilion, Muppet pre-parade float at MK.

Deletions: Tiana's Showboat Jubilee, Prince Caspian at DHS (on Jan 11), Mexico fast food (the building will be torn down and replaced), Picnic in the Park dining concept at DAK.

This promises to be a year of much action. Which, actually, is true every year.

Greek on East Orlando

Just had Cypriana in east Orlando - awesome sit down Greek food at just over fast food prices. We will be back next week! It's never busy, though, so I worry about them closing.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

SeaWorld better decorated than Disney

The MK has some decorations, though not everywhere. And only cuz they have a party they want you to pay for.

DHS has good decorations, especially the phenomenal Dancing Lights. But epcot is all but unadorned.

Meanwhile SeaWorld has five Xmas shows and almost all light poles have garlands. Lights are everywhere. Looks great!




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Don't Unplug the lights!

It would be easy to unplug a few of the Osborne lights in this hallway to the Muppets.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

New DHS sign?

This warehouse used for Star Wars Weekends used to have only an A-frame




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Custodial drawn Mickeys

Since summer at least, we've seen Custodial CMs "paint" Mickey faces on the concrete using just water and bound up brooms. It's a cool effect.

This one is great for being a full Mickey body, and also for the artistry. I like this minor addition to the parks.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

DisneyQuest when slow

Usually DisneyQuest is busy on weekends. Not sure why it's manageable today. Someday I will soak up a whole day here just learning to play Dragon's Lair, the game that would have cost a fortune in my youth




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

LMA tires

On the Backlot Tour they no longer say anything about the tires for Lights Motors Action stage show. It's an automated spiel, so this is permanent.

They used to boast how often tires had to be changed, and on the tram they drove by a window that showed dozens and dozens of tires waiting to be used. That tire room is no longer visible because the window has been boarded up. One assumes they decided it was environmentally unfriendly to keep pointing out how many resources like rubber this show uses.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Less food, same price

Columbia Harbour House reduced portions some time ago (see the nuggets), but I now see that the tuna sandwich suddenly comes with no fries. You get a bag of chips instead. Because the price didn't decrease, it's fair to actually call this a stealth price increase (you now have to spend more to get the same food).




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Holiday cups

WDW has started using holiday wax soda cups for the small (but not large) sodas.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Coming Soon - Content, Content, Content

I'll be refocusing attention on this blog shortly. Sorry for abandoning it (more or less) in recent months.

I've been busy with a book project or two (one comes out in late December, probably after Xmas... more info on that soon).

But that's no excuse. I hereby pledge to update more frequently, and content-rich. On weekends, I may start using BlogPress Lite to update from my iPhone (with pics?) ... does anyone out there have experience with this and words of wisdom to share on that app?

I'll probably do a hefty dose of "new to me" and "declining by degrees" observations if the app works as advertised. We'll see!

Everest Challenge 5K trip report

It was a wet race!
http://bit.ly/31aU5d

Declining by Degrees - Restaurants and Prices

OK, so the parking fees at WDW inched up $2 to $14 (which matches Universal, I think). And the all-beef hotdogs have just been discontinued "due to Guest demand" (really?)

But today the Sentinel is running a story that at the MK, fast food restaurants will start denying access to "table holding" and instead require food purchase before you sit down. This is supposedly to relieve congestion, speed things up, and increase sales.

I call shenanigans. On days like New Year's Eve that might be true, but on a normal weekend there is never - and I mean NEVER - a wait for tables. Look, I ran a buffeteria at Disneyland for ten years, presiding over the nighttime menu in 1992 when Fantasmic came and disrupted our seating (and table-holding) patterns, so I know all about this. And what WDW is seeing is not an issue.

There *are* delays at MK quick-service restaurants, but they have do with lack of cashiers, slow kitchen service, and sometimes bumbling "boxers" who assemble the orders. If WDW wants to increase sales, then FIX THE BACK OF THE HOUSE.

The Front of the House is not broken. This is a misguided effort, and it will result in having fewer places to sit and relax (and escape the heat). Once again, this is a taking away of the "little things"... the classic Decline by Degrees.

Another Miceage post: Bay Lake Tower

My second MiceAge article for the week is a photo review of Bay Lake Tower (outside) and some other park changes: http://miceage.micechat.com/kevinyee/ky081309a.htm

iPhone apps for WDW

In the spirit of helping my fellow iPhone users, I thought I'd take one for the team and buy a bunch of these apps, and review them so you wouldn't have to spend the money unnecessarily. What follows is clearly a personal and subjective recounting of the relative worth (or worthlessness) of the apps, and as always, your mileage may vary. I've placed them here in ranked order, with the best and most useful ones listed first....

Read more: http://miceage.micechat.com/kevinyee/ky081109a.htm

New Stuff in the Park

It's amazing that you can live in Central Florida for five years, visit the Disney parks literally every weekend, and STILL find stuff that is new on every visit. This weekend here is the stuff that was new to me (some had clearly been adjusted months and years ago, but I don't see every last thing on every last weekend):

DAK:
- centralized FastPass. Guess what? They are "unlinked", meaning you can hold all three! This is just a test, though, and was supposed to end last weekend. Who knows how long it will continue.

- stump with holes in it "point" to animals on the tree of life. If you put your eye to the holes, you see a tunnel through to the other side, and your vision is restricted to just one animal on the tree of life. neat.

MK:
- When Donald throws out instruments at the start of Philharmagic, he also throws out stars.

- the shop in the post-show has those same stars in the ceiling.

DHS:
- the Up meet and greet was new for me

- the wall of framed scenes from Disney movies was gone and now there's a meet Sorcerer Mickey set up here. This is months old, but I hadn't bothered to see it until now.

Epcot:
- There is a scene of a farmer standing in a field of (wheat? corn?) in the Circle of Life movie that I'm pretty sure was used in American Journeys ("these days, there's darn few of us here on the farm"). Another scene shows "primitive" people walking in a field of flowers, and I'm 99% sure this is taken on a path I've climbed up at Maroon Bells in Colorado.

Pretty much every weekend of my life is like this. Incrementally, I learn more about Disney every single trip. Now this is living the dream!

Legion Of Terra-Cotta Mouseketeers Found Beneath Disney World

Everyone loves the Onion, right?

ORLANDO, FL—A Disney World maintenance crew performing routine electrical work below Cinderella Castle last week accidentally stumbled upon a mysterious underground chamber believed to contain more than 8,000 terra-cotta Mouseketeer statues dating back to 300 B.C.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/legion_of_terra_cotta_mouseketeers

Monorail accident: the best recap

Reader G7 has put together the best recap, tribute, and list of sources on the monorail accident. Pretty close to definitive, if you ask me:

http://planet7.org/monorail

Fantasyland expansion and rumors of a "hotel FastPass"

Fantasyland expansion and rumors of a "hotel FastPass" in my update this week: http://miceage.micechat.com/kevinyee/ky072109a.htm

Kevin Lansberry to take over DAK

The guy in charge of Downtown Disney, Kevin Lansberry, has been tapped as the new VP for DAK.

Not, in my view, a good development. Lansberry presided over the gutting of PI, the closing of clubs, the closing of Virgin. Not much has been added, except the balloon (which, admittedly, is fun.... overpriced if you do it more than once, though).

My newest MiceAge article on haircuts in Walt Disney World: http://miceage.micechat.com/kevinyee/ky071609a.htm

Snippet:
Things in the park were as great as always, and my mood lifted as the afternoon wore on. And then, a true moment of Disney magic arrived. When you live here and visit literally every weekend, you don't always find the same joy and exuberance that a once-a-year tourist feels, but we got to experience that old giddiness again. What happened? We took my youngest son for his first-ever haircut, and we did it in the Main Street barber shop.

It's a simple thing, really. At its heart, it's just a haircut ($17 for adults, $14 for children), and nothing all that fancy (though I hear they will colorize your hair on request, plus they have glitter and aren't scared to use it!) And yet, it somehow manages to be a magical experience.

Fatal Monorail Crash: The Theory So Far

My write up summarizing what we know (and what is speculated) about the fatal monorail crash: http://miceage.micechat.com/kevinyee/ky070609a.htm