Magical Kingdoms Disney Blog

After much speculation, this afternoon Disney finally announced what will take over from the “Year of a Million Dreams” celebration at both Walt Disney World and Disneyland.

“What Will You Celebrate?” kicks off in January 2009 and gives anyone celebrating a birthday one day’s free entry to the parks on their birthday. Guests who already hold Annual Passes or multi-day tickets can get the equivalent of a 1-day Magic Your Way base ticket as a merchandise gift card, or a special birthday FASTPASS badge+ for certain attractions at the Theme Park you visit on your birthday.

The official press release tries to big up the celebration by encouraging guests to customize their “celebration vacations,” but they all appear just to be different ways of Disney to get you to part with your money. Personalized souvenirs, family portraits, fireworks cruises, plus a new range of “celebration desserts.” By playing on the celebration theme are Disney simply finding a new way to get you to take part in activities you wouldn’t normally have considered, thereby lining their pockets? 

And what about those of us who can’t visit on our birthdays? Unless you’re the Queen you only get one birthday a year, and for most people there are many factors that dictate when they can pay the Mouse a visit, including kids’ schooling, work, and financial issues. I fear there are more people who will miss out on the benefits of this celebration than will actually gain from it.

What are your thoughts?

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WALT DISNEY WORLD

Caribbean Beach Resort pool reopens 

Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort’s main pool area, which has been undegoing an almost eight month long rebuild is now complete and open to guests. The new main family pool features a zero-entry section, perfect for younger guests and those less mobile. Other changes include the addition of pirate ship themed play & splash zone especially for kids and a complete refurbishment of the changing a spa facilities.

Disney Dining Experience renamed 

In an effort to remove confusion amongst guests and wait staff between its separate Disney Dining Plan (DDP) and Disney Dining Experience (DDE) programs, Disney Dining have announced there will be a name change to the latter, effective Sept 15th 2008. The new ‘Tables in Wonderland’ card will be distributed to all guests who choose to sign up for the discount scheme from this date. Existing DDE cardholders will be issued the new version upon re-subsciption. All of the current cardholder benefits remain the same.

Next Celebration at WDW 

In a news brief sent to all Campus reps for the WDW College Programme, it outlined an event which is thought to be a pre-cursor to the next big WDW celebration, which will commence shortly after the conclusion of its current “Year of a Million Dreams” promotion.

“Disney Parks is bringing the magic of Disney in an interactive way to 30 cities this fall and winter. This tour is your chance to grow your resume and put the values and standards you learned in Traditions to work in your own city!”“Colorful vehicles roll out the fun from town squares to Times Square, featuring a massive distribution of thousands of free Mickey Mouse balloons with a chance for consumers to win a celebration vacation to a Disney Park!”The Cities in question :-

Central Eastern Western
9/25 Minneapolis 9/24 Toronto 1/19 Vancouver
9/29 Chicago 9/29 Boston 1/21 Seattle
10/1 Milwaukee 10/1 Providence 1/23 Portland
10/3 Detroit 10/3 New York 1/26, 27 Sacramento
10/6 Pittsburgh 10/6 Hartford 1/30, 2/2 San Francisco
10/8 Cincinnati 10/8 Philadelphia 2/4, 5 Fresno
10/10 Indianapolis 10/10 Wash. DC 2/9 Las Vegas
10/14 Dallas 10/13 Baltimore 2/11 Salt Lake City
10/16 Houston 10/15 Charlotte 2/16 Denver
10/20 New Orleans 10/17 Atlanta 2/19, 20 Phoenix Details on what exactly this is about is believed to be part of the Disney media event scheduled for the 18th Sept 2008 in New York City, invites to which also contained cryptic clues as to what will be announced. One paragraph in particular will certainly have those of us in the Disney community second guessing :-

“New, breakthrough insights about how American families travel will be shared by Peter Yesawich, Chairman & CEO, YPartnership, one of America?s leading travel trend-watchers. Following that, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Chairman Jay Rasulo will unveil exciting plans for 2009–including a first in the history of the Walt Disney Company”

So, what could it be? Possibilities include the next celebration at WDW following on from “The Year of a Million Dreams,” WDW’s rumoured 5th park, Disney building a theme park in Dubai, or something completely different!

What we do know is that any new marketing campaign will more than likely commence on April 1st 2009, which is historically the day Disney like to do this.

We will bring you news on this as soon as its announced!

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WALT DISNEY WORLD

Candlelight Processional
Angela Bassett & Courtney Vance have been added to the schedule of celebrity narrators for the upcoming Candlelight Processional at Epcot. Bassett is to provide the voice of Eudora in Disney’s upcoming animation “The Princess and the Frog” due for release in December 2009.
See the updated schedule here.

Dining Reservation System Delay
It looks like there are some teething problems with the new dining reservation system that Disney is implementing. While the system was being set up, guests were supposedly only able to book ADRs up to January 25, 2009. However, we now hear that Disney is allowing guests to book ADRs through February 22, 2009. That date may change again, unless they fix the problems and launch the new system during October as previously expected.

Toy Story Mania singles
There will apparently no longer be a single rider line for Toy Story Mania, so all you single riders will have to join the queue with the rest of them!

Predicted Pirate and Princess Party dates
Disney are yet to release dates for next year’s Pirate and Princess Parties, but I’ve taken a look into my crystal ball and predict the following dates:
January - none
February - 20, 27
March - 8, 12, 20, 27
Remember, these aren’t official by any means, I could be right, I could be totally wrong!

Le Cellier Steakhouse trial
Le Cellier Steakhouse in Epcot are trialing a new option for those on the Disney Dining Plan. Instead of the usual entree & dessert, diners can opt for an appetizer, entree and dessert from a set, limited-choice menu.

DISNEY CRUISE LINE

Cruisin’ to the Baltics?
Rumour has it that Disney Cruise Line plan to sail to the Baltics in 2010. Strengthened by the appearance of the Disney Magic’s name being listed on the Copenhagen port schedule for June 2010 (later removed after being made public). Along with Copenhagen, Oslo has also been touted as a possible port of call.
So where else might the ship stop off at? Other cruise lines’ ports of call include St. Petersburg in Russia, Gothenburg & Stockholm in Sweden, and Helsinki in Finland.
2010 itineraries are said to be released on October 7, so watch this space!

Magic in dry dock
The Disney Magic is now in dry dock until September 24, where she will undergo a series of upgrades. These include upgrades to Quiet Cove, the adults only area, with cascading waterfalls coming from the two hot tubs; “Mickey’s Splash Zone,” a new toddler water playground inspired by Fantasia’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice; and new 22-inch flat-screen LCD television sets installed in each stateroom. Full story here.

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I want to apologize for not keeping up with this blog while on the cruise but the internet connection was sooo slow at times that it was hard to write anything at length.

 Our flight was at 6:50am our of New Jersey to LAX. Now I am an advocate of arriving a day prior to your cruise start date but due to hubby’s work we couldn’t go out until the day of the cruise. We took the earliest flight available and hoped for the best. A few days before the cruise I started to get the clothes together and on Friday we completed the packing. I never thought I would get to it as work was very busy that week, which I am happy about, but it didn’t leave much time for really getting ready to go 

Of course we ended up overpacking. I really only packed for 7 days and figured we would do laundry in the middle but we ended up doing laundry a few times and didn’t end up needed as much as we took

 We arrived at EWR airport at about 5:20am and settled into the President’s club (Continental) for quiet lounge time before our flight. I was suprised at how many people were already in the lounge when we arrived.

 We had decided to fly first class and purchased our tickets about 11 months in advance. It was so nice to be on a 6 hour flight with comfortable seats. Our flight was uneventful and arrived into LAX at 9:30 am. We had a private car transfer meet us and we stopped at Costco on the way to get a case of water to take onboard with us. We wer able to buy 36 bottles of water for $5 instead of the $40 that DCL charges for a case of 24. We also picked up some candy that I was using in gift bags that I was making up for clients sailing and for our servers and stateroom hosts

 We arrived at the terminal about 10:30am and it was packed already. Our boarding number was 17. We waited in line to get our room keys and then went and had a seat in the lounge while waiting for our boarding number to be called. I think in all we waited about 30 minutes. Our room wasn’t ready yet and we went to have lunch in Parrot Cay, the restaurant had a wait but I didn’t want search for a table at topsiders so we waited for a few minutes while others finished their lunch

 By the time we were done with lunch our room was ready and we went to check it out and see if any of our suitcases had arrived. One had and we started unpacking. We had all of our luggage by 4pm and soon we were getting ready for our early dinner seating at 6pm

We had packed some wine to bring onboard with us, all except one bottle made it safe and sound. One was broken but it had to do with the TSA opening the bag and shifting everything around. If the bag hadn’t been open the bottles wouldn’t have broken as they were nestled in layers of bubble wrap. At least it wasn’t the expensive bottle

Our server was Rodel with the assistance of Natasha. They were extremely nice and efficient. The first night is always a little slow with them getting to know the passengers and their drink preferences but everything came out in a timely manner.

I should have written down what we had each evening but I didn’t because I was planning on listing it here nightly. I do have to say that with the exception of one item the food was very good. The one item I didn’t enjoy didn’t have anything to do with the way it was prepare it had to do with a flavor that I didn’t care for that was in it.

We really wanted to go to the welcome aboard show but we were so tired from being up at 4am and now it was 7pm pacific time (10pm eastern time for us) that we all crashed. Even the kids didn’t make it to the first night meet at the clubs which they really wanted to do

 More to come…

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