Magical Kingdoms Disney Blog

More Muppets?

The New York Times reports that Disney are considering adding more Muppet-themed attractions to their theme parks. The Disney Company own the classic Muppets and are trying to revive their popularity, with Disney Channel specials, and a new feature film in the works. Whether they’ll wait and see if the revival is a success before pressing ahead with any new attractions, or whether they already have one in the pipeline, we’ll have to wait and see.

T-Rex Cafe

The new T-Rex Cafe at Downtown Disney is set to open October 14. Featuring several life-size dinosaurs including a 15 ft tall T-Rex, the new restaurant is brought to you by the same restaurant group as Rainforest Cafe. If you’re planning to eat there in the next couple of weeks, we’d love to hear from you!

Petrifies to go

The small fast food stand in DinoLand U.S.A. at Animal Kingdom is due to close on November 2, and will reopen on November 21 with a new name and new menu. Still expected to serve McDonald’s fare it will be called Trilobites.

Honey I Shrunk the Queues

FASTPASS is no longer available at Honey I Shrunk the Audience at Epcot.

Sailing to Europe

Disney Cruise Line announced yesterday that they are to sail to Europe in summer 2010. The Disney Magic will spend 5 months sailing to Northern Europe and the Mediterranean, adding new ports and sailing from the United Kingdom for the first time on certain itineraries. We hear that the cruises are already extremely popular and expected to book up quickly when reservations begin on October 14, in particular the transatlantic voyages. Contact Small World Vacations today and get on the wait list for these not-to-be-missed cruises.

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Ports of call

Cabo San Lucas - We planned the Dolphin swim excursion at this port. We had never done it but it was great, the kids and I had an amazing time and well worth the cost. You cannot take your own photos here so if you would like them be prepared to pay for theirs. We were planning on walking around a bit after the swim but it was very hot and everyone just wanted to head back to the ship

Puerto Vallarta - DH and I had been to this port already, many years ago, we had decided to just go to the Westin Marina and use their facilities. Very nice hotel, the beach is not much to talk about but the pools were very nice as was the room. Cab ride cost us $10 each way

Acapulco - We had a rainy day and decided to just stay on the ship and relax. We were able to do some laundry too

Cartagena, Columbia - this is the first time a Disney ship had visited this port and we were welcomed by local dancers and entertainers. Mickey came up on deck 4 and waved to everyone on the dock. This day also ended up starting off rainy but cleared up by the time we were to go on our city tour. We took the Best of Cartagena tour so that we could see the highlights of the area. It was a very good decision and we really enjoyed the city. It was one of our favorite spots.

Aruba - We had been to Aruba in 2006 on a stop on a cruise. This time we rented a room at the Westin Palm Beach to just enjoy the beautiful beach that Aruba is known for. This was a great idea and we thoroughly enjoyed our day. I would love to just spend a week in Aruba some day soon. The hotel rooms were beautiful, comfortable and we had a great view. We had originally planned on spending all day here and head back to the ship around 8pm or so. We later found our that Aly and AJ were performing onboard the ship on this evening and my children wanted to go and see the concert. Around 4pm we headed to the room, showered and headed back to the ship. Cab ride was $10 each way. Before we headed to the hotel we went to the mall across from where the ship docks to buy some souveniers. We aren’t big shoppers but we did pick up a couple of things.

Castaway Cay - We love Castaway Cay to us it is the perfect beach day. We rented floats and also did a bike ride. My children spent some time with us and then went and spent some time with the friends they had made over the days on the cruise. This day was a little bittersweet just because it was our last port before heading back to Port Canaveral

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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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On January 31, 2007 a large number of people logged onto Disney cruise line’s site, had a request in with their preferred travel agent and / or got on the phone to Disney cruise reservations in hopes to reserve a room on this popular itinerary. Much to everyone’s surprise, expecially Disney cruise line, the cruise sold out in a few hours that day. A few rooms have become available since but not many and those were booked just as quickly

After 18 months of waiting our magical Panama Canal cruise is almost here and the excitement in the house is building. Jo (me) along with my DH, DD13 and DS11 will be leaving on Sunday morning, Aug 17th, to head to California and board the beautiful Disney Magic to bring it back home to Florida.

Our stops along the way will be Cabo San Lucas, Puerto Vallarta, Acapulco, sailing the Panama Canal, Cartagena Columbia, Aruba, Castaway Cay and ultimately home to Port Canaveral.

I asked my family what they are most looking forward to on this cruise and beside the normal “mom it’s Disney we are looking forward to everything” the actual sailing through the Panama Canal and visiting Cartagena top the list.

Join us as we update this blog along the way
Jo at SmallWorldVAcations.com

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