DOING DISNEY ebook!

Think I'll just put this one up here. 

This is the book I wrote about our family's travels to Walt Disney World in Florida.

It's not supposed to be a comprehensive, tell-all travel guide.  I describe it as a template for a week (give or take a couple days) long visit to that Florida resort.  It discusses the resorts we like the most, the restaurants we like the most, the way we structure our days in the parks, how and why we rent a car, why we recommend Disney's Magical Express for getting to one's on-property hotel, a little bit (actually a very little bit) about the surrounding area, and how and why we decide which options to put on our theme park tickets.  I talk about our experience with Disney Vacation Club, the Disney Dining Plans, and a little about the California resort.  I talk about FastPasses (which are almost obsolete now, I guess) and about the extras at the resort that we've never experienced.  Finally, I provide a bit of a bibliography for books about Disney that I've found either useful, entertaining, or both.

Christmas is coming, so consider purchasing a copy.  It's only $2.99 for 101 pages of reading enjoyment.  I try to write it in an entertaining style, like I do my fiction.  So maybe even if you don't find it useful, you might find my anecdotes entertaining.  Or not.  Sample at will, if you'd like, to get an idea about my style of writing.

Here's the link: DOING DISNEY:  HOW TO SPEND A WEEK AT DISNEY'S FLORIDA RESORT  One caveat: It's only for Kindle and the Kindle app! Hope that will work for you! Thanks for looking at it.

*****

Disney Guidebook coming out...

Yes, I've written a Disney guidebook, which will be released as soon as I finalize the cover.  It will be an e-book, available on Amazon for Kindle, and later hopefully for Nook and through the iBookstore and other outlets.  I'm also hoping to publish a paper version of it, but I think the e-book will be the best way to experience it.

What qualifies me to write a guidebook, you might ask?  Well, we've visited Walt Disney World seven times since our kids were born, each time for 7 or 8 days.  And each time we learned something.  We got our patterns down.  We found places that we return to for dining.  We stayed at resort properties that we really liked, and at least one that we weren't crazy about. 

We visit the resort like a lot of other people in our boat.  We aren't all annual pass holders.  We don't all live close enough to go every week or month, like some folks who write Disney books do.  We get down there every year or every couple of years, spend a week there, and try to make the most of our stay.  When we run into people going to Disney for the first or second time, we seem to usually have some good ideas for them, information that they are happy to have. 

Our experiences are not the be-all-end-all of Disney experiences.  They're OUR experiences.  I thought it would be interesting to put together a "guidebook" from that perspective, not trying to give every last bit of information about every little thing on Disney property.  I didn't do a ton of outside research to write this book.  I mostly relied on my family's experiences and how we've done things over the course of our seven visits.   I talk about how we structure our park visits, how we buy our tickets, how we get the most out of our money when visiting Walt Disney World.  Take all of our advice, some of it, or just a little, but I think if you have young kids and are going to visit Disney every couple of years for a week at a time, you'll find something useful in the book.

Disney's MyMagic+ has come along and perhaps will change a bunch of stuff about how we have to structure our vacations, but for the most part, our observations stand on their own. 

I'll have the cover here and on my Scott Dyson page and on my Scott Dyson Facebook page, and pricing information before it is released.  I hope some of you will download a sample and take a look!  Thanks for reading!

*****

Avatar Land takes a step forward!

It looks as if Disney is proceeding with their Avatar Land expansion of Animal Kingdom. 

The concept art looks good. 

Check out this Disney Parks blog post!

*****

My Magic Plus...

This new program that Disney Florida is rolling out was a mystery to me.  But after reading FutureProbe's article on the subject, now I'm worried.

Go ahead and read the article, titled The Pixie Dust Detoxification Effect. 

Is this going to enhance or ruin the Disney vacation experience?  Sounds like the latter...

*****

What is that...???

...in Joe Rohde's left ear?

Yesterday we were flipping channels and I came across a History Channel showing Modern Marvels:  Walt Disney World.  I have the DVD of this one, but it's hidden aways somewhere and so my son and I watched just about the whole thing. 

When we got to the part on the Animal Kingdom, they show a lot of Imagineer Joe Rohde discussing the construction of that park.  At first I didn't think much about it, but my son asked me, "What's that thing hanging from his ear?"  I told him it was an earring or something, but thought that it was awful big! 

A bit later, they showed him a bit more from the left side, and it looks like his ear lobe is grossly stretched out. 

Anyone know what it's supposed to be, and what is the point of doing that?

I guess I'm just getting old...but Joe doesn't look like a spring chicken (as they say)...

*****

Disney Parks: DAK getting an added land...

If the blog reports are true (I've read it in several locations now, including FutureProbe and Voyages Extraordinaires), Disney's Animal Kingdom is adding a whole other land, to be based on the movie Avatar. Reactions appear to be mixed.

The most common objection seems to be that Disney is not trusting enough in its own properties and its Imagineers to come up with something interesting enough to base an entire land on. Instead, they are "copying" off Universal and licensing a franchise to create content for their park. I suppose there is something to this. Not so much the properties part, because, well, what does Disney have as far as film that would fit with an entire land in the Animal Kingdom? I'm not sure; perhaps someone has some ideas. I understand the objection, but I don't know what the content that they already own that they're supposed to use is.

The second part is that the Imagineers could come up with something more engrossing than Avatar. This is a stronger objection, in my view. The Imagineers have proven themselves over and over again. Could they, on their own, have come up with a Beastly Kingdom conceptual overlay, for example, that would work better than Avatar? It's likely they could.

It does seem that Robert Iger likes acquiring properties rather than developing them, so the licensing of Pandora fits in with his modus operandi. Then there's cost. I'd guess that, since this story and theme have been pretty well developed for the film, perhaps it is somewhat cheaper to turn it into a land. Perhaps it's even significantly cheaper. I don't know. But it does take out the beginning stages of development, with all the failed ideas and directions, and sets the Imagineers firmly on their path. And there is no reason that they cannot shine in what they finally conceptualize and develop for the theme park land.

In the end, I don't care. This development addresses some significant problems that Disney has. They need something more at this park, and they need something to add capacity to the parks at the resort, on a whole. A while back I posted an entry wishing for a fifth gate, and in the comments it was suggested that they can't (or won't) maintain what's already there, and that what they really need is to turn DAK and DHS into something closer to a full day park.

This development may just do that for Disney's Animal Kingdom.

*****

Animal Kingdom Pictures

We have gone on Kilamanjaro Safaris every time we've visited Animal Kingdom and it is always a fun attraction. We seemed to see more animals than usual this visit, maybe because it wasn't too hot out.

The giraffes were extremely photogenic this time around. We saw lots of them from our room at Animal Kingdom Lodge, but we never get tired of them...

The ostriches sometimes don't seem like they have much interest in moving out of the way. This guy (girl?) was just laying around.

Those poachers didn't get these elephants!

And I leave you with a shot of Everest. One of Disney's best, in my opinion.

Disney Parks: Animal Kingdom

On the third day of Disney, my true love gave to me...

A visit to Disney's Animal Kingdom! (sorry)

This was without a doubt the best time we've ever had at DAK. That had a lot to do with the fact that we didn't have sweat dripping off of our faces the whole time we were there. The park is beautiful, and when keeping the beads of perspiration from running into your eyes is not the only thing you can think of, it's much easier to appreciate that fact.

There isn't a lot to do at this park when you stop and think about it. But there are a few really high quality attractions here. We rode Dinosaur! twice; it was virtually a walk-on attraction this time. I saw it suggested on Futureprobe that many of the effects have been "turned off" and this ride is not what it used to be. It may be a case of not knowing what we're missing, or it might just be a case of when you only invest 10 minutes in getting on the ride, the ride seems better to you, but whatever it is, we enjoyed the ride this time. More than other times.

Expedition: Everest I rode twice, and my boys did it two more times. They rode standby once (the line was only about 15 minutes late in the day) and since my wife didn't ride at all they used her extra Fastpasses another time. They loved it. My younger son declared it to be his "favorite ride in the world". (We had one "favorite ride in the world" each day of our vacation, except Friday.)

We also did the standby line for Kilamanjaro Safaris, and that seemed to move relatively quickly. Saw a lot of animals out, but just caught a glimpse of the lions. We did see the hippos and the elephants, however. This is always a fun ride.

I wanted to do the Maharajah Jungle Trek but my wife preferred to go see the Festival of the Lion King. So we did the latter, and I have to admit that I enjoyed it. It was a well choreographed and well performed show, and I'd go see it again. The boys also rode the Primeval Whirl after we did Dinosaur. They liked it; they got put in a car with another boy a little older than them, and they always like that.

(Is that Chester and Hester's Dinorama cheap? Well, yeah...but I understand that it's the "story" that goes with the land. I like most Disney fans wish they would have come up with something more elegant or more interesting. But I'm not going to let it stand in the way of the kids' or our enjoyment...)

We had lunch at the Yak and Yeti, and you can see my photos and comments on that lunch in a previous post. We left the park in order to get back to the hotel in time for our reservation, but after stopping to do some shopping (I got a book by Jeff Kurtti and Bruce Gordon!) we were late anyway. Fortunately they were still able to accommodate us and we got a nice dinner after all.

The Animal Kingdom park is usually a shorter day for us but this time it ended up being a full day project. I think it was less crowded than usual due to the fact that it was Thanksgiving Day, but when we got there it sure looked packed.

One more day to go in the World...

*****

My Very Own "Best Of..." List

You know, I want to write. And I want to write something Disney related. That's the purpose of this blog, I guess - to give me a place to ramble and meander on about whatever strikes my fancy, Disney-wise.

Trouble is, I often can't think of anything to write about. I'm not a big critic of Disney as a whole, of their films, of their parks, or of any one park in particular. I'm not an expert on any one aspect of Disney. I don't have a large storehouse of Disney photos. I don't have an angle, like some blogs do, where they are discussing some particular minutae (albeit interesting miutae) about the parks or the films or whatever.

So today, I was sitting here over lunch, thinking about a subject to write on, looking at the topics covered by other Disney blogs. I noticed that on Reimagineering, there was an entry (after a LONG break with no posts) criticizing TOY STORY MIDWAY MANIA, the popular ride at Disney's Hollywood Studios and at Disney's California Adventure. I thought about that - I don't have much bad to say about that ride. In fact, it might just make my top 10 rides at Disney World.

And there it was: Today's post! My personal Top Ten list of rides at WDW. Just like what's-er-name on the Disney resort TV station! So here goes:

10. Rock'n'Roller Coaster, DHS

9. Tower Of Terror, DHS

8. Toy Story Mania, DHS

7. Space Mountain, Magic Kingdom

6. Kilamanjaro Safaris, DAK

5. Splash Mountain, Magic Kingdom

4. Pirates of the Caribbean, Magic Kingdom

3. Haunted Mansion, Magic Kingdom

2. Soarin', Epcot

1. Expedition Everest

It was actually pretty hard to sort these out, because sometimes I might prefer Haunted Mansion or Pirates to the thrills of Expedition Everest. Soarin', Haunted Mansion, Pirates, Kilamanjaro Safaris, Toy Story Midway Mania, and Splash Mountain are all things we enjoy as a family. The others are thrill rides that my wife won't go on, so I and my two boys have to enjoy them by ourselves.

Expedition Everest is a great ride, in my opinion, with a great queue that makes waiting quite bearable. Also, it's new, so it has that going for it. That doesn't diminish the classics, but it does say a lot for EE that it makes the top of my personal list.

Maybe later I'll try to do a "dining" list.

*****

Disney's Animal Kingdom

Usually we don't do well at Disney's Animal Kingdom. Oh, we agree with all the folks who think it is a beautiful park. It is really neat to look at the lush tropical vegetation, with lots of animals in natural settings. And it has, for me and my son, the number one attraction at Disney World - Expedition Everest.

Usually, however, it's pretty darned hot in Orlando when we visit Disney, and DAK feels even hotter than the other parks. I've heard from cast members that it can be as much as 10 degrees hotter there than in the other parks, and that the beautiful vegetation helps to increase the humidity in the immediate vicinity of the park. My family does not do that well with soaked t-shirts and sweat running down the foreheads. I don't even like it, and usually stuff like that doesn't bother me that much.

But this last time, with the temps in the high 60's on the day we went to DAK, we enjoyed the park the most of any time we'd ever been there. No sweat running down the brow. No sense of rushing through the park. The crowds were relatively light that day. Everest had a long wait, but we had FastPasses, and so the lines didn't affect us much. We also had FP's for Kilamanjaro Safaris. Lunch at the Yak and Yeti was one of the higher points of our dining experiences. And the much maligned Dino Land was the source of great fun for my younger son, who discovered that he loves the Primeval Whirl. The waits for it were generally about 10 minutes. And Dinosaur ended up being a walk-on attraction when we went on.

The other thing we experienced for the first time was the Nemo musical. It was very well done, I thought. It told pretty much the whole story of the movie in the span of a half hour or so, and told it understandably, hitting all the high points of the tale. And the puppetry was very good. I suppose some day they'll adapt this thing for the stage and take it on tour, also.

We were in line to go on the train back to Rafiki's Planet Watch when they announced that the OTHER train was not running, and they wouldn't be running any more trains out there until they had that one fixed (I guess it was blocking the tracks somewhere out there), so we did not get to experience that part of the park.

All in all, I could see why others love this park so much. When you don't have to listen to kids (or spouses) complaining about the oppressive heat and humidity, it's a very enjoyable experience.