a view of Space Mountain with the lights on from the TTA

Well, if you didn’t get a chance to ride Space Mountain before midnight last night, be prepared to wait until this fall to get your next fix of intergalactic rollercoaster fun!

The details of what exactly is being done during this time still haven’t been revealed, so we’ll just have to see if this is simply a mechanical upgrade or if the Imagineers will be adding a soundtrack to the famed coaster like Space Mountain at Disneyland saw back in 2005.  There’s certainly lots of room for updates with this one … it’ll be interesting to see if any changes that get made are subject to the same scrutiny that It’s a Small World is seeing…

In the meantime, for a great look at the Mountain’s history over the years, do check out this blog post by DisneyShawn – he’s got lots of great photos from every stage of the ride, and I’m sure it’ll be a great source for comparison this fall when the attraction re-opens!

Side Note: I, myself, cannot believe that the photo above is one of the only pictures of Space Mountain that yours truly has actually taken over the years!  Definitely need to make a note to take some better photos this fall…

Photo courtesy Disney, via the Orlando Sentinel

Here’s an interesting article from Thursday’s Orlando Sentinel that talks about a new technological advance recently introduced at Disney World to help visually-impaired guests enjoy the parks…

Called “audio description,” the service provides visually impaired vacationers with a narrative depiction of the scenes that unfold as they move through rides such as the Magic Kingdom’s Haunted Mansion or Pirates of the Caribbean.

It is the latest feature added to a proprietary, wireless system that Disney World initially developed to help disabled guests. The system also includes features for deaf and hard-of-hearing guests, such as amplified sound and hand-held captions.

Read the Full Article Here: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/orl-bizdizdevice16041609apr16,0,2498532.story

I’ve never eaten here before, but this seems like it could make for a pretty neat addition to an evening meal!

screenshot courtesy Disney Interactive Studios

Now that I’ve read the press release, this just seems like such an obvious fit – combining the fun interactivity of the Wii with the great game design behind the latest addition to Disney’s parks both in Florida and California!  The couple of screenshots that have been released thus far look pretty much identical to the attraction that we all know and love, so it’ll be interesting to see not only just how many more parlor games the console version has to offer, but also to see if any new renditions end up finding their way into the actual park attractions, too.  Sounds like a great opportunity for some cross development, which we know Disney already loves…

Read more over at IGN: http://wii.ign.com/articles/965/965796p1.html.

By selecting the payment option, Guests will pay for the cost of a 1-Day, 1-Park ticket upon purchase and will pay the remaining amount over the next 12 months, with no finance charges applied. For example, a Guest purchasing a Southern California Select Annual Passport for $134 would pay $69 at the time of purchase – with the remaining balance of $65 spread out over the next 12 months.

I think this a fantastic idea that’s way overdue and I sincerely hope that it provides the necessary results to warrant a trial here in the east with Walt Disney World as well.  Frankly, I’d honestly be really surprised if it didn’t show success, considering that the Busch and Universal parks in our area all already offer payment plans of one kind or another.  Running similar assumptions for WDW, one might expect to pay about $75 for that first visit, then split another $175 or so over 12 months for the rest of the pass, thus creating a Florida Resident Seasonal Passholder rate of merely $14.58 / month – four parks for less than fifteen bucks a month!

And even looking to existing passholders as an incentive to buy up to a more expensive level, a full-blown Florida Resident Annual Pass without restrictions would cost $25.41 / month after that first day, which would then not only include parking but also admission on Christmas if one so desired!  While it may be tough to come up with the extra $150 to upgrade upon renewal of a seasonal, the monthly rate would sure be a whole lot easier to stomach…

So buy up, So. Cal. residents – give the Mouse a reason to try annual pass payments over in Florida, too!

from Passholder e-mail announcement

Talk about a good idea executed poorly – I understand that an awful lot of Passholders are upset / frustrated / downright angry about the Mouse’s latest Passholder-only events. Earlier this week, many of us received e-mails announcing a couple of special tours coming up in December for Passholders only – a backstage tour of the upcoming American Idol Experience at the Studios and also a tour of the famed Cinderella Castle Suite at the Magic Kingdom. Pretty cool, eh?

Well, it would’ve been had very many people been able to sign up for it.

Now I don’t know exactly how many Passholders Walt Disney World even has or how many they were ready to accommodate for these events, but just from what I’ve seen (and experienced) so far, it looks like they did a very poor job at executing the big announcements. The website mentioned that sign-ups began at 10:00am on Wednesday morning, however many Passholders didn’t even receive the e-mail until mid-afternoon (I got mine at 3:03pm). Then upon visiting the website to sign-up even minutes after receiving the e-mail, the site was so overwhelmed with visitors that their system couldn’t handle it and returned an error when many guests attempted to sign up. Anyone who couldn’t access their personal e-mail during the day pretty much didn’t stand a chance of finding an open slot. And I think the final nail in the coffin was the idea that sign-ups were for individuals only – no guests – meaning that to make reservations for an entire family, one had to login to the Passholder website with each individual pass and make the reservations separately, and between the errors and dates disappearing, I don’t see how a family of 4 could’ve possibly gotten four reservations all during the exact same time…

from Passholder e-mail announcement

I ended up getting a single reservation for the Castle tour for myself, but got the Event Full message when I went back to get the same date for my wife, so I don’t know … if Disney doesn’t figure something out, I may end up just cancelling that one because I’d feel awful guilty touring that place without her. I did login last night and was surprised to be able to secure reservations for the Idol tour for both of us during the same time slot, so if nothing else we can still make an afternoon out of that and the Osbourne lights, but let’s face it – if given the choice, the Castle tour is really the cooler of the two and the one that I’d much rather experience!

Ultimately this is a neat promotion and I love it when Disney does special things for their Passholders like this, but they’ve got to get a much better handle on demand because just like getting turned away for the resort discounts due to the fact that they only allow a limited number at the discounted rates, missing out on a perk like this is just going to make someone more bitter than if they didn’t offer anything at all. Granted, I don’t want it to come to that and honestly, I really hope they come to their senses and open up a few more days so that as many people that want can take in these sights, but until then, it’s kind of hard to get excited about a Passholder-exclusive event that only a lucky few Passholders will even get to participate in…

]]> http://www.mytimewiththemouse.com/news/2008/11/new-passholder-tours-for-some/feed/ 1 http://www.mytimewiththemouse.com/news/2008/11/disney-partners-with-verizon-for-awesomeness/ http://www.mytimewiththemouse.com/news/2008/11/disney-partners-with-verizon-for-awesomeness/#comments Thu, 13 Nov 2008 23:03:47 +0000 Scott Sevener http://www.mytimewiththemouse.com/?p=523 I can only hope that my existing phone will support the new features…

Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Teams Up with Verizon to Bring Mobile Magic to U.S. Parks
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Walt-Disney-Parks-Resorts-Teams/

I remember getting pretty excited about this kind of stuff a while back when the iPhone first came out – it just seemed like the perfect platform to really provide a one-of-a-kind, interactive guidebook for guests, and although there are some interactive maps available today, they’re pretty much limited to being simply digital maps that have some attraction & dining info embedded in them. Cool, but there’s only so much that can be done without Disney’s official buy-in.

That said, I think there’s a huge potential for Disney and Verizon to come up with something very cool here – think digital maps of the parks that not only show You Are Here via the phone’s GPS, but also the estimated wait times that you would normally find either on the park’s tip board or at the head of each attraction. Heck, if the rumored online dining and entertainment reservation system actually happens in the next few months, you could even make an ADR for a nearby table service restaurant all the while Soarin’ over California or fending off raiders in Pirates of the Caribbean – how cool of an iPhone commercial would that make?!

The first shovels hit the dirt on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 with 21 acres at Ko Olina Resort & Marina in West Oahu! I have no clue where that is, but I’ll bet it’s tropical…

http://losangeles.bizjournals.com/losangeles/stories/2008/11/10/daily16.html

As if we didn’t already have enough reasons to desperately want to buy into the Disney Vacation Club, here’s one more excuse! The new resort isn’t scheduled to open until 2011, so at least that gives us time to save up!

The deal itself is pretty straightforward – book a 7-day vacation for select dates from January – June 2009 at the cost of a 4-day vacation, and you also receive a $200 gift card if you book a trip between January and March. The package automatically includes park tickets, and you also have the option of adding a dining plan on as well, although I’m not entirely sure if they follow the same Buy 4, Get 3 Free rate concept that the room & park tickets do. I won’t even try to go into any of the math because MouseSavers already has some great examples up to show how much you could save at each of the resort levels.

Honestly it looks like a pretty decent deal with upwards of 43% savings depending on where you stay, and MouseSavers even has an example for Passholders where only a 1-day ticket is purchased, but the package still reflects the Buy 4, Get 3 Free rate for the rooms. Granted, Passholder and Florida Resident rates can also be comparable, depending on the details of your trip, but I think the real kicker with this promotion as a whole is that it has to be booked by December 20th. With the economy as crazy as it’s been, clearly this is a means of testing the waters to see if Disney is going to have to be even more aggressive next year with its pricing to fill rooms and keep attendance up…

Still, if you can afford it, there’s nothing like getting part of your vacation for free!

Southwest Adds Pixie Dust in Deal with Disney
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/nov/01/010000/bz-southwest-adds-pixie-dust-in-deal-with-disney/

Last week some changes were also made to Mickey’s Toontown Fair at the Magic Kingdom to help promote the new DVD with the addition of a Tinker Bell character meeting place called Pixie Hollow (apparently one of the lines in the Country Fair tent was converted from Fab Five characters over to Tink & Co. – not sure if/where Goofy, Donald and Pluto will be relocated to…).

I probably shouldn’t judge until I’ve seen the actual flick for myself, but so far I’m not really all that crazy about Disney’s efforts to market Tinker Bell and “the other fairies” like they did with the Princesses brand, for a couple of reasons:

A) Tinker Bell doesn’t talk and she’s very small. It’s conflicting for me to see her both life-size and giggling with guests as she takes pictures and autographs, and then later flying across the sky at the start of Wishes, all small and fairy-like again. And Tinker Bell’s friends?! Gimme a break…

B) I don’t like how Disney has turned sassy into sexy with this character, filling its gift shops with sparkly t-shirts and whatnots bearing all sorts of mildly suggestive phrases boasting of being naughty and spoiled. Color me old-fashioned, but although they may look cute and push the envelope a bit for the adults, I don’t think they’re appropriate for Disney’s parks.

C) And finally, just like all of their other straight-to-dvd efforts, this just feels like another shameless marketing ploy to make some bucks instead of an opportunity to tell a really good story … which is odd because I distinctly remember John Lasseter saying that he was going to put a stop to the bastardization of Disney’s characters with all of these cheap to produce, but profitable movies. Sure, they’re sufficient to throw in front of the kids so parents can have 90 minutes of peace and quiet, but so is Barney the obnoxious, purple dinosaur – Disney is supposed to be about quality.

Who knows, I guess I should probably Netflix Disney’s latest atrocity one of these days so that I can see for myself if there’s actually a watchable story for anyone older than 9 behind all of that pretty CGI, but in the meantime, I’m just going to keep cringing by default whenever I see the saucy fairy flaunting herself on t-shirts and hats and movie posters to a generation that’s never even heard of a little movie called Peter Pan.

Sorry, Tink, but I liked you better when you were all about pixie dust instead of, well, you know…