|
 |
Hello everyone,
If you're considering attending the Halloween and Christmas parties at the Magic Kingdom this year, you can find the dates below.
While it is still early in the year, the Halloween parties actually start next month, and we haven't heard about any new offerings, changes of any kind at this point. With just over a month to go, I suspect that the parties will be almost identical to last year. You can check out our dedicated Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party page, here, on Character Central.
Prices for this year's Halloween parties range from $74 plus tax up to $115 plus tax, for adults (anyone over 9 years old), and from $69 plus tax up to $110 plus tax for children aged 3-9.
2017 Halloween Party Dates:
August: 25, 29
September: 1, 7, 10, 12, 15, 17, 19, 22, 24, 26, 29
October: 1, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 17, 19, 20, 22, 24, 26, 27, 29, 31
November: 1
The Christmas parties start in November, shortly after the Halloween parties end, and run through December, ending just before Christmas itself. As with the Halloween parties, we haven't yet heard about any changes, but for Christmas it's a little early right now. You can check out our dedicated Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party page, here, on Character Central.
Prices for this year's Christmas parties range from $89 plus tax up to $109 plus tax, for adults (anyone over 9 years old), and from $84 plus tax up to $104 plus tax for children aged 3-9.
2017 Christmas Party Dates:
November: 9, 10, 12, 14, 16, 17, 26, 28
December: 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14, 15, 17, 19, 21, 22
All event tickets can - and should - be purchased on the official Walt Disney World ticketing page, here.
Have a great day everyone,
Dan. |
|
|
 |
Hello everyone,
Last month (April 2017), Jon and I took part in our second runDisney weekend, the Star Wars Dark Side Half Marathon Weekend at Walt Disney World. Followers of my blog will know that in February we participated in our very first ever runDisney event at the Disney Princess Half Marathon Weekend. Well, here we were, two months later, ready to do it all over again for the Empire!
I won't repeat everything I said in my first Princess blog about our impressions of runDisney, training, organisation of the event, impressions, etc, as many of those aspects were very similar this time, but needless to say, we were exceptionally proud of ourselves for being able to achieve not just one half marathon weekend, but now two in the space of two months!
As per the usual setup with the runDisney events, we went along on the Thursday before the race weekend to collect our bibs and merchandise at the health expo, at ESPN. The setup was virtually identical to the Princess Half expo, down to the bib collection areas, the vendor booths and show area, and the official race store.
[ Read More... ] |
|
|
 |
Hello everyone,
As Jon and I spend an increasing amount of time at the Walt Disney World Resort theme parks, I find it correspondingly redundant to post "trip reports", in the more traditional sense. You may have noticed that, for example, recently I posted a stand alone review of the Garden Grill, a report on meeting the stars of Cars 3, and my report on the DVC Moonlight Magic event here on Character Central, and over on Two Lost Boys, my review of Flower and Garden 2017 at Epcot. I thought that it would be nice to share the more "generic" things we saw, too, over the past two months, and so decided to make this report more of a round-up of multiple visits, rather than breaking it down into separate trip reports. We will actually be back at the parks again this week and next, and so you should expect to see a similar round-up and more specialised individual reports once I get around to doing them, too.
Let's start our February-March walk though the park with the Magic Kingdom. [ Read More... ] |
|
|
 |
Hello everyone,
At the end of February we were fortunate enough to attend a special event at the Magic Kingdom held for DVC Members. Moonlight Magic was held on two separate nights from 10pm until 1am. Tickets were free for DVC members and up to five of their guests, however, you needed to book it in advance, and spaces were limited. [ Read More... ] |
|
|
 |
Hello everyone,
Last month Jon and I, along with a very dear friend, took part in our first ever runDisney race weekend. We participated in all three races (5k, 10k and half marathon) at the Disney Princess Half Marathon Weekend at Walt Disney World in Florida.
It's hard to even know where to begin describing this entire journey to you, since it wasn't at all like a normal trip. We didn't just go to the parks and happen to run through them like our lives depended on it - this was an altogether different experience. A journey that involved months of hard training, registrations, and bookings at precise moments to get what we wanted, and planning out strategies and coping mechanisms for running these events as a team, while making individual achievements.
We had known for a few months prior to booking that our goal was to be fit enough to want to complete a runDisney event, and when we booked the races last year, we had reached a point where we felt we could be ready in February to compete. The booking process itself was a challenge - as with everything with Disney these days - and we had to make several calls and enquiries to get what we wanted. They don't really make it very clear with regards to some aspects of it, if you have never done this before. So to that degree it was frustrating.
Months later still, and February finally arrived, and we were as ready as we were ever going to be! [ Read More... ] |
|
|
 |
Hello everyone,
In this fourth and final part of my trip report for our visit to Walt Disney World during Christmas 2016 I am going to share with you some more of our adventures at the Magic Kingdom.
Let's start on Main Street USA where we met Santa Claus before he set off on his magical deliveries on Christmas Eve. [ Read More... ] |
|
|
 |
Hello everyone,
In this third part of my Walt Disney World Christmas trip report, I am going to share with you some of my photos from our various viewings of Mickey's Once Upon a Christmastime Parade and Mickey's Most Merriest Celebration at the Magic Kingdom.
The Christmas parade has changed little over the past few years, but there have been some tweaks along the way nonetheless. This past year saw the princes wear their new outfits in the parade for the first time. Being there Christmas week, we got to see the parade during the day (as opposed to at night, at the much more crowded Christmas parties), which was nice so that we could get decent photos of their new outfits.
Before the parade the Kringle Crew danced down Main Street USA, giant inflatable balls in tow. [ Read More... ] |
|
|
 |
Hello everyone,
Yesterday the Disney Parks Blog (DPB) made a surprise announcement about an upcoming event at the Disneyland Resort. From May 27th - the day that the new Guardians of the Galaxy attraction opens at Disney California Adventure - until September 10th, the park will present the Summer of Heroes.
The DPB describes this new event as follows: [ Read More... ] |
|
 | Walt Disney World July 2016 Trip Report | |
| DisneyDan
Tuesday, November 29, 2016 10:47:42 AM |
|
 |
Hello everyone,
I realise that this is a little late, but better late than never, right?
Back in July we made one of our several trips for this year to the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. As always, we had an agenda for visiting at the time that we did, and filled our short trip with everything that was wondrous and new!
Let's start with our hotel, Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge Jambo House. We have previously stayed at Kidani Village several times, and of course have visited Jambo House (but up until this trip never stayed there), and while we have enjoyed our stays at Kidani Village, Jambo House is clearly the better of the two. [ Read More... ] |
|
|
 |
Hello everyone,
A few days ago the Disney Parks Blog announced that following her August debut in her welcome show at the Magic Kingdom, Princess Elena of Avalor will greet guests at the Princess Fairytale Hall from 24th November. Princess Elena will feature on the Cinderella-side of the Hall, with FastPass reservations already available from the start date.
In an unexpected move, Shanghai Disney Resort are currently celebrating Halloween season - but only at Disneytown (their equivalent of Downtown Disney). From just a few days ago until 31st October, you can see Mickey and Minnie in a special show, wearing Halloween costumes, for free at Disneytown. It is great to see that Shanghai Disney Resort have decided to take a seasonal direction, since it was unclear up until now (because the park is still so new) whether they would follow what the other parks around the world do.
The big news of the week is the announcements from Disneyland Paris regarding its upcoming 25th anniversary. In non-character related revelations, there was confirmation of everything that had been pretty much anticipated for months now: a new nighttime spectacular, titled Disney Illuminations; Star Tours - The Adventures Continue; and Star Wars Hyperspace Mountain.
On the character front we also got confirmation of the very-much anticipated parade. Rather simply titled Disney Stars on Parade, it will feature a fire breathing dragon (much like the one from Festival of Fantasy at the Magic Kingdom), as well as using two floats from the old Jubilation parade, from Tokyo Disneyland. These floats are expected to be the Peter Pan and Jungle Book ones. While it was expected that there would probably be a new stage show, they actually surprised us all with announcing two! Very few details are known right now about either, but we do know that the first one, Mickey presents: "Happy Anniversary Disneyland Paris", will feature Mickey, Goofy, Chip and Dale and other Disney stars as they celebrate the 25th anniversary. It is not known at which theatre or in what capacity the show will be held. The second show will be titled The Starlit Princess Waltz, and will feature the Disney Princesses, including Belle, Cinderella, Aurora and Snow White, throwing a majestic ball to celebrate the 25th Anniversary.
Interestingly, the Disney Parks Blog reported a slightly different version of the announcements, and also mentioned decorations, new meet and greets (though unspecified as to what), hotel renovations, a new version of Peter Pan's Flight, and something they name as Mickey's Goodnight Kiss. What this will involve is anybody's guess, but it was included in the section that read, "we will have many opportunities for our guests to see their favorite Princesses and Characters throughout their time at the park", so it sounds as though it will be a character based offering. Finally, the DPB version also appeared to confirm that Mickey and the Magician - the brand new show at the Walt Disney Studios that was billed to end before the 25th started - will indeed remain in place through the 25th anniversary. This will make many fans happy, as the show has been widely praised and is already well loved.
In case you missed them, I recently wrote my trip report for Shanghai Disney Resort, and a guide to Tokyo Disney Resort's 2016 Halloween season, here on Character Central. Click the highlighted text to go to those pages!
Ok, that's all for today! Have a great day everyone,
Dan. |
|