Innovative Interactions

Disney has started doing something truly exciting with their wait lines at WDW: they're slowly making them interactive! I have to cite Disney's first foray into an "interactive" line sometime in the mid - nineties with Test Track. Granted certain rides had things to read (the Great American Movie Ride) or images to look at (Space Mountain), but none of them really provided entertainment for your wait. This proved to be a problem for visitors, especially at popular attractions throughout the parks, as a running joke became “you go to Disney World to wait on line.” With Test Track, the Disney Imagineers created a semi-interactive line with exhibitions showing a number of various tests that the typical car goes through before leaving the factory. As an adult with a general interest in cars, I continue to find the line interesting; however, there is not much to keep the typical child occupied. And as anyone who has ever waited on a Disney line can tell you, a bored, whining child is the last thing you want to listen to on a 60+ minute wait.

When Disney brought Soarin' over to the east coast, they included an interactive, heat sensitive video game to occupy people on the stand-by queue. (Never having been to California Adventure, I do not know if this was part of the original queue.) The game pins four large sections of the crowd against each other and each team has to work together to successfully win the game. It's entertaining and people can get really into it; however, it only occupies part of the line. For the rest of the wait, I usually find myself making faces at my family/friends or joining the small children as they whine of boredom – trust me, if there’s anything else more obnoxious than a whining child, it’s a whining 23-year-old. Thankfully, Disney brought this idea of the interactive game to Space Mountain when they did some refurbishment back in the fall of 2010. Once again, the games only span a very small section of the line and they have a tendency to create a touch of a bottle neck as the line ahead moves, but the people at the games try to complete the round before moving on. Don't get me wrong, it's a fun game, but it doesn't keep the line moving or those at the front and back of the lines occupied. The interactive lines at Test Track, Soarin' and Space Mountain all have their problems, but hey, at least they are air conditioned!

Some of the worst lines to wait on in WDW are the lines in Fantasy Land at the Magic Kingdom. With the exception of Mickey's Philharmagic, all of the lines are open to the outside and while they're shaded and (for the most part) have ceiling fans, they do not alleviate the discomfort of the humid Floridian weather. Without fail, these lines are always the most crowded in the Magic Kingdom because they are the only rides that everyone in the family can go on regardless of age, size and physical condition. Makes sense, right? Well last fall, we were in WDW for the food and wine festival (yum!) and the queue for Winnie the Pooh was completely boarded up. This made the actual queue for the ride very short and slightly claustrophobic, but the prospect of what was going on behind those walls was incredibly exciting. I can truly say that the Disney Imagineers did not disappoint in the slightest! They gave the entire outside a whole new look. From a seemingly cookie cutter appearance (the line and building facade looked exactly like all the others of Fantasy Land), the Imagineers turned Winnie the Pooh into a wonderland right out of a story book!

Before you used to hop on line by a non-descript entrance under a green tent; now, you're greeted by Pooh's home! (This is perfect for a photo op with the little ones, or the big ones – you know, whatever makes you happy.)

 

Following in the previous design for the line, there are larger than life story book pages greeting you throughout; however, these are interactive! When you touch the door in the picture below, it sounded like someone knocking to come in. This little girl in the photo could not get enough of it! And I’m not going to lie: I wanted to spend a good 10 minutes knocking on that door too! It’s the simple things in life.

Eeyore's house is just across the aisle.

And then, suddenly, you're in Rabbit's garden! This section is great. It encourages children and adults alike to step out of the line and play all sorts of games including trying to keep a group of gophers from uprooting the vegetables AND trying to get Gopher to come out of his hole. The large fruits and vegetables that Rabbit is so skilled at growing become drums, and his flowers are bells - the fine beginnings of a band.

 

When you move away from Rabbit's garden, you are greeted with a fun maze of bumble bees and hives. A take off of the childhood games where you move the colored balls along one end of a twisted metal bar to the other, this game kept me occupied for a good ten minutes. As simple as it is, it challenges your dexterity and your problem solving skills to some extent. Oh, and there's an adorable buzzing soundtrack that accompanies this part of the line.

 

The final and, in my opinion, best part of this line are the new touch screens. Appearing towards the end of the line, there are 4 or 5 of these touch screens that project an image that looks like oozing honey. When you touch the screen, the honey takes the imprint of your hand. Move your hand over the screen, and you can move the honey out of the way. Try clearing the screen of honey and you may just find the image of a beloved Disney character hiding behind it.

 

Winnie the Pooh is one of the most popular rides in Fantasy land and the stand by line used to be unbearable - we would get fast passes every time! Now that it is interactive, I greatly appreciate not having to use a fast pass on this ride. Don't get me wrong, the wait times are still going to be long, especially during the heights of the tourist seasons; however, this alteration really shows that the Imagineers are taking every aspect of the experience into consideration and improving where they can! Thank you, Imagineers.

They recently updated the Haunted Mansion line in Liberty Square, as well! This line is especially cool! The Haunted Mansion does not normally get up to the astronomical wait times that we can see in Fantasy Land; however, it's not uncommon to find the wait time over 30 minutes. Once again, this line was shaded in the past by a funeral home style awning and the end of the outside line featured a graveyard with funny tombstones and creepy noises - once again, the rest of the line was bare and you were left to your own entertaining devices. In the past year, the Disney Imagineers have changed that! Guests have two options: 1- take the shorter, but non-interactive line to the right, OR 2- take the longer, incredibly interactive and entertaining line to the left. They have included things from a riddling murder mystery that needs solving, to a mausoleum with a cryptic code to be solved, to a "ghost writer" who asks the guests for help with her latest poem. We do not have any pictures of this particular queue, but if you click on the video below to watch a youtube video that documents the entire line. The video includes some pop up information to let you know what everything does. And since you're already on youtube, why not take a video ride through of the Haunted Mansion itself? Unless, of course, you're planning your first Disney vacation and you want to be surprised.

In the past, it always felt like Disney World was taking their guests into account when they made small changes to menus to include healthier foods, or they ran special promotions, or you just happened to run into a stand-out friendly cast member who made your day that much brighter. However, these new interactive lines really raise the bar. Whether they're making these changes because they're trying to compete with the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, or they're making these changes because they are truly focused on improving your overall experience, the Imagineers are really outdoing themselves and showing how much they are focused on the visitors. So I say a big warm "THANK YOU!" to the Imagineers for taking the time to think about how much a stimulating line can do to improve a guest's mood and thus their experience.

Check back soon for another post about the Fantasy Land expansion. We have pictures that we're eager to share with everyone!

See you real soon!

New dining post!

Check out "Palate Sensations: Reflections of Disney Dining" for a post on being a vegetarian in WDW.

Port Orleans, French Quarter: hotel review

What a GREAT vacation! Kristin and I had so much fun and never wanted to leave; we’re already planning our next trip.

So here it is: our Port Orleans hotel review! This is a dual post with both mine and Kristin’s opinions on the hotel location, room layout, décor, etc. At the end of our review, we have provided a rating on a scale from 1 – 10, with an explanation of which hotel attributes factored into that rating..

 Port Orleans, French Quarter was the second stop on our Magical Express, which really was not a problem because it only took a total of 25 – 30 minutes to get there from the airport. My first impression of the hotel was “WOW! This is absolutely beautiful.” Unfortunately, I did not get any photos of the approach to the hotel, as a motor coach does not provide the best angles; however, I did get some really great shots of the outside.

The lobby is so simple and beautiful - the architect really did a great job on creating a welcoming entryway. It's warm and inviting with simple fountain in the middle. The lobby serves as the central "hub" to the other public locations of the main building: to the right you have the check-in desk, concierge, gift shop and arcade; to the left you have the restrooms, telephones, bar and food court.

The walls of the check in area are covered in beautiful, Mardi Gras themed, fresco-like paintings, which appear to truly capture the spirit of a New Orlean's reveler. The figures are dressed in over the top, ostentatious garb that reminds one of a masquerade ball. The embodiment of individuals anonymously participating in the PG-rated debauchery of Mardi Gras really had me loving the check in area. 

I really appreciated the size of the food court. There are tables everywhere and all of them are within a great proximity to the food service. The amount of light in the room is phenomenal and it really cuts down on the creepiness of the monumental Mardi Gras masks that hang from the ceiling. Overall, the decoration was delightfully cheesy, but in no way offensive. The only complaint that I may lodge is that the food service area is small and gets pretty crowded during breakfast time. The entrance to the area is the same as the exit and can get a little bottle necked - I don't even want to think what it would be like during the height of the season. The food offerings were diverse enough to allow us to eat something different every day. They had everything from Mickey waffles and chocolate chip pancakes to omelets and yogurt parfait.

The grounds are fantastic! I have never been the New Orleans, but these grounds are fresh out of the New Orleans of my dreams! Cobble stone walkways, lots of greenery, early 20th century style street lamps and wrought iron hitching posts. And of course, there are the beautiful buildings themselves. All of them have wrought iron railings and the fronts a varied in color to make them look like individually attached houses on an only street. The roofs vary between what looked like aged copper and shingled roofs and every window is flanked by shutters. There were gardens and a beautiful ambling river that would transport visitors to Downtown Disney. One really awesome thing about the grounds? The "streets" are demarcated by individual street signs with "punny" names like "Rue d'Baga". 

The pool area is very nice. Amorphous in shape, the pool offers A LOT of room to swim, tons of chairs to sit on and even a little bit of privacy for sun bathers. The slide look like so much fun (we didn't get to ride it, sadly) and there is a kiddie pool very closely located to the main pool. For those of you who cannot swim, the deepest the pool gets is 4.5 feet. There is a pool bar located within feet of the pool itself and is open almost as late as the pool (the bar closes around 11 PM). Unfortunately, there is only 1 hot tub which would have been lovely to sit in if it had not been monopolized by the same group of people the entire time we were there: it's removed from the path, and bushes line the perimeter that are high enough to block the hot tub from view of the nearby walkway. There is also a really great playground leading up to the pool for kids 12 and under.

Our room: Here is where mine and Kristin's opinions differ a little bit. Over the years, we stayed in a lot of the deluxe hotels because of the size of our family. When I stayed in the Caribbean Beach in 2009, I became a little more aware of what to expect from a moderate resort, so I found nothing really wrong with the room. It was big enough for four people; it was impeccably clean; there is a curtain separating the sink area from the bedroom; the shower and toilet are in their own space. My only complaint was that there were only 3 drawers in the bureau, which really did not prove to be much of a problem. Kristin agrees that the cleanliness of the room was top notch and the curtain separating the bedroom and sinks was a great touch; however, she has many more complaints than I do. The room was a little too small; the water closet barely offered enough room for the toilet, shower and person using it; the decor was not themed enough; there was no balcony and we stepped right out to the main walkway; our view was of a parking lot. Granted, if I were spending a week in the room itself, never leaving, getting room service and staring out of the window, I would completely agree. But for our purposes of sleeping, showering and a couple of hours of wind down time at the end of the day, I think the room served its purpose just fine. To form your own opinion, check out our video below. Please note that this was taken on the morning of the day we were leaving, so your room will look much neater every day after room service has visited.

[We're having trouble uploading the video. Check back once we've solved the problem!]

Overall, the hotel staff was great. The cast members working the concierge, check in desk, room service and the door man were just wonderful to interact with. We ran into a couple of cranky cast members here and there in the food court, but nothing terrible enough to write home about.

The transportation at Port Orleans offers you two choices: buses to anywhere on premises or a boat to take you to Downtown Disney. We have only 2 complaints concerning the transportation: some buses stop at Riverside after French Quarter, adding 4 additional stops to your trip; the boat between French Quarter and Downtown Disney is a touch long. Granted, there really is not much Disney can do about the length of the river, so that cannot really count against them. The Riverside stops really were more of an annoyance than an actual detriment to the transportation system; as a part of the Port Orleans resort, Riverside runs on the same buses, so they have to split where the buses go first between both resorts. It's only fair, but still annoying. On a really great note, Disney bus drivers do something incredibly amazing after the parks close and it gets later and later into the night: if a bus driver has no one on his bus, he will drive you from 1 place to another regardless of his designated route. On the Saturday of our trip, our party went to Jellyrolls for a late night of dueling piano bar fun. (So much fun! Review to come later.) We left a little bit after 1 AM and decided to take the bus from the Boardwalk to Downtown Disney where we could connect to a bus for French Quarter. After waiting for about 45 minutes and essentially deciding on taking a cab, a Magic Kingdom bus pulled up to the bus stop. (The Magic Kingdom was hosting a special event.) There was no one aboard and the driver offered to drive us directly to the French Quarter. It happened to us a second time after the Hoop-dee-doo Review the very next night! This personalized service truly was magical.

Our overall rating of the resort is based on the following criteria on a scale of 1 - 10:

1. First impression

2. Grounds

3. Room size and cleanliness

4. Food court offerings

5. Overall decor

6. Staff approachability and helpfulness

7. Transportation

RATING: 8

I'd say that overall, we were very pleased with everything that Port Orleans had to offer. We would definitely recommend the resort to others and we would definitely stay there a second time.

Ta Ta For Now!

Stay tuned!

So, Michelle and I are leaving for our Walt Disney World vacation tomorrow morning! This trip will not only be filled with lots of fun, but with lots of work too. Upon our arrival home, you can count on a full review of our resort accommodations (complete with photos), dining reviews, a super fun Hidden Mickey challenge and much more! Please stay tuned. We look forward to blogging with you when we get back. Until then, have a magical day!!

Disney Resorts: 101

If this is your first time staying at a Walt Disney World hotel, then you are in for a real treat:  Disney imagineers out-do themselves when it comes to designing the hotels.  When booking accommodations at Walt Disney World, you have five options:  the Walt Disney World Campground; Value Resorts; Moderate Resorts; Deluxe Villas and Deluxe Resorts.  Prices increase as you move from one option to the next, the campground being the cheapest accommodation option and the deluxe resorts are (typically) the most expensive per night.

Disney Campground:  The Fort Wilderness resort and campgrounds offer 4 types of facilities: tent or pop-up campsite; campsite with full hook-up; campsite-preferred and campsite-premium.  I am not a camper and I have never stayed at the Disney campground but, I have seen the facilities.  The grounds are beautiful and you have access to efficient and clean shower/bathroom facilities, as well as a pool, laundry and a full functioning restaurant.  Bus and ferry service is provided for traveling to and from the theme parks and water parks.  Some perks of this resort include nightly entertainment, horse and buggy rides around the resort, and hiking and horse riding trails. For those of you who want something rustic, but aren’t adventurous enough to rough it in the humid, sweaty campgrounds, Fort Wilderness also boasts beautiful hotel room style cabins that fall under the “moderate resort accommodations” category. 

Value Resorts:  These include Disney’s All-Star, Pop-Century and the brand new, under construction Art of Animation resorts (scheduled to open 2012).  Disney’s value resorts are basically the equivalent of a 2 star hotel.  The rooms are equipped with two double beds, a hair dryer, a safe, a telephone, cable TV (with Disney programming), an ironing board and iron, and pizza delivery service.  A full service food court is accessible in these hotels.  For an additional charge you can have a refrigerator and high speed internet access for your room.  These hotels are located on the out skirts of the resort property with bus services available to all theme and water parks.  These resorts are more about function than form, but they’re still themed to some degree.  If you are on a strict budget, are not concerned with amenities or location and will not be spending much time in the room, the value resorts are definitely the way to go.

Moderate Resorts:  These resorts include:  Caribbean Beach; Coronado Springs; Port Orleans French Quarter; Port Orleans Riverside and the Cabins at Fort Wilderness.  These resorts are Disney’s version of a 3 star hotel.  Standard rooms are equipped with two queen beds, a privacy curtain between the vanity/bathroom area and the room, telephone, iron and ironing board, a mini-fridge, a safe, cable TV (with Disney programming) and a coffee maker.  High speed internet access is also available for an additional charge.  These resorts also have limited room service, full service restaurants and food courts, on-site recreation, self parking and bus or boat services to all the theme or water parks.  These resorts are a bit frillier than the value resorts; basically, you are paying for more amenities.

Deluxe Resorts:  Disney’s version of the 4 star hotel includes: Animal Kingdom Lodge; The Grand Floridian; The Polynesian; The Contemporary; The Wilderness Lodge; The Yacht and Beach Club; The Boardwalk and the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin*. Standard rooms are equipped with two queen beds (and usually a day bed as well), telephone, iron and ironing board, a mini-fridge, a safe, cable TV (with Disney programming) and a coffee maker These resorts also have full-service restaurants, room service, luggage service, valet parking, a fitness center,  beach access and on-site recreation.  Bus, monorail or boat transportation is available to the theme parks and water parks.  Some of these resorts also have easily accessible walking paths to the nearby parks.  These hotels are the absolute best accommodations Disney offers.  They are luxurious, stylish and themed beyond compare; the décor is all-encompassing and you feel immersed into a whole different world the moment you step through the door.

* The Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin are not Disney hotels.  They are owned and operated by the hotel chain, Westin, who rents space on Disney’s property and markets the hotels as Disney resorts.  You can not book a room for these hotels on the Disney website*

Disney also offers deluxe villas and Disney Vacation Club Resorts. Which have amenities almost identical to the deluxe resorts, and they can also include small kitchenettes. The Disney Vacation Club is a type of a time share. Check out the details online.

*All hotels come with child care services, concierge services, swimming pools and luggage services.* 

Besides price and amenities, the differences between the three major accommodation options lie in two areas:

1.  Location- Deluxe hotels are located in the heart of the magic.  They are centered around either the Magic Kingdom or EPCOT center.  Most of these hotels are either a quick monorail ride or short walk (and I mean short, like 10 minutes tops) to the nearest theme park.  Moderate resorts are a longer distance away, but still only a short bus ride to the theme parks.  The value resorts are furthest away from the fun, but still close enough to the magic.
2. Building Design:  All Disney hotels, regardless of room price, are themed to a tee.  However, the moderate and value resorts are styled more like a motel.  Your hotel room door opens to the outside.  There is no grand lobby.  If you are looking for that mind blowing hotel feeling, stay at a deluxe resort.

Whether you are staying in a standard budget room or the Walter E Disney Suite, all the hotels are wonderfully themed and SUPER clean.  Between all the members of my immediate family, we have stayed in almost every resort hotel and we have never been disappointed.  The house keeping is always impeccable and the hotel staff is always friendly and accommodating.  If you need anything, just ask nicely and the staff is more than willing to help you out to the best of their abilities.  All hotels are equipped to accommodate special needs guests as well.  Staying on Disney property definitely has its perks.  Besides being smack dab center in the magic, being a Disney resort hotel guest gets you special theme park perks, free transportation to and from the theme parks, free parking, access to Extra Magic Hours (which is only open to resort guests) and more.

For those of you traveling with your four legged babies, the Walt Disney World resort is also equipped with a newly renovated pet kennel. To find more information about the new kennel, go to their website: http://wdw.bestfriendspetcare.com/

I will try and set some time aside this trip to go and tour the facility.

This time around, we are staying in Port Orleans-French Quarter.  This is my second time staying in a moderate resort hotel (the first time was when I was 3, so I do not remember it).  I promise to provide an extensive photo slide-show of the resort and a review of my experience with the resort when we get home.

You can find all this information on the Walt Disney World website:

http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/resorts/

For more hotel information, photos, prices and reviews I recommend:

http://allears.net/acc/faq_hot.htm

I hope you will find these resources helpful.  Have a magical day!