Actor Daniel Dae Kim, star of the ABC series “Lost” and currently starring on the new CBS series “Hawaii Five-0,” poses Dec. 28, 2010 with Lilo from Disney’s animated film “Lilo and Stitch” at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. Kim, who was born in South Korea and grew up in New York and Pennsylvania, currently lives in Hawaii.
Kent Phillips, photographer
• Disney’s new cocktail menu (found in most bars and lounges) has a twist: all mixes are made from scratch, taking the art of cocktail “mixology” to a whole new level. Many of the new cocktails are made with “better for you” ingredients such as organic spirits, fresh fruits and herbs that have been procured locally when seasonally available, and lower calorie no-sugar-added fruit purees. The Raspberry Rain Cocktail, for instance, is made with Rain Organics Red Grape Hibiscus Vodka, Chambord, freshly muddled raspberries, lychee and fresh lemon juice. The Superfruit Martini features Van Gogh Acai-Blueberry Vodka, pomegranate liqueur, cranberry juice, organic agave nectar and fresh lemon juice. And plenty of cocktails come sans alcohol.
Three are dead. Who is Number Four? D.J. Caruso (“Eagle Eye,” “Disturbia”) helms an action-packed thriller about an extraordinary teen, John Smith (Alex Pettyfer), who is a fugitive on the run from ruthless enemies sent to destroy him. Changing his identity, moving from town to town with his guardian Henri (Timothy Olyphant), John is always the new kid with no ties to his past. In the small Ohio town he now calls home, John encounters unexpected, life-changing events—his first love (Dianna Agron), powerful new abilities and a connection to the others who share his incredible destiny.
John (Alex Pettyfer) is an extraordinary teen, masking his true identity and passing as a typical high school student to elude a deadly enemy seeking to destroy him. Three like him have already been killed…he is Number Four.
“Like” THE I AM NUMBER FOUR on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/IAmNumberFour.
Think about the question posed in the title. How do you handle the anticipation of your next Walt Disney World visit? I hope for your peace of mind that you are not as nutty as I am every time there is another trip in the works. Let me tell you what I go through and then you can decide just how crazy you might be.
We generally visit at least every other year, more if we can fit it in. The most basic planning and therefore anticipation begins as we board the Magical Express bus at our resort to head for the airport for the trip home. Believe it or not we actually begin discussing the next trip on the plane ride back to Arizona. We already know that as we head home in October we will be deciding approximately when we will be visiting and where we will be staying and that by the time we land in Tucson it will be locked in. That is the easy part.
Things remain fairly calm until we start to approach 500 days out which is when we make our room only reservation and from then on the excitement of the upcoming trip drives me to do odd things. A lot of time is spent on Disney Discussion Boards and setting up my Tour Guide Mike account for the trip in question. On the Discussion Boards I can get any of my questions answered and also help others on the boards by answering whatever I can for them. Now I have a new outlet for the Disney Mania, writing for Chip and Company. That helps not only the planning but keeps me current on all the latest Disney news – very helpful. As other deadlines approach decisions have to be made whether or not to go with a package plan or get an Annual Passport and a Tables in Wonderland membership. Not only that, Advance Dining Reservations (ADR’s) need to be pre planned. Whew!!! Then, the least crowded park charts from Tour Guide Mike have to be merged with potential ADR’s and ADR’s made at 180 days. As you can see, I get so tied up with planning and my other outlets that anticipation flourishes from the time we head home from our current visit until we catch the bus in the opposite direction, from the airport to the resort on the next visit.
That’s how I handle the anticipation, how do you do it? I almost hesitate to say this but the thought process in already in place for visits after 2011. That’s right 2013, 2015, and 2017 and we are also thinking about trying to squeeze at least one more in there somewhere. As always, enjoy your visit to Walt Disney World!!
Ken
Photo By Disney
New Year will mean new memories for the Chilean miners whose saga transfixed the world, as they are treated to a hero’s welcome and family vacations of a lifetime at Walt Disney World Resort next month.
During their complimentary six-night Disney vacation, Jan. 27-Feb. 2, 2011, the miners, their rescuers and immediate families will meet Disney characters, visit all four Walt Disney World theme parks and serve as honorary Grand Marshals of the Main Street, U.S.A. parade in Magic Kingdom.
Trapped 2,300 feet inside the earth for 69 days in a collapsed Chilean mine, the men were pulled from the darkness in a miracle rescue. In one of the year’s most touching stories, their unbending faith and endurance sustained them throughout the ordeal.
“The amazing story of these miners captured the attention of the world for demonstrating the true power and resilience of the human spirit,” said Disney President and CEO Bob Iger. “We are proud to welcome these courageous men and their families to the Walt Disney World Resort.”
The group will arrive to a welcome dinner with characters, dancing and Chilean cuisine prepared by Disney chefs. During their vacation, they also will be treated to a $500 gift card per family, a group photo in front of Cinderella Castle and personal photo albums of their visit.
I just read this interesting article on the NY Times that talks about how Disney is addressing the thing I fear the most when visiting the Parks…Lines.
Deep in the bowels of Walt Disney World, inside an underground bunker called the Disney Operational Command Center, technicians know that you are standing in line and that you are most likely annoyed about it. Their clandestine mission: to get you to the fun faster.
To handle over 30 million annual visitors — many of them during this busiest time of year for the megaresort — Disney World long ago turned the art of crowd control into a science. But the putative Happiest Place on Earth has decided it must figure out how to quicken the pace even more. A cultural shift toward impatience — fed by video games and smartphones — is demanding it, park managers say. To stay relevant to the entertain-me-right-this-second generation, Disney must evolve.
And so it has spent the last year outfitting an underground, nerve center to address that most low-tech of problems, the wait. Located under Cinderella Castle, the new center uses video cameras, computer programs, digital park maps and other whiz-bang tools to spot gridlock before it forms and deploy countermeasures in real time.
Click here to keep reading.
As I am writing this post, we are within just a few days of our trip to Walt Disney World for New Years, and I honestly think that the next best thing to being at Disney is getting ready to go to Disney. 🙂
Of course it’s all kind of crazy, trying to wrap up all the details that didn’t get taken care of because, well, we had this little Holiday over the past weekend…..but it’s all still good, because it’s a fun crazy!
Now, I have written in the past about how very busy it is at Disney World during the week between Christmas and New Years, as we have gone during this week in the past. But still, despite the crowds and lines, we’re excited and looking forward to ringing in 2011 in the best place I can think of to start a New Year: the place where dreams and hopes live for so many.
Fortunately, we have been blessed to have visited many times, so if we don’t get to see all the attractions or ride all the rides, its ok. Going to Disney World over the holidays is as much about soaking up the atmosphere as it is about “doing things”. So we’ll go with the flow more during this week than we might at other times of the year, since the irony of being there with crowds is the chance to actually vacation more relaxed. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?
We do have some “must-sees” though, so these will be our priorities, and we’ll work everything else around them:
We will also be experiencing a few “new” things that I just booked this morning. It’s a bit of a surprise though, so you’ll have to wait to see what those are, and how we liked them. 🙂
Which brings me to this: want to follow along virtually with us as we celebrate the New Year at Walt Disney World? I will be posting updates to my Facebook page, and providing Chip with some pictures along the way to share with you. So stay tuned!
Wishing you and yours the happiest and most magical New Year ever!!
Nancy, her husband and college-age daughter live in the Baltimore MD area, but consider Walt Disney World their second “home”. She started her site, The Affordable Mouse, as a way to share ideas about how to plan affordable Disney vacations. She will be posting live updates from her family’s upcoming New Year’s Disney vacation on The Affordable Mouse facebook page.
Here is the Chip and Company Disney Week In Review for Christmas week 2010. We have a lot of News as well as the Views of our amazing group of writers. Let’s start with a bit of a peek at what Disney has in store for us next year.
That’s all for this week and all of us at Chip and Company hope that your Christmas holiday was all that you wished for and we wish you the best for 2011. As always, enjoy your visit to Walt Disney World!!
Ken
Here is the complete runDisney 2011 Marathon Schedules for both the Walt Disney World and Disneyland Resorts.
Here is a chance to use some of that Christmas Money! Two new offers from Disney Store start today!
This article comes to us from the Orlando Sentinel.
A Massachusetts tourist was killed Sunday when he walked in front of a bus at Walt Disney World’s Port Orleans resort, the Florida Highway Patrol said.
According to witnesses, Robert Krueger, 69, of Yarmouth Port, Mass., on Cape Cod, was walking alone when he stepped into the path of a Disney bus traveling through the parking lot of the resort about 5:50 p.m., said Sgt. Kim Montes, a Florida Highway Patrol spokeswoman.
The front of the bus struck Krueger and knocked him to the ground, a report says.
He died at Orlando Regional Medical Center, Montes said.
Click here to keep reading.
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Walt Disney Pictures will be releasing a new Romeo and Juliet movie. It is called Gnomeo and Juliet in 3D and I can’t wait to see it because garden gnomes just happen to hold a special place in my heart.
Among my other volunteer jobs, I serve as the Youth Leader of the High School Youth Group at my church. One of the events I plan each year is a “Gnome Kidnapping” and my teens and I all love it. Each Fall, we “kidnap” garden gnomes from neighborhood homes (of church members – pre-arranged, of course) and we take the gnomes on fun adventures. The slogan for the night is “No Gnome Left At Home” and is based on the premise that all Summer long homeowners have traveled on vacations and have completely ignored their lawn friends, not to mention their need for a little excitement as well. Each team takes the gnome on different adventures and they document them on film and video to earn points. Different activities earn different amounts of points and the team with the most points after they return their gnome to his humble dwellings wins.
We all have so much fun with our gnomes, whom we name for our night out on the town. You can bet that the first Wednesday night after Gnomeo and Juliet is released, my youth group and I will be found in the theater enjoying this fun-loving film.
In Gnomeo and Juliet, our star-crossed lovers are said to be getting a comical, off-the-wall makeover. The movie will feature the voices of James McAvoy and Emily Blunt as Gnomeo and Juliet who, just as their quasi namesakes, will have many obstacles to overcome when they get caught up in a feud between neighbors. The trailer looks hilarious but, with all the antics going on, will they possibly find a happy ending? One can only guess.
I know some adults and teenagers who will soon find out. I am really looking forward to this sure-to-be-fun night.
