A behind the scenes look at the Muppets Bohemian Rhapsody video that is up for a Webby Award right now. I love the Muppets videos, they are all very funny!
Disney Food Confession – Monte Cristo Sandwhich
Where to find it – Blue Bayou Restaurant, New Orleans Square – Disneyland
What is it – A turkey, ham, and swiss cheese sandwich, lightly battered and fried to a golden brown.
Why you want it – Salty and Sweet and just melts in your mouth.
Photo Credit – Andy Castro via Flickr
Some interesting items wash up in Disneyland River
Very interesting article from Sarah Tully over at the OC Register, I can’t believe a Computer Tower was down there. I have called some of my old tower boat anchors but it seems someone took that literally.
Disneyland last drained its Rivers of America seven years ago, so workers found a lot of accumulated stuff when it drained the green-dyed waterway in January.
But the most unusual item by far was a computer tower, said Dan Chambers, a project manager at Disneyland. Workers are unsure how the plastic box for plugs and discs got in the water path around Tom Sawyer Island.
Here are some of the other items found in the rivers:
* Half of a canoe from Davy Crockett’s Explorer Canoe ride.
* Plastic swords.
* Mardi Gras beads. The items were part of Tiana’s Showboat Jubilee, a show on the Mark Twain Riverboat on the rivers in the fall.
* Hundreds of cellular phones and walkie talkies.
* Hundreds of baby pacifiers.
* Mickey Hats.
* Sunglasses.
Chambers said there was a rumor that a bowling ball was found, but that was false.
Photo credit MARK EADES, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Disney Announces Free Dining for Disney Visa Rewards Cardholders.
Free dining was just announced the morning for Disney Visa cardholders. The details are sketchy right now, but here’s what we know:
- When you call, you have to ask for free dining.
- It’s for travel between 8/14 – 10/2, but you must book by August 14th.
- The plan being offered is the quick service plan. If you want to upgrade to the regular dining plan, It costs about $10 more per day for an adult to upgrade and an additional $2 per day for a child to upgrade.
- Apparently, reservations have been swamped, so be prepared for a long wait when you call Disney Dining (407-WDW-DINE) or call your travel agent.
- When we hear about this offer being available to the general public, we’ll post the news here. There are pretty major rumors coming that Disney will offer this on May 3rd, so watch this space.
Disney Food Trick can Add up to some BIG savings
Summer at the Disney Parks means its going to be getting very hot (if its not already). Having grown up in Florida I know how unbearable it can get in the summer months. You step outside and are instantly smacked in the face by the heat. With all that heat you need to take in extra water. Last time I went to Disney drinks cost me over $2.50. That is crazy!
An average person will need six to eight beverages a day per person to stay hydrated. The cost can get very expensive. Start multiplying the cost of eight beverages times a family a four and you could spend $80.00 a day just on bottled water or pop. Stay for a seven day trip and you easily spend $500.00+ on beverages alone!
What you can do before you goto the Disney Parks is head to Walmart, Target, or any Sporting Goods Store and purchase a reusable water bottle.
For those people like myself who prefer filtered water Amazon has a very nice reusable water bottle with filter. The best thing about the Power Bottle USA is it comes with a free replacement filter in the box. There are tons of filtered water choices to choose from. Or if the water at the Parks doesn’t bother you just get a regular reusable bottle.
Another thing to consider if you don’t like plain water is how now a days everyone from Kelloggs to Gatorade, and even Special K makes flavor packets. Most usually cost around $2 for a box of 10. What little that costs you can stay hydrated with flavor your whole trip and still save an bunch of money. If you get the Disney dining you have some pop or sweet tea at the meal to mix things up.
Combine that with some granola bars or other sweet snacks and you are saving some good $$$.
With all the money you will save on food & beverages, you could use that money to purchase all of your Walt Disney World souvenirs or splurge on some Ice Cream! Mmmm
Toy Story 3 Characters Coming To Toy Story Mania Ride In May
New characters from the soon-to-be-released Disney•Pixar film “Toy Story 3” are being added to the joyful, toy-full adventure of Toy Story Mania! at Disney’s California Adventure and Disney’s Hollywood Studios. In addition to playing with new characters in Toy Story Mania!, there will be opportunities in both parks for up-close fun with another all-new character from “Toy Story 3” – Lots-o’-Huggin’ Bear. He’s the bossman at Sunnyside Daycare in the highly anticipated animated feature film.
Toy Story Mania! – the 4-D interactive ride-game attraction inspired by the Disney•Pixar “Toy Story” films – is extremely popular with Disney Parks guests on both coasts. This high-energy, immersive adventure puts players squarely in the action as their game play triggers surprises that deliver a fourth dimension of fun. Toy Story Mania! engages guests in a whole new way with delightful characters of “Toy Story” and “Toy Story 2.”
Starting in late May, Woody, Buzz, Mr. Potato Head and the gang are joined by a whole new set of characters from “Toy Story 3.” The new game greeting guests, “Rex and Trixie’s Dino Darts,” invites riders to shoot their virtual darts at all-new balloon targets in a primeval world filled with volcanoes and lava balloons, explained Sue Bryan, senior show producer, director, Walt Disney Imagineering.
Game players are welcomed by Rex (the nervous Tyrannosaurus rex) and his new friend Trixie (a blue Triceratops and one of the toy characters from the new film) cheering them on. The new game (it replaces “Bo Peep’s Baaa-loon Pop”) turns up the fun with more hidden surprises and the potential for volcanic levels of excitement. Other changes:
- The “Hamm & Eggs” game will now be hosted by Hamm and Buttercup (a toy unicorn with heart-shaped nostrils).
- In the prize scene, Trixie, Buttercup, Dolly (a doll), Mr. Pricklepants (a lederhosen-clad hedgehog) and one other surprise – all from “Toy Story 3” – will appear with Woody and Jessie.
“Our number-one goal in creating Toy Story Mania! was to come up with game-play challenges appropriate for all guests, from little kids to serious gamers,” Bryan said. “I love that we are keeping things fresh and new by adding these great new friends and fun to join some of the most popular characters of all time.”
Toy Story 3 New Movie Poster & Lots-o-Huggin Bear Commercial
The 2nd of 2 new Pixar’s Toy Story 3 Lots-o-Huggin Bear commercials. If you haven’t seen the first commercial check the related post section below.
Free Dining vs. Room Discounts: Which Is the Better Deal?
Waiting for free dining to be announced in the next few days ? In recent years, mid-August and early fall has been the period when Disney World has offered free dining promotions for resort guests. It’s a great deal, right? Well, it depends on a number of factors, including how many people are in your party, where you normally stay, and whether or not you can get the advanced dining reservations you want. But the biggest factor is how much rooms are discounted.
Let’s take a look at the numbers assuming an average family of four; we’ll call them the Smiths. For Disney’s accounting, Mom, Dad and the oldest child (over 9-years of age) will count as as adults. Let’s say the other child is under 9-years old, so he’ll count as a child. The Smiths are visiting the World for seven days in late September. Here’s how the most recent discounts work out. Keep in mind, we’re predicting discounts and not all will be available. All prices are without taxes except for room rates.
Regular Free Dining: The Smiths can purchase the regular dining plan for $41.99 per day per adult and $11.99 per day per child ages 3-9. Getting this plan for free will save the Smiths $965.72 for the week. This is a great deal.
Quick Service Dining: Priced at $29.99 for adults and $8.99 for children, the Smiths would pay $692.72 for the week.
Disney Kids Play and Eat Free: This gives your children ages 3-9 free lodging, admission into the parks, and free dining. It also means everyone in your party has to get the dining plan, which can be a problem if you don’t normally buy the dining plan. The Smiths only have one child who fits into the “kid” category, so they’ll save $83.93 for free dining and $201 on a seven-day ticket (no park hopper), for a total of $284.93. Obviously, for parents with two or three small children, this is a great good deal. For the Smiths? There are better deals out there.
Room discounts. Room discounts vary. This summer, for example, a deluxe general public discount was only 25%, but in the spring, even during the lucrative spring break season which lasts about two months, we saw discounts up to 40% off deluxes and up to 25% off values. These discounts were even greater for annual pass holders.
Assume for example, that the Smiths normally stay at the Grand Floridian. A standard room goes for $3229 during this time. With a 25% discount, they’ll save around $807, making regular free dining a better deal. The quick service plan is not a better deal. Keep in mind that historical discounts for September have been around 40%, which would save the Smiths $1291 off of rack rate, which illustrates that the deeper the discount that is currently available, the worse free dining is for you.
Standard rooms at moderates and values will only save you a few hundred dollars even with the best discounts, so free dining is almost always your best bet, whether it’s the quick service or regular service plan. This is particularly true if you are travelling with three or more people. Couples will most often do better with a room discount, even a lower one. Do the numbers or have your travel agent check for you.
Summary: Regular free dining saves you money if you’re staying at a value or a moderate, particularly if you have three or more people in your party. Keep in mind this will change depending on how deeply rooms are discounted. The lower the discount, the better free dining is, although at some point the two will reach parity and then it’s just a matter of getting the travel dates you want. There are two other issues you should be aware of: 1) Free dining is never a good deal if you can’t get the advanced dining reservations you want, so make your ADRs when get to the 180-day mark of your trip. You don’t need to add the dining plan until the discount comes out. And 2) Free dining is not a good deal if the dining plan itself doesn’t work for you. If you’re the type of person who doesn’t want to be tied to ADRs or you’re a light eater, it’s probably a better deal to pay for your meals out of pocket and take a room discount if it’s available.
Searching for discounts is part of the fun of planning your vacation. Do the numbers, check out sites like Disboards or Passporter, where you’ll find every permutation of discount dining discussed and dissected by some really knowledgeable people, and frequent Mousesavers. Best of luck!
Disney Store and Make-A-Wish Foundation Join Together to Celebrate World Wish Day
Disney Store and the Make-A-Wish Foundation® today announced a collaboration celebrating the launch of the first-ever World Wish DaySM on April 29, 2010. Commemorating the 30th anniversary of the wish that inspired the creation of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Disney Stores Worldwide will join others across the globe in the largest ever wish-granting day. More than 30 children will enjoy a morning of shopping and a private meeting with the world’s most popular characters, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, at Disney Store locations in Glendale, CA and Milan, Italy. Disney Store Canada will also host a local ‘wish’ family for a magical shopping experience.
“We applaud the great work of the Make-A-Wish Foundation and its 30-year history of granting wishes for these very special children,” said Jim Fielding, president of Disney Stores Worldwide and Make-A-Wish Foundation board member. “Providing children with a magical experience is Disney Store’s mission every day and we are proud to be a place where Make-A-Wish® children and families can have some fun and celebrate life.”
Disney Store is also supporting the Make-A-Wish Foundation with the following:
• A specially designed World Wish Day canvas tote is available in stores and at DisneyStore.com through May 2. Disney Store will donate $3 from the sale of each tote to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
• Disney Store contributed limited edition items to the first World Wish Day online auction conducted by the Make-A-Wish Foundation, with 100 percent of the proceeds benefitting the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Information about the auction, which ends on April 30 is available at www.worldwishday.org/auction
• This summer, Disney Stores opening across the U.S. and Europe will designate a day for 10 percent of the sales to be donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation in addition to Disney Store shopping gift cards to benefit local wishes.
This inaugural global celebration of wish granting marks the 30th anniversary of the first wish ever granted, to a boy named Chris, who wished to be a police officer. The Make-A-Wish Foundation grants the wish of a child with a life-threatening medical condition somewhere in the world every 25 minutes. The Foundation has granted over 240,000 wishes worldwide since 1980. To find a Disney Store, guests can visit www.DisneyStore.com/storelocator or call (866) 902- 2798. Guests may also sign up for email alerts at www.DisneyStore.com/Updates, become a fan on Facebook www.facebook.com/DisneyStore or follow Disney Store on Twitter www.twitter.com/DisneyStore to stay connected to your favorite destination.
About Disney Store North America The Disney Store retail chain is owned and operated in the United States by Disney Store USA, LLC and in Canada by Disney Store Canada Inc. Disney Store is an affiliate of Disney Consumer Products, the business segment that extends the Disney brand to merchandise. Disney Store carries high-quality products, including exclusive product lines that support and promote Disney’s key entertainment initiatives and characters. In 1987, Disney Store opened its first store in Glendale, California and, in doing so, originated the themed retail business model. There are currently more than 200 Disney Store locations in North America, each offering a magical shopping experience that can only be delivered by Disney (NYSE: DIS), one of the world’s largest and most successful entertainment companies.
The Walt Disney Company has a long-standing relationship with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and has granted more than 75,000 wishes to date.
Add sparkle to your Disney World wedding
Hi everyone…today, we’re sharing a way to take your wedding experience straight into the stratosphere with your own private fireworks display. At Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings we sprinkle pixie dust over every wedding to make it a true one of a kind event. A private fireworks display is one of the unique touches that a bride and groom can add to their wedding that is sure to amaze guests and create a memory to last a lifetime. Private fireworks can enhance a ceremony at Disney’s Wedding Pavilion and will add real sparkle to your wedding. As the bride and groom walk across the Wedding Pavilion Bridge to greet their guests, a multicolored fireworks display will paint a backdrop over the Seven Seas Lagoon.
After one of our own planners’ wedding ceremony in November 2006, the sky over the Wedding Pavilion twinkled bright with colorful fireworks. The display was a huge hit for everybody, and it came as a total surprise for all the wedding guests! Adding this magical touch is a way to keep guests talking about your wedding for years to come.
To learn more about Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings or Honeymoons please visit www.disneyweddings.com
One really cool Buzz Lightyear toy just in time for Toy Story 3
At “Time to Play” event in NYC, Disney showed us the Toy Story 3 U Command Buzz doing the tango; he does lots of other stuff too, and he’ll be out in May, $79.99.
U Command Buzz comes with a wireless remote and can perform nearly 1,000 action sequences, including this rather romantic tango as seen below. Fittingly, he also speaks Spanish.
Favorite Disney Foods: Creme Brulee
Crème brulee is the kind of dessert that is pure comfort food that’s right at home in a more sophisticated restaurant. It’s really just pudding that’s been given the grown-up treatment: Cream instead of milk, cooked on the stove then baked in a water bath, and covered with crackly burnt sugar. Despite its rather fancy pedigree, it’s actually quite easy to make, requiring only that you be able to temper the eggs, which is as simple as whisking warmed eggs into hot cream, and use a small torch to burn the sugar. In fact, it started out as dorm food in England, where students would make it on hotplates. Because there are only a handful of ingredients, it’s important to use the best you can find so that the flavor you’re trying to highlight, usually vanilla, stands out in the best possible way.
Baking is my hobby, so I’m pretty particular about desserts. At a lot of restaurants, I don’t even bother ordering dessert because I know they won’t be that good, however I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how good desserts are at Disney table service restaurants. Even at the buffets, I was blown away by the choices; the dessert at Boma would have been at home at a signature restaurant and the choices at Crystal Palace were a terrific surprise after the food portion of our meal, which was good but not especially remarkable.
Because it’s such a popular choice, you’ll find crème brulee on a number of menus at Disney World and despite feeding thousands of people a day, it will more than likely be good crème brulee. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find bad crème brulee anywhere on Disney property; I haven’t yet. I tend to order it quite often, and as a result, have tried it at a number of Disney restaurants. Here are my top three in no particular order:
- The crème brulee at Wolfgang Puck Express in Downtown Disney was a real surprise. WPE is one of my favorite counter service places to eat. I love the sandwiches, pasta and rotisserie chicken. Even the kid’s pizza is good. But the crème brulee was the real surprise. Made with real vanilla beans, it had a nice full flavor and creamy texture that belied the fact that it’s served in what’s essentialy a fast food setting. The real shocker was that it was only $5. Truthfully, it was as good as the crème brulee I’ve had at signature restaurants. WPE is on the dining plan and is one of your best uses of your table service credits, so by all means, make the trip to Downtown Disney and enjoy.
- Narcoossee’s is a great restaurant for a celebration. With a view of Seven Seas Lagoon and the fireworks at the Magic Kingdom, it’s a date night kind of place, but it’s still casual enough that you won’t feel uncomfortable if you’ve just come from one of the parks. Narcoossee’s generally focuses on Florida seafood, so you expect to find some form of Key Lime pie on the menu; after all, it’s practically the state dessert. The problem with Key Lime pie served outside of someone’s home is that it’s usually bad, either too sweet or too tart, and covered with canned whipped cream that tastes like a chemistry experiment. Because of this, I stopped ordering it when I go out to eat, however, I made an exception for the key lime crème brulee at Narcoossee’s and I’m glad I did. It’s really excellent. This dessert is sometimes paired with a coconut creme brulee which is also good, but the Key Lime flavor is the clear winner. The flavor is fresh and clean. It’s not like the pie, exactly, but you’ll catch hints of that familiar key lime flavor. I might even like it better than Key Lime pie.
- Okay, I know I said that these were my favorite three were in no particular order, but if I had to choose a favorite, it would be the Butterscotch Crème Brulee at California Grill, my absolute favorite Disney restaurant. It comes with two small loaves of banana bread. They’re good and look cute on the plate, but they’re more of an afterthought. There’s also a few slices of bananas that have been given the “brulee” treatment and are surprisingly good, warm and then crunchy at the same time. The crème brulee itself is a step above its plain vanilla cousin. It’s got a deep flavor that isn’t overpowering; it’s more just layered and rich, like the butterscotch pudding you remember as a kid, only so much better. Try it and you’ll be converted. It’s not on the menu all the time, unfortunately, but when it is, it’s a favorite.
So how about you? Do you have a favorite creme brulee at Disney World?