Current Walt Disney World Specials-Fall & Winter 2012

As many of you are aware, I not only love visiting WDW, but I am also an independent travel agent specializing in...that's right, WDW!  Walt Disney World has some great specials out for the Fall, Holiday and Winter seasons.  This blog post will list the current specials running through March 2013.  If you're interested in a quote, whether for just a room, room and tickets, or a full package, you can contact me at quote@enchanteddreamvacations.com or click on the link to my website in the right sidebar.  You can also click here to go directly to my "Get a Quote-Disney" page and fill out your information so I can get you a complete quote.

PLAY, STAY AND DINE ... AND SAVE UP TO $600 AT THEWALT DISNEY WORLD RESORT

Now through Dec. 31, 2012, purchase this 5-night, 6-day Walt Disney Travel Company room, ticket and dining plan package at select Walt Disney World® Resort hotels for arrivals most nights Jan. 2 – March 7, 2013, and save up to $600*.

Booking Window:
Oct. 10 – Dec. 31, 2012

Travel Window:
For arrivals most nights Jan. 2 – March 7, 2013

Sample Pricing:
Buy this 5-night, 6-day room, ticket and Disney dining plan package at a select Disney Moderate Resort in a Standard Room for stays most nights Jan. 2 – March 7, 2013, and pay a package price of $2,429 for a family of 4. That's a savings of $633!

Ask about packages in other Resort categories.

*Prices based on 2 Adults, 1 Junior and 1 Child. Savings based on the non-discounted price for the same package. The number of rooms allocated for this offer is limited. Tickets valid for one Theme Park per day and must be used within 14 days of first use. No group rates or other discounts apply. Advance reservations required.

Offer excludes campsites and 3-bedroom villas and is not valid at Disney's Art of Animation Resort – The Little Mermaid Standard Rooms.

Excludes gratuities and alcoholic beverages. Children ages 3-9 must order from children's menu if available. Some Table-Service restaurants may have limited or no availability at time of package purchase.

SAVE UP TO 35% ON ROOMS AT SELECT WALT DISNEY WORLD RESORT HOTELS THIS WINTER

Offer Details:

Disney Value and Moderate Resorts

For stays most nights Jan. 2-17 and Jan. 21 – March 7, 2013:

• Save up to 30% at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort, Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort, Disney's Port Orleans Resort – Riverside and Disney's Fort Wilderness Cabins
• Save up to 25% at Disney's All-Star Sports Resort, Disney's All-Star Music Resort and Disney's Pop Century Resort
• Save up to 15% at Disney's Art of Animation Resort – Family Suites

Disney Deluxe and Deluxe Villa Resorts

For stays most nights Jan. 2-17 and Jan. 21 – March 7, 2013:

• Save up to 35% at Disney's Yacht and Beach Club Resorts, Disney's Beach Club Resort Villas, Disney's BoardWalk Inn & Villas, Disney's Polynesian Resort, Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge (standard view rooms), Disney's Animal Kingdom Villas (Kidani/Jambo rooms), Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa, Disney's Old Key West Resort and Disney's Contemporary Resort (including Bay Lake Towers)
• Save up to 25% at Disney's Wilderness Lodge Resort (including Villas)

Ask about other great rates Jan 18-20, 2013.

Booking Window:

• Book Oct. 10 – Dec. 31, 2012

* The number of rooms allocated for this offer is limited. Length of stay requirements may apply. Savings based on the non-discounted price for the same room. Additional per adult charges apply if more than two adults per room. Excludes 3-bedroom villas and is not valid at Disney's Art of Animation Resort - The Little Mermaid rooms. Advance reservations required. No group rates or other discounts apply.

SAVE UP TO 30% ON ROOMS AT SELECT WALT DISNEY WORLD RESORT HOTELS THIS HOLIDAY SEASON

Offer Details:

Disney Value and Moderate Resorts

For stays most nights Nov. 1-3, Nov. 11-16, Nov. 24 – Dec. 1 and Dec. 10-22, 2012:

• Save up to 25% at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort, Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort and Disney's Port Orleans Resort – Riverside
• Save up to 20% at Disney's All-Star Sports Resort, Disney's All-Star Music Resort and Disney's Pop Century Resort
• Save up to 15% at Disney's Art of Animation Resort – Family Suites

For stays most nights Nov. 4-10 and Dec. 2-9, 2012:

• Save up to 20% at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort, Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort, Disney's Port Orleans Resort – Riverside and Disney's Fort Wilderness Cabins
• Save up to 15% at Disney's All-Star Sports Resort, Disney's All-Star Music Resort and Disney's Pop Century Resort

Disney Deluxe and Deluxe Villa Resorts

For stays most nights Nov. 1-3, Nov. 11-17, Nov. 24 – Dec. 1 and Dec. 10-22, 2012:

• Save up to 30% at Disney's Yacht and Beach Club Resorts, Disney's BoardWalk Inn & Villas, Disney's Polynesian Resort, Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge (standard view rooms), Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge (Kidani/Jambo standard view rooms and 1-bedroom villas), Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa and Disney's Old Key West Resort
• Save up to 20% at Disney's Contemporary Resort (excluding rooms with a view of Magic Kingdom® Park), Disney's Wilderness Lodge Resort and Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge (Kidani/Jambo club level rooms and 2-bedroom villas)

For stays most nights Nov. 4-10, Nov. 18-19 and Dec. 2-9, 2012:

• Save up to 25% at Disney's Yacht and Beach Club Resorts, Disney's BoardWalk Inn & Villas, Disney's Polynesian Resort, Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge (standard view rooms), Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge (Kidani/Jambo standard view rooms and 1-bedroom villas), Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa and Disney's Old Key West Resort
• Save up to 15% at Disney's Contemporary Resort (excluding rooms with a view of Magic Kingdom Park), Disney's Wilderness Lodge Resort and Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge (Kidani/Jambo club level rooms and 2-bedroom villas)

Booking Window:

• Book Sept. 30 – Oct. 31, 2012

* The number of rooms allocated for this offer is limited. Length of stay requirements may apply. Savings based on the non-discounted price for the same room. Additional per adult charges apply if more than two adults per room. Excludes 3-bedroom villas and is not valid at Disney's Art of Animation Resort – The Little Mermaid rooms. Advance reservations required. No group rates or other discounts apply.

Fall Decorations in the Magic Kingdom

Just wanted to put a quick post up of some of the fun Fall decorations along Main Street in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World for those who have not seen them:

Right side of entrance

Left side of entrance

Daytime

Nighttime

The Confectionery

Town Hall

The Emporium

Town Square Theater

A look down Main Street toward the castle-you can see those Mickey pumpkin heads along the street on the posts

Pumpkin Mayor and his wife in Town Square

Pumpkin chef 

Pumpkin ball player

As you leave...not that you'd want to of course!

 The decorations are subtle but add a nice touch all along Main Street.  It's really cool at night when all the Mickey pumpkin heads on the posts are lit up.  They actually go from a pale glow to really bright and then back to the pale glow again, kind of like a slow pulse.

Gotta love the holidays at WDW!

In Depth-Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party

I wrote a blog entry a couple of months ago about Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, giving an overview of this really fun event held at Walt Disney World for several nights in the Fall. Last weekend I was up in WDW and went to the Party on Friday night, so I’ve brought back a more in-depth report along with pictures and video to share.

First off, as you approach the parking toll booth at the Magic Kingdom, you’ll see these great big blow-up Mickey head pumpkins advertising the Party:

As mentioned in the previous post, even though the Party doesn’t officially start until 7pm, they will let you in as early as 4pm with your Party ticket. There are cast members on hand to put a plastic Party wristband on your wrist (the CM who did mine insisted it had to go on the right wrist) so other CMs would know you were there for the party. The wristbands come into play once 7pm rolls around...if you have one on, CMs will continue to let you ride rides and enter areas deeper in the park while guests without the wristbands are directed to the front of the park to the exit. Between 7-8pm as I walked from land to land, there would be lines of CMs checking for wristbands before they would let you continue on.

When you first enter the park, be sure to pick up your trick-or-treat bag from a CM before you go past the train station. Even if you miss them there, bags will be available at the entrances to all of the trick-or-treat stations throughout the park. This year’s bag:

You should also get one of the Party brochures-it has a map showing the locations of all the candy stations, a schedule of events (and their locations if applicable) as well as the locations of Party-specific merchandise for sale.

So let’s start off with the yummy stuff-CANDY! One of the best parts about MNSSHP is that you get to trick-or-treat throughout the Magic Kingdom. There are 11 locations in the park where you can satisfy your sweet tooth. Nine of these are single stations, usually with two CMs passing out candy. The other two are “Trick-or-Treat Trails” where you wander along a pathway and you’ll have three or fours stops along the trail where candy will be passed out. And when I say the CMs are passing out candy, I mean they reach in to the barrel, take out a fistful and plop it in your bag. They’re giving out so much candy, you may wind up taking a second (or even third) bag to fill. Some guests come prepared with their own large bags since they know they’re going to leave loaded down at the end of the night. And you can go through each candy line as many times as you’d like throughout the night. Disney literally has trucks filled with candy waiting to be unloaded throughout the night! Here’s where you can find the sweet stuff...plus a so-so pic of the light thingy they have to mark the entrance to the candy stations:

Next up-Character Dance Parties. There are two dance parties, one in Tomorrowland at the Rockettower Plaza Stage (Stitch’s Club 626) and the other at The Diamond Horseshoe in Liberty Square (Woody’s Happy Harvest Roundup). Here you can dance with the characters and get some fun action pics with them. There are DJs playing music, and the kids look like they’re having a fantastic time. Some of the characters have some pretty choice moves, too.

On to the Villains’ Dance Mix & Mingle where Disney villains perform on stage, then come down to meet the audience and take pictures with guests. They are not out for very long after each show so if you want to meet and get pics, be ready!

One of my two favorite parts of the Party-Mickey’s “Boo-to-You” Halloween Parade. The parade runs at 8:15pm and again at 10:30pm, starting in Frontierland then making its way through Liberty Square, around the circle in front of the castle, then up Main Street.

But right before the parade starts, one of the most anticipated moments of the evening arrives-the Headless Horseman precedes the parade, riding along the parade route to the delight of the guests.  Here's some videos I took...if you don't want to be "spoiled" you may not want to click (on the other hand, the Horseman really is cool!  Oh, and I hope the videos work, this is my first time posting videos...):

Once the parade starts, you’ll get to see the characters dressed up in their Halloween costumes plus floats that place the Disney Villains center stage. The Haunted Mansion characters are prominently featured including a cool routine by the Gravediggers.

The 10:30pm parade is normally less crowded than the 8:15pm parade since many families, especially those with very small children, tend to leave after the fireworks. Even if you’re not a parade person, I still highly recommend the Boo-to-You parade as it’s one of the best ones WDW does during the year. Just don’t blame me if you get the song from it stuck in your head. Really. Oh, and keep your candy bags ready for Goofy’s candy crew at the end!

My other favorite part of the Party is the Happy HalloWishes fireworks spectacular. It starts at 9:30pm and can be seen from just about anywhere in the park. I would recommend a location to the right of the castle near the bridge to Tomorrowland-if you plant yourself right smack in front of the castle, some of the lower fireworks may be blocked by the castle itself. It’s a fantastic show, and many people believe only the July 4th show is better (though I can’t comment on that myself as I’m not crazy enough to brave the crushing July 4th crowds to see it). The finale really is totally amazing!

One thing to note-if you are one of those people who loves getting pictures with the characters, you’ll love all the character greeting opportunities throughout the night. You’ll even see many characters that are not normally seen anywhere else in the parks, or are rarely seen-like all Seven Dwarfs at the same time. And if you want that coveted pic with all seven of them, get there early (they meet just outside of Splash Mountain) and be prepared to wait--seriously, an hour wait is not out of the question. But you’ll probably never get all seven of them at once at any other time. Another really cool character meet are some of the lady ghosts from the Haunted Mansion. They come out and sit on a bench on the lawn of the Mansion-just behind where the haunted carriage is parked-and converse with guests. They are hilarious so make some time to go check them out.

And of course, one of the great perks of the Party is shorter ride lines. Since this is a separately priced event and ticket availability is limited since they cap the number of available tickets, the lines are much shorter-like 5 minutes for Space Mountain, Winnie the Pooh and Splash Mountain (even though the night I went was hot and muggy!). The longest line I saw all night-and on a Friday night, one of the busier Party nights-was Peter Pan at 20 minutes...which for Peter Pan is actually a pretty decent wait time since it routinely sees 45-60 minute waits during regular park hours, even at slower times of the year.

Some tips for the Party:
-Don’t be in a rush for the candy lines. Early in the evening, the lines will be very long. While they generally move along at a steady pace, the later in the evening you go through the lines, the shorter they will be. Lines for the candy trails move faster than the single stops.
-Arrive early. Remember, they start letting Party guests in at 4pm. Make sure you use your party ticket to enter, not your regular ticket so you don’t waste a day on your park ticket.
-Stay late. The Party ends at midnight, and the later you are there, the fewer guests that are there resulting in even shorter lines for rides, candy and character meets.
-If you do stay until the park closes, don’t head out immediately to the monorail or ferry...they will be jam-packed and stay that way until just after 1am. I sat on a bench out in front of the park and just people-watched until the line at the monorail was almost gone, then took the last monorail of the night back to the Transportation and Ticket Center. It gave me a chance to rest up without being shoulder-to-shoulder with thousands of other people on a very warm and humid Florida night, then I leisurely made my way back to my car.
-If you don’t want to stay until the park closes (or are just too tired to make it that long), leave before the second parade ends. Once that parade is done, a flood of people leave making the monorail, ferry and bus lines just plain crazy.
-Dress up! It’s a Halloween celebration after all...you’ll see lots of guests of all ages in costume, you might as well join in the fun!

I do highly recommend Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. If you are going to be at WDW in September or October, it’s a great separate event to add to your trip and one you won’t soon forget.

Happy Halloween!

Have you been to MNSSHP or would you like to go? If you’ve been, what’s your favorite part, or what’s your favorite tip?