MickeyBlog News for April 24th, 2023
During the past week, tons happened at Walt Disney World, while Disneyland claimed its own set of highlights.
We’ll tell you about all of it in MickeyBlog News!
Annual Pass Sales Return at Walt Disney World
On Thursday, April 20th, Walt Disney World restored annual pass sales after nearly 18 months.
As you might imagine, demand skyrocketed the instant Disney opened online sales for the annual passes.
On April 13th, Disney Vacation Club members possessed an exclusive window to buy one option, the Disney Sorcerer Pass.
While my family’s attempt to purchase didn’t go smoothly, it was a walk in the park compared to what happened on the morning of April 20th.
The system struggled to handle all the incoming requests, causing long delays.
Some individuals even reported that they looped back to the start and thereby lost their place in line.
However, to Disney’s credit, the company has improved in how it addresses overwhelming demand.
At the close of business on Thursday, Disney paused annual pass sales overnight. Guests didn’t lose their place in line, though.
As long as they stayed connected, they were at the front of the wait queue the following morning.
So, many Walt Disney World fanatics ended their annual pass stories with a Happily Ever After. They’ve got their annual passes again!!!
The timing is ideal as well. Disney just updated annual passholder benefits. Among the new perks is a change to Park Hopping.
Annual passholders no longer need a Park Pass to enter a Disney theme park after 2 p.m. That reason alone may entice you to purchase an annual pass.
Speaking of which, as I type this, all four tiers of annual passes remain available.
Disney officials have warned that any of them could sell out at any time, though. Act quickly, my friends!
PS: If you purchase an annual pass and want to upgrade it, you can now do so online!
We Are Halfway to Halloween!
Okay, we officially won’t reach the halfway date for another week, but Disney is ready to celebrate now!
Disney parks have turned the Halloween holiday into an entire cottage industry, and 2023 will be no different!
In fact, Hong Kong Disneyland will join the festivities this year as well! And so will Shanghai Disneyland!
On American soil, the biggest news is the arrival at the Hatbox Ghost at Walt Disney World. This dapper dead man loves to display his magic trick.
@disneyparks The legendary Hatbox Ghost will be materializing this year at Walt Disney World 👻✨ #Disney #DisneyParks #HalfwaytoHalloween #Halloween #HauntedMansion #HatboxGhost
Disney still hasn’t announced the arrival date yet for the Hatbox Ghost, but it will clearly occur before Halloween.
Also, Magic Kingdom revealed the dates and pricing for this year’s Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party (MNSSHP).
Tickets remain in line with last year’s costs, although you’ll pay slightly more on some dates.
The one surprise involves the final date. For the first time in a while, MNSSHP will host one night in November.
So, this year’s event ends on November 1st rather than Halloween night. This hints at Christmas decorations not starting until November 2nd this year.
We’ll find out for sure on November 1st, though! That’s always an exciting day for MickeyBlog, as our staff blankets the parks and resorts to cover the new decorations.
Disney has already revealed some of the decorations for the event, and you’ll find a Haunted Mansion Lens available right now as part of Halfway to Halloween.
Alas, today (April 23rd) is the final day to enjoy them, though. Act quickly, my friends! The Medusa one is really good.
At Disneyland, the Oogie Boogie Bash will return this year as well…and that’s not all!
Mickey and Minnie Mouse are getting new Halloween outfits that look spookier than ever!
Big Fun at Throwback Nite and Animal Kingdom’s Birthday Party
Disney threw a couple of parties this week, and MickeyBlog was fortunate enough to attend both.
On Earth Day 2023, Disney’s Animal Kingdom celebrated its 25th anniversary. We posted several pictures and videos from the event.
Disney also hosted some rare character greetings during the event. Here’s our encounter with Jiminy Cricket.
However, one of these meet-and-greets is permanent! Yes, Moana now holds court at Animal Kingdom!
As you can tell from the video, Disney cast the role perfectly. This person is so good that you’d swear Moana stepped straight out of the animated story!
Our MickeyBloggers had a hectic week, as they spent the first half on the West Coast.
Disneyland hosted the first Throwback Nite this year. We weren’t about to miss that!
Several unique amenities operate during the after-hours ticketed event. Here’s a look at some of the available photo ops.
A few rare characters met guests during the event as well. Here’s our interaction with Dumbo!!! This is a big deal, especially when Dumbo dances!
Don’t mind us, just still thinking about how we got to meet Dumbo last night at Disneyland’s throwback nite!🥹🐘✨ pic.twitter.com/UcYYz0MyIz
— MickeyBlog.com (@MickeyBlog_) April 19, 2023
Of course, our favorite elephant was just one of many characters who appeared. And we loved the classic merchandise available, too.
Disney even brought back the original fireworks presentation for Throwback Nite!
By the way, Animal Kingdom wasn’t the only park celebrating a birthday. Tokyo Disneyland Resort just turned 40!
Other Park News
The other vital story this week involves Disney’s Fort Wilderness Lodge.
Management has announced that Disney will rebuild 400 existing Cabins to turn them into Disney Vacation Club Cabins.
What’s the difference? Let’s use 2022 as an example. You may recall that Disney converted the former Big Pine Key into Resort Studios at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa.
For hotel guests, the changes didn’t impact anything, as everyone can book these rooms. However, the rooms got a lot nicer and offered a subtle Mary Poppins theme.
At Fort Wilderness, Disney will take the existing groundwork at the Cabins and modernize them into eco-friendly luxury Cabins.
These areas will sleep six and possess full kitchens.
So, small RV users can still load up the family and head to Disney, where they can sleep comfortably in a Cabin rather than in their vehicle.
The new Cabins will be much more luxurious now, as they’ll be classified in the Deluxe resort category now.
Also, some of these new Cabins will be pet-friendly! Animal lovers always appreciate when Walt Disney World offers another hotel with that amenity!
Speaking of Fort Wilderness, the former Trail’s End Restaurant has closed permanently. Disney is replacing it with…Trail’s End Restaurant.
At least, that’s the thought process now. The same thing happened with Pizza Planet a few years ago, and we call that place PizzeRizzo these days.
All Disney has confirmed is that Trail’s End is renovating and will change from a Table Service into a Quick Service restaurant.
Even More Park News
I’ll spare you prolonged details regarding the drama at Reedy Creek this week. Here are the links that will bring you up to speed on the whole thing.
The gist is that Florida’s government intended to attack Disney for failing to publish two notices for its final meeting/rules changes.
On Monday morning, two hours before the governor spoke, Scott Gustin posted that very notice from January 15th:
I will just leave this here. Here are the RCID meeting notes from January 25 when the developer’s agreement was first discussed – and the date of the second hearing (Feb 8.) was also discussed. pic.twitter.com/XyUiKZT0vu
— Scott Gustin (@ScottGustin) April 17, 2023
So, Florida will change its own laws to make their legal position more defensible:
The amendment seemingly wants to change the law after the fact?
"…executed within 3 months preceding the effective date of a law modifying the manner of selecting members of the governing body of the independent special district…" pic.twitter.com/lrsg47bc2E
— Scott Gustin (@ScottGustin) April 18, 2023
This latest season of As Disney World Turns has gone off the rails and needs to fire its writers.
Perhaps the funniest Disney story of the work – if you weren’t there – was a technical glitch that caused a bottleneck at the front gate.
A system outage prevented Disney from allowing guests to enter the park. It…wasn’t pretty.
Thankfully, Disneyland operated without incident the following day. And speaking of that park, security officials there just received a healthy raise!
Also, this happened during a Fantasmic! performance on Saturday night:
The Maleficent dragon caught fire during the second showing of Fantasmic! at Disneyland Park on Saturday night.
It happened when Mickey shoots sparks at the giant dragon’s head. The Anaheim Fire Department responded to the scene.
— Scott Gustin (@ScottGustin) April 23, 2023
Finally, the DVC member lounge is now open at Disneyland Park’s Tomorrowland. Here it is:
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