R.A. Pedersen's Blog, page 17

New Fantasyland Storybook Circus Soft Opening Photos and Videos

As you've probably heard, Storybook Circus in New Fantasyland at the Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom park soft-opened to the public yesterday. We hopped in our research-mobile and set off to the park to get some photos and video for you to enjoy.

We ended up with a heck of a lot of photos. There's a full gallery we'll include at the end of this post. For starters though – Dumbo! As part of the Fantasyland expansion the Dumbo ride was moved. It is no longer in the middle of Fantasyland and...

Storybook Circus Soft Opens Today

Storybook Circus at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom has soft opened as of this morning to the public. We don't know the extent of what is/isn't open at the moment, but we'll keep you updated. Remember, with a soft opening anything can be closed or unavailable at any time.

Storybook Circus is part of an expansion overhaul at the Magic Kingdom to build "New Fantasyland." The section include two Dumbo the Flying Elephant spinners, the re-themed Barnstormer junior roller coaster, and a the...

Video Preview of Disney Royal Guest Rooms at Port Orleans Riverside Resort

Disney is rolling out a second offering in their "Disney Story Rooms" offerings at the Port Orleans Riverside resort in early March. The new Royal Rooms join the ever-popular Pirate Rooms, the first of "Disney Story Rooms" that debuted at Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort in 2009.  Those 384 themed rooms offer pirate ship beds, buccaneer accessories and swashbuckling décor.

As for the new Royal Rooms, the 512 re-themed rooms offer ornate beds trimmed with dazzling crystals and gold accents, and ...

From Around the Interwebz

The truth is, we're all over the internet. We visit other sites and we even occasionally guest blog. Also, there's a lot of talented people out there who write great stuff and seemingly never get enough attention for the hard work they do. So, in what we hope will be a weekly round-up of sorts, we present a collection of awesome stuff we've come across From Around the Interwebz! First off, a few of our own side projects…

A fancy-pants review of Epcot's own Bistro de Paris over at

SNL does The Real Housewives of Disney

So we're not typically Saturday Night Live fans, but they do great parodies of Disney and Disney experiences. With the hullabaloo over the forthcoming Fantasyland Forest giving several princess new homes in the Magic Kingdom.. and Disney's absolutely bent on social media lately.. we can't help but feel this The Real Housewives of Disney is rather timely. Really, would Ariel be a good neighbor to Belle?

Fair warning, it's a little racy, but hilarious:

 

Our First Look Behind the Scenes at Carsland and Buena Vista Street Opening June 15th

We'll preface this article by saying it is grouped under our satellite operations – as we're once again stepping outside the bounds of the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow – but Disney has announced that Disney's California Adventure will debut Carsland and Buena Vista Street on June 15, 2012.

Along with that announcement, they've rolled out a bunch of fun media to promote the "Grand Re-Opening" of the park set to happen on that day. We're looking into airfare to be there to cover ...

Walt Disney World Road Construction at Hollywood Studios and Victory Way

Buena Vista Drive between the Disney's Hollywood Studios entrance and Victory Way is being reconfigured and getting turning lanes added between now and June. The paperwork for this project was filed back in October 2011, but Disney was only recently granted final permission for the project. Visible construction on the site began last week. Per the paperwork, the construction project will entail:

RCID is proposing to construct the following improvements to Buena Vista Drive (BVD) and Victory...

Quick Look at Tutto Italia and Gusto Wine Bar Expansion

There's not much to really say – the long desired second restaurant in the Italy pavilion opened last year after Disney went out of their way to find a new sponsor for the dining at the pavilion. Via Napoli was finally born. With that, a guarantee to renovate and expand the original restaurant was included in the agreement. If you want to read about the more than decade long battle and politics of expanding Italy's dining at Epcot, you can pick up a copy of The Epcot Explorer's Encyclopedia.

B...

Seas with Nemo Gets Serious – Walls Everywhere

If you've been following our past updates then you know there have been refurbishment walls at the entrance of the Seas with Nemo and Friends pavilion at Epcot for a while. That work appeared to be adding some sort of secondary entrance to the building by cutting a hole into the wall covered with the big curved mural and fish icons.You can find our update on the first walls and FASTPASS addition rumors here.

Well, a few weeks later the interior queue got some black drops thrown up and a bit...

Reminder: FASTPASS Return Time Enforcement Begins March 7th

A friendly reminder: the Walt Disney World resort will begin enforcing return time windows at all FASTPASS attractions on March 7, 2012. Previously guests were allowed to show up after their stated return window as long as the pass was from the same day. This was considered a courtesy extended to guests in the event of delays, ride breakdowns, etc..However, with the expansion of the FASTPASS system and "NextGen" upgrades coming in the future (likely October), Disney feels the need to tighten ...