Timeshares are vacation properties purchased by a group of owners who split the cost of the property and its annual fees and who are eligible to visit the property every year during the block of time that they have purchased. Timeshares are not without controversy, and many people believe that the overpriced properties touted by high pressure salespeople are a waste of money – they are more expensive and less flexible than hotels, are hard to get rid of, and depreciate in value faster than cars.
But for the people who love vacationing in the same place every year and who are comfortable with long term joint-ownership of a property, timeshares shouldn’t be discounted. As always, Disney has an answer for everything, and their answer to timeshares is the Disney Vacation Club.
One of the villas at the Old Key West Resort, photograph by Samantha McElhaney
The Disney Vacation Club is a vacation timeshare division owned by The Walt Disney Company which operates an annual Vacation Points system that members can use towards yearly vacations at the Disney Vacation Club Resorts or one of more than 500 other member destinations worldwide. There are eleven Vacation Club resorts located in Anaheim, California; Lake Buena Vista and Vero Beach, Florida; Hilton Head Island, South Carolina; and the brand-new Aulani Disney Vacation Club Villas in Ko Olina, Hawaii.
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On Friday, May 20th after eight months of renovations, Hollywood Studios reopened Star Tours, the Star Wars-inspired motion simulator ride, just in time for the first of many Star Wars Weekends which attract thousands of fans to the Disney parks on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays every May and June.
Star Tours: The Adventures Continue and its sister ride in Disneyland which reopens in June have been revamped with a new flight path, new characters, state-of-the-art 3-D effects, and even a new line queue. Each ride experience will be a little different as the simulator flies through one of 54 different scene combinations, including a pod race on Tatooine and a visit to Padmé Amidala’s home planet, Naboo.
Sign for Star Tours: The Adventures Continue, photograph by Samantha McElhaney
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On June 3rd, 2011, more than 20 years after The Little Mermaid splashed into theaters, Disney’s California Adventures theme park will finally launch an attraction starring everyone’s favorite mermaid, Ariel.
Ariel’s Undersea Adventure is a five-and-a-half minute ride-through attraction that takes guest on a journey through scenes from the beloved movie, with a soundtrack that includes some of the film’s most popular songs – “Part of Your World,” “Under the Sea,” “Kiss the Girl,” and “Poor Unfortunate Souls.”
Concept art for Ariel's Undersea Adventure at Disney's California Adventures park, copyright Disney
Disney Fans Insider recently published an article with fascinating behind-the-scenes details about the new attraction. The article highlights the technical advances in digital 3D design programs that allowed the Disney Imagineers to fully realize the 183 characters featured in the ride, from animating Ariel’s hair and designing “skin suits” to creating the sea witch Ursula, one of the most advanced Audio-Animatronic figures ever built.
Read More: http://www.disney-blog.com/?p=862
I have been to Walt Disney World five times in 25 years, from my first visit at age four to my Disney honeymoon last fall. Five visits isn’t much to brag about, and that number is easily eclipsed – yearly – by Florida locals with season passes and Disney fanatics with frequent flier miles. I’ve been to all four resort parks, but there’s still a lot of Disney World that I’ve never experienced, including Epcot’s International Flower & Garden/Food & Wine Festivals, the Disney marathon, and the spectacular holiday lights.
A view of Cinderella's Castle at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, photograph by Valerie Champagne
Although I occasionally suffer Disney withdrawal symptoms, I’m happy with the infrequency of my park visits. Other than saving $$, the greatest advantage to visiting the parks every few years is that the magic never gets old (even when you do!), and there’s always something new to see.
I don’t remember much about my first visit to Disney World, other than watching my two-year-old brother transform into a hitchhiking ghost at the end of the Haunted Mansion ride. There were four of us squeezed into the Doom Buggies: my parents on the ends and my brother and I in the center where the ghosts are projected. The Haunted Mansion was my first Disney memory and it’s still one of my absolute favorite Disney attractions that only gets better with age.
Read More: http://www.disney-blog.com/?p=840
Friday, April 22nd marks the 41st anniversary of Earth Day, a yearly tribute to the preservation of Earth’s natural environment and celebrated by more than 500 million people in 175 countries worldwide.
In Theaters
Since 2009, Disneynature, an independent division of the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, has released a nature documentary on Earth Day in U.S. theaters, beginning with Earth in 2009, a film which chronicles the migrational journeys of polar bears, African bush elephants and humpback whales, and followed by 2010’s Oceans, an exploration of the mysteries and dangers of the deep.
Every year, Disney pledges environmental contributions that are contingent on the success of the films. Past pledges were to protect 35,000 acres of coral reef in the Bahamas based on Ocean‘s opening week ticket sales and to plant 2.7 million trees after 2.7 million people saw Earth in its opening week.
Excerpt from Disneynature's film poster for African Cats, copyright Disney
This year’s film, African Cats, which opens today, tells the true story of a family of cheetahs and a family of lions as they struggle to survive in the wild African savanna, with narration by Samuel L. Jackson.
Read More: http://www.disney-blog.com/?p=701
