We set out for Jaleo, the newest restaurant at Disney Springs, which you’ll find on the West Side across from Splitsville and in between House of Blues and Bongos Cuban Cafe. While I spend a lot of time at Disney Springs, I rarely intend to write a review based on any specific experience. Nobody really cares about Disney Springs. But Jaleo is interesting enough that I think it demands your attention. We also spent over a thousand dollars across two visits and more than 40 items purchased, so I’m also trying to recoup $5-$8 of that from the twelve of you that aren’t currently running AdBlock. I suppose that you could say the following is an example of me being selfish.

With so much food to cover, I’ll focus on the atmosphere of the 22,000 square foot restaurant in a subsequent review. But the interior is an interesting juxtaposition of darker, contemporary woods and metals, with the bright red and yellow colors of the Spanish flag. There’s also a large variety of things dangling from here and there. For a moment, I was wondering when I was going to descend into the conversation pit and be served a Brandy Alexander by someone wearing a tomato-hued tweed suit.

Continue reading “Review: Jaleo at Disney Springs”

Now in the midst of spring break, we’ll return to our discussion of wait times and crowd levels at Walt Disney World and how what we’ve seen so far in 2019 compares to the last couple of years.

Larger: Here.

As usual, this is the big chart that we’ll be working with for Magic Kingdom. It shows the average overall posted wait across 17 Magic Kingdom attractions on each day of the year, between January 1st, 2017 and March 15th, 2019. On a given 12-hour day, more than seven thousand wait times are averaged and across this chart, well over six million wait times are recorded and averaged.

Each day is also color-coded based on the price season for a 1-day ticket. For 2017 and 2018, Green indicates a Value day, Yellow is Regular, and Red is Peak. In 2019, a fourth price season was introduced and we have Green as Value, Yellow as Regular, Orange as Peak, and Red as Max. Part of what we’ll be trying to uncover is whether less expensive days see lower crowds and shorter waits or if the cost difference is enough to push people to less expensive days, in turn increasing waits.

The 17 attractions included in the average are:

1. The Barnstormer
2. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
3. Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin
4. Dumbo the Flying Elephant
5. Haunted Mansion
6. it’s a small world
7. Jungle Cruise
8. Mad Tea Party
9. The Magic Carpets of Aladdin
10. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
11. Peter Pan’s Flight
12. Pirates of the Caribbean
13. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
14. Space Mountain
15. Splash Mountain
16. Tomorrowland Speedway
17. Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid

The numbers should offer a representative look at how wait times progressed over the course of a given day with each major ride included, along with an assortment of secondary attractions. Often, wait times at rides like Mad Tea Party and The Magic Carpets of Aladdin are better indicators of how busy Magic Kingdom might be than major attractions like Space Mountain or Seven Dwarfs Mine Train because capacity doesn’t come into play. They are not taking tea cups on or off the track and there is only one spinner to operate. And because Tea Party and Aladdin aren’t at the top of most people’s wish lists, most guests only get in line for those rides when wait times at other attractions are intolerable. I’m much more worried when I see a 50-minute wait at Aladdin than I am when I see a 120-minute wait at Mine Train. The former means it’s time to head out. The latter means it’s probably a Tuesday afternoon during “slow season,” whenever we might be able to identify that might be.

Earlier this year, I published, “A Look Back at 2018 Walt Disney World Wait Times and What It Might Mean for the Future:”

There were a couple of main takeaways from that post that are relevant to today’s discussion.

Continue reading “Walt Disney World Early 2019 Crowd and Wait Time Trends”

Our trip around Magic Kingdom continues as we sample one of everything that’s at least a thousand calories in Fantasyland. So far, we’ve visited Main Street, Liberty Square, Adventureland, and Frontierland.

Disney debuted three new ice cream cones back on the 24th of February, 2019, including “The Lost Princess Cone” at Storybook Treats, which you’ll find to the right of the entrance to The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and basically across the way from Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.Continue reading “Magic Kingdom 2019 Quick Service Update – Fantasyland with New Cones, New Slushes, and Stromboli”

We continue from Arbor.

Taste Track is located just outside of Test Track’s gift shop/ride exit in Future World.

The mouthful that is the Violet Blueberry Vanilla Croissant Doughnut is new for this year’s Flower and Garden Festival. A version of the Berry Tea Mint Julep also moves over here from Berry Basket. There’s also an unadvertised cookie that we’ll try.

Continue reading “Review: Taste Track 2019 Epcot Flower and Garden Festival”

We continue from La Isla Fresca.

Arbor is located inside the Odyssey Building, which Disney is calling the Gardeners Terrace during the 2019 Flower and Garden Festival.

Even if the positive reviews of most of the items offered here don’t sway you into making a serious stop, the Odyssey does provide a shortcut for those that would otherwise have to walk around the outside of the building. What a life.

Continue reading “Arbor Review 2019 Epcot Flower and Garden Festival”