shoreline99

FPTCDMDTRBR!

Thanks, TCD. I agree with you about Dapper Day, but I do get it. I think the get-together at Disney Springs in the evening was more of a draw than a day in the hot parks, personally. I felt bad for some of those people in the 95 degree heat and humidity in their elaborate outfits and multiple layers, but it can't be much better in Southern California. Most of them were looking for shade and air conditioning - especially the ones that had kids with them that were also dressed up. It seemed that many people were getting their photos taken at certain locations then leaving. I'm sure the

Those usually get jacked up pretty quickly. I've always wanted one, though.

I certainly would have complained, because you can't assume that someone else will have called, and the more complaints they get the more management will realize there is an issue. Just because it's Disney doesn't exempt them from common decency. The will more than likely just throw comp nights at you anyway, because that's how they seem to handle things rather than address the issue and risk a confrontation that ends up on youtube, like the guy with the meth lab comments a few years back.

OK, I'm going to try to wrap up this trip report in one long(ish) post. Thanks again for tuning in and following along. Today was Saturday, and the last day of our trip. And a long one. We awoke relatively early, and had to get packed up for check out by 11. Having the club level service was great that day, as we were able to grab breakfast and coffee to eat while we packed. Morning, Magic Kingdom It was already hot, which didn't bode well for our plans, which were to hit the Magic Kingdom that morning to do a little people watching for Dapper Day. Our flight home wasn

Bonus update today to finish up our Friday evening at Disney Springs, and our last night at WDW. Our tour wrapped up at the very end of the West Side, and I was meeting my lovely bride at Raglan Road for some pre-dinner drinks and people watching. I hoofed it back over to the Landing, and was able to get some refreshments prior to her arrival. Slainte. We have been to Raglan Road several times, and have already tried the Hangar bar, so we headed up to the Boathouse - I had heard that the dockside bar there has some great views and atmosphere. An Amphi-car was just arri

Thanks, I think overall they did a nice job of tying it all together, and over time the new back story gives them some flexibility in developing new areas or adding to the existing ones. As I mentioned before, they do need to address the wayfinding in the Town Center area, particularly where you arrive in from the Lime garage or the bus drop off area. That's one thing that was planned for early in developing Celebration. If I recall correctly, there are seven houses of worship in Celebration, covering most of the major faiths. From what we were told, they are all pretty active parishes

After drinks and snacks, we strolled down towards Jock Lindsay's and the Landing area. "A few years ago, Disney shut down the Pleasure Island nightclubs and bulldozed them. The re-imagined area is now known as The Landing. Located next to the Town Center, Hoffman says that according to the storyline, it serves as the community's transportation hub and has more of an industrial feel. An old billboard advertises the passenger train that used to stop in the town. There are some stray rails still embedded in the pathways. The former train station now serves as an upscale chophouse, STK

Bonus post for today, to make up for my slacking. We spent some time walking around the Spring, and checking out some of the restaurants in the area, both old favorites (Raglan Road) and new (Hangar Bar, there in the distance). However, this side of the springs is dominated by the old 'Disney Springs bottling plant', which is now converted into the Morimoto Asia restaurant. It was really hot. And humid. And hot. It was April, not August. Next thing we know, we are brought into the restaurant, which is absolutely stunning. Up the stairs, to the second floor.

Thanks, I took a lot of photos! You all will pay the price for that. Proper 'placemaking' is a common problem, and not an easy one to solve. Things are relatively easy to read on a plan, or a map, but translate that to three dimensions and it can be difficult to see where you are and how to get somewhere without landmarks. Think large college campuses or even a place like Celebration. In certain areas of DS it's fairly easy to figure out where you are going, but in others it's very confusing. The Imagineers have tried to install low scale visual clues - roadway materials, the lighted

Sorry, it's been a busy week! The walking tour of Celebration took up most of the morning, and I was headed back to the OCCC for a class and some lunch, and a walk around the expo floor. If you've never been to the Orange County Convention Center, it is certainly one of the largest I've ever been to! After lunch I was headed back to WDW for a walking tour of Disney Springs with several of the Imagineers that were directly responsible for the redevelopment of Downtown Disney into this new iteration. We started off by the old bus drop off area, and the temperature was already well

Agreed. It's also an industry rule of thumb that most people don't shop where they live, and will actually drive fair distances to purchase items. Plus, you know, the internet. Well, I never argue with a Sicilian when death is on the line either. CVS/Walgreens/Rite Aid/etc are the new five and dimes. What I don't understand is the logic of placing them on opposing corners or across the street from one another. I could talk all day about the pros and cons of new urbanism, but I need to get this trip report moving. We can revisit it later as I'm certainly interested to conti

Yeah, this seems to be the current mix in Celebration, and it looks to have leveled off - I didn't see much vacant space.

That is one of the issues with the retail there, to address both of your points. It's a small community - restaurants do well, so do the stores that cater to tourists - but most residents shop at the larger retail areas outside Celebration. I would assume that it's hard to attract and retain chains that would lose money in that location. Also, Celebration prohibits short term rentals, which would really increase traffic to the area if it were allowed. We heard a lot of stories and anecdotes about both the good and the bad of living there and the challenges of the community. Than

I had the pleasure of meeting Andres Duany and his wife/partner Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk back in like 1991 and toured their offices in Miami. The NU school of thought was all the rage then and they were crazy busy. Very smart people and great planners. It has been interesting to see which of their concepts have lasted and have become mainstreamed, and which have not worked out and have fallen by the wayside.

Yeah, it was the AIA convention. I could have written five posts just on all the info we got from the tours. Celebration is a great example of the New Urbanist style, but like I said it's about the location. Seaside has the sea, Celebration has Disney, but only sort of. Its also going through a lot of growing pains right now, there are lots of gaps and overlaps in authority and oversight, who is responsible for what, etc.. For example, there is an ongoing dispute with the OC fire department on apparatus access and the narrow streets of Celebration (which is one of the tenets of New

The alarm Friday morning came way too early, and I was going to have to schlep in to the OCCC again. I grabbed some coffee at the lounge (we were up and out before breakfast was served), and thankfully they had to go cups. Lots of activity in the smokehouse this morning. One thing I learned on this trip early on was that the garbage man arrives at 4:30 AM, so you may not want to leave your window or door open all night. A grey day over the MK, but that would burn off soon enough. Sunrise over old faithful: The ride in to the convention center was quick a

A short update just to finish up our day at EPCOT. Thanks again for following along! After making a few stops to pick up some gifts for family in a few of the pavilions, we decided to grab a bite in a place in the one pavilion that we had never eaten before - Italy. I know there are people here that love Via Napoli, but that wasn't where we were heading. We had heard good things about Tutto Italia, and especially the wine cellar, so we stopped there to see if there was a table available. There was, and the a/c was certainly welcome in the heat. The Tutto Gusto Wine Cellar is a l

Thanks, TCD! I remember that the TCD crew got the club level upgrade at the Grand Californian, but I thought you got the whole package - didn't you run into Beau Bridges in the lounge there? Either way, that's a beautiful hotel as well - it was designed by the same architectural firm that did the Wilderness Lodge (and villas). The bikes were a great amenity, and there were actually quite a few people taking advantage of the bike rental at WL even on a hot day. We still had to fill out a rental slip and liability waiver, but there was no charge. No separate KTTW cards - magic ban

Thursday we didn't have any formal plans, but I had to do some work in the morning and we hung out at the hotel for a bit. It was supposed to be another hot one so we figured we would go out and explore early, then see where we ended up for the day. Good morning, Magic Kingdom! I think we'll have to stop back later and check out the selections: Those were pretty typical for the week - different light fare, wine and cheese. A really nice perk. That's the club level lounge up by the top of the Totem pole: It wasn't too hot yet, so we decided to rent bikes and h

OMG I forgot about tunnel juice. Yes, it was mentioned when we were discussing that some guy actually has to go through every foot of that pipe once a year. There are access panels every 25-30' or so, and you can see that there are leaks here and there. Yech. We pretty much saw everything down there, which I really hadn't expected from hearing about the KTTK tour from others, so that was cool. We probably spent a good hour+ walking around down there. The Mouseketeria was doing a booming business, and I forgot to mention there is even a computer 'lab' down there, looked like a spot where p

Yes - it was new to me as well. We only had one fastpass booked in the morning, at Soarin'. After we rode that, I figured we would have to book the rest of our fastpasses in EPCOT, however the system let me book the next one in HS for R&RC. Only one at a time, though. I guess I could have booked two there, but I didn't try. Once we rode that, I was able to book one at AK, etc. So i guess you can do it, if you are willing to take a chance on FP+ availability.

Thanks! It really is beautiful, and we totally lucked out with the room and upgrade. My wife thinks I should change the name of the trip report, lol. Yes, it was a great opportunity. One I will probably never have again! The imagineers said people would wait in line for an hour and then get mad when they realized it was just transportation and not some kind of boat ride. It takes all kinds, I guess. I'm an architect, so these tours and the others I took were right up my alley. Plus I got continuing ed credit for them as well

TPC hit the nail on the head, it's supposed to be an eco-tour operated by an Earth organization.