Mouse Extra

Many Disney World critics have been bashing the Nine Dragons restaurant at the China Pavilion in Epcot for decades.  It is one of the few, if not the only, of the World Showcase eateries that seem to be disliked by the majority of guests and Disney World fanatics.  I share this opinion of Nine Dragons.   You can read the review here, so that’s why a smile came to my face when I read this bit of news from touringplans.com.

The renovation of the Nine Dragons restaurant in Epcot’s China pavilion will occur January 6 - July 31, 2008. The restaurant will take on a new style of dining experience which involves the act of cooking presented on stage, sort of like a show.

This truly is great news.  A six month renovation is exciting enough, but I just assumed it was for aesthetic purposes.  But now we here the entire experience is going to change.  Perhaps someone in Disney management finally wondered why the Nine Dragons was usually the only restaurant you can get into as a walk-up.  China’s pavilion deserves of better representation of its cuisine and hopefully this will accomplish. 

I think it must be said again that Disney deserves credit for the amount of time and money they have been putting into Epcot’s upkeep over recent years.  Besides the many new attractions and updates to the classics, this is not the first restaurant to get some care and feeding over the last couple of years.  While some online critics are going around taking pictures of bird-droppings, I think some time also needs to be spent giving credit for these efforts.

We urge you to discuss this more and leave your comment below, or feel free to come over to the Disney News Network Forums where we discuss this and many other topics in the Mouse Extra Forums.

As Epcot’s 25th Anniversary approaches only a few weeks away, many people have planned “unofficial” events at the park to commemorate the milestone.  Most of these events are occurring thanks to Disney’s initial plan to not celebrate the park’s birthday.  Now that they have thankfully changed their minds on this, there certainly is no reason not to keep the party on. 

One such even is sponsored by the Magical Definition Podcast and they are calling it “The Epcot Thing”.  Catchy, don’t you think?  Events like this are a great way to meet other Disney addicted fanatics and meet some of the people you may read or listen to.  This event features Nathan Rose of the nonw extinct Mousetunes, Magical Mountain and the Magical Definition Podcast, Tim Devine also of the podcast and of the Magic in Pixels, Jim Hill and hidden Mickey extraordinaire Steve Barrett. 

One of the highlights will be Nathan drinking 25 cups of the Italian soda Beverly.  The drink is absolutely awful, so why self-torture should be part of celebrating a theme park’s anniversary is beyond me.  But still, there is something entertaining in the idea.  I won’t be attending, because I will be in the parks a couple of weeks later, so please let me know how it goes. 

If watching someone forcing down bad soda isn’t your cup of tea don’t worry.  There is a whole lot more happening.  Check out the website and enjoy.  If you are in the area stop by and see them.

What will FastPass look like five or maybe ten years from now?  That’s a debate we Disney fanatics have been discussing for quite some time now.  This morning, Jim Hill adds some more fuel to this fire by reporting on new patent paperwork filed by Disney regarding a new FastPass system.

Do you want to be sure that you can score some FASTPASSES for your favorite Disney theme park attractions the next time you visit Anaheim or Orlando? Well, if that’s really the case, then you’d best make reservations now for one of Disney’s high end hotels.

Mr. Hill goes into further depth discussing how this new system benefits those spending more money on hotels and also into linking the system to a guest’s mobile phone.  The conclusion is that those who stay on property will get more FastPass access then day-trippers or those who stay off property.  And those who stay in a deluxe resort will do better than those who stay at a value or moderate, and so on.  You get the point.

For month’s I have been discussing this topic and warning Disney fans that something like this was coming soon.  When FastPass was first implemented the point was not to make sure guests could avoid lines and see more attractions in a day.  That was a nice consequence, but the point was to get guests off lines and into shops and restaurants and use their new found free time by spending more of their money.  From everything I have been told, this has not been accomplished to any measurable degree.  Therefore, the profitability of the system has come into question and Disney is searching for ways to make the bean counters happier with FastPass.

Using it as an incentive to get guests to stay on property and maybe to even stay at a more expensive resort makes sense from the profit point of view.  I understand the arguments both for and against this concept.  Yes, taking FastPass away from the average guest, especially the locals, is not going to go over well and may not be fair.  However, I don’t see anything wrong with rewarding those who stay in the “bubble” either.  Regardless of my opinion on this, I expect this will be a reality in some version similar to this idea.

We urge you to discuss this more and leave your comment below, or feel free to come over to the Disney News Network Forums where we discuss this and many other topics in the Mouse Extra Forums.

A very persistent rumor I am hearing now is that the Christmas version of the Country Bear Jamboree will be returning to the Magic Kingdom this holiday season after last year’s hiatus.  The Christmas show never appeared in 2006, likely for budgetary reasons.  It appears it will make a comeback, though this is not yet confirmed.

By this time last year we were already hearing the drumbeat of rumors saying the holiday show would not take place.  The fact that this rumor is occurring now, and not one that confirms another cancellation, seems to lend some credence to it.  Even though this is not confirmed, I have heard an announcement on this should be coming soon.  Don’t book your trip yet based on this however.  We all know how the bean counters can pull the rug out from under a good idea.

Ahh Labor Day!  It’s the traditional final day of summer.  It means baseball season is winding down.  The kids are heading back to school, and traffic is about to get horrible again.  It means all these things, but what it was “supposed” to be was a day off for the working man.  That tradition has largely been eroded, as evidenced by my wife making me go shopping today.  Those people do not get the “working man’s day” off.  The same can be said for the cast and crew that make Disney’s vacation destinations work so well.  They don’t get today off either, so I thought I would take today and salute those folks.

The “cast members” that work at Walt Disney World are amazing.  From the guy answering questions at Town Hall, to the person cleaning up the ice cream wrappers on the World Showcase Promenade, to the Imagineer who dreamt up the things we love so much, these folks make the Mouse what it is.  But you notice that I used the word “crew” in the pervious paragraph.  That’s because the best experience I had with a Disney employee is from the crew of the Disney Magic.

The problem with this story is that I can not remember the man’s name.  He was our head server and the job he did was impeccable.  It was our honeymoon and this man made sure we had the time of our lives.  And he did so in such a classy and subtle manner as to make sure he didn’t seem like he was intruding.  He went out of his way for us and we can’t thank him enough for it.

When I got home I had all intentions of writing a letter to the Disney Cruise Line praising him for his work.  But you know how that can go.  Life’s schedule invaded my free time and after some weeks the idea had left my mind.  Now I can’t even recall his name, making writing that letter pretty pointless.

The moral of the story is; don’t be like me and forget the people who work hard to make your vacation or honeymoon something truly special.  If you can’t thank them with a generous gratuity, a letter goes a long way to alerting their supervisors as to how good these folks truly are.

Well, some early reviews are in for the brand new version of the O! Canada Circlevision 360 film.  John Frost from the Disney Blog, a critic whom a place much faith and trust in, has posted a lengthy article about the film. 

All in all, I am pleasantly surprised by how well this new film version plays. Martin Short made a great host (sort of a counter to the Steve Martin hosted film over at Disneyland) and the parts of Canada that had changed so much since 1979 are now given appropriate due. I don’t think it will cause large crowds to materialize in the Canada Pavilion, but it’s exactly what Disney should be doing to some of the other outdated areas of the park. Nice to see it happen.

Mr. Frost draws the right conclusion.  This is a tourist film first and foremost, so let’s not pretends that we are going to get the next Curse of the Black Pearl here.  The last film did its job well, so simply updating it to not look like archive footage of the 1970’s is really all that needed to be done.  But in typical Disney fashion they have gone a step further.  It seems the film has been “plussed”, if only subtly.

Mr. Frost also gives a positive review to the film’s new narrator Martin Short, someone I was a bit nervous about when hearing of his inclusion.  I am looking forward to seeing this and hearing the new version of the old song.