Arthur Frommer Online

Comments, opinion and advice from the founder of Frommer's Travel Guides

Posts tagged as Disney

Keep Those Tweens In Sight! Changes at the Disney Parks

Posted by Arthur Frommer at 4/3/2013 4:06 PM EDT

[This is a guest post by Pauline Frommer]

The Disney organization has announced stricter regulations for solo kids in the parks, a move that's undoubtedly

going to lead to stricter parenting. Kids under 14 are now expected to be within shouting distance of their parents and "cast members" will be on the lookout for solo youngsters.

This will undoubtedly be a big deal for yearly passholders, many of whom routinely drop off their youngster at the park while they do other things, according to USAToday. One has to wonder if this move will also put a crimp in the style of larger families who split up in order to hit more rides, with the tweens going on the thrill rides, while the parents take younger kids to gentler entertainments.

I know, as a parent of a just-turned 14-year-old, that it was her major goal when she was 12 and 13 to be on her own at amusement parks, something we didn't allow. My guess: we're going to be seeing a lot more screaming fights in the Disney parking lots!

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Arthur's Blog: Walt Disney World is About to Attach RFID Transmitters to Its Visitors' Wrists

Posted by Arthur Frommer at 1/9/2013 9:00 AM EST

The most disconcerting travel story in recent years appeared in The New York Times on Monday. It told of a decision by executives of Walt Disney World, in Orlando, to eventually replace cardboard admission tickets to Disney theme parks with rubber bracelets capable of containing and transmitting personal information about the bearer.

The bracelets will contain the most sophisticated computer components: radio frequency identification (RFID) chips able to retain information, metallic transmitters able to convey it to electronic posts scattered about Walt Disney World and in the clothing of Disney characters. Purchasers will be asked to reveal their personal data on buying these wrist-band tickets: name, gender, date of birth, marital status, hometown, personal likes and dislikes. Then, instead of passing through a turnstile on entering a particular theme park, they will simply swipe the bracelet in front of an electronic device, which will let them.

Oh, and the bracelets will also act as credit cards recording expenditures, so that Disney will collect not simply information about spending habits, but every penny of the expenditures made by visitors, without commission to a credit card company. When those visitors do spend the money, that information will stored within the bracelet and transmitted to a giant, super-computer.

And how will this information be used? There are first the funny examples. On bending down to greet Donald Duck, Donald will respond to you by exclaiming, based on precise knowledge: "Hi, Jack. I hear today is your birthday." Or: "Hello, Mary, you've come a long way from Scranton, Pennsylvania."

It will all be comical to a fault -- until... The games will end when the bracelet will advise you of the need to take a mid-afternoon snack after you have earlier had lunch at a Disney restaurant. It may list all sorts of enticing foods, all kinds of toys and games suitable to your personality. It will save you a place at exhibitions you wish to visit, and then advise you to rush over immediately and you will be spared a wait in line. It will do all these things, nominally for the purpose of enhancing your enjoyment, but mainly to make you spend more money than you otherwise might have.

Is it only me? Am I among the few who detests this invasion of our privacy, this deliberate manipulation of our decisions, this constant advertising -- from voices coming from your wrist -- of what you should or should not do? Or is it that we Americans no longer wish to be left alone in such matters?

The Disney organization is apparently convinced it will make additional millions from the use of these rubber bracelets. I hope the idea enjoys a quick death.

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Arthur's Blog: Add the Colorful & Historic Mediterranean to Your 2013 Travel Destinations List

Posted by Arthur Frommer at 12/3/2012 9:00 AM EST

We return again to list-making, continuing our discussion of the most popular travel places for the year ahead. And though you may be dismayed by the choice, you have to include a trip with Mickey Mouse that will be booked down to the last cabin on the last late summer date.

Mickey? He's leading the summer crush. When Disney cruise line schedules its most famous ship, the Disney Magic, to make extensive 7-night and 12-night cruises of the Mediterranean in summer of 2013, you can bet that European cruises have become a fully-recognized hot travel item for the months ahead. Though my own list of the most popular travel destinations for 2013 is otherwise made up of cities and countries, it has to be augmented by one watery place that is neither a town nor a region. With the number of Mediterranean-stationed cruiseships reaching record numbers for the year ahead, the choice of the Med for that list can't be questioned.

The reason for that undoubted popularity has a great deal to do with the fear of the American public for the prices of current-day Europe. The desire to visit Europe remains strong, but the conditions for doing so on a land tour are felt by many to be unfavorable. And so a vacation on the sea takes the place of the Grand Tour. On a Mediterranean cruise, one pays a high air fare to get to Barcelona, Rome, Athens or Venice (the starting point for most Mediterranean cruises), but thereafter you simply pay normal cruiseline prices for your accommodations -- and all food is included at no extra charge. In fact, there's hardly an opportunity to eat other than on the ship. Almost all Mediterranean cruises stop in various historic ports from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and therefore passengers have breakfast aboard, a quick, inexpensive lunch on shore, and dinner is had for no extra charge back on the ship. You rush back in mid-afternoon, after the shortest bount of urban sightseeing.

This, of course, is not the way to see Europe. Persons wanting a classic experience of the Old World must necessarily travel on land, and not by cruiseship. On a cruise of the Mediterranean, your encounter with Europe is a highly-artificial glimpse of various port cities, involving no real contact with the European people and no real immersion in European culture. But if you're frightened by the high value of the Euro, and the resulting cost of land arrangements, you opt instead for a cruise. Better book soon -- the ships are filling fast, and the current prices may be lower than the last-minute ones.

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Arthur's Blog: We'll Be Discussing the Vast New Addition of Cars Land to Disneyland on Sunday's Travel Show

Posted by Arthur Frommer at 6/22/2012 2:00 PM EDT

When the California Adventure Park opened at Disneyland in Anaheim several years ago, it bore with it the hopes of the Disney organization that Disneyland might become a two-park destination encouraging more visitors to spend two or more days at Disney's west coast location.

Those hopes were quickly squashed. Though California Adventure was mildly interesting, it failed to boost attendance to the extent that Disney had planned. So Disney turned to another idea: the use of Disney's Cars franchise to provide the theme for an expansion of California Adventures. Though Disney Pixar's Cars movie wasn't as initially successful financially as the studio's previous releases (think Toy Story; Monsters, Inc.; and Finding Nemo), the subsequent sale of Cars toys, apparel and licensed items was encouraging.

So Disney transformed the 12-acre parking lot of California Adventure into a vast new expansion of that park's appeal -- increasing the square footage of Disneyland by as much as 20%. It opened earlier this month, and it has been a colossal hit. People brought sleeping bags to spend the night outside the new park on the day before its opening, so they could be first in line at 5 a.m.

Travel writer Jason Cochran has visited the new Cars Land theme park, and his interview on the subject will start near the top of the first hour of this Sunday's Travel Show (noon to 2 p.m. E.S.T., streamed live on wor710.com and preserved in a podcast (click on "The Travel Show" on the list of programs appearing at the very bottom of the main menu). Jason has an extraordinary facility for being able to discuss the broader travel consequences of a popular event in travel and to provide insight into travel trends.

I spoke with Jason yesterday, a day after the recording of his interview, and was impressed with the remarkable gamble (more than a billion dollars) that Disney has risked to expand its California theme park. According to Jason, not simply the theme park but the surrounding community of Anaheim has now been greatly expanded and improved to make a much more enjoyable stay out of a visit there.

So I hope you'll tune in. Jason's interview will start at 1:06 p.m. E.S.T. on Sunday, and he'll also be describing the various rides and exhibits that make an intriguing, car-focused, highway-focused, attraction out of Disney's new Cars Land. In the meantime, if you'll google the words Cars Land on your computer, you'll be able to see several videos of the individual attractions that make up Cars Land.

Never let it be said that Frommers.com is only interested in profound travel subjects and not in the popular entertainment that draws so many people into the world of travel.

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