Picture Update of Sherpa Trip

Here is the whole trip clan, sans Mike who was sunning himself by the pool, just before we went down the water slide at the Atlantis water park.

I am in the double tube with Carol, Sue is next, followed by Julian and finally we have Liz giving a little wave.

The 40 Birthday Trek of a Disney World Sherpa: The Plan

The planning started early in 2008, a trip to Walt Disney World to celebrate my 40th Birthday, but first we needed to plan the trip and to invite the guests, because what's a birthday trip without guests. Hmmm….who to invite? Well our friend Sue was also celebrating a 40th Birthday this year and she and her husband Mike seemed like likely candidates. Then there were our friends from NY, Liz and Julian, and would you just go figure it, Julian was turning 40 this year too. Ok, now that we had a few people to celebrate with, what were we going to do on the trip? Carol, my wife, said “plan it anyway you want, hey, you’re the one who’s getting old!” Did She just say I was getting OLD! Well OK then, to me that sounded like, “the sky’s the limit, cost is no object, you deserve anything your heart desires.” (Not quite sure that was what she meant, but hey, she's the one who called me OLD!) I decided to look into a land and sea trip. We would use our DVC points for the land portion and then book a 3 day Disney Cruise separate. OK, we have the plan, now we need to decide on the when.

Since Carol can’t travel till after April because of work, May would be the earliest we could go. I picked the week of May 11, started checking out availability for DVC resorts and pricing out the cruise, wow, some great availability and the cruise prices were pretty cheap. I wanted to stay in a veranda room (Carol said to plan it and why hold back) since we had never stayed in one before. So I started floating the dates. Seeing as we are what my friend Sue calls, D.I.N.Ks (Double Income No Kids), it seems that I had chosen the week of Mothers Day. So, what to do, what to do? We decided since the prices were so good and the week seemed to be really slow, we decided to work around it. Carol and I planned to celebrate with my mother the weekend before and the weekend after to celebrate with hers, with seven kids her mom wasn’t even going to notice we weren’t there. (LOL) Sue decided that they would come the Monday after; seeing she felt that it was not a good idea to drop a 3 and 10 year old on her mother’s door step on Mothers Day. Liz and Julian were only planning on coming on the cruise, so they were in with the date. WOOT WOOT! The trip was really starting to take shape.

Now there was some other incidental planning in there, a few invites (Bill!) who were not able to make it, booking airfare, rental car, ording T-Shirts but we were definitely on our way to what hopefully would turn out to be a truly Magical Birthday Trip at Walt Disney World. Since the plan will be revealed as I post the daily adventures, I will leave the details in the posts to follow.

Eisner honored

Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this week.

My first reaction was: "That guy's a dick."

But then I started thinking about the massive expansion Disney enjoyed during his watch. The resort explosion in the 90s certainly came to mind. And then I got to this part of the story:

"Under Eisner's longtime leadership, Disney opened theme parks in Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong, acquired ABC and Miramax Pictures, developed the Disney Cruise Line and created Walt Disney Theatrical Productions."

That's quite a bit, really.

He was ousted in a shareholders revolt led by Stanley Gold and Roy Disney - and how do you not get behind someone with that name - and his out of control ego was laid bare for all to see, but he was in the driver's seat for an incredible era at the Walt Disney Co.

I still don't have good feelings about him. He seemed bound and determined to screw with Pixar. And since 90 percent of my interest in Disney has to do with Walt Disney World, I have to think that none of the recent changes would've come about if Eisner submarined the Pixar deal.

Perhaps we would've been subjected to an endless string of Chicken Little - decent but nothing to write home about - instead of Ratatouille - one of the best animated movies I've ever seen.

So from my distant and admittedly uninformed point of view I still say Eisner let his ego get out of control, but I also tip my hat to him for at least letting the right people steer Disney World through its great expansion.

DVC news?

Lou Mongello's podcast mentions the possibility of DVC at the Grand Floridian and the Polynesian.

That would be great, since staying at the Poly is a longtime dream of mine. Due to prohibitive point costs and crazy cash costs, that's just not going to happen. However, if they add or convert part of it to a DVC resort, my chances go up.

But I can't help but think: Would this start to create a tiered DVC structure - official or otherwise? The properties on the monorail would be highly prized, while my home resort, Saratoga Springs, would be where people who when they're slumming.

Honestly, I like Saratoga Springs, but I've stayed there the past three trips and I'm ready for a change.

Eye candy

There are some really great pictures of Epcot through the years over at the Orlando Sentinel.

They range from construction of the park through to the 25th 'celebration.' (Note the sarcasm. Epcot is my favorite park, and the observance of its anniversary was embarassingly lacking.)

Anyway, the pictures are pretty cool, if a bit unorganized. The older pics are in the middle of the gallery.

Obit

Ollie Johnston, the last of Walt Disney's 'Nine Old Men' has died.

He was a directing animator at Walt Disney Studios from 1935-1978. He contributed to many films including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, Bambi and Pinocchio. His last full work for Disney came with The Rescuers, which was the last film of the second golden age of Disney animation that had begun in 1950 with Cinderella. In The Rescuers, he was caricatured as one of the film's characters, the cat Rufus.

Johnston was also immortalized in Pixar's "The Incredibles."



Disney's Nine Old Men were the core animators (some of whom later became directors) who created the Disney studio's most famous works, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs onward to The Rescuers. Walt Disney jokingly called this group of animators his "Nine Old Men," referring to what Franklin D. Roosevelt called the nine judges of the US Supreme Court, even though the animators were in their thirties and forties at the time.

As someone on the DIS pointed out, there are fewer and fewer links to Walt Disney in the world.

Getting a fix

If, like me, you don't have a Walt Disney World trip planned in the near future (Randy, you can stop reading now), then you'll need your Disney fix. And let me just assert right now that Samantha Brown is our friend.
Why? Five new shows on the Travel Channel. Plus she graduated at nearby Pinkerton Academy, which is kind of cool.
Here's the rundown:

Season of Disney on the Travel Channel
The Travel Channel began what will be a weekly series of new programs showcasing the Disney parks.

4/11 Samantha Brown’s Disney Favorites
4/18 Disney Splurge
4/25 Disney: On a Dime
5/2 The Disney Royal Treatment
5/9 Disney Cruise Line

These shows have been airing at 9pm EST on Fridays.

I saw the first one - 'Disney Favorites' - and I loved it. I have high expectations for the rest.

BTW, I got this from MickeyXtreme, which is an awesome place to get daily Disney news.