The EPCOT International Festival of the Arts starts today! It will run from January 13 – February 20, 2023. This festival will showcase the fine arts, performance arts, and culinary arts.

A key component of this festival will be the unique food booths showcasing dishes with a more artistic flair. Some look almost too pretty to eat!

Another highlight is the Disney on Broadway Concert Series where major Broadway stars perform songs from Disney Broadway musicals. Shows take place on select days at 5:30pm, 6:45pm and 8:00pm at the America Gardens Theatre in the America pavilion.

For the latest list of performances, visit the concert series page often as performers can change.

If you want to guarantee yourself a seat, you may want to book a dining package. Some shows will fill up fast.

Throughout the day around the World Showcase, other musical acts will also be performing.

One of the most unique features of this festival will be the many opportunities to see and participate in artistic activities yourself.

Artists will be showcasing their paintings and even painting live during the day. You can also join your fellow park-goers in painting a giant paint-by-numbers type wall mural.

Other artists will be drawing the most amazing 3D chalk art images on the sidewalks that you can then take pictures with. You really look like you’re inside that drawing. They’re incredible!

There will also be new photo ops, PhotoPass Magic Shots, plenty of merch, and many other fun activities. This is a short but unique festival. Try to catch it.

For more details, visit the EPCOT International Festival of the Arts page.

As always, feel free to contact me if you want to chat about planning your Disney trip.

Pics ©Disney

Disney released tons of news recently! Besides revealing the opening date of the new Tron ride and the restart dates for the nighttime fireworks shows, which I’ve detailed in my last two posts, they just made even more surprising announcements for Disney World.

Starting Jan 10, 2023, complimentary self-parking is returning for guests staying at Disney Resort hotels.

Disney Resort hotel guests also continue to receive complimentary standard parking at Walt Disney World theme parks, daily early theme park entry (with valid admission and a park reservation) and complimentary on-site transportation options such as buses, monorails and Disney Skyliner.

Coming in the next few months, some park reservation policies will be relaxed. Annual Passholders will be able to visit the theme parks after 2pm without needing a park reservation, except on Saturdays and Sundays at Magic Kingdom Park. Currently, you have to make a park reservation for your first park of the day, no matter what time you intend to go. Pass blockout dates will continue to apply like they do today.

Passholders will also receive access to Disney PhotoPass lenses and one complimentary Cinderella Castle Mural of Memories experience (age restrictions apply).

Also beginning in the next few months, guests purchasing Disney Genie+ service will receive digital downloads of their Disney PhotoPass attraction photos taken in the park on the day of their purchase, at no additional charge. Attraction photos are taken while in the parks at more than a dozen of our most popular attractions.

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Incase you missed it, other recent changes include:

• the ability to modify Disney Genie+ attraction selections in the My Disney Experience app (instead of having to cancel your existing one before you can book the new ride or time, which was risky)
• automatically making theme park reservations for you if you purchase 1-day, 1-park specific tickets directly from Disney (you still have to manually make park reservations if you buy tickets from a third party or if you buy multi-day tickets)
• allowing you to modify or cancel dining reservations penalty free up to 2 hours before the reservation time, instead of 24 hours previously.

There are currently promotional discounts of up to 25% off of standard resort room rates for Florida residents, Annual Passholders, and Spring visitors.

For summer guests, there is a dining gift card promotion for guests booking a room and ticket package at standard rates.

If you would like to chat more about any of this information, feel free to contact me.

Disney has announced the opening date for the new Tron ride at the Magic Kingdom in Disney World!

drumroll please….

April 4, 2023

Are you excited? According to Disney…

The story of TRON Lightcycle / Run picks up after “TRON: Legacy” where Kevin’s son, Sam Flynn, has opened a second gateway into a digital world called the Grid. The first portal was built at Shanghai Disneyland with the original TRON Lightcycle Power Run.

When guests enter the queue at Magic Kingdom, they’ll feel as if they’ve been digitized and transported to the Grid for a special Lightcycle race. It’s your Team Blue against the Grid’s menacing Programs, Team Orange. Your goal is to be the first to race through eight Energy Gates and secure victory. The attraction will be one of the fastest coasters at any Disney theme park in the world.

If you belong to any of the Disney affinity groups, keep an eye on your emails for possible preview opportunities.

And as always, feel free to contact me if you want to chat about planning your Disney trip.

Pic ©Disney

Did you hear?? Disney just announced the return dates of two old nighttime shows at Disney World!

It was previously announced that the current shows at the Magic Kingdom and EPCOT would end also after the official 50th celebration end date, which would be March 31, 2023, but no details on when their replacements will start and in what form were given. They’ve finally given us those details.

The previous Happily Ever After show is restarting April 3, 2023 with new projections, and Enchantment is ending April 2nd, at the Magic Kingdom.

EPCOT Forever, the previous interim show at EPCOT, is also returning April 3rd until the new show is completed at the end of the year. Harmonious will indeed end and they are indeed removing the barges! This is quite a surprise since they invested so much time and money into creating them, but I guess the poor fan response led to their demise. Can we just have Illuminations back?!?

If you want to catch Enchantment or Harmonious before they end, or any other 50th celebration events or items, make sure to go to Disney World soon. Who knows what else might go away too.

And as always, if you want to chat about planning a Disney trip, feel free to contact me.

Did you know that Splash Mountain in the Magic Kingdom in Orlando will be closing as of January 23, 2023 for a complete retheming based on Tiana? Be sure to ride by the 22nd if this is one of your favorites.