February, 2012

If you look around the Web, you can see that the reaction (among Disney theme park fans, anyway) to the xPASS - related articles that I've written so far seem to have been pretty negative. With the gist of their comments being that "I would never ever pay for a service like this" and "booking ride times for attractions weeks in advance would rob my WDW vacation of spontaneity." Addressing the latter complaint first ... Let me blunt here: A Walt Disney World vacation is hardly...

Mark Hickson writes: Thanks Jim for the great article. I have shared it with my readers via facebook. Please stay on top of the NextGen story for all of us! Mahalo, Mark Hickson Will do. In fact, let me share something that a certain Godfather fan pass was nice enough to pass along to me. Which is the definitive list of the 70 experiences which will be available to WDW Guests are part of the xPASS program. Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved Now note that word "experience...

You may have noticed that it's been kind of quiet in this corner of the Web over the past week. Well, there's a reason for that. You see, though JHM has some wonderful contributors (Floyd Norman, Leon Holzer and Roger Colton among them), this website is basically a two person operation. With myself and Nancy Stadler churning out 90% of the crud that you read here. And for the past two weeks or so, JHM has been a one man operation because Nancy has been down in Georgia dealing with her Dad...

Over the past week, there's been a lot of talk on Disney-related discussion boards about the policy change that the Walt Disney World Resort now has in the works when it comes to FASTPASS return times . To be specific: Starting on March 7th, Guests who arrive 5 minutes ahead of their ride reservation return time will now be allowed to gain entrance to that show or attraction. Likewise WDW visitors who show up 15 minutes past the return time that's actually printed on their FASTPASS will be...

It's kind of a long drive from the woods of New Hampshire to northern Georgia. 1075 miles to be exact. But you can do in 19 hours & change if you drive straight through. That's what I wound up doing late last week. I climbed into our Ford Explorer just before 11 a.m. on Thursday and eventually reached my destination at 6:30 on Friday morning. Mind you, I wasn't alone in the car that whole time. I had the actor Dylan Baker with me ... sort of. To explain: Dylan was the narrator of...

Greetings from the woods of Northern Georgia. Nancy and I are still down in this neck-of-the-woods. Her Dad's funeral was on Monday, so we're still in the process of dealing with a lot of family obligations. And given that my laptop went belly-up on Super Bowl Sunday ... Well, filing new stories for this site has become even more challenging. Which is why -- until Nancy can get the chance to properly format the Samsung Notebook that we purchased yesterday -- I thought that I might reach back...

"You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality" -- Walt Disney And when it comes to next week's "One More Disney Day" event (which will run from 6 a.m. Wednesday, February 29th right through to 6 a.m. Thursday, March 1st. Making this the first time ever that Disneyland Park and Magic Kingdom Park will have both been open for 24 hours straight), it's going to take lots & lots of people (not...

The world is full of zanies and fools, Who don't believe in sensible rules, And don't believe what sensible people say ... Well, sensible people certainly wouldn't have decided to remake Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Cinderella." After all, the original (which had starred Julie Andrews and had been broadcast live back in March of 1957) had already been remade once (Here's a fun factoid for all you Disney fans out there: It was Lesley Ann Warren 's performance in the...

When the very last member of the audience left the Blue Man Group theater back on January 22nd, that's literally when the work began. The crew at the Universal Orlando Resort had only two weeks to give this CityWalk venue a $5 million, hi-tech makeover and they weren't going to waste a moment. After working round-the-clock to strip this performance space down to its bare deck (not to mention transforming the back wall of this theater into a massive jumbotron), Universal Orlando unveiled the...

It's actually kind of fitting that a Disney Theatrical Production with the word "new" in its name would find a brand-new way to reach out to its fans. Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved In a first for Broadway, cast members from the acclaimed new musical Newsies (which begins its limited engagement at the Nederlander Theatre on March 15th) will be chatting with this show's fans live on YouTube tomorrow night, February 16th starting at 6:30PM EST. The way that...

Take ABC 's long-running hit " Lost " with its elaborate back story and mythology. Now fold that in with the found-footage gimmick which made " The Blair Witch Project " and those " Paranormal Activity " films so successful. Then drop those two elements into Joseph Conrad 's " Heart of Darkness ." What would you wind up with? " The River ," a surprisingly solid & scary new hour-long horror series from ABC Studios, which debuts tonight...

There must have been a few confused tourists at Universal Orlando earlier today. Given the whales ... ... and polar bears that were parked right outside of the entrance of Universal Studios Florida this morning ... ... you have to wonder how many tourists thought (at least for a moment) that they had accidentally arrived at SeaWorld Orlando instead of USF. But the whales & bears were outside of that studio theme park not because Universal likes confusing tourists. But -- rather -- because Universal...

Let's cut to the chase here: David Arquette is a REAL good sport. Elsewise how would you explain this " Scream " star's willingness to do a synchronized Sprinkler with Master Moves Mickey ... Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved ... or (harkening back to his appearance on last season's " Dancing with the Stars ") do a quick two-step with Minnie Mouse. Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved Or to stand there and take it as Disney Consumer...