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Epcot Enthusiast wrote in this week to say: I saw a Tweet today that said that you and Len Testa were touring Future World and World Showcase recording stories for a new " Unofficial Guide Disney Dish with Jim Hill" podcast. Epcot is my very favorite WDW theme park. Could you please share some...

Did you hear about the play test that WDI ran at The Magic Kingdom last month? Where the Imagineers used Guests who were waiting in line for a character meet-n-greet right outside of Pooh’s Playful Spot to try out a new entertainment-based queuing system? Though the Imagineers are being pretty close...

I don’t know how many of you got to see Jason Garcia ’s great story about the Space Mountain redo at WDW ’s Magic Kingdom (It was featured on the Orlando Sentinel ’s new Daily Disney blog . Which is well worth adding to your Favorites list, by the way). Copyright Disney. All Rights Reserved Anywho …...

What with that $1.1 billion worth of construction that’s currently going on at Disney’s California Adventure (not to mention that $100+ milllion redo of the Disneyland Hotel that just got underway), the next three years are going to be a particularly tough time for the Disneyland Resort . Walt Disney...

Epcot has long been noted known for its mix of education and entertainment. Which is why Gary Vaynerchuk fits in perfectly at this theme park. This self-trained wine expert flew into Orlando late last week to help kick-off the 14 th annual Epcot International Food & Wine Festival . And in his own...

Over the years, I have heard a lot of stories from Disney insiders that I’ve been lucky enough to interview. Like how Alice Davis once told me that she knew that Mary Blair must be dealing with some horrific personal problems. Given that – in the early 1970s – this Disney Legend’s acclaimed sense of...

Since Epcot ’s International Flower & Garden Festival is now headed into the home stretch (this celebration of Spring in Central Florida officially wraps up on May 31st with a Flower Power Concert starring Tony Orlando ), you’d think that at least some of the blooms that are currently on display...

Having already put together Imagineering Field Guides for the Magic Kingdom , Epcot and Animal Kingdom , Alex Wright has taken a break from writing about the Walt Disney World Resort (Reportedly because the folks at Disney Editions want WDW Guests to get used to calling the park-formerly-known-as-MGM...

If you want to know all about the Walt Disney Company's past , there are lots of great books already on the market. Just in the past year, we've had David Koenig 's " Realityland: True-Life Adventures at Walt Disney World ," Michael Barrier 's " The Animated Man: A Life of Walt Disney " and Neal Gabler...

Wayne C. sent in an interesting follow-up question to yesterday's article : "When exactly did Disney World executives realize that their resort was about to hit a rough patch? Based on some of the things they've done over the past six months (EX: Announcing back in July that they'd be closing Pleasure...

Bradley R. writes in to ask: Jim -- I was just down at Disney World and I have to admit that the Magic Kingdom's "Celebrate America! -- A Fourth of July Concert in the Sky" show was pretty spectacular. But as good as those fireworks were, they got me thinking. Has Disney World ever staged a bigger display...

For Disney's Animal Kingdom fans ... It's one of those bad news / good news kind of day. The bad news is ... Plans for DAK's long-in-development nighttime parade -- "Rivers of Lights" -- have been tabled. Not because Animal Kingdom management lost confidence in Steve Davison's original concept. But ...

It wasn't what the Disneyana community wanted to hear last year. Copyright 1980 Walt Disney Productions. All Rights Reserved That -- in a January 27th interview with Deb Wills of AllEars.net -- Brad Rex , then-VP of Epcot , said that the Walt Disney World Resort had no plans to celebrate that theme park...

To paraphrase Al Jolson (the immigrant son of a Russian Jew) : "You ain't heard nothin' nyet ! " How many of you recall the Disney Decade ? That grandiose expansion for the theme parks that Michael Eisner announced back in January of 1990? One of the real highlights of this event was Michael revealing...

My apologies, folks. I know that JHM has been light on content for the past week or so. But there's a good reason for that: Snow. Lots & lots of snow. As this New York Times article will tell you, New England has had a ridiculous amount of the white stuff dropped on it over the past few weeks. To...

Over the past week or so, I must have received a dozen or more e-mails just like this one from Disney Defender: Photo by Jeff Lange Jim, Have you heard about the revamped version of Spaceship Earth that just soft-opened at Epcot ? The Imagineers have absolutely ruined this classic Future World attraction...