Adventures By Disney Adds Eight More Locations for 2008
More Disney Vacations -- Elsewhere
By Scott Powers | Staff Writer
Orlando Sentinel
9/4/2007
Walt Disney Co. widening its strategy to compete with vacations at other locations worldwide -- by offering more vacations itself to other locations worldwide. Adventures By Disney, the company's two-year-old and rapidly-expanding package-vacation program, has added eight more locations for 2008, including trips to China, Australia -- and Disneyland, the company announced earlier this month.
Those eight trips include Disney-arranged stays, Disney-arranged tours and Disney-arranged entertainment at Disney-selected hotels and stops, a way to offer Disney's reputation for reliable, controlled, family experiences to places where reliability might be someone's priority.
They're generally not cheap though. The new, 13-day, 12-night China vacations, for example, range in price from $3,599 to $5,399 per person, depending on the tourist's age and the season, not including airfare to and from. Some of the prices for shorter, domestic trips begin around $2,000 per person.
The other new Adventures include a trip up the coast of California; a backstage tour trip of Hollywood and Disneyland; an Australian tour; a "Flavors of France" tour; a tour of Spain; the castles of Germany and the Incan cities and valleys of Peru.
Some of the previous Adventures that will continue into 2008 include trips around Southwest U.S. splendors such as the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley; a "Spirit of America" trip through East Coast cities; and trips to Wyoming, Costa Rica, Austria, Ireland, England and Italy.
No word yet of any Disney efforts to go after Orlando's top vacation rival: Las Vegas.
