What's going on in WDW that I should know about (end of the year -- castles??)

[swampfox28]

Sorry to ask what is likely to be a stupid question, but I floundered around trying to figure out why a friend of ours told me NOT to try to plan a trip to WDW this fall (probably October/November) because we should wait until all the "castles" are finished???

I'm ashamed to admit that I've been out of the Disney loop and have only a slight idea of what he could be referring to (they built a castle for the Beast and have a restaurant in it, correct?) He seemed to feel that there would be lots of castles and it'd be a shame if we brought our kids to WDW before all the renovations were done.

Now, I know about the Art of Animation value resort (which sounds pretty neat), but only the one castle (being the restaurant.) What the heck else am I missing here? Are there good reasons to postpone trips (big renovations? Huge new unfinished attractions??) Sigh. I just don't know and sure would appreciate the help of my fellow intercot peeps. THANKS!

Sarah

[BrerSchultzy]

My hunch is your friend heard about the original idea for the Fantasyland Expansion, which included several castles...one for each princess. It was going to take up a large chunk of Fantasyland, and they would have had to shut down more of Fantasyland to make everything work. But the current FLE is much less obtrusive, and will be done in stages over the next two years. They've already opened most of the Storybook Circus.

Other than Fantasyland Expansion still going on, and I think Test Track (which is supposed to be open by September), there are no major renovations going on right now.

[swampfox28]

Oh, so we wouldn't be missing anything major if we went in November/December of this year? I just don't want to plan our first trip back to WDW in almost 3 years to be right BEFORE all this great new stuff arrives!!!

[Tygger7]

I believe most everything should be complete by Nov/Dec this year. The only thing "missing" at that point will be the new mine coaster...of course, things can change and there may be other rides that go down, but my guess is Disney likes to have as much stuff up and running as possible for the holiday season rush.

[swampfox28]

Thanks, guys.

I actually like to *avoid* that rush (hehe!) My favorite week used to be the first week of Dec. (Christmas decorations are up, but there are low crowd levels). Last time we went the week before Thanksgiving and right up until that Saturday before Thanksgiving, the parks were beautiful, decorated for Christmas, and had HARDLY anyone! We walked onto most of the rides. It was delightful!! If I can do that again and still avoid the weekends before and after Thanksgiving, then I'm going to try!! (And now I feel better about planning the trip; it would be sad to miss something really special/big/new if we didn't have to -- especially because our little "princess" is getting so much older that the NEXT time we go, she might decide she's too "old" for all of the princess stuff!!)