Disney Vacation Club Coming to Anaheim

The LA Times was one of many sources reporting today that Disney will expand the Grand Californian hotel at Disneyland, including 50 timeshare units available through Disney Vacation Club.

But what caught my eye? Well, MouseGuest Weekly listeners might remember that just last week Lisa was frustrated that nobody would ever give her a straight answer about how much it costs to buy into DVC. So, hey Lisa! Here’s a snippet from the LA Times article that helps to answer your question:

The cost of joining Disney Vacation Club starts with a minimum $16,700 one-time purchase price, plus annual maintenance fees of at least $600. Members then buy points and use them to determine where, when and for how long they stay. The average purchase price is $26,000, which buys a two-bedroom unit for one week each year.

Gayest WDW Today Podcast Ever!

Episode 310 of the WDW Today Podcast is totally gay – and you know, coming from me this is a compliment on the highest order. Our WDW Today buddies interview the authors of Queens in the Kingdom: The Ultimate Gay and Lesbian Guide to the Disney Theme Parks, and it’s genius. Best Holy Land Experience reference ever! And you’ve just gotta love a show that prompts one listener to leave this comment: “The bitter, jaded Italian female is a lot like the smart, hot gay in many respects.” Hubba.

How is it that I don’t own this book already? Jeffrey and Eddie, will you please please please start up either a blog or a podcast? Or at least come out to Boston to do a reading of your “Seven Gayest Attractions at the Disney Parks” . . . we got a few queens out here, a few Disney fans, I’m sure we could pack the house!

Night of Rowdy Debauchery?

Now, here’s something that’s just sat in my blogreader for days, because I couldn’t figure out what to make of it. Mousevine posted last week that the Night of Joy Christian music event at Walt Disney World is being moved from Magic Kingdom to Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

Not a big deal to me . . . my fondness for Christian music is pretty much centered in Bach chorales, Gregorian chants, and similar golden oldies. So, what caught my eye was Mousevine’s commentary on the event itself:

. . . some who have attended previous NOJ festivals, as well as Cast Members who’ve worked it, claim that of all the separate-ticket events held at the Magic Kingdom, it’s the most unruly. Tales abound of the Magic Kingdom overrun by mobs of drunken teens, petty thievery in the shops, as well as an overworked security dealing with fights among the crowds of young concert attendees. Not exactly the kind of behavior one would expect to find at a Christian music festival. The discussion then devolves into those who swear the stories are true and those who accuse people of being anti-Christian posting their false stories.

It’s hard to assess the veracity of the tales of debauchery involving NOJ unless one witnesses it for themselves. I have read of one Disney fansite who had members attend the concerts to see if the stories were true or if it had become another Disney urban legend to add to the pile. And for the most part, the group found the stories to be true. And it’s hard not to believe the stories when you read the accounts by cast members who’ve worked NOJ and the majority are negative.

Wow, I had totally missed this Disney fan controversy! Almost makes me want to attend NOJ and see for myself. (But hey, it doesn’t take much to make me want to go to Disney World, now does it?)

Shameless Plug: MGW Podcast on YOMD

Today’s MouseGuest Weekly Podcast features a segment my BFF Lisa and I recorded live this week with Dan and Eric, commenting at length on various criticisms we’ve heard of the Year of a Million Dreams. Per usual we also take a few tangents, like poking a bit of fun at other Disney podcasters, and taking inventory of my Pal Mickey’s rapidly-expanding custom wardrobe.

Star Wars Episode III: At Worlds End

Kudos, SparkleXmotion!

Posters Online for Toy Story Mania

DIS Updates has a set of posters available for Toy Story Mania, coming to both Walt Disney World and Disneyland in 2008. Yee haw!

Please Stand Clear of the Doors

From the Disney Geeks’ Daily Figment:

I submit to you the ultimate collectible: a monorail in your own backyard! Dan Pedersen of Fremont, California has constructed the ultimate reminder of a trip to WDW. For under $5,000.00 (not including his years of labor), Ken constructed a complex, usable monorail system in his own backyard. The monorail reaches a height of over eight feet and travels a lengthy 300 feet around his backyard, making several stops along the way.

Head on over to Wired.com for more pictures.

Unhappy Disney Workers in Hong Kong and China

Two news stories caught my eye today, technically unrelated but both datelined “Hong Kong”.

DIS News reports that Disney has been found to violate Chinese labor laws:

Workers at a Chinese factory making Disney toys are overworked, underpaid, exposed to dangerous toxins and forced to live in filthy conditions, a labour rights group said in a report Wednesday.

The EarthTimes reports that things aren’t all that much happier at Hong Kong Disneyland:

On top of its disappointingly low crowds, a survey conducted by the Disney Cast Members Union among 470 of the 5,000-odd staff found that 63 per cent were unhappy with management, complaining largely of unequal treatment and what they see as unfair work distribution.

More than 80 per cent of respondents said they wanted Hong Kong Disneyland to bring its labour practices in line with those at the Disney park in Florida, where staff can be accompanied by union officials at disciplinary hearings and have access to independent arbitration.

Perhaps Some Balm for the Post-Traumatic Soul

On this sad anniversary of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, Mr Broke Hoedown (aka Collateral Damage) reposts an article from one year ago yesterday, speaking to us of Finding Nemo:

Nemo is a movie about the experience most of us had as a result of the event: learning how to live in a world filled with dangers that you can no longer deny by pretending they are irrational. It opens with a huge loss that happens in a single horrible moment — Marlin loses his wife and 499 of his children. Understandably Marlin loses all his trust in the rest of the world but still manages to raise a relatively well-adjusted son who then gets snapped up by a yet another unstoppable force. In his quest to fulfill the movie’s title he meets up with Dory who is so odd that I would argue she, too, is a trauma survivor. (And yes, I do think Ellen DeGeneres deserved the best supporting Oscar for that performance.) In the end, of course, Marlin does learn to not be so afraid of the world and to enjoy his life and he and Dory and Nemo create an odd family of survivors that wouldn’t have existed before the tragedy. Now that’s 9/11.

He speaks also in a separate post about his experiences that day, both the mundane and the shattering.

Like many frequent business travelers, I was on the road that day. and spent the rest of the week trying to get home, both literally and figuratively. A moment of silence, please, for those who were not so lucky.

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Graveyard of the Epcot Wand

(Sorry Dave, sorry Lisa . . . I know you loved that thing.)

Kudos to DisneyProjectTracker for capturing this footage and sharing it on YouTube.