Articles By: Jason Garcia

Broadcasting from the Tower of Terror

From the reality-meets-fantasy files: Walt Disney World’s semi-autonomous government, which is attempting to improve emergency-services radio coverage, has struck a deal with the resort to install new radio-transmission equipment — inside the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. The agreement will allow...

August 26th, 2010 | Featured, Jason Garcia, News | Read More

Disney discounts continue, though they aren’t as deep

Walt Disney World, navigating a still-soft economy, has extended a sizable hotel discount deep into 2011, though the resort continues scaling back the scope of its promotions. Disney on Monday added a series of new travel dates in 2011 for vacation packages that pair hotel rooms with free meals at Disney...

August 16th, 2010 | Featured, Hotels and Resorts, Jason Garcia, News, Tickets and Deals | Read More

A few more words about Fantasyland…

Today’s paper carries a story in which new Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Chairman Tom Staggs confirmed that Disney is redrawing the Fantasyland expansion plans it announced last year. The story arose out of an interview Staggs did with the Orlando Sentinel earlier this week. Obviously, space constraints...

August 13th, 2010 | Fantasyland, Fantasyland construction, Featured, Jason Garcia, News | Read More

Disney says Fantasyland expansion plans are changing

Disney is redrawing the sweeping Fantasyland expansion plans it laid out last year, even as bulldozers clear land for the project inside the Magic Kingdom. With the revisions, begun under new Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Chairman Tom Staggs, designers are attempting to rebalance the plans, which initially...

August 12th, 2010 | Fantasyland, Featured, Jason Garcia, News | Read More

Harry Potter beats Mickey Mouse — but he also helps him

Hogwarts castle looms over the patio of The Three Broomsticks restaurant at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Universal's Islands of Adventure. (Marjie Lambert/Miami Herald) We know that the Wizarding World of Harry Potter has worked wonders for Universal Orlando so far this summer: The hugely...

August 11th, 2010 | Featured, Jason Garcia, News | Read More

Disney offers improved, though still tempered, outlook for its theme parks

The Walt Disney Co.’s theme-park business may finally be near the bottom of what is now a nearly two-year downturn. Disney said Tuesday that fiscal fourth-quarter hotel reservations at its resorts in Orlando and Anaheim, Calif., are running just 1 percent behind the same period a year ago, the most...

August 10th, 2010 | Featured, Jason Garcia, News | Read More

Disney earnings could offer clarity to uncertain outlook for theme parks

The Walt Disney Co. reports fiscal third quarter earnings this afternoon amid widespread uncertainty about a theme-park business that is being buffeted by some conflicting crosswinds. There are plenty of positive trends. Universal Orlando, for instance, last week posted an upbeat quarter, with higher...

August 10th, 2010 | Featured, Jason Garcia, News | Read More

An interview with The Disney Blog(ger)

Below is the full version of an interview with John Frost, the founder of The Disney Blog, that appeared in Monday’s print edition of the Orlando Sentinel. John Frost is founder of The Disney Blog, a widely read blog devoted to Disney and theme parks that has had more than 5 million visitors since...

August 10th, 2010 | Jason Garcia | Read More

Disney raising ticket prices once again

Because of incorrect information provided to the Sentinel, an earlier version of this story said rental prices for lockers, wheelchairs and scooters would also rise. Disney says those prices will remain unchanged. Walt Disney World is raising ticket prices once again, despite a still-weak economy ...

August 3rd, 2010 | Featured, Jason Garcia, News, Tickets and Deals | Read More

Disney to create new position for workers who direct monorail movements

(Walt Disney World photo) Walt Disney World plans to create a new position — and a higher pay scale — for the employees who direct the movements of its monorail trains. The new “central monorail controller” position will be responsible for overseeing traffic along the resort’s 15-mile-long...

August 2nd, 2010 | Featured, Jason Garcia, News | Read More