This is one doghouse your furry friend will not mind being sent to.

Walt Disney World’s new luxury kennel, Best Friends Pet Care, opened to customers Wednesday. The facility is cleverly themed with bright red fire hydrants, paw-print windows and bone-shaped swimming pools. It’s so inviting, pet owners can’t help but want to leave their animals for some fun.

What sets the facility apart from others in the 40-location chain are the over-the-top amenities. The Lake Buena Vista site boasts a private dog park, with a walking trail and a 1,300-square-foot “canines only” splash pad, and four VIP (Very Important Pet) suites with raised-platform beds, flat-screen televisions and private, covered outdoor play yards.

The dog park was created with the idea that guests need a place to interact with their dogs on vacation, said Deb Bennetts, spokesperson for Best Friends Pet Care. Owners are at the same resort, and they want to check up on their loved ones, she said.

Pet parents can choose from a range of a la carte activities from one-on-one playtimes and Dog Day Camp with other dogs, to cuddle time and bedtime stories with staff. Additional amenities and upgrades include ice cream treats, bottled water and premium/orthopedic bedding. Grooming services are also offered.

Cats have their own special place in Kitty City, a room that houses Kitty Condos and is separately ventilated to keep those annoying dog smells away from finicky felines. Cats can also enjoy private playtimes, activity toys in their suites and treats such as tuna on a ritz.

The new Disney kennel also has a room dedicated to the boarding of “pocket pets,” such as hamsters, guinea pigs, rabbits and ferrets.

About the only thing average pet owners might not delight in are the prices. The cost of one night in a VIP suite exceeds one night for a family in a Disney value resort this fall when rack rates are discounted. There is a market for the luxury, though, because the suites are already booked for all weekends until Christmas.

Dog stays begin at $37 per night ($34 for resort guests), which includes indoor boarding with two potty walks. At the high end, the VIP suites go for $76 per night ($69 for resort guests). Cat owners will pay $23 ($21 for a resort guest) for a two-level condo and $32 ($30 for a resort guest) for a four-level condo per night.

Prices are less for daytime boarding, and discounts are given for pets sharing suites. Get more details at wdw.bestfriendspetcare.com or 877-4-WDW-PETS.

(Kristin Ford/Orlando Sentinel)

(Kristin Ford/Orlando Sentinel)

(Kristin Ford/Orlando Sentinel)

(Kristin Ford/Orlando Sentinel)

(Kristin Ford/Orlando Sentinel)

(Kristin Ford/Orlando Sentinel)

(Kristin Ford/Orlando Sentinel)

In new court documents, the mother of a Disney monorail worker killed last year accuses her son’s former boss of “flippantly” vacating his duty, creating a dangerous situation that “was virtually certain to result in injury or death.”

21-year-old Disney monorail pilot Austin Wuennenberg was killed on July 5, 2009 when two monorails collided. His mother, Christine Wuennenberg, filed suit against Walt Disney Parks and Resorts in January.

In court documents, Christine Wuennenberg accuses the monorail operations manager, David Gilmore, of creating a dangerous situation by taking an on-duty meal break with other employees, leaving the monorail control tower unstaffed.

In the documents, Wuennenberg says Gilmore didn’t tell her son or other pilots that no one was going to be monitoring the monorails directly.

If someone had been, Wuennenberg says, they could have used video monitors to see that a collision was coming.

“Anyone paying even casual attention” would have been able to “see it, hear it and feel it,” she said, and ultimately, to stop it.

“There was a line de-energizing button in the Concourse Tower that would have enabled anyone in the Tower to simply push a button to stop this terrible collision from occurring,” Wuennenberg said in the documents.

The crash occurred about 2 a.m. near the end of a workday. A monorail train was backing along a track switch that was supposed to re-align but didn’t, switching the monorail from the resort’s Epcot line to a short spur leading to a Magic Kingdom line.

The switch never re-aligned, so the train wound up driving in reverse, smashing into a second train piloted by Austin Wuennenberg.

Disney has since admitted that the monorail pilot was told to go in reverse and that, before the collision, there was an incorrect report that the track switch had been aligned properly.

Disney spokeswoman Zoraya Suarez would not comment on the specific allegations made by the monorail pilot’s mother, calling the depositions containing Wuennenberg’s accusations “a part of the normal process.”

“We will respond when appropriate through the court,” Suarez said.

QUESTION: What are we hearing aboard Space Mountain now?

ANSWER: We have a new audio accompaniment to the ride through space, which we are referring to “Starry-o-phonic” sound. It’s kind of an all-enveloping sonic soundscape through the entire building that serves as a backdrop for your voyage and is accented with effect speakers that are triggered by certain events along your way on the ride. So as you go around a quick turn or down a significant drop, you will tend to hear an effect that punctuates that and really accents it, especially in the newly darkened environment that came out of the earlier parts of the renovation. That makes it a little harder for people to anticipate the movements that are coming up.

Q: Can it be heard the queue?

A: No, it’s only on the ride portion itself.

Q: What is the style of the music?

A: The selection has three different movements to it. … What we have is, for roughly a third of the duration of the ride, you have one piece that’s kind of a soaring orchestral backdrop. You have another section that’s a little bit more percussive and active. And then you have a third arrangement that’s more techno-fun, kind of a party-in-space kind of thought to it, which has a lot of influences that have been brought it. What it means is, as the ride changes character on the way down, the music changes with it.

Q: And it follows the current theming, right?

A: As you saw with the graphics and the story points, we wanted to maintain the playfullness of our Space Mountain. It’s this exuberant and optimistic view of travel in the future, where it’s fun and playful.

Q: Why are the speakers along the track instead of using onboard audio?

A: What we’ve tried to do, as with the rest of the enhancement to the attraction, we tried to preserve the things we really like about our Space Mountain. We approach each one as an individual thing. It doesn’t need to be – and shouldn’t be – like every other Space Mountain around the world. In this case, the rockets we have here are so unique – low-slung and single file – and that’s part of the visceral experience that we think people really respond to. This leads to a preference, in this case, for an off-board audio arrangement, so it’s not speakers right next to your ear. We want to keep the physical configuration as it is.

In doing that, we’ve put a lot of thought into what should our experience be. And if the same music is playing through the entire builidng at one time, how do you give the different movements in the ride a different accompaniment? Each time you go through there’s a slight difference in the experience based on when you crest that first hill and where the [sound]track happens to be in the cycle.

Q: So your next ride might not have the same musical effects as the last one?

A: It’s interesting the differences in how you interpret the music depending on what’s going on. It’s intended to have a lot of action to it and a lot of moments. I’ve actually seen and heard reaction from people who believe this is synched to each vehicle. The reality is that we have enough going on in there, so from your point of view, you can interpret it as having been timed to your ride.

Q: Did you consider onboard audio?

A: We consider all our options all the time, and clearly we’ve done that in other locations, so it is something we have in our tool belt. But in this instance … to do onboard audio requires headrests that are up here behind the head and speaker placements, and that we felt that would have an impact on the guest experience – it would work against some of the things that are so unique about our Space Mountain. That seemed not to be a fair trade.

The off-board option we were interested in because we had never done it before. It had been discussed and tested in a few different places, but never persued. We’re always looking for another hoop to jump through, and this was an interesting challenge. The difference in the way that it kind of fills this space and offers you a sonic soundscape to travel through, we think is the better way to go. We really love the fact that our Space Mountain retains uniqueness in the lineup.

Q: Is it fair to say that the new audio was part of the big picture of Space Mountain enhancements? That this is Grand Plan, Part 2?

A: The audio component was something that we could do after hours around the operation of the attraction, we felt that was the way we should do it. It meant we could bring the attraction back up [from the 2009 refurbishment] much earlier and have people riding for the past several months — but we still had this last little surprise up our sleeves.

What better way to enjoy Disney World’s theme parks than with like-minded guests? Two upcoming fan meet-ups will take participants on scavenger hunts through two different parks in October.

In honor of Epcot’s International Food and Wine Festival, the Disney Food Blog is hosting its 2010 WDW Foodie Fest. The open house is from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 3 at Ariel’s restaurant in Disney’s Beach Club hotel.

After registration, participants will receive a scavenger hunt clue sheet and instructions. The hunt leads fans into Epcot — a 10-minute walk from the hotel — and through World Showcase, Future World and the Food & Wine Festival on a food-themed journey to unlock the answer to the ultimate clue. Those who do will have a chance to win prizes.

There will be versions of the hunt for families with kids and for adults-only groups and solos, so everyone can participate. Registration is free but does not include park admission.

You can follow @WDWFoodieFest on Twitter for planning updates.

On Oct. 9, Mouse Planet is bringing its MouseAdventure World Explorers 2 to Animal Kingdom.

The event will begin before the park opens with breakfast at Restaurantosaurus. After breakfast and a brief orientation, teams will attempt to solve quests and earn MouseAdventure World Explorer Merit Badges. Results will be announced at a resort meet that night, and prize packages will be shipped to the winners after the event.

This scavenger hunt will not have a separate family division; all teams will compete together.

Pricing for this event is $175 for a two-player team, plus $35 for each additional player (up to a total of 4 players per team). The registration fee includes an early-morning escort to Restaurantosaurus, breakfast for each member of your team, and the game; it does not include park admission. The registration deadline is Sept. 3.

To register and get all the details, including payment and costume rules, click here.

Disney Food Blog and Mouse Planet are not affiliated with Walt Disney World.

(Photo at top by Walt Disney World)

Last week I attended the Disney Pins Celebration at Epcot with hundreds of other folks who don’t have that issue. The primary activity is trading, of course. I had not imagined that traders stood in lines to get up to bulletin boards and pick out two pins to swap for — with a one-minute time limit for browsing the board. Farther back in the showplace, folks spread out their vast collections. One woman told me she “only” had five books of “Nightmare Before Christmas” pins. Clearly, I don’t know Jack Skellington.

Most entertaining to me were previews of upcoming pins and vinyls, some devoted to the 40th anniversary of Walt Disney World in 2011.

Here’s a set with characters “creating” classic Magic Kingdom attractions.

More oldies in a postcard-inspired set (Notable: Flight to the Moon, nomenclature for Grand Prix Raceway.)

This fascinating set, when arranged just right, makes up Cinderella Castle. The artwork on the individual pins represents the posters seen underneath the train station/entrance to Magic Kingdom.

Vinylmation will be in on the 40th anniversary as well. (Sorry, shooting through glass casing is not my best event).

Also coming up: a Vinylmation series based on national flags. All 11 of the countries represented at Epcot’s World Showcase will have a figure, “plus Brazil, of course,” says  Steven Miller, project manager, Disney Trading.

Earlier in the week, I visited D Street, a prime Vinylmation outlet at Downtown Disney. The store has settled in since the grand opening. It’s less crowded (some of the bulky artifacts from the late Adventurers Club have been removed), and it’s blending vinyls and other merchandise more.

I like the changing traffic signal outside.

Inside, I was drawn to the new “Toy Story” series. Note Buzz’s helmet, which is one of the first times that Vinymation has broken the Mickey mold. (See also Buttercup the unicorn’s horn from this series, plus a giraffe in the animal series and an angry emu in the Have  a Laugh series.) Miller says they will reserve the right to accessorize “when it makes sense.”

Also graphically appealing is the Big Eyes series (this is Goofy, see?). Others represented in the collection, which was released this spring, include Buzz, Mickey, Minnie, Grumpy, Donald Duck, Marie, Mike Wazowski, Pluto, Stitch, Tinker Bell and “Pie-Eyed” Mickey.

Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse finally appear on Halloween sleepwear from the Disney Store. (Disney Store)

At our house, Halloween pajamas are as much of a tradition as Christmas PJs. My son and daughter look forward to getting cozy each night in October, lighting our pumpkins and checking out the neighbors’ decorations.

This year, however, I think they will be really excited to see the Disney Store offerings. I can’t remember ever seeing Mickey and Minnie Halloween pajamas that would fit my kids — and, believe me, I’ve looked.

Minnie Mouse makes her appearance in a witch costume on a purple nightgown, while Dracula Mickey leads the way to trick-or-treating on orange-and-black boys pajamas. Each sells for $14.50, but if you buy two sleepwear items now the total is $22.

The nightgown is available is sizes 2/3, 4 and 5/6. The pajamas are still available in sizes 2 to 7. (Girls 7/8 and boys 8 to 10 are already sold out.) The Halloween pajamas are only available online.

Recently, the Orlando Sentinel’s Jason Garcia explored how Disney theme-park fans have been disappointed and dismayed over Expedition Everest’s Yeti failure at Animal Kingdom.

Now come reports that a similar fan letdown has taken place at Disneyland, this time with the fire-breathing Maleficent in the recently updated Fantasmic show that debuted there a year ago. The giant West Coast dragon, which is familiar to anyone who has seen it at the Hollywood Studios version of the show, is 45 feet tall and with menacing eyes of red.

Or, at least, it was menacing. Now, though, the technically troubled beast seems to have finally bitten the dust after a brief, troubled tenure at Disney’s west coast park. And it didn’t even take Prince Phillip’s courage to fell the dragon. Rather, some fans said they witnessed the dragon simply collapsing face-first into its demise, which might not be a surprise, given how the mechanical animal had suffered from various glitches for quite some time.

Disney officials, however, said simply that the beast suffered mechanical difficulties and would not be returning.

The Los Angeles Times has more on the fall of the once-mighty legend that some fans had taken to calling “Murphy” or even “the reluctant dragon.”

Let’s just hope our Hollywood Studios incarnation of terror will continue to breath fire, and enjoyment, for all in King Stefan’s kingdom and beyond.

Steven Ford, Orlando Sentinel

Disney Channel and Radio Disney are counting down to the Friday premiere of Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam with specials, contests, games and merchandise. If your kids are as crazy about Camp Rock as my kids are, you might consider some of these activities this week.

Today: CR2 T-shirts for girls can be found at Disneystore.com — use express shipping for arrival by Friday — and at the Disney Store at Seminole Towne Center. (Florida Mall has not received CR2 T-shirts yet.) For some reason, there doesn’t seem to be as much merchandise on the shelves this time around. World of Disney and Target, which had a lot of toys, school supplies and clothing for the original movie, don’t have anything yet.

Fans can check out the official Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam website here, where they can play games, see photos and videos, and watch the red carpet interviews from the New York City movie premiere.

Tuesday: Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam video game is released for Nintendo DS. Players customize their avatars with camp clothing; compete in water balloon fights and canoe races; and join Mitchie, Shane and other campers as they prepare to battle Camp Star.

Aug. 31 is also the last day to enter the Rock the Summer Sweepstakes. The grand prize is a trip for two to see Jonas Brothers and Demi Lovato in concert in Irvine, Calif., on Sept. 19. The first runner-up will win outfits worn by Demi Lovato and Joe Jonas in the movie. Enter here and see official rules.

Wednesday: Radio Disney’s “On the Set” special premieres from 6 to 8 p.m. ET on AM 990. On-air personality Ernie D interviews Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovato, Meaghan Martin, Alyson Stoner, Matthew “Mdot” Finley, Chloe Bridges, Anna Maria Perez de Tagle, Roshon Fegan and Jordan “J” Francis during the two-part show.

Thursday: Part Two of Radio Disney’s “On the Set” special airs from 6 to 8 p.m. ET.

A new “Total Access” segment will begin airing multiple times each day on Disney Channel and Radio Disney. These segments go behind the scenes of the Jonas Brothers Live in Concert tour, which also features Demi Lovato and cast members from CR2. See the current segment here.

Friday: Ernie D. hosts a pre-show from 6 to 8 p.m. ET on Radio Disney.

Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam premieres at 8 p.m. ET on Disney Channel. Music videos from Hannah Montana and Selena Gomez will debut after the movie.

Saturday: The Rock-along version of Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam premieres at 8 p.m. ET on Disney Channel.

Sunday: The Dance Jam version of Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam premieres at 8 p.m. ET on Disney Channel.

Jaclyn Raulerson — a.k.a. Miss  Florida 2010 — visits with Mickey Mouse at the Magic Kingdom on Friday. Raulerson and all the other contestants for Miss America 2011 spent the day at Walt Disney World. The pageant will be in Las Vegas on Jan. 15, 2011.

Raulerson, 20,  is a UCF student and a ninth-generation Floridian. (Photo by Garth Vaughan/Walt Disney Co.)

A new fairy has moved into Magic Kingdom. Here’s Vidia, hanging out with Tinker Bell at Pixie Hollow. Vidia started meeting with theme-park guests on Thursday. In fairy circles, Vidia is known for being a fast flier. Disney World has moved her in in advance of the release of “Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Resuce” on DVD and Blu-ray on Sept. 21. (Photo by Gene Duncan/Walt Disney Co.)