Over at Our Laughing Place we’ve been building Walt Disney World planning tools for almost 15 years!  Among them, the Resort Calculator where you can find resort pictures, reviews, virtual tours, and up-to-date rack rates to estimate cost; the Dining Guide for the best pictures and video clip reviews anywhere on the wide world web (as well as member reviews); and, of course, a premiere Travel Service with a concierge service that these testimonials reflect.  Our first and most used Walt Disney World planning tool, though, is the WDW Transportation Wizard.

And Mr Wizard just got BETTER!  We added an interactive feature so that users can thumbs up/thumbs down each route as well as give tips on the various routes for other users.  Can you imagine?!  Now, as you are researching your next Walt Disney World adventure – and figuring out how to navigate your way around “The World”, you’ll have the added benefit of other Disneykin’s experience to assist you in choosing the best route for your needs.  At Our Laughing Place, we love bringing the Disney community together in new ways to share the fun of planning

But that’s not all.  We thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if people could carry this information with them into the parks for those quick-change itinerary decisions that require knowing how to get somewhere on the fly?”  So we created WDW Transportation Wizard Apps!  Yep, that’s right.  Now, you can use your iPhone and Android devices to access Mr Wizard’s transportation wisdom as well as the wisdom of all the other Disneykin who contribute to the interactive rating and tips system.  How cool is that?!

One of the things we love and admire about “all things Disney” is the Disney commitment to refinement – always finding news ways to make things better.  We are so happy to continue this mission in our own small way, and we hope you enjoy it.  Come check out our new and improved WDW Transportation Wizard!

Our recent Thanksgiving Dinner at Artist Point in Disney’s Wilderness Lodge  in Disney World was magical!  The decorations in the lobby of the resort were all atwinkle, and the music playing softly in the background was perfect for calling up happy holiday memories.  The menu was a special “price fixed” holiday offering.  At $65 per person, it wasn’t economical, but who can put a price on holiday magic?  We didn’t try.  We just fully enjoyed fare, and we hope you enjoy our review!

We loved it so much, we made reservations for the Portobello Yacht Club in Downtown Disney for Christmas day.  We’re eager to experience the holiday ambiance there, because we ADORE Disney World for the holidays!  Stay tuned….

Making Magical Memories

I remember our family’s first trip to Disney World – many moons ago and before the Internet became a resource.  We read guide books out loud to each other, cover to cover, in anticipation.  Anticipation was fun, and we wanted to experience ALL of it!  Disney vacation planning was something that made us happy for months before we traveled.

Upon arrival, the first surprise we got was how HUGE Walt Disney World is.  I suppose we could have “read between the lines” of the guide books and figured out how much space Disney World encompassed to hold everything, but we missed that cue in the turn of the pages.  We did realize fairly quickly, though, once we were walking across Epcot to get to a dining reservation or waiting for a bus to make a dinner show or wanting to change parks mid day, that travel between the parks takes time.  It was during one of those long, hot walks from the Wonders of Life Pavilion in Epcot to the Beach Club Resort for dinner at Cape May Cafe that the idea for a creating a Disney vacation planning website with progams like the WDW Transportation Wizard was born.

Of course, we returned home with a long list of items we hadn’t experienced yet as well a few, like Splash Mountain, that we wanted to revisit again and again.  Truly, Disney World had become “our laughing place“, and we began our Disney vacation planning for the second trip on the plane ride home.

That was the beginning, and from trip to trip, we refined our Disney vacation planning strategy to include these points:

• Decide first what the most important experiences we want to have for each trip are.  For us, new attractions in the parks is often highlighted as well as visiting old favorites.
• Once we know which parks are a priority (We seldom do all the parks in a visit anymore so that we can have a more relaxed touring style; >), we pick a resort.
• Now the basic structure of our trip is in place, and we fill it in with restaurant choices.  If our main intention is to ride attractions, we’ll pick counter service restaurants to save time.  Often times, we’ll do counter service for breakfast to get an earlier start and full service for the rest of the day to plug in some rest and relaxation as part of the touring.  Of course, we always turn to the Dining Guide to help us:)

Always, our first priority is to make more memories that we can share with our DisneyKin and use to amp our eager anticipation for the next Disney adventure.  It’s Our Laughing Place!

Do you have a favorite Disney memory or tip for planning?  Please share!

Dining at Disney World has always been our favorite “attraction”.  We love the Disney Parks - don’t get me wrong.  But dining with Disney is the thread that weaves all of the magic together for us.  At first, it was all about the food…and taking pictures of the food.  And then, we discovered video clip reviews, and a whole new world of Disney fun opened for us.

Our aim in each review is to be both informative and entertaining with our silly Our Laughing Place style.  So, you tell us: in this Chefs de France review, how’d we do?

Recently, we visited Disney’s Hollywood Studios and rode the newly refurbished attraction, Star Tours.  Using the Fastpass system made it almost a walk-on attraction for us — except for that we wanted to stop and often to ooh and ahh over the new additions to the queue.  Disney imagineers are so creative!  The attraction, itself, is 3-D now (a big WOW all on its own), and new footage from more recent movies is included as well.

Long story short, the Star Tours Walt Disney World attraction is the proof in the pudding that the Disney brand continues to reach further and higher in the world of imagination and fun.  I know in the title I said Star Tours rocks my world, but perhaps it would be more accurate to claim Disney ROCKS my world; >)

I am already dreaming about my next adventure to different galaxies on Star Tours.

At Our Laughing Place, one of our favorite activities is reviewing Disney Dining, and it turns out that one of our favorite restaurants is Citrico’s.  Located, in the Grand Floridian Resort, Citrico’s is an elegant, yet relaxed, dining option after a day of park touring.

This wasn’t our first trip to Citrico’s; you can check some pictures here from our previous dining experiences.  For sure, though, as this video review attests, there will be many more visits…  and reviews to come; >)

A Greeting Like No Other

The Beach Club Resort, sister to the Yacht Club Resort, is known well for its relaxed and friendly “deluxe” ambiance.  The soft blue exterior of the building leads gracefully into the family vacation atmosphere of the lobby.  Wicker furniture offset by peach, sea green, and ocean blue tones in the carpet and upholstery offers comfortable seating, and the bouquets of fresh flowers are both inspiring to the eye and refreshing to the spirit after a long day in the parks.  The floors are peach tile with carpet inserts.

Greeted by a smiling valet as we drove up to the entrance, we asked how to register for the new concierge service, and she led us through the beautiful lobby and into the elevator where she used a key to access the concierge level. The  Beach Club Concierge lobby was a continuation of the downstairs lobby with comfortable seating, soothing colors, and beautiful flower arrangements.  The lounge was cozy, smaller than any of the other concierge lounges I’ve seen, and the seating focused around a large television screen.  The ambiance was very ‘homey’ with newspapers spread on the table and talk amongst guests relaxed and friendly.  Our room was slightly larger than a regular Beach Club room with a slanted ceiling in one corner, painted a deeper coral than the peach in the carpet and bedspreads.  There was, as well, a balcony with a sitting area.  We were provided robes in the room, too.

Cozy Concierge Lounge

The Beach Club has both the BEST pool, Stormalong Bay, and health club, Shipshape, imho.  Between these two resort features and the delicious buffet offerings served in the concierge lounge from early morning until late at night, it would be very easy to spend a day or two playing at this resort.  I found the morning buffet and early evening buffet to be highlights of the concierge service.  Food was fresh, well presented, and offered a wide range of options for the picky and adventurous sampler, alike.

a lovely moment in a hallway foyer

And, then, there is the concierge staff…  From working with our itinerary planner before arrival and throughout our stay, I was continually impressed with the friendly, professional, and competent manner of this team as they worked in concert and cooperation with each other.  Our special diet requests were managed expertly on the buffet, and every restaurant was contacted made aware of our dietary considerations.  Never once did we need to remind or ask for assistance in having our requests met.  In fact, the concierge staff was very attentive in asking how they may be of more assistance.  Could it get better than that?  It did…  they helped us in setting up to take pictures for the Our Laughing Place and complimented us on the quality of the website.  Now, that IS as good as it gets.  This concierge service gets the first and only 10 out of 10 I’ve given so far. (They would have gotten it without the compliments for Our Laughing Place, though I am the first to say compliments are a very good thing; >)

This looks like a crazy way to learn to fly…  which is just what makes it so FUN!  Goofy’s Sky School is in Disney’s California Adventure at the Disneyland Resort.  Have you ridden it yet?  What did you think?  As much fun as the video?

Some time ago, Alan and I asked ourselves if people might like to read more than just our glowing reviews about all things Disney at Our Laughing Place. We thought that, perhaps, our fellow Disney travelers might enjoy reading what other fellow Disney travelers had to say about their adventures at Disney Destinations.  I mean…  what an innovative thought, right?

So we put our Mouse Ears together and developed a program where anyone who visited our website, www.ourlaugingplace.com, or purchased one of our iPhone Apps could submit a review to share with all of our DisneyKin.  Every attraction, every park, every restaurant and cruise destination..  as well as all of the planning articles, reviews and our very own Our Laughing Place Travel service are available for review.

Of course, Alan and I still write Disney reviews, too.  What we really enjoy, though, is reading what all you have to say; >)  Come on over and join us at at Disney Traveler Reviews

Where ever we enjoy a Disney Vacation, whether it’s a Disney Theme Park or a Disney Resort or a Disney Cruise, Disney Dining is one of our favorite parts of the adventure! And, of course, what makes the experience even more fun is doing video reviews that we can bring back to Our Laughing Place and share with you:)

Recently, we sailed on Disney’s newest cruise ship, the Disney Dream where we enjoyed one of their new restaurant ideas, The Enchanted Garden.

The food was excellent! Everything – from the edamame served with the bread to the Beet “Carpaccio” appetizer to the exquisite sugar free mousse desserts just made me happy. Happier and happier as each course came. You can tell by the video clip review, that – by the end of the meal – we were happy-dancing!

We love doing video clip reviews at Our Laughing Place; if you’d like to see more come on over to our Disney Dining Guide.  If you have a request for a review we don’t have up yet, make a comment below; we’ll add it to the list.