Photo of the Week: The Land - Hot Air Balloons

I don't know why but I always loved the hot air balloons that hang from the ceiling in the Land pavilion. Maybe its because they move or are just a nice touch. They are one of the reasons the Land has always been one of the best pavilions in Epcot.

Halloween is Over – Bring Out the Fat Man

It amazes me that Disney dedicates one third of the year to two holidays. For one third of the year you cannot see Disney World in its natural state. When it’s boiling hot in Florida, Halloween decorations are going up. Who cares about Summer, we need to make money! I guess coming up with a summer party they don’t need to decorate for never occurred to them.

So Mickey starts putting kids into diabetic shock before the leaves start changing in New England and keeps it up right through Halloween. As soon as the candy runs out Disney needs another way to make money. God forbid you take a break until Thanksgiving. Breaks are for wimps! Bring out the fat man! When the leaves in NH haven’t even hit the ground yet, Disney is putting up their Christmas decorations. Unlike Halloween the decorations stay up beyond Christmas. They stay up through New Years. That’s more than two months of Christmas crap.

I think all the cast members who work through the Christmas season deserve hazard duty pay. Everything might seem nice for a few weeks but I’m guessing they are sick of it by Thanksgiving and that means they still have more than a month left. No human can take that kind of abuse.

Some of it is nice. Like the castles winter overlay is great but it’s the sheer quantities that get to you. Some things do not need to be decorated. When you go overboard you ruin the effect.

Then you get people like me who never cared about Christmas but always ended up in Disney World that time of year because it was cheap and the crowds were low. That would have continued too if not for resources like Touringplans.com. Thanks to them I was able to find a time of year where the crowds are low and there are no decorations. I know some people love the decorations. I can understand that but for someone who hasn’t seen “natural” Disney since he was kid the decorations are a distraction at this point.

You might complain and say “well don’t go then.” That’s the idea but you want to know something crazy? There was once a day when Disney did next to nothing for Halloween and Christmas didn’t start until after Thanksgiving. Yes I know. I just dated myself.

Disney to Expand Holiday Decorations

Disney has always gone over the top when it comes to holiday decorations. If you’ve been to Disney World after the last week of October you’ve seen one of the largest and most in depth decoration schemes anywhere.

One of the central parts of Disney’s holiday decorations is the Osborne Family Lights display. This insane display contains millions of lights and is enormous. It is one of the biggest displays in the world.

“We’ve always been one of the biggest but that’s not good enough. We must be the biggest! Anything else is just second place. To ensure we are the biggest, we will be expanding the Osborne display,” President of XS Tech said in a recent press conference.

The new display will include an estimated five billion lights making it easily the largest single holiday display in the world.

The following was taken from a fact sheet that will be handed out to each guest at Disney Hollywood Studios during the holiday season:

- Contains five billion lights

- Can be seen from the moon

- If someone stands between you and the display you will be able to see their skeleton

- After five minutes of exposure to the lights without sun block you will get a sun burn

- When the display is turned on the rolling blackouts hit the entire east coast of the United States and the lights dim in China

- The temperature in the center of the display frequently exceeds 350 degrees Fahrenheit

- Uses enough power in one night to light the entire east coast for a week

Look for the new display this holiday season. If you cannot make it to Disney World but live within 700 miles of Disney World, just look for the glow on the horizon.