Opening day should be the best day. That is the whole appeal of showing up on day one of an EPCOT festival. The menus are fresh, nobody has reviewed anything yet, the merchandise is fully stocked, and you get to be the person telling everyone else what is worth ordering. Plenty of guests specifically plan trips around opening day for ...

Halloween has completely taken over the theme parks, and we are only in late August. Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party has been running at Magic Kingdom for weeks now, with multiple nights already sold out. Oogie Boogie Bash is underway at Disney California Adventure. Halloween Time officially kicked off at Disneyland Resort on August 21, which means Main Street, U.S.A. is ...

Last week, I wrote about what is happening to Walt Disney World’s hotels. The short version is that the whimsy is going. One resort at a time, the heavily themed rooms are being replaced with something cleaner, calmer, and considerably more neutral. Muted palettes. Simple lines. A framed character silhouette where a full mural once stood. It looks nice. It ...

For nearly four decades, Dollywood has been inseparable from Dolly Parton. The Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, theme park is not simply a destination that happens to carry the name of a famous entertainer. Parton helped shape what Dollywood became, turning pieces of her childhood, music, family, Appalachian upbringing, and personal values into experiences that millions of guests have encountered over the ...

OFFICIAL UPDATE AS OF 1:58 P.M. EST Singer-songwriter-actress Dolly Parton, whose glittering country music stardom was matched by her pop fame and popular parallel careers in film and TV, died on Aug. 25. She was 80 years old. Click here for the official breaking news and learn more about this heartbreaking and tragic update.   Dollywood has confirmed a closure that will ...

For generations of visitors, Dollywood has been more than another theme park in the Smoky Mountains. It has been one of the clearest physical expressions of Dolly Parton’s life, music, childhood, and connection to East Tennessee. Her name is on the entrance, her music fills the park, attractions tell pieces of her story, and entire areas are devoted to the ...

Most of what makes a Walt Disney World vacation work happens somewhere guests never see. Nobody thinks about where the monorails sleep. Nobody wonders where the parade floats go when the parade ends, or where the buses get serviced, or where the fireworks shells are stored between shows. The resort runs on an enormous backstage operation that exists purely so ...

Dolly Parton is still working — but her schedule looks very different from what it once did. The country music legend has scaled back several public appearances over the past year, including events connected to Dollywood, awards ceremonies, and a planned Las Vegas residency. Parton has not disappeared from public life entirely. She appeared at Dollywood in March and attended ...

Cast members carry more than most guests realize, and the past few weeks have made that unusually visible. The situation involving a Disneyland Peter Pan performer brought to light a conversation that people in theme park entertainment have been having quietly for years. Character performers work in costume and in character, often without the ability to break the illusion when ...

The D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event is finally here, and if you have been in the Disney fan community for any length of time, you know what that means. This is the weekend everything drops. Months of speculation, rumor threads, permit watching, and prediction posts all get resolved in the span of about seventy-two hours. Fans build entire wish ...