Magical News

The Happily Ever After fireworks show has finally returned to Magic Kingdom! This is big news for me; I love this show!

In case you’re not in Orlando, here’s two different views of the new show: one from inside the park, and the other one seems to have been recorded from Bay Lake Tower in the Contemporary Resort.

As you may have heard, Hurricane Nicole recently swept through the Orlando, Florida area. I live in an Orlando suburb called Clermont, which had high winds but overall wasn’t affected too much. The harshest part for me was that my favorite local restaurant was closed due to power issues.

While my family and I came out of the hurricane well, other parts of the state did not. This Orlando Sentinel article details the issues other parts of the state faced, such as shore erosion, flooding, and even some bridges ripped out: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/weather/hurricane/os-ne-tropical-storm-hurricane-nicole-thursday-update-20221110-4ha74apjmne4lpbthmfsoi4ctq-story.html .

Hurricane Nicole wasn’t too bad, but other hurricanes have hit my state and dealt much more damage. In those cases, where the hurricanes are predicted to be severe, my family books a flight to visit my siblings in Illinois, California, and Colorado.

But there are some times where a hurricane is not too bad – and then us Floridians go into party mode! We have hurricane parties to wait out the storm, stash extra supplies in our attic, fill our bathtubs with water, and so on. Having hurricane parties might sound crazy to people outside of Florida but for the most part Florida houses are built well and our neighborhoods are landscaped to channel water away, so there’s not much to be concerned about except for a 1-2 day blackout.

What I don’t see mentioned on the news at all is that it’s very common for some Orlando residents to – when they see a hurricane coming – to immediately book a hotel room in a Disney World resort and spend the hurricane plus a few days afterward there. There is an elderly couple a few houses down from mine that routinely does this. Disney World is fantastic with its emergency response and its hotels are well supplied, so even when the surrounding communities are in a blackout, there is at least food and warmth available in a Disney World resort.

I also have a work colleague that frequently books Disney resorts to wait out hurricanes, and he absolutely loves it – Disney passes out prepared meals for rooms (typically dishes that can be eaten cold such as sandwiches, yogurt, cut fruit, etc), has performers out in resort common areas to entertain the children, and has teams out fast to clean up the debris from hurricanes. You can Google some of the things that Disney does to keep the magic alive during hurricanes; here’s an article I found with a picture of the hurricane menu at a Disney resort.

I’ve been told that the best resort to take refuge from a hurricane in is the Contemporary Resort; the Contemporary’s A frame design makes it very strong, plus the common areas have huge windows so you can see the hurricane blow through. I was trying to find a YouTube video of a hurricane from the Contemporary’s viewpoint, but the best one I could find was this video of Hurricane Nicole’s aftermath in the Boardwalk area:

We survived Hurricane Nicole, and now you know how we handle hurricanes in Orlando: book a Disney resort room, or have a party!

I live near Orlando, so I’m close to the Disney parks and can visit anytime my family wants to. However, I work as a consultant and I frequently need to fly out of Orlando’s airport to visit Chicago, New York, Denver, and Los Angeles where my client companies are.

Orlando weather can be unpredictable. There are often random rain squalls that can turn a sunny day into a pouring thunderstorm, and then back into a warm sunny day within the span of 20 – 30 minutes. When I first moved to Orlando a former colleague told me to always fly out of Orlando before midday, otherwise I would get stuck in airport delays. While I think that’s a bit too much for an Orlando regular it’s good advice for Disney World guests, especially if you need to make a connecting flight.

So whenever I fly out of Orlando I try to purchase flights that leave around 11 AM to 1 PM, and not past 2 PM. I don’t like early morning flights, but I also don’t want to get stuck in a delayed flight due to an afternoon storm. So a midday flight is the best compromise.

Typically I try to fly either United Airlines or American Airlines – I have frequent flier miles on my United account from a previous job, and my current employer prefers to fly on American whenever possible. I’ll recommend specific United and American flight numbers since I’ve flown on them, but if you prefer Southwest/Frontier/another airline, try to get a flight leaving no later than 1 PM EST (Orlando time).

Flying Orlando To Chicago

Here I like United, because United flight 1960 leaves at 11 AM and if you miss that you can catch UA 1962 leaving just one hour later at 12 noon. If you prefer American Airlines, AAL flight 1647 leaves at 12:40 PM, which cuts it a bit close to my rule of leaving Orlando before 1 PM but it’s still a great option.

Chicago has two major airports: O’Hare (ORD) and Midway (MDW). I always prefer landing at O’Hare: it’s a much bigger airport than Midway and therefore has much more options; in case you miss a connecting flight there are more flights and more options available from O’Hare than from Midway. The lounges, restaurants, and hotels are also much better at O’Hare.

Flying Orlando To New York

For New York, there are fewer options than Orlando to Chicago; there aren’t any midday flights by United or American. Depending on my airport destination (I pick the airport closest to my clients; you should pick the airport closest to your home) I fly United flight 2046 to EWR (Newark) at 10:50 AM, American/JetBlue flight 9484 to LGA (LaGuardia) at 10:19 AM, and American/JetBlue flight 2584 to JFK (John F Kennedy) leaving at 10:10 AM.

Flying Orlando To Denver

Flying from Orlando to Denver is a much easier choice. American Airlines doesn’t fly directly from Orlando to Denver; the only direct flight from United at midday is United flight 1520 leaving at 11:43 AM.

Flying Orlando To Los Angeles

Flying to Los Angeles from Orlando, I usually break my rule of flying United or American. The only United/American flights to LAX are in the morning or evening, so I pick Delta flight 2901 at 10:30 AM.

Changing Times

These times are accurate as of November 2022, but as time goes by flight times and numbers can change. However the general rule stands: try to fly out of Orlando by 1 PM EST (Orlando timezone) to make sure you’re not delayed by afternoon rain storms.

A charming, delightful, well-lit restaurant with fantastic Italian food. That about sums up Tony’s Town Square, the Italian restaurant in Magic Kingdom. What I love about this restaurant is that it’s just inside the entrance to Magic Kingdom, so it’s a great place to people-watch as other guests enter and leave the Magic Kingdom.

The restaurant can be found to your immediate right as you enter Magic Kingdom. The entrance to the Magic Kingdom is through the red colored train station at the bottom of the map, shown below – as you pass under the building, you come to Magic Kingdom’s entrance plaza which has guest services, shops, and so forth. Tony’s Town Square in on the right hand side, next to a small set of shops. Fantastic place to see people come into the Magic Kingdom, and you can see the parades as they march down and around the plaza.

The restaurant is themed after The Lady & The Tramp, on the scene where both dogs are eating spaghetti. Make sure you see the statue of both in the middle of the restaurant! It’s a great place for a picture.

Speaking of spaghetti, Tony’s serves up all kinds of great pasta dishes: spaghetti, chicken parmigiana, fettucine alfredo, etc. Plenty of kids options are available: child’s menus are “build your own” by selecting grilled chicken, spaghetti, or macaroni and then selecting two addons from a list which includes grapes, fruit, green beans, etc. The servers at Tony’s Town Square are also very reasonable with changes – I asked for a side plate of diced grilled chicken for my child’s spaghetti meal (which was not listed as an addon option on the menu) and they did it with no problem!

If your child is more of a preteen and needs more food than what a child’s meal provides, Tony’s Town Square can also take an adult sized meal and break it up into two plates – my preteen wanted steak but wouldn’t have been able to finish it; the server was able to split the steak into two separate plates, one plate for her and one plate for the rest of the table to sample from.

I personally had the garlic bread as an appetizer, fettucine alfredo as the main, and the strawberry short cake as dessert. Other family at my table had the sustainable fish, spaghetti, chicken parm, and the steak. We all agreed that Tony’s Town Square is a great restaurant, roughly on par with or slightly better than Olive Garden.

So bottom line: Tony’s is a great place to people-watch Magic Kingdom guests from. You can’t see the evening fireworks displays from it (for that you’d want either Crystal Palace or The Plaza restaurants) but you can see some parades as they march through the entrance plaza; make sure you ask for a window seat. The food is roughly equivalent in quality to Olive Garden (and I love Olive Garden, so that’s a positive in my view). It’s easy to get to as it’s right inside the Magic Kingdom entrance, in comparison to other restaurants which can be scattered inside MK and require you to wend your way through crowds. I actually love to get early lunch reservations and eat while watching the crowds in the Magic Kingdom entrance plaza. Tony’s is a great option if you want Italian food in the most magical place on earth!