Have you ever fantasized about living on Walt Disney World Disney property? Sure it’s a great experience to stay at one of several accommodations  located throughout the Walt Disney World property in Orlando but what if you could live there on a permanent basis?

Now for the first time in history, that opportunity is available with a new luxury residential community Disney is building – Golden Oak at Walt Disney World.

Golden Oak is planned to be a luxury residential resort community within the Walt Disney World Resort, designed by Walt Disney Imagineering, and owned and operated by a newly formed Disney subsidiary, Golden Oak Realty. It is being developed in the Magic Kingdom Resort Area near Bay Lake with the first few home sites to be available for purchase in late 2010 and a projected for completion date in 2011.

The community will include approximately 450 lavish custom single-family homes and estates priced between $1.5 million and $8 million, featuring themes such as Spanish, Mediterranean and Colonial. The homes will be spread out amongst four gracefully arranged neighborhoods – Carolwood, Carolwood Reserve, Silverbrook and Kimball Trace. Residents will receive benefits such as a private concierge, VIP access to Walt Disney World parks, home maintenance and more.

Here are just some of the ammenities planned for the families of Golden Oak:

• Private VIP transportation
• A suite of in-park benefits
• Access to select special-event tickets
• Community-hosted activities throughout the year

Additionally, Golden Oak Concierge services will be just a call or click away. It will be their pleasure to take care of such arrangements as:

• Move-in services
• Travel and private transportation
• Disney parks and special-event tickets
• Golf tee-times
• Dinner reservations
• Private VIP tours
• At-home dinners and parties
• Holiday home decorating
• Grocery shopping and errands
• Pre-arrival and post-departure home maintenance services

If that was not enough, home owners will have access to certain features at the nearby planned Four Seasons Resort Orlando (also within the Walt Disney World Resort). These include a full-service spa, restaurants, facilities for private events and an 18-hole golf course designed by Tom Fazio.

With such a limited number of homes and prices exceeding the range that most can afford, this will definitely be a community for the elite. However, if you have the means and are fortunate enough to be selected from the Priority Reservation List, Golden Oak offers a dream-come-true opportunity to never have to leave the magic of a Disney park/resort experience.

For more information, visit the official site of Golden Oak at Walt Disney World.

A new baby elephant has been added to the elephant population at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Donna, a 22-year-old elephant Donna is the proud mother of a 288-pound female calf who has yet to be named. Right now, baby and mom are in their backstage home, but in several weeks are expected to join the rest of the elephant herd on the Kilimanjaro Safaris.

Disney Parks Blog reports that Donna became pregnant through artificial insemination in July 2008 and received extensive pre-natal care throughout her pregnancy. In addition to regular ultrasounds, veterinarians and elephant managers monitored her hormone levels on a daily basis to help them determine when she would give birth. Labor appeared imminent last night and the animal care team stayed with her to provide round-the-clock care until the female calf was born around 11:30 p.m.

This is the fifth elephant born at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. In addition to Donna’s first female calf, Nadirah, Tufani, a male, was born in 2003; Kianga, a female, was born in 2004; and Tsavo, the youngest male, joined the herd in 2008. All remain on the savannah at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. This birth raises the total number of elephants in the Disney’s Animal Kingdom herd to thirteen, including five males and eight females.

Walt Disney World is planning the construction of a new 2,000-room resort that will open in 2012 adding to the already large list of hotels/resorts located in the Orlando Florida property.  “Disney’s Art of Animation Resort” will feature 1,120 suites with room for as many as six people per room and another 864 traditional rooms, with a design theme based on four of the company’s most popular animated movies.

The Art of Animation Resort will be built on a 65-acre plot across a lake from Disney’s Pop Century Resort. The location will allow Disney to use a pair of long-neglected, unfinished buildings that Disney originally constructed as a second phase of Pop Century but which it abandoned amid the 2001 recession. Pop Century’s first phase was completed in 2003.

Plans for the new resort show 10 wings of rooms and a separate building housing the check-in lobby and restaurants. The hotel wings will be separated into four distinct groups, each with a theme from a different animated movie: The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Finding Nemo and Cars.

The resort will be priced as a “value” hotel, at the low end of Disney World’s scale, similar to Disney’s Pop Century and All-Star resorts, where standard rates begin at $82 a night. It is the first hotel that Disney has built on the property in seven years.

For additional information, see a more concise write-up at The Orlando Sentinel.

In conjunction with the Star Wars Celebration V taking place in Orlando August 12-15, 2010, guests to have an opportunity to be the first to be the last to ride Star Tours before its October closure prior to its conversion into a newer version of the attraction. The “Last Tour to Endor” event will take place on August 14 from 8 p.m. until 1 a.m. at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

This event will take place “after-hours” and as such will require a separate entry ticket. Besides the Star Tours attraction, there will be specially-themed party zones, Star Wars shows, a “Death Star Disco” and “Symphony in the Stars,” a Star Wars-themed fireworks show. Tickets to the event are on sale now at a cost $75 per person.

While the event is called “Last Tour to Endor,” the attraction is not closing for refurbishment immediately following the event but rather will close, as originally announced, this October.

For more information and to buy tickets as well as obtain special room rates, visit the Star Wars Celebration website.

Disney has released the official schedule for the “Eat to the Beat” Concert Series at the 2010 Epcot International Food & Wine Festival. The impressive lineup that includes several Grammy-winning artists and six new acts, including Sugar Ray, Rick Springfield, Air Supply and Howard Jones.

The concerts, which are included with Epcot admission, will be at the America Gardens Theatre stage beginning October 1. Performances will be nightly at 5:15 p.m. 6:30 p.m. and 7:45 p.m.

This year’s schedule (subject to change) includes:

10/1-10/3 — Taylor Dayne, “Tell It to My Heart”

10/4-10/5 — Kool & The Gang, “Celebration”

10/6-10/8 — Sugar Ray, “Fly”

10/9-10/10 — Taylor Hicks, “Do I Make You Proud ”

10/11-10/12 — Air Supply, “Lost in Love”

10/13-10/15 — Sister Hazel, “All For You”

10/16-10/17 — Howard Jones, “No One Is To Blame”

10/18-10/19 — Exposé, “Seasons Change”

10/20-10/21 — 38 Special, “Hold on Loosely ”

10/22-10/24 — Night Ranger, “Sister Christian”

10/25-10/27 — Billy Ocean, “Caribbean Queen”

10/28-10/31 — Starship starring Mickey Thomas, “We Built This City”

11/1 – 11/3 — Boyz II Men, “End of the Road”

11/4-11/5 — Roger Hodgson formerly of Supertramp, “Give A Little Bit”

11/6-11/7 — Jon Secada, “Just Another Day”

11/8-11/9 — Hanson, “MMMBop”

11/10-11/11 — Rick Springfield, “Jessie’s Girl”

11/12-11/14 — Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, “Go Daddy-O”

About The Epcot International Food & Wine Festival

The Epcot International Food & Wine Festival is an autumn special event that transforms Epcot Theme Park into a food and wine lover’s paradise with specialty food items, culinary events, sophisticated parties and live musical entertainment. Epcot always features a remarkable collection of international dining opportunities and tempting spirits, but during the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival there is even more to sample, sip and love. For more information, visit the official site.

For the first time in Disney Imagineering history, Imagineers are going to take advantage of the ability to swap out computer programs and change one of the midway games at Toy Story Midway Mania. The transition will occur in conjunction with the upcoming Toy Story 3 which is scheduled in theaters on June 18.

The balloon pop game will be changed from Bo Peep and her sheep to Rex and Trixie (the triceratops from the new movie), and will feature a jungle/volcano theme.

What is significant about this change is that the attraction very likely will experience zero downtime during the change. This is due to the fact that the change only involves changing out computer programs which can be done  overnight. Therefore it is assumed that the attraction will simply close one day with the old game and reopen the next day with the new game.

This also creates the opportunity for Imagineering to make frequent changes such as implementing seasonal overlays for the attraction as they already do with The Haunted Mansion, it’s a small world, and the recent overlay done on Space Mountain. Only in the case, the overlays can be done overnight when the parks are closed.

This leads one to wonder if more of these types of Imagineering will appear in attractions of the future giving the Imagineers the ability to keep attractions fresh and up to date.

It’s not certain whether those changes will appear at the version of Toy Story Midway Mania at Disney’s California Adventure, but it would be a reasonable assumption.

Disney’s Animal Kingdom recently welcomed the birth of a critically endangered western lowland gorilla. The newborn is doing well and has already become an integral part of the gorilla family group that includes first-time mother, Kashata, father Gino and two other females.

Photo by Gene Duncan

The baby gorilla is the third born at the park as part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) Species Survival Plan which manages genetic diversity among species through detailed records of individual animals. Disney’s Animal Kingdom also participates in AZA Species Survival Plans for several other animals, including elephants, cotton-top tamarins and okapi.  The first gorilla birth occurred in 1997 before Disney’s Animal Kingdom opened, and the second baby arrived in 1999.

Since the mother, Kashata has been holding the baby close to her body, animal keepers have yet to determine the baby’s gender. So I assume we wait for a name but whatever gender the baby is, he/she sure is cute. Mama looks mighty proud as well.

If you are visiting the park, you can see the newborn gorilla now at the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail.

Walt Disney World has announced plans for ‘Summer Nightastic!, a series of events that begin in early June 2010 and run through the summer season. Summer Nightastic! will include the return of the Main Street Electrical Parade, a huge daily firework show (a renamed ‘Magic, Music and Mayhem’) at the Magic Kingdom, and a new drop profile and effects for the Tower of Terror.

Here’s the Official Press Release:

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (Feb. 10, 2010) – The “Main Street Electrical Parade” lights up the streets of Magic Kingdom and headlines a season of after-dark excitement coming to Walt Disney World Resort.

“After the sun goes down, our Walt Disney World parks will light up the night with Summer Nightastic!, ” announced Meg Crofton, president of Walt Disney World Resort, at a media event Wednesday.

Disney magic will shine and shimmer in a whole new light.

Here’s a look around:

• With floats and characters appearing for the first time at Walt Disney World Resort, Disney’s “Main Street Electrical Parade” returns with its joyous sights and sounds. Direct from Disneyland and marking its first engagement in Florida since 2001, the cherished parade will be led by Tinker Bell waving from the basket of a magical balloon aboard a new float. Pinocchio and Snow White join the parade this summer, aboard bright new floats. Disney’s “Main Street Electrical Parade” is set for its summer-long nighttime premiere in early June at Magic Kingdom.

• The Twilight Zone™ Tower of Terror welcomes “drop-ins” this summer with even more pulse-racing surprises. New lighting effects and the addition of a new drop sequence, created especially for “Summer Nightastic!”, will bring unexpected frights to guests who step into that infamous service elevator. If they dare.

• What could be more summery than fireworks on a star-studded night? Magic Kingdom will treat guests to a special summer fireworks spectacular. The night sky will explode in vivid colors and brilliant visual effects as whimsical music fills the air.

• Other fun! The return of the Sounds Like Summer concert series to Epcot and extended evening hours at Disney’s Animal Kingdom several times a week add up to summer fun as only Disney can do – at all four Walt Disney World theme parks.

The Walt Disney Company revealed a new program today on Good Morning America that allows individuals to volunteer one day of  service to a participating organization in exchange for one day of free admission to a Disney Park. It’s a first-of-its-kind program Disney is calling “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day.”

The free one-day admission ticket will be made available to as many as 1 million people who volunteer through HandsOn Network, a giant volunteer organization and will be honored at one of Disney’s Anaheim and Florida parks.

The program officially begins on January 1, 2010. Once it’s live, you’ll be able to visit www.DisneyParks.com and search for an eligible volunteer project. After completing the volunteer work, an e-mail will be sent from Disney with a link to print out a certificate to redeem at a theme park for a free one-day, one-park admission. And if you’re unable to use the ticket, it can be donated to a charity designated by Disney.

“It’s a great way to honor guests who are making a positive contribution to their communities,” Disney President and Chief Executive Robert A. Iger said in a statement.

The “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” campaign represents another installment in promotions designed to keep visitors coming to the theme parks despite the recession. Hotel and ticket discounts this last year stabilized attendance in Orlando and boosted traffic to Anaheim, even as it squeezed profit margins.

HandsOn is part of the Points of Light Institute, which operates 250 centers throughout the country, connecting volunteers to more than 70,000 nonprofit agencies seeking help.

Here are a couple of cute commercials Disney is using to promote this special offer.

During the recent D23 Expo, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Chairman Jay Rasulo confirmed rumors regarding the Fantasyland expansion in Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. Scheduled to be complete by 2013, this would be the largest expansion in the history of the Magic Kingdom and would vastly increasing the size of the existing Fantasyland.

We have some additional details along with concept art as revealed at the expo itself.

Rasulo revealed the following items we can expect to see in the expansion:

• Visit your favorite Disney Princess in her castle, cottage, or chateau. This will include sharing a dance with Cinderella, celebrating Sleeping Beauty’s birthday with the Good Fairies or joining Belle in an enchanting story performance in the Beast’s castle library.

• Be Our Guest and dine in one of three enchanted rooms inside the Beast’s castle.

• Fly with Dumbo high above brand new circus grounds, twice the size of the existing attraction with a new interactive, three-ring circus tent.

• Journey under the sea with Ariel, The Little Mermaid, in her very own attraction – also opening at Disney’s California Adventure in Anaheim in 2011.

• Meet Tinker Bell and her friends in the magical world of Pixie Hollow.

Now for some of the concept art that was shown during Rasulo’s presentation at the D23 Expo. Enjoy!

Concept Art for Little Mermaid Attraction at Fantasyland

Concept Art for Revamped Dumbo Attraction at Fantasyland

Concept Art for Pixie Hollow in Fantasyland Expansion

Stay tuned to Disney-O-Rama as we bring you additional details and updates as we learn of them in the near future.