Celebration Eats (Front Street edition)

Just a couple of more weeks until we get the conference call with Disney on their FY’08 results and probably some of the most anticipated discussion about their current financial outlook.  Cross your fingers that enough of us are still making trips to Florida to keep Mickey’s money pump primed.

The web is aglow with all kinds of rumors over things not happening or happening based on the economy.  There are of course more than a few real signs that Mickey and crew are tightening down the hatches.  Most of you know by now that I’ve been pursing employment with the Disney Company, so my usual way of watching things these days is the aggregate of the reputable web PLUS the state of job postings on the disneycareers.com website. 

And as you’d expect those job announcements have slowed considerably.  Right now there are only 99 professional openings in Florida (which has over 60,000 cast members remember), which is down from almost 300 earlier this year.  Probably one third of those are still either continually open positions or the last of the internships.  So all in all, Mickey and crew are looking at adding only about 60 new professional employees right now, which is pretty slim.

Anyhow, enough about the brooding state of the economy.  There is plenty else to talk about here, and I promised some more information about Celebration last week before I got sidetracked by a finance exam and double homework.  This week I want to talk about the restaurants that grace the town center area of Celebration.  We didn’t eat at them all, but all of them were plenty busy, so my bet is that the food in each is pretty darn good.

So let’s start off at the west end of the city center right on Front Street. 

Once upon a time this was the location of the closest Starbucks around, which always made a trip to Celebration a must and fun.  Apparently the folks who live in Celebration had a love hate relationship with the idea of Starbucks, since they really want to keep the town non-commercial and what I would call cozy, but it’s proved to be very popular.  Now the closest Bucks for you caffeine junkies is actually out on 192 right across from where Celebration Ave. meets 192.

Almost immediately across the street on the North side is The Celebration Town Tavern.  We ate here twice if you can believe that.  The Tavern is a New England style tavern and they serve some of the best New England seafood you’ll ever eat.  Our waitress told us that they fly in a large part of their fish selection from the northeast every day, and it shows.  The prices were pretty reasonable too, with most prices falling in the $15 to $25 range.  This is also the place to take the beer lover in your family:  they have 99 different bottled beers to choose from!  Definitely on the list of good places to eat for reasonable money.

Moving down the street we have the Market Street Cafe.  The MSC is a nice, modern version of a ‘60’s era cafe with all the food you’d expect in one.  From shakes to steaks, they cover the cafe gamut and the prices were outstanding, especially for lunch.  We didn’t have time to eat here this trip, but it’s certainly on the list for the next trip!

Crossing Market Street the next place to eat is Cafe D' Antonio.  We didn’t get to eat here either, but this Zagat surveyed Italian restaurant was ALWAYS busy and the menu looks fantastic.  Most of the dinners are in the $15-$30 range and they have a pretty extensive lunch menu as well.  I can’t wait to eat here as my wife and I both LOVE good, authentic Italian.

Next we have Seito Sushi.  I actually had a lunch meeting here, since I was here on business this trip.  While the website doesn’t list the prices, you can see that the selection is very nice.  I had the Sushi Combination which was several pieces of sushi for about $10, and my lunch companion had the Teriyaki Bento box, also for about $10 as I recall.  The service was good, the place was packed with Disney folks (go figure!) and the prices reasonable.  It was a little loud for a business lunch, but that’s to be expected and there are plenty of other quieter places around the downtown fountain for instance to chat.

The next store front is actually a book store, Reading Trout Books to be exact.  Just a side note here to say that this bookstore is where you go if you’re trying to find that hard to find Disney edition of just about anything.  They had some of the coolest and widest selection of Disney books I’ve ever seen (and I own several!).  Worth your stop.

Our next stop isn’t a restaurant per say, but you’ll be hard pressed to walk by it without stopping.  It’s a Kilwin’s chocolate and ice cream store.  Yum!  Cases upon cases of good eats… from fudge to vanilla fudge ice cream, it’s ALL GOOD!

Coming down the final stretch we pass the AMC movie theater and find ourselves in front of the final restaurant on Front Street and boy is it worth the wait.  The last entry is the Columbia Restaurant which is a Spanish and Cuban eatery, and man did their menu look fantastic!  It’s probably the most expensive place in town, with dinner plates running from $25-$35, but you’ll be hard pressed to find a nicer place and at least better looking food.  We SO wanted to eat here, but our timing was just poor this trip so it goes on the next time list.

So there you have it.  A short trip along Celebration’s Front Street.  These aren’t the only places in town to eat for certain (there is the country club among a few others), but you can see the variety and the pricing are all very good and reasonable.  So the next time your looking for a place to try, don’t cross 535 and give your money to Chili’s or some other big chain, try one of these family operated places in lovely downtown Celebration.  We weren’t disappointed and I bet you won’t be either.

Staying and Eating in Celebration

So I promised the other night that I would post a little more about some of the things we found in staying in Celebration this last time around vice the over stuffed holiday hotels on property.

I’m sure most of your are aware that Celebration was a planned community laid out by the Disney Company on a large tract of the land that used to be inside the RCID boundaries south of I-4.  Many of you also probably know that Celebration isn’t really yet a town (it’s technically still part of Kissimmee) as much as it is a place, though they’ve made some recent progress on that front I hear from the web.

There are two places to stay now in Celebration.  The first is the Celebration Hotel which is right in the middle of the Celebration town center.  We’ve never stayed there, but the Unofficial Guide and others give it very high, if not expensive, marks so I’m sure it’s a great place to stay.  They always have several cool old cars parked out in front, and they are a block away from the reason we started our journey’s into downtown Celebrations: Starbucks.

We got a great deal thanks to Expedia for the latest addition to Celebration which is the Mona Lisa Suite Hotel.  The hotel has only been open about 3 months and is just ramping up on their occupancy, so right now it’s a great place to stay if for nothing else than it’s not packed (but that won’t last long, trust me!).

The hotel is a very nice, modern building that sits between Hwy. 192 and Celebration Place.  It’s maybe a 1/4 mile from Celebration Health and very close to the office buildings in Celebration Place that you see from 192. 

I believe the quoted rack rates run from $199 to $400 a night, but through Expedia we got a very attractive offer for a two bedroom suite for around $120 a night plus taxes.  Granted this is the off season in a weak market with a new hotel offering, so don’t expect a discount like that to hold forever.  You can find other hotels on 192 for cheaper, though they won’t be nearly as nice (trust me, I’ve stayed in many of them!), and unless you have an affinity program for staying at the Ramada or someplace like Hampton Inn, I think you’d be hard pressed to find a similar set of features in that close area for the money.

The rooms are nicely modern with large beds, floor to ceiling windows and drapes, a full kitchenette, a flat screen TV in each room (though their digital TV service I found a little annoying) and two large bathrooms.  The room also had a small front load washer and dryer combination machine in the closet.  The overall decor style reminded us of another favorite place to visit in Orlando and that’s IKEA, and we consider that a complement.  Others of you might just be fine with it being considered modern, and that’s cool too.

The main building is a small 3 story circle.  Downstairs is the check in, the bar and the restaurant.  I didn’t venture to the second floor, but my wife said that it was very nice and I presume it’s where their conference rooms are.  We had breakfast in the morning a couple of times in the restaurant which was all you eat buffet for $12.95 per adult.  They had a very nice selection of hot and cold food with omelets to order, a side of cold salmon, and all the bacon you could eat (which made my father-in-law quite happy).  In the evening the bar was also nice and well stocked both for beer and drinks, and I don’t think I noticed a cheap bottle of liquor in the whole place, so the drinks are made with good stuff (and priced accordingly).

The pool is an interesting, and at the same time very cool, affair that makes a circle around the inner courtyard behind the main building and inside the middle of the almost round hotel buildings.  It has a small ‘island’ in the middle with a hot tub and shower, and the pool has a zero entry on one side of the approach to this island and a set of stairs on the other.  My 15 month old thought the zero entry was awesome, as she could wade in and out of the pool without help from mommy or daddy.  Poolside towels are also provided.

My wife met the owner’s wife by the pool one day in a chance encounter and they chatted briefly about the hotel.  Carrie said they owners hope that people will enjoy the hotel and their goal is to make it a very nice place to stay off property and yet stay affordable for families and travelers.  We’d say that so far they’ve succeeded and it will defiantly be on the top of our short list for future off property stays in the area!

Oh yeah, and if you are a classic art fan, this hotel it particularly cool and interesting.  Throughout the hotel common areas (lobby, elevator entrances, etc.) are some of the largest (wall size large) paintings of some of the most classic paintings in history.  I saw several wall size paintings inspired by Da Vinci, Degas and Monet just to name a few.

I’ve got some other goodies from our visit to Celebration as well for a next post.  We ate in a few of the restaurants and studied all the menus for the places in town to eat and I think you’ll be impressed with the quality, diversity and even the cost of eating there.  I know we were.

Back from Florida

Well, got back from our quick trip to the World over Columbus Day weekend.  Unfortunately we ‘lost’ our camera while we were there (to find later it was under the car seat), so no pictures this go around.

In acknowledgement of my pursuit of a job with Disney this year, we let our season passes expire back in August so we didn’t do much in the way of park hopping this time either.  And it was HOT.  However, I do have a few cool things to share for those of you who don’t mind venturing beyond the World when you are in Orlando.  Though I’ll save those for other posts this week.

First, we did do a couple of things at the parks while we were there.  Friday night my wife, my 15 month old daughter, my father-in-law and I did take in the Not So Scary party at the Magic Kingdom.  This is our second year doing it, and I have to say it’s probably our favorite hard ticket event. 

I’d call the crowds moderate to light. . . we didn’t have any problems getting a nice parade spot for the early parade in Frontierland 15 minutes before the show, nor did we have any problems getting into the main hub to watch the fireworks (which are arguably the best part of the show with the 180 degree ending).  We didn’t partake in any of the candy this year, but they did have a new overall sponsor I think in Ghirardelli, whose chocolate I’ve always really liked.  We rode most of what we wanted, though the line at the Haunted Mansion and in most Fantasyland rides were 30-40 minute waits vice the 5-10 for Pirates and Splash, so you know the crowds skewed young.  It didn’t quite have the same pop as last years, several web folks have noted that the fireworks have been trimmed slightly and I think the parade may have been shortened just a bit as well, but overall it was still fun and I got my Dole Whip so life was good.

On Sunday we did finally break down and go to EPCOT after much nashing of teeth over the price of a one day ticket and got to the park at about 1 in the afternoon.  The park was pretty crowded for the Wine and Food festival and we parked further out than I’ve parked in quite some time too.

We stuck to the A/C’ed rides in the front of the park at first since most people were in the back by that point and rode Spaceship Earth (which I still have issues with, see my previous post), Nemo, Turtle Talk, The Land, 2 on Test Track in the single rider line, a snack and the baby and I checked out the new Stormstruck exhibit all in a short couple of hours.  Soarin was toast of course.

In the back of the park we did our usual tour starting with my wife’s margarita in Mexico (and my churro!), waited for the acrobat’s in China (who didn’t come, which became a strange theme with more than one act in the park that didn’t ‘show’ at their designated time), wife ate dinner with a brat in Germany (and I had a nasty bitter cherry chocolate thing that was just gross).  I made up for that with a Sam Adams EPCOT Anniversary beer in America (always like the Sam booth each year, though I think they should separate the food line from the beer line personally), took in American Adventure and we watched a little bit of The Shenanigans show in the Eat to the Beat concert series. 

Then on to catch the end of the drummers in Japan, I stopped for my favorite meal at the Tangerine Cafe in Morrocco (I love the chicken and lamb platter and the baklava, yum!) while my wife, father-in-law and the little one pushed ahead to England where Marc could get some of the fish and chips.  We took in Off Kilter in Canada (a family favorite) as well as the British Invasion in England for the first time.  I think both of those acts have been there well over a decade now and they have a pretty tight following, but always pull new people in as well.  Back to France for desert and then back towards Mexico for a final margarita for the father-in-law (though we got there too late by minutes) and to watch Illuminations up wind (the breeze was definitely blowing towards France).  By that point the park crowd had gotten very thin however, thinner than I thought it would for as busy as the park was just a few hours before.

One special note about Illuminations – don’t miss it if you haven’t seen it in awhile.  The new updated Globe, while subtle at first since it’s not THAT different from what it was in physical form, is substantially better on the video front.  I mean like night and day better.  I’ve watched that show 20 times over the last decade plus and there were things in the globe scenes I’ve never seen but I know must have always been there.  And no, I didn’t get new glasses, the clarity is just that much better!

We looked at most of the menus for the Cities of the World, but I didn’t see where they were that much different than last year.  They did offer a pre-paid ‘bracelet’ debit card this year which I’m sure sped things up considerably for those who used it.  You could put as little as $5 to as much as $1500 on it, and I believe it could be used anywhere in the parks, it just happened to be small enough to be convenient for the food crowd. We also tried to squeeze into a wine tasting again this year, but the line for it was one of the few LONG lines around even a half hour before the show.  I don’t think I saw anything happening in the old Omni restaurant building this time around either.

The one thing I did notice this year in the crowd over last year was the lack of people with New Jersey or New York accents.  That’s not to say they weren’t there and I just wasn’t in the right places (and it’s certainly not scientific), but last year I noticed it enough to comment to my wife that I’d stood in line and heard so many people I felt like I was in Brooklyn or the Bronx vice central Florida. 

It’s entirely possible that is was more of a ‘locals’ crowd this year, but the hotel’s on property were almost all booked out so I find that hard to believe (I’ll post more about the really nice place we stayed in another post).  Both of the parks were pretty light as the night moved on however, but the parking lots were pretty busy so it’s hard to say if the crowds were normal or not.  I’d hazard to say at least a little lighter than last year, but that’s just a guess.

Later this weekend I’ll post more about our in depth exploration of Celebration, the great place we stayed, and some other Orlando area comments in general. 

Stay tuned!

The Bloom is Off at Disney?

Well, it had to come sooner or later.  Disney stock got hammered today on a couple of pretty negative financial pieces.

The first was the downgrade from Merrill Lynch to Underperform for Disney’s stock.  Both yesterday’s Wall Street Journal and the downgrade today called into question the economic sensitivity of Disney to the economy.  The WSJ article in particular noted that while Disney shares certainly commanded a better return than the other studio stocks (which are all down more than 20%) due to more diversification and less reliance on advertising than their peers.  They noted however more or less what the Merrill Lynch’s posting today noted as well: that 60% or more of Disney’s business is economically sensitive in their opinion. Disney’s stock slid 6% on the day and is down almost 15% since mid-Friday.   

The second was the announcement from the Oriental Land Company that they are abandoning their interest in building a entertainment complex in a never named Japanese city (but presumably someplace like Osaka).  While we all know that Disney doesn’t own any part of the OLC or this action (it holds a license remember), it’s interesting to note the specific reason given:  that the estimated investment return would not justify the project. 

That can mean a number of things, but most likely to me it means that while the project would make money, it won’t make enough to exceed the cost of capital required to build it over it’s estimated lifespan.  That’s a big and insightful admission coming from a group that invested LOTS of money in building Tokyo Disney without expectation presumably of seeing their money back for sometime (though given the age of the parks now, I’m sure they’ve made their money back several times over).

It also doesn’t seem to bode too well for the blue sky discussions that Jay Rasulo had sometime ago about urban entertainment centers in this country.  Some say that Jay is beholden to that idea, but my take is that he was floating it to see what the interest was:  probing if you will.  They’ll build out Hawaii first to get a flavor and use the cruise line to build trend history for such things before making a huge bet I think, but that’s just my opinion.

Wow, what a week!

Well, that’s about as ‘whip sawed’ a week as they come eh?  It’s like being on the cruise ship in high seas: 

up, down, up, down…

Disney’s stock through it all has still held up pretty well though.  Which is admirable.  I suspect we won’t see much movement one way or the other until the end of the year announcements next month.

Couple of interesting articles out this week, one financial and one not.

The first of course is that Disney and the government of Hong Kong came to an agreement over the loans the park needed to refinance with Disney taking them on.  If the park/government had to go to the market in this mess of an economic environment, it would probably have been costly indeed (if not down right impossible to secure).  I don’t think it was a coincidence that the announcement came out when it did (October 2), since it’s after the first of the fiscal year and Disney won’t have to show the encumbrance on their books until the end of the first quarter (i.e. after the first of the year).  That’s good business sense in this environment.  The AP article is here.

Likewise there is a fun piece in the Nova Scotia Business Journal written by Kendra Trahan, the current president of the NFFC.  It’s a nice little article about some of Walt’s business practice and how they apply to companies today.  Check it out.

Traveling to the World on Thursday this week for being doings on Friday.  We’ll be taking in the Not So Scary Halloween party on Friday night.  Hope it doesn’t rain this year like it did last year when we went.  Cross your fingers!