Even Disney feels the recession; to benefit of guests

I gave a little groan when my family discussed an outing to Walt Disney World in August.

Don't get me wrong. Despite my love of world travel, history and sophistication, this is one of my favourite spots in the world. But August? Fighting our way through crowds of vacationing school children at the peak of peak season? Melting under the one-two punch of blazing Florida sun and suffocating humidity? Despite my adoration for my nephews (whose schedule dictated the timing), it just didn't sound like a good idea.

Several things have conspired to change my opinion. 1. It's cooler than normal here, with highs in the 80s rather than the 90s. 2. July has been so miserably wet and cold in England that I'll happily take the worst that Florida can throw at me, as long as I'm not wet, chilly and pale. 3. The recession has made a serious dent in those crowd numbers.

Granted, we've been here for less than 24 hours so my experience could be a wild aberration ... but I have never seen this place so empty. We wandered over to Epcot at about 5 last night, in the heart of the day, and no attraction had more than a half an hour wait. Past experience tells me those lines should have been an hour and a half, at least. Pathways through the park, normally packed with milling crowds, offered wide-open stretches of pavement. (Which is good news for both my mother and the crowds, since her driving of her mobility assistance scooter is really too fast and furious for safety.) If crowd levels stay like this all week, it's going to be a blissful vacation.

But one can only imagine the financial impact on Disney. It's clear they're making cutbacks. Information booths are closed and there are clearly less staff wandering about. The place is still functioning well, of course, they've just gone from abundant to normal. The most noticeable change: The dramatic curtailment of park hours. I remember all the parks being open until midnight in the summer. Now, each park has flexible hours, but the Magic Kingdom is generally closing and 11, and the other parks shutting down between 6 and 9. They are still making an exception for resort guests, who have one park each morning and another each evening on extended hours.

We're staying at the Caribbean Beach Resort, practically a city on its own. It features six "villages" of festively coloured buildings in colonial Caribbean architecture wrapped around a lake fringed with palm trees and artificial beaches. There's a "town centre" in Old Port Royal, where you find a food court, shops and guest relations. Each village has its own pool, or you can use the spectacular themed area at Port Royal, where the pool winds under the walls of a Caribbean fort and water slides spew out of a pirate ship. Clearly, I'll be seeing some action here with my nephews later in the week.

To the delight of my nephews (and, admittedly, pleasing to my own childhood passions) we are staying in the newly-refurbished pirate suites in Trinidad South. Each bed is a pirate ship. The bedspreads are patterned with doubloons and other pirate swag. All the furniture has been designed to look like chests and crates holding pirate booty; the refrigerator is inside a giant rum barrel. The carpets look like the deck of a ship. The bathroom has a bas relief of the Flying Dutchman on the wall, pirate ships under full sail on the shower curtain and sweeping drape to separate it from the rest of the room that's printed with the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise logo. Short of having Cap'n Jack Scarlett here waiting for me, or a cabin boy on hand to mix me some rum drinks crowned with little umbrellas, it's pretty damned perfect.

Staying on our generally nautical theme, dinner last night was at the Coral Reef restaurant in Epcot. This is a spectacular space, dominated by the coral reef and its meandering denizens that lie beyond the glass front wall. Giant grouper, sharks, rays, a sea turtle and a host of smaller reef fish put on a great show throughout your meal. And the food is on par with any good restaurant; no compromise here for being in an amusement park. I had an Ahi tuna steak that was nicely seared on the outside and beautifully rare in the middle, while other family members raved about the halibut and the mahi mahi. Best of all, the meals are included in our package price for the holiday, so it's all both a good deal, and pre-paid.

All in all, a fine start to the week.