Disney World

The perfect honeymoon takes as many shapes as the perfect honey.Almost every lodging in the world offers some sort of romantic package or can invent one at a moment's notice with a quick call to the florist. In general, amenities range from ``Just Married'' T-shirts and a bottle of bubbly to moonlight sails (common in Florida and the Caribbean) and heart-shaped beds or tubs (a trademark of the Poconos and Niagara Falls).Geri Bain, travel editor of Modern Bride magazine, says the weddings-away business is ``growing really fast.

WALT DISNEY WORLD, Fla. - The line snakes from "Space Mountain, presented by Federal Express," doubling, tripling, quadrupling between the metal cattle gates. The sign says the approximate wait is 30 minutes.Only 30 minutes! I think, and I think again: Where else did I ever see a line this long and say, only 30 minutes? And instantly I know the answer.Where else did loudspeakers mounted on poles fill the air with joyous, repetitive music and exhortations to greater happiness? Where else was the avuncular, beloved founder remembered and quoted so often, so affectionately, his portrait beaming down from so many walls?

The Baltimore County Council last night voted to enlist the help of Mickey Mouse to help ensure that youngsters receive their immunizations on time.The council gave its approval for a contest in which parents who have their children fully immunized by 18 months can be eligible to win a trip to Walt Disney World and other Florida attractions.Officials hope publicity about the prize will increase immunizations for hepatitis, diphtheria and other childhood diseases from from 62 percent to more than 80 percent for children younger than age 2.State officials say the immunization rate for school-age children is nearly 100 percent.

Until a few years ago, Crayola and Scholastic were about the only commercial brand names visible in classrooms. Now you can color your local schoolhouses -- and the 43 million children who occupy them -- in the red, white and blue of American commercialism.Nike, Coke, Pepsi, Lever Bros., McDonald's and dozens of other companies, big and small, are seeking a piece of the action in education, and the stakes are high.According to Consumer Reports, children have the spending power of some $15 billion a year and have a say in how their parents spend an additional $160 billion.

OCEAN CITY -- It's Labor Day weekend at Maryland's beach resort, but merchants and city officials are already looking ahead, getting ready to launch a $3.5 million boardwalk face lift they believe will link its future with its Victorian past.For all its tacky familiarity, its T-shirt stands, pizza and french fry joints, Whack-a-Mole game barkers, trinket shops and deafening video arcades, city leaders insist that the boardwalk is Ocean City.And with some modification, some gentrification -- yes, maybe ,, even some yuppification -- they are determined to keep it as the focal point into the next century.

Like its newest hero, Hercules, the Walt Disney Co. has felt nearly no financial scratches from the 2-week-old Southern Baptist boycott, but analysts say it isn't clear if the company's brand image will remain unscathed.There was a slight decrease -- less than one-tenth of a percent -- in nationwide rentals for Walt Disney Home Video for the week ending June 22, according to the Video Software Dealers Association of Encino, Calif.At WMAR, the local ABC affiliate, one man called the week of the vote to say that his family would no longer watch the channel or buy Disney products as long as its congregation endorsed the boycott.

ONE MAN'S SINNER is, apparently, another man's savior. Just a week before the Southern Baptists declared moral war on Walt Disney Co. for its "gay-friendly" policies, New Yorkers were giddy that Disney had transported its "electric parade" from Disney World to Central Park to promote its new animated kids' movie, "Hercules." In New York's view, Disney helped clean up notorious Times Square with its retail and theater projects.Family values, like beauty, are obviously in the eye of the beholder.

The kids were crowded around state-of-the art computers, eyes glued to the color monitors. Parents, seeing how much fun the junior programmers were having, couldn't resist showing off some fancy keystrokes themselves, playing the latest virtual reality and high-tech sports games.Wait a minute. Time for a reality check. This was Florida's Disney World, not a science museum. This was the middle of the 25th anniversary celebration with its huge crowds. Where were the lines? Where were the impatient kids and exhausted parents?

DISNEY'S Daily Blast, a fee-based Web site for children, may remind you of Disney World. Awash in self-promotion, this Magic Kingdom, like the original, is a hermetically sealed domain where nothing of the outside world intrudes except advertising.Like Disney's real World, this virtual one is only partly successful at camouflaging long waits for many attractions. But even those who are unimpressed by audio-animatronic presidents will agree that the theme park's technologies are a lot more impressive than the ones on the Web site.

CELEBRATION, Fla. -- If you've been to Disney World, you know Highway 192, or any of the other commercial strips developed to bask in the reflected glory of the Mouse: Shoney's jammed up against HoJos, IHOPs squeezed between water slides, souvenir shops and the kinds of places you'd never go to at home but prove inexplicably alluring on vacation.But off in the distance, a group of small houses appears on the horizon, mirage-like in the heat waves rising from an otherwise empty stretch of 192. On closer inspection, though, it turns out to be a faux neighborhood of two-dimensional cutouts, facades of pastel-pretty, white-picketed houses representing a world that once was and, the builders promise, can be once again.

Free Disney dining plan from Southwest What's the deal?: Book a Southwest Airlines Vacations package, including flight, hotel and Magic Your Way Tickets, for three or more nights at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Fla., and receive the Disney Dining Plan free or 50 percent off the Deluxe Dining Plan. What's the savings?: The dining plan includes one table-service meal, one counter-service meal and one snack per guest per night at Disney World restaurants. The dining plan covers a family of four, including two adults and two children.

Buy 4 nights, get 3 free at Walt Disney World What's the deal?: Book a four-night Walt Disney World Value Resort vacation package and receive an additional three nights free. Package starts at about $1,271 and includes seven nights of accommodations for a family of four, including two adults, one junior and one child. The package also includes theme-park tickets. What's the savings?: Guests receive a seven-night package for the price of four nights. Guests who travel Jan. 4-March 29 also receive a $200 Disney gift card.

Any day spent at Walt Disney World is bound to be a good day, but last Friday proved especially nice for one lucky musician in the Mount Hebron High School marching band. In Orlando, Fla., to perform in Disney's Magic Music Days festival, the 165-member band was marching along Main Street, U.S.A., when the drum major signaled them to halt. A stage had been wheeled into the middle of the road, blocking the band's path. As band members wondered what was going on, senior Tracie Ervin's name suddenly was announced as the 2-millionth student performer at Disney World since the festival began in 1985.

NEW YORK ZAGAT WALT DISNEY WORLD INSIDER'S GUIDE Zagat Survey / $15.95 This first-time release from Zagat Survey rates and reviews all six of Disney's Orlando, Fla., theme parks, from Magic Kingdom to Animal Kingdom. But what sets this guide apart from the many other Disney travel books is that it's based on a survey of 4,841 Disney-goers. Participants had visited Disney World an average of 36 times. (Talk about insiders.) Using Zagat's system of awarding points based on a 0-30 scale, surveyors were asked to rate parks, rides, hotels, shopping, dining and nightlife.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- HealthSouth Corp. founder Richard M. Scrushy, convicted of bribery, must wear a global positioning device when traveling from now on after a federal judge ruled yesterday that he took an unauthorized yacht ride last month. Scrushy, whom prosecutors sought to incarcerate after the March trip in South Florida, can travel freely in the northern and middle judicial districts of Alabama, near his Birmingham home. U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles Coody ruled that any other travel must be strictly detailed to probation officers and the court.

Good morning -- Peyton Manning -- If you go to Disney World, will you take all of your sponsors with you?

GEORGETOWN, Del. - Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Officer Michael D. Eisner testified yesterday that he told Disney's directors he was hoping to "trade" President Michael Ovitz to Sony Corp. on the same day he told a national television audience that he would hire Ovitz again. In his fourth day on the witness stand, Eisner said he met with directors on Sept. 30, 1996, during a celebration of Walt Disney World's 25th anniversary, and told them he wanted Ovitz to leave Disney and was hoping Sony would hire him. If Ovitz went to Sony, that would have ended Disney's obligation to pay $140 million in severance.

Thousands of unionized Walt Disney World workers voted down a new three-year labor contract yesterday, giving union negotiators the authority to call a strike. The surprise rejection, by a vote of 3,686 to 2,827, sends negotiators with the Service Trades Council union group and Disney back to the bargaining table today. Union leaders said they are unlikely to call for a work stoppage in the near future. They hope to persuade Disney to improve its offer, saying proposed wage increases are too small and increases in health care coverage are too high.

Punch up: www.snopes.com Why it clicks: Created by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson to debunk urban legends and other myths, the Web site tackles more than three dozen categories, including business, computers, food and sports. The download: If you've ever received a message purporting to be an e-mail tracing program sent by Walt Disney Jr. and Bill Gates that promises money and a free trip to Disney World if the message reaches a certain number of individuals, you'll find on Snopes.com that it was just another hoax.

Kind strangers have helped Joe Sanderson keep his job. Now they're helping him go to Walt Disney World. The 20-year-old Millersville resident has overcome physical and mental disabilities to become a paid employee at the Arlington Echo Outdoor Education Center. After an article last year in The Sun detailed how budget cuts would eliminate his position, donations poured in from people who were inspired by his good spirits and ingenuity. Now, after learning that Sanderson loves roller coasters, officials at Premier Rides Inc., a Millersville-based theme park designer and manufacturing company, have organized a weeklong trip to Orlando, Fla., with free passes to Disney and Universal Studios theme parks.