Orlando Business Journal - Shannon McAleavey seemed destined to get a job at Walt Disney World Co.

The 37-year-old, now the company's senior vice president of public affairs, got to know Disney World well through frequent visits as a child with her parents.

At age 2, she drew a passable likeness of Mickey Mouse following a visit. Her mother kept it, had it framed and gave it to her when she landed her job at Disney three years ago.

The reason: 35 percent of visitors to Walt Disney World travel to Orlando on domestic flights, says a report by Pali Capital Research Managing Director Richard Greenfield.

By October, four airlines that account for about 33 percent of the total passenger traffic to Orlando -- Delta, American, Continental and Northwest -- will have cut 18 percent of their seats to Central Florida compared with seats available in October 2007.

Delta, for example, is terminating nonstop routes from midsize cities, such as Nashville and New Orleans, to Orlando.

All told, data collected by the Official Airline Guide estimates that by October airlines will provide 50,244 seats per day to Orlando International Airport, a 10.2 percent decline from the 55,950 available in October 2007. That's the 10th largest decline in the country.

As the region's -- and the world's -- most popular theme park, Walt Disney World will bear the brunt of the cutbacks.

But the effects will reach far beyond Disney. For instance, hotels and restaurants may see a drop in business. In addition, Orange County's tourist development tax collections -- used to fund things such as the new basketball arena and to pay off debt on the county convention center expansion -- may decline.

Greenfield also expects rising gas prices -- which up until now have not affected attendance figures -- will mean fewer visitors who drive to Disney from out-of-state locations. Those visitors account for 30 percent of Disney's attendance.

In general, Greenfield says, "Travel trends are beginning to deteriorate" for Disney.

Disney declines to discuss attendance figures. But in a May conference call with investment analysts, Walt Disney Co. CEO Robert Iger said the company has no plans to offer discounts. "We don't believe there's any reason for us to consider any pricing strategies that are in any way tied to gasoline price increases."

One reason Disney may be reluctant to offer discounts is the fact that 75 percent of the hotel rooms at Disney World are moderately priced, compared with just 45 percent during the last significant recession in 1991.

NASA and Disney have signed a Space Act Agreement for a series of educational and public outreach activities related to Disney-Pixar's new movie, WALL-E, opening in theaters nationwide on June 27, 2008.

This collaboration highlights the similarities between the movie's storyline and NASA's real-life work in robot technology, propulsion systems and astrophysics. Disney-Pixar's WALL-E is set 700 years in the future. The film's main character is the only rover-robot left on Earth. He meets a new robot named Eve, and together they take a journey through the universe.

"Great ideas for future exploration of the universe start with the imagination," said Robert Hopkins, chief of strategic communications at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We hope that with the help of our new robot friend WALL-E, NASA can encourage young people to learn about science and technology and become the explorers of tomorrow."

Disney has designed a 30-second public service announcement featuring WALL-E for NASA's television channels and Web site. The video is designed to draw students to NASA's Web site to explore the agency's missions. The WALL-E character also will be featured on NASA's Kids' Club page. In addition, Disney has designed a "movie surfer vignette" about WALL-E that touches on science and technology that drives NASA's programs, which began airing on the Disney Channel in June.

For the World Premiere of WALL-E, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., will be showcasing some of the latest in rover and lander technology, highlighting the recent Phoenix mission, as well as the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory mission, which is currently scheduled for launch in the fall of 2009. Starting June 27 and running through August 27, the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood will host a special NASA space exploration display, including imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope, which can be enjoyed by all guests coming to see WALL-E there.

Commenting on the collaboration, Mark Zoradi, president, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Group, said, "All of us at Disney are delighted to be working with NASA in their educational and public outreach efforts to teach schoolchildren about space exploration, robot technology, and the universe they live in. WALL-E is one of the most lovable and entertaining characters that Pixar ever has created, and he is the perfect spokes-robot for this program. Disney-Pixar's WALL-E takes moviegoers on a thrilling and imaginative journey into outer space, and now the film's title character will be able to stimulate imaginations further through these efforts."

To view the new WALL-E public service announcement and learn more about NASA and agency programs, visit: www.nasa.gov

Late Summer Passholder Discounts Announced

"High School Musical 2" drew the kind of audience rarely found these days on broadcast television, with 17.3 million American viewers tuning in to the premiere - at the time, the highest-rated basic-cable broadcast in U.S. history. Disney also raked in millions from the sale of T-shirts, posters, CDs and other related goodies.

So expectations are high for "Camp Rock," a made-in-Canada feature starring a school bus full of Disney Channel series stars as well as the hottest act in preteen pop rock, the Jonas Brothers.

All made the trek to camps Wanakita and Kilcoo in Ontario's Haliburton cottage country region last fall to shoot the musical.

"It was amazing," says Joe Jonas, who stars in "Camp Rock" as a teen idol with ego problems forced back to the summer resort by his fed-up bandmates (played by brothers Kevin and Nick).

"I loved shooting up there," Jonas, 18, said last month at the annual Disney Channel Games in Walt Disney World (airing on Family in August). "I fell in love with Toronto, you know, and then Haliburton of course."

The Jonas Brothers return to Toronto next month to kick off their "Burning Up" tour, playing at the Molson Amphitheatre on July 4. "It's an American holiday but we're going to be rockin' in Toronto," says oldest sibling Kevin Jonas, 20.

"Camp Rock," a rock 'n' roll Cinderella story, finds aspiring singer Mitchie Torres (Disney up-and-comer Demi Lovato, touted as their next Miley Cyrus) getting to attend the prestigious music camp when her working class mom lands a job there as a cook. To save face, Mitchie tells the camp cool girls her mom is a big noise in the music biz. The lie catches up with her, just as romance blooms between Mitchie and Jonas's too-cool-for-camp music dude, Shane.

Naturally, much singing and dancing ensues. The musical numbers have an '80s feel, very "Thriller"-era Michael Jackson. Some of the dialogue is pretty corny ("That is rich but apparently you're not," says one of the cool girls upon learning of Mitchie's deception), but it is hard not to get caught up in the exuberance and good spirits of the production.

Among the talented cast is Jasmine Richards who hails from Oakville, Ont., and who plays the lead in Disney Channel's "Naturally Sadie."

"It was a bonding experience, I didn't know anybody," says Richards of shooting in the relative isolation of Haliburton.

The 17-year-old, who plays Peggy, one of the camp cool girls, got her start several years ago when she auditioned for the Toronto stage production of "The Lion King." She won the part of young Nala and has worked in television ever since.

She insists there was no star-tripping in cottage country from the red hot Jonas Brothers. "They are awesome guys, such gentlemen," she says.

The cast bonded after suffering through every teen's worst nightmare at the summer camp locale - a pronounced lack of cellphone coverage.

"We built a lot more chemistry than we ever thought we would because we didn't have our cellphones to rely on," says Lovato, a Texas native who began her career as a youngster on "Barney & Friends."

"We had a couple of run-ins with raccoons and skunks but it was extremely beautiful. I know people were taking pictures just for the heck of it, it was so green."

Not everyone was charmed.

"It was horrible," says self-described city kid Roshon Fegan. The L.A.-native plays one of the camp's best dancers.

"It was just trees and raccoons and mosquitoes and chipmunks, a really new experience for me."

It got so bad, says Fegan, "I was walking around the whole camp trying to find one little bar." That is, a cellphone power bar. This is, after all, a Disney movie.

The lack of cellphone use didn't seem to bother the one group you'd think it would affect the most - the Jonas Brothers. "We played a lot of golf and kept the phones off, actually," says Joe.

No meetings have been set yet, but hope's emerged that informal powwows between the studio toppers and SAG brass could serve to break the logjam that's been the dominant feature of the last three weeks of negotiations -- even with the approach of the June 30 expiration of the SAG feature-primetime deal.

Lack of resolution of SAG's contract has led the congloms to put the brakes on production starts for features and TV pilots. Talks hit their 33rd day Wednesday at the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers' Sherman Oaks HQ, and they are expected to resume tomorrow morning.

With frustration mounting on the company side over the lack of movement in recent days, the notion of Iger and Cherin attempting to salvage the stalemate has been gaining traction. But with SAG leaders apparently fixated on spending the next three weeks trying to defeat the ratification of the AFTRA deal, there's no guarantee the moguls will step forward.

As they had done earlier with the directors and writers, News Corp. prexy Chernin and Disney CEO Iger met with SAG prexy Alan Rosenberg and national exec director Doug Allen in early April in an effort to come to an agreement on the agenda for the formal bargaining seshes.

That session was cordial but not particularly substantive, with Chernin and Iger making it clear to guild leaders that the AMPTP has no plans to deviate significantly from the template established in the DGA and WGA contracts reached earlier this year. At that point, the moguls opted to back away and let the formal negotiations processs play out (Daily Variety, April 10).

Reps for the AMPTP declined comment Wednesday. Meanwhile, the SAG-AFTRA brawl heated up thanks to the battle of the dueling robo-calls.

A week after AFTRA members began receiving automated phone calls from James Cromwell in support of ratifying AFTRA's primetime deal, SAG struck back with calls from Sandra Oh urging the 44,000 dual cardholders to vote down the AFTRA pact. Allen said that the SAG counteroffensive has been cooked up in response to AFTRA's recent "fear campaign" to convince dual-card members that a no vote is a vote for strike.

"This is wrong and is fear-mongering," Allen said in a statement Wednesday. "A no vote simply sends AFTRA back to the table with SAG to get a better deal. The AMPTP will then be unable to pit one union against the other, and actors can only benefit from that."

Allen didn't explain his apparent assumption that AFTRA and SAG would go back to the table together if the AFTRA deal's voted down. It's a questionable scenario in the light of the toxic relations between the two unions.

Allen also blasted AFTRA's message as "extraordinarily deceptive and divisive" and added, "We cannot allow their disinformation to go unchecked."

SAG notified board members Wednesday morning of the Oh messages that would be going out to members later in the day and told them that similar calls would be placed to members over the next week or so.

Oh delivered a fiery speech in support of striking writers at the conclusion of the WGA's march on Hollywood Boulevard last November. SAG was the closest union ally of the WGA during the work stoppage.

The AMPTP accused SAG last week of lying and wasting the congloms' time by stalling the talks until around July 8, when ratification ballots are due back and results of voting are expected to be announced.

SAG's insisted that AFTRA's deal falls short in a wide array of key areas, including salary minimums, online clip consent, DVD residuals, new-media pay rates and jurisdiction, force majeure and product integration protections. Its leaders have asserted a no vote will force AFTRA and the companies to make a better deal.

AFTRA continued to blast away at SAG Wednesday, defending its deal and insisting a no vote will lead to a strike instead.

"The no vote SAG Hollywood is trying to foment on the Exhibit A contract is a strike vote for the kind of industry chaos that has already shut down the movie industry and would paralyze television," the union said. "Don't underestimate what's at stake here. If your agreement is not ratified, the employers can and probably will take back many of the gains you've already won."

AFTRA, which reached its deal on May 28 after splitting off from SAG in March, also accused SAG of incompetence and cluelessness in the realities of negotiating a deal.

"It's easy for the Screen Actors Guild to claim that our deal isn't good enough and that it can do better," AFTRA said. "But does anyone --including SAG's Hollywood leadership -- have any idea of exactly how SAG intends to get more from the studios than the Writers Guild, the Directors Guild and AFTRA have all already achieved? The fact is that actions speak louder than words. Don't be fooled by the spin."

SAG hasn't yet set a strike authorization vote, which would take about three weeks to complete and require a 75% approval among those voting.

Besides the Cromwell calls, the AFTRA pro-ratification campaign has included multiple emails, video testimonials on the AFTRA website, set visits by staff, local meetings and house parties hosted by negotiating committee members, member-to-member phone calls, traditional mailings and a pair of upcoming informational meetings in Los Angeles.

AFTRA also announced Wednesday a statement of support from Maria Elena Durazo, exec secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

"Your success at the bargaining table is a testament to the leadership and hard work of the men and women -- all working performers -- who negotiated the new agreement," she said. "AFTRA members have won the fight to ensure that jobs in the entertainment and media industry remain good jobs with fair pay, good benefits and safe working conditions. These are challenging times for working people that require a strong voice to speak up and act to support workers and their families."

DGA president Michael Apted, IATSE topper Tom Shot and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had previously issued statements congratulating AFTRA.

The AFTRA shows covered by the deal include "Rules of Engagement," "Cashmere Mafia," "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Flight of the Conchords," "Dante's Cove," " 'Til Death," "Reaper," the new CBS programs "Project Gary" and "Harper's Island" and the ABC comedy "Roman's Empire."

Orange County Sheriff’s deputies said 44 year old Patrick Noze stole a credit card out of a guest’s wallet and charged the card for auto repairs.

The owner of the Orlando mechanic shop Noze went to said he told them he had permission to use the credit card.

Noze was charged with credit card forgery, grand theft by hotel employee, fraudulent use of a credit card, and dealing in stolen property.

A Disney Spokesperson said he has been placed on unpaid administrative leave pending the outcome of the charges.