Deb Wills: She’s All Ears when it comes to Disney World

For two decades, Deb Wills has operated All Ears, a website that presents information about Walt Disney World theme parks, eats, hotels and more. Until she moved to Orlando four years ago, she ran the site from her home in Maryland. In the early days her day job — for 31 years — was with the federal government, and she did her Disney biz on the side at night. She spoke recently with reporter Dewayne Bevil.

CFB: What was the genesis of All Ears?

All Ears started in January of ’96, at the beginning of the internet as we know it for the public. The only group out there available for Disney was the rec.arts.disney newsgroup, which was the precursor to bulletin boards and message boards, and I got involved there.

You were a long-time Disney fan?

I remember as a kid watching Walt’s “Wonderful World of Color.” The first color TV show I ever saw was Walt Disney on Sunday night. I was fortunate enough as a 10-year-old to go to the New York World’s Fair to his

first East Coast attraction.

What turned you into a Disney expert?

People wanted more and more information. … The very first Disney site I found online was two pages — thought I had died and gone to heaven … Through rec.arts.disney and the evolution of that, people were asking the same questions, so we did FAQs. I like to eat, so I got into menus.

How did you run the site by long distance?

There were a lot of people who wanted to volunteer early on. … I was on the CompuServe group, and there were cast members on there. … I just start- ed reading voraciously anything and everything I could. People would send trip reports, and that’s how we got a great deal of the information.

What does All Ears do best?

What we do best are the things that we started with — our dining section and our resort section. We do have all the information up there, all kinds of theme-park information. But the website itself, for its content, has what I think is arguably the best dining project. We have each location. It has multiple photos, menus, photos of food, our resorts. … We’ve developed a niche. Now, it would be really hard to break in with a niche because, as you know, there are, I don’t know, maybe 100 people who have moved down here and set up a [theme parks] blog or a website.

How do you feel about future projects such as Avatar land at Animal Kingdom?

I wasn’t as optimistic about Avatar until the D23 convention last summer. I got to hear [Imagineer] Joe Rohde speak a couple of times … and also listening to Kathy Magnum talk because she did Cars Land. What the two of them kept stressing was that it was going to be such a total, immersive experience. She said it was going to be as immersive as Cars Land was [at Disney California Adventure]. … I am cautiously optimistic that the penny-pinchers will not scale down what they’re planning to do and that this truly will become the next generation of theme-park lands that we’ve all dreamed about.

Where is your Disney happy place?

It used to be on Splash Mountain until I got tired of being soaked. I think it’s walking into Magic Kingdom on Main Street, seeing the castle. That brings back memories of childhood and family and a lot of things that I hold dear. That always makes me pause and smile.