SoFloMagic
Well-Known Member
It's almost like people have realized that Orlando in July is miserable
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News 2024 Fourth of July Fireworks, Extended Hours, and Entertainment
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
110 heat index and walking around the park all day is not our cup of tea especially since we are much older.
Jrb1979
Well-Known Member
It's miserable in most places across the country. Today it's 86 feels like 92 where I live near Niagara Falls.
DisneyFanatic12
Well-Known Member
Usually true, but some resorts (like Fort Wilderness) go under a full lockdown for major holidays. They’ll scan your band at the boat launches and the bus stops at (some of) the theme parks.
Disone
Well-Known Member
They don't need my friend's approval. She wouldn't be involved in that. But she does work there so she would absolutely know if it was happening.
The logistics of it happening are extremely unlikely. Hear me out on this
If they close the pedestrian pathway you're going to need more than one security host and you're going to need them all day long. They can't just be out there melting in the Sun so You're going to need to set up shade and technology, (I assume iPads ) to them to verify the people coming into the resort. Legitimate Polynesian guests absolutely use this pathway.
It would be a futile effort if not done for resort boat transportation, monorail and even bus transportation. Is it at the place they board The transportation to poly or at the place at the poly where they disembark the transportation?
That's a lot of additional security hosts and that's just for the Polynesian.
Logistically it's just not realistic for them to do this even if they wanted to.
Disone
Well-Known Member
This is not accurate. A huge portion of the population no longer has magic bands for them to scan.
They had a pargo parade yesterday at fort wilderness and there are too many YouTube videos posted. Unless every single one of them was a fort wilderness resort guest they absolutely were allowing non-resort guests onto the property.
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TrainsOfDisney
Well-Known Member
I’ve seen them close the beach at Poly and I’ve seen CM’s at bus stops. It happens.
Personally, I have no reason to doubt the OP who was denied entry at Fort Wilderness and at Poly, if you think they are lying and they didn’t experience that, you are welcome to.
Disone
Well-Known Member
It's not that. I'm just interested in providing accurate information and this rumor comes out every year. Every year. It's just not true. You'll never find a YouTube video or a picture on the internet of security scanning magic bands or iPhones for proof of resort ID to get on any resort transportation or walk to a resort from the Magic Kingdom. It's 2024. If they did it the pictures and the videos would definitely be readily available on the internet. I too have seen them close a portion of the Polynesian Beach. The Polynesian itself has always been open.
You may continue to think that I'm the liar should you choose to do so.
TrainsOfDisney
Well-Known Member
I don’t think you are lying, but just because you haven’t seen it, doesn’t mean other guests have.
They typically roll out phased closings and are only trying to deter guests at certain times.
I’ve never not gotten into MK on New Year’s Eve, you just have to know the routes to take during various phased closings.
Disone
Well-Known Member
Heard and thank you.
I will just have to leave it at this.
It's not whether I've seen it it's whether anyone, including and perhaps most especially the Disney lifestylers and vloggers, has seen it and posted about their experience being blocked out of a resort using resort transportation.
I'll leave it at that and bow out now.
DisneyFanatic12
Well-Known Member
I was a resort guest at Fort Wilderness, so I can’t say if it was or was not closed. However, I know that it was completely closed off to day guests for the Halloween parade and beach blast in 2023.
Sadly, I guess I never took any photos of the checkpoints, which is sort of surprising. However, there were two (obviously deployed, both had different costumes) CMs with iPads scanning at the dock at MK. Additionally, there was one CM scanning at the Contemporary boat dock. We took the resort boat, and they made sure every last one of us that hadn’t been confirmed to be a FW resort guest got off at Wilderness Lodge. They had a CM with an iPad at the Wilderness Lodge boat dock as well. They would radio a description of the guests that weren’t FW guests, just in case someone was trying to sneak in.
Also to be noted, I know that there were CMs with iPads at the bus stop at MK, and I believe one of my family members said there was one at Epcot as well (though I wouldn’t trust that as much since I didn’t personally see it).
Impenetrable? Absolutely not. But they clearly did not want people there and there were plenty of deployed CMs with iPads to keep it that way.
I don’t know the exact process they did if you didn’t have MDE, a room key, or a magic band, but they were giving someone a lot of grief at the Contemporary boat dock since his name was not on the reservation. Didn’t see how it played out though, we got on the boat to Wilderness Lodge before the conclusion of that interaction.
But I don’t think that July 4th was that locked down. It was really busy, but the parade had no where near the crowd of the 2023 Halloween parade. Anyways, hope you have a great day, and if all else fails, we’ll agree to disagree!
Disone
Well-Known Member
I have confirmed with one blogger, mouse steps, that fort wilderness was not locked down July 4th. They took the bus from Epcot to fort wilderness and absolutely no issues getting into the camp ground And recording the parade.
Thank you for the super civil way to end your post. Just to agree to disagree. I do appreciate your hospitality on that. You rock.
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I was at the Epcot fireworks on the 4th.
Found a good spot between UK and Millennium where I could see the barges and in between trees so I can see the higher-launched fireworks. Saw the first half of the Independence Day tag on the lagoon.
But, I didn't know the second half was going to be over the AA Pavilion. And a tree blocked it all. Sorta like this...
Found a good spot between UK and Millennium where I could see the barges and in between trees so I can see the higher-launched fireworks. Saw the first half of the Independence Day tag on the lagoon.
But, I didn't know the second half was going to be over the AA Pavilion. And a tree blocked it all. Sorta like this...
davis_unoxx
Well-Known Member
Yep there was Disney security officer right on pathway past the first tiki torches asking for last names and room numbers. I turned around and just got on monorail to MK
SoFloMagic
Well-Known Member
The show was great. Including "lift every voice and sing", jfk, mlk was beautiful. They just needed to put a ww3 barge out there and have the final 20 seconds over the lake
Not sure why the OP is so insistent on being adamant in his stance. Parked at the TTC on the 4th and tried to use the pedestrian path to go to the Poly around 6ish (even had a mobile order for Kona) and security was blocking entrances and wouldn’t let us in. We were told the resort was hard-closed to anyone that didn’t have a room and said we’d have to cancel our mobile order. Only kind of overheard the party trying to go in after us but sounds like they had a dining reservation and they weren’t being allowed in either. Maybe the security guards weren’t supposed to be so strict? Maybe something was miscommunicated? But we definitely were not being allowed to enter the Poly on foot from the TTC.
TrainsOfDisney
Well-Known Member
Where did you end up going for dinner and fireworks? I hope it worked out well for you.
People on this site get really upset when i criticize Disney security but at WDW they often seem to make up their own rules with no rhyme or reason - obviously management allows it. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was TTC security going way over the top and they were initially told to just discourage guests by saying “all viewing areas are closed except for resort guests.”
I think fully closing resorts is overboard - it’s going to be crowded no matter what - reserve some viewing spots for resort guests if you want and call it a day.
