First off - we're passholders again! :sohappy: We upgraded our Play 3 to a seasonal so we've got a year of Disney love ahead of us. Weeee!
So we headed out and visited Ecpot and MK yesterday. Found a few observations I thought I'd report. Info first, then pics.
Epcot
- It's the last weekend of the Flower and Garden Festival so all F&GF mechandise is 50% off. The plush, the shirts, the prints, etc. If you wanted anything, today's the chance to get it half off.
- We arrived there in the morning with awful smoke. As already reported there were wildfires in the area. It was so smokey you couldn't see much in front of you - even Spaceship Earth as you'll see in the pic below. It also had a very strong fire smell. The smoke got better into the afternoon - more visability- though you still had whiffs of the smokey smell through the day.
This was from the "Amaze" parking lot - very close to the front. It's hard to really get a sense of how smokey it was (from a photo), but this might give you some idea.
- Rode the MS:Green ("Less Intense" training as they remind you over and over :lol: ) to see what it was like. Oy. It's less intense all right. There was a steady guest flow for the green line though, so I suppose it's a smart move. Green had a 10 minute posted wait; Orange 30 minutes after lunch. The green really is very tame. If you don't like spinning, and hadn't previously wanted to ride M:S for fear of being sick, you definitely can ride the green line. It's really very, very mild. My only worry is that it's SO mild, there might be people who decide to ride the orange that will end up getting sick on the original version not realizing it's quite a bit different from the non-spinning version.
Magic Kingdom
- Wasn't really any smoke smell at MK and visability was good over there. We got to MK in the afternoon. By then, things were better at Epcot as well.
- Tomorrowland Noodle Terrace was closed - however - they had a sign they were going to open from 5pm - 9pm. And sure enough, they did. (The rain helped sales. During the hour or so of rain, the place was full of people waiting out the storm, having a bite to eat.)
- Speaking of food, Cosmic Ray's Bay 3 was open at least until 4:30pm yesterday. I was getting a burger around then and Bay 3 was serving guests still. It's hours must be on a flex schedule.
- Part of the audio on the TTA wasn't working. Specifically, when you enter Space Mountain, it didn't do the "welcome to space mountain...." part. There was nothing there at all. The exit line when leaving the mountain worked, but not the entry audio. We rode it 3 or 4 times in the day/night and it didn't play any of the times.
- The PotC shop has a bunch of stuff on markdown. A lot of the older style (i.e. without Jack on them) shirts, hats and related are clearanced out. I picked up a hat for $11.99 and a shirt for $17.99. Just go in towards the back and check out the shirts. It's well worth if you wanted a style shirt that's pre-rehab. ALL the shirts on property for Pirates besides those feature Jack in some way, so clearly they're moving the merchandise towards him specifically instead of the ride in general.
- They also have new PotC Mickey Mouse ears. (I don't remember seeing them in May, so apologies if these have been previously mentioned.)
- Buzz's Meet-and-Greet which used to be in front of Timekeeper building and then inside its queue area for awhile has found a new home near Carousel of Progress. You use the same ramp to go to the meet-n-greet as the ride. Just head left for the ride or right for the Buzz meet. He was out pretty much all afternoon long. I'm happy to report that CoP had nice traffic all afternoon as well. This move might mean more people head that way and therefore more people decide to do the ride while there.
(Of course, you can't see Buzz in my hastily taken shot, but you can see where people have been lining up here towards the Buzz greet.)
- We got rained on - despite 0% rain in the forecast! - for a little over an hour in the evening. No real thunderstorm so no real lightning or thunder to speak of, just a gathering of clouds, wind started picking up, and then a moderate deluge before it tappered off.
A note to any TTA fans: Don't ride the TTA when it's raining. We were on it when it started to come down pretty heavy and we got soaked! :lol: The rain just peltered us from both sides as we crossed the Indy Speedway area. ("As usual everything is perfect!" was untrue this time mr weather reporter!
) Neither the parade nor Wishes was disrupted in any way but the rain. It stopped well before either.
Ok, think that's all I wanted to report. Hope that helps!
-m
So we headed out and visited Ecpot and MK yesterday. Found a few observations I thought I'd report. Info first, then pics.
Epcot
- It's the last weekend of the Flower and Garden Festival so all F&GF mechandise is 50% off. The plush, the shirts, the prints, etc. If you wanted anything, today's the chance to get it half off.
- We arrived there in the morning with awful smoke. As already reported there were wildfires in the area. It was so smokey you couldn't see much in front of you - even Spaceship Earth as you'll see in the pic below. It also had a very strong fire smell. The smoke got better into the afternoon - more visability- though you still had whiffs of the smokey smell through the day.
This was from the "Amaze" parking lot - very close to the front. It's hard to really get a sense of how smokey it was (from a photo), but this might give you some idea.
- Rode the MS:Green ("Less Intense" training as they remind you over and over :lol: ) to see what it was like. Oy. It's less intense all right. There was a steady guest flow for the green line though, so I suppose it's a smart move. Green had a 10 minute posted wait; Orange 30 minutes after lunch. The green really is very tame. If you don't like spinning, and hadn't previously wanted to ride M:S for fear of being sick, you definitely can ride the green line. It's really very, very mild. My only worry is that it's SO mild, there might be people who decide to ride the orange that will end up getting sick on the original version not realizing it's quite a bit different from the non-spinning version.
Magic Kingdom
- Wasn't really any smoke smell at MK and visability was good over there. We got to MK in the afternoon. By then, things were better at Epcot as well.
- Tomorrowland Noodle Terrace was closed - however - they had a sign they were going to open from 5pm - 9pm. And sure enough, they did. (The rain helped sales. During the hour or so of rain, the place was full of people waiting out the storm, having a bite to eat.)
- Speaking of food, Cosmic Ray's Bay 3 was open at least until 4:30pm yesterday. I was getting a burger around then and Bay 3 was serving guests still. It's hours must be on a flex schedule.
- Part of the audio on the TTA wasn't working. Specifically, when you enter Space Mountain, it didn't do the "welcome to space mountain...." part. There was nothing there at all. The exit line when leaving the mountain worked, but not the entry audio. We rode it 3 or 4 times in the day/night and it didn't play any of the times.
- The PotC shop has a bunch of stuff on markdown. A lot of the older style (i.e. without Jack on them) shirts, hats and related are clearanced out. I picked up a hat for $11.99 and a shirt for $17.99. Just go in towards the back and check out the shirts. It's well worth if you wanted a style shirt that's pre-rehab. ALL the shirts on property for Pirates besides those feature Jack in some way, so clearly they're moving the merchandise towards him specifically instead of the ride in general.
- They also have new PotC Mickey Mouse ears. (I don't remember seeing them in May, so apologies if these have been previously mentioned.)
- Buzz's Meet-and-Greet which used to be in front of Timekeeper building and then inside its queue area for awhile has found a new home near Carousel of Progress. You use the same ramp to go to the meet-n-greet as the ride. Just head left for the ride or right for the Buzz meet. He was out pretty much all afternoon long. I'm happy to report that CoP had nice traffic all afternoon as well. This move might mean more people head that way and therefore more people decide to do the ride while there.
(Of course, you can't see Buzz in my hastily taken shot, but you can see where people have been lining up here towards the Buzz greet.)
- We got rained on - despite 0% rain in the forecast! - for a little over an hour in the evening. No real thunderstorm so no real lightning or thunder to speak of, just a gathering of clouds, wind started picking up, and then a moderate deluge before it tappered off.
A note to any TTA fans: Don't ride the TTA when it's raining. We were on it when it started to come down pretty heavy and we got soaked! :lol: The rain just peltered us from both sides as we crossed the Indy Speedway area. ("As usual everything is perfect!" was untrue this time mr weather reporter!
) Neither the parade nor Wishes was disrupted in any way but the rain. It stopped well before either.Ok, think that's all I wanted to report. Hope that helps!
-m
