This is my first trip report. 
I am starting with a some issues we had with magic bands etc...
Day 1
We arrived at Pop 11/9 on a room only reservation at about 11:00am .. Our room was ready so we brought our carry-ons to the room and headed to Downtown Disney to eat at T-Rex.
It was absolutely packed at DTD! Ate lunch, and left.. Skipped World of Disney it was that packed! Once back at Pop, we asked at front desk about accessing our park tickets early(which were linked to our free-dining res starting on 11/11) .. They said we could go to guest relations at whatever park we wanted to go to (Epcot) and they could help us with that. Once we got to Epcot, the CM said no problem.. She called Pop and had our park tickets "pulled" from our free-dining res. That is when the trouble started.. Pulling the tickets wasn't a problem, but it wouldn't let us add 2 additional days unless we paid 115.00 per ticket(3X). She explained that we had 7 days to add additional days and told us to wait till Monday 11/11 to add days and hopefully it would be the right price.. Then she tried linking the tickets to our magic bands... No go. Would not let it happen, so she issued us regular RFID park tickets and we were on our way! Only an hour wasted, but at least we were given some fast passes to use on the attraction of our choice so we scored in a way.. We had arrived to Epcot via bus and on our walk to Guest Relations noticed a lot of cars were parked on the grass. We were expecting the park to be packed! Once we got in, it really wasn't as bad as we had expected.. Rode the new Test Track for the first time! I wouldn't say it was a big improvement from the original, just different.. My son on the other hand thought it was the best ride ever! He thought it was cool to design your own car, but was aggravated at the short amount of time we had to design it, more on that later.
Day 2
The next day we went to Epcot again in the morning, waited in line to get in for a good 20 minutes, got to the entrance, scanned cards and guess what.. No green light. According to the CM with the iPad, our ticket were empty shells, with nothing attached to them. Back to guest relations outside the park again!! The line there was huge and they only had 2 of the 3 windows open. They did have people trying to troubleshoot peoples problems in line, but most still had to wait. After about 45 minutes we got to the window, and I explained our problem to the CM. Michael (from VT) was the most knowledgeable cast member we have ever dealt with! It took him a total of about 5 minutes to remedy our problem. He reissued our 7 day park hoppers, and added 2 additional days to each ($10.00/day per person) and had us on our way back into the park! He could not get our tickets linked to our magic bands so we needed to use the regular park tickets to enter the park, which was no big deal, and actually worked out better! Big Thank You to Michael, YOU ARE THE BEST!!! The magic bands worked for everything else, photo-pass, fast pass +, room entry, dining plan redemptions... We were also able to use our hard tickets to get fast passes if we needed to.. We spent this day mostly in Future World. We did Soarin, Test Track multiple times, Nemo, Sum of all Thrills..
We then went to World Showcase.. It was pretty crowded at this point, and we only did a few samples.
Didn't see anyone out of control.. We had a fast pass + for Illuminations which worked out very nicely and called it a night..
Day 3
Back to Epcot again and on a side note....
I work for a Chevrolet dealer, so we were able to access the Chevrolet Conference Center at Test Track and get fast passes for the ride. They also had 2 design stations at the Conference Center which were not timed, so my son and I were able to tweak our cars to produce low 230's for scores. There is a little trick to it which I was lucky enough to stumble onto!! Every day we were at Epcot last week we had the high score, which my son thought was just the best thing ever!! So if you were at Epcot 11/11-11/17 and saw I high score in the low 230's it was probably us.. The best we could do before discovering the secret was 202.. If you are a current or retired GM employee or GM dealership employee, you need to show your ID and license to have access to the conference center. The Conference Center is only open Monday-Friday from 9:00am to 5:00pm, and is accessed by going through a door to the right of the main que entrance. Once through that door you go down a long hallway to an elevator where you press the call button, and have your ID ready to show.
Our first 2 days(Saturday & Sunday), the center was closed so you need to go to the GM information desk located in the post-ride showroom area and show them your ID for a fast pass. The conference center has an amazing view of the park. If you look up when going to test track, just above the track you can see the large windows of the center.. FYI, if you want to make your car design without being timed, there are kiosks located in the post ride area. Just make sure that when you go to the design studio in the que that you do not rescan your card or magic band(whichever one you used) or your car will be erased! Wait until you are getting on the ride to scan your car again.. So if you work for GM or a GM dealer, or are going with someone who is, make sure you check it out! I have worked for them for nearly 25 years and this is the first time I used it! Had I only known years ago!!
To be continued....
I am starting with a some issues we had with magic bands etc...Day 1
We arrived at Pop 11/9 on a room only reservation at about 11:00am .. Our room was ready so we brought our carry-ons to the room and headed to Downtown Disney to eat at T-Rex.
It was absolutely packed at DTD! Ate lunch, and left.. Skipped World of Disney it was that packed! Once back at Pop, we asked at front desk about accessing our park tickets early(which were linked to our free-dining res starting on 11/11) .. They said we could go to guest relations at whatever park we wanted to go to (Epcot) and they could help us with that. Once we got to Epcot, the CM said no problem.. She called Pop and had our park tickets "pulled" from our free-dining res. That is when the trouble started.. Pulling the tickets wasn't a problem, but it wouldn't let us add 2 additional days unless we paid 115.00 per ticket(3X). She explained that we had 7 days to add additional days and told us to wait till Monday 11/11 to add days and hopefully it would be the right price.. Then she tried linking the tickets to our magic bands... No go. Would not let it happen, so she issued us regular RFID park tickets and we were on our way! Only an hour wasted, but at least we were given some fast passes to use on the attraction of our choice so we scored in a way.. We had arrived to Epcot via bus and on our walk to Guest Relations noticed a lot of cars were parked on the grass. We were expecting the park to be packed! Once we got in, it really wasn't as bad as we had expected.. Rode the new Test Track for the first time! I wouldn't say it was a big improvement from the original, just different.. My son on the other hand thought it was the best ride ever! He thought it was cool to design your own car, but was aggravated at the short amount of time we had to design it, more on that later.
Day 2
The next day we went to Epcot again in the morning, waited in line to get in for a good 20 minutes, got to the entrance, scanned cards and guess what.. No green light. According to the CM with the iPad, our ticket were empty shells, with nothing attached to them. Back to guest relations outside the park again!! The line there was huge and they only had 2 of the 3 windows open. They did have people trying to troubleshoot peoples problems in line, but most still had to wait. After about 45 minutes we got to the window, and I explained our problem to the CM. Michael (from VT) was the most knowledgeable cast member we have ever dealt with! It took him a total of about 5 minutes to remedy our problem. He reissued our 7 day park hoppers, and added 2 additional days to each ($10.00/day per person) and had us on our way back into the park! He could not get our tickets linked to our magic bands so we needed to use the regular park tickets to enter the park, which was no big deal, and actually worked out better! Big Thank You to Michael, YOU ARE THE BEST!!! The magic bands worked for everything else, photo-pass, fast pass +, room entry, dining plan redemptions... We were also able to use our hard tickets to get fast passes if we needed to.. We spent this day mostly in Future World. We did Soarin, Test Track multiple times, Nemo, Sum of all Thrills..
We then went to World Showcase.. It was pretty crowded at this point, and we only did a few samples.
Didn't see anyone out of control.. We had a fast pass + for Illuminations which worked out very nicely and called it a night..
Day 3
Back to Epcot again and on a side note....
I work for a Chevrolet dealer, so we were able to access the Chevrolet Conference Center at Test Track and get fast passes for the ride. They also had 2 design stations at the Conference Center which were not timed, so my son and I were able to tweak our cars to produce low 230's for scores. There is a little trick to it which I was lucky enough to stumble onto!! Every day we were at Epcot last week we had the high score, which my son thought was just the best thing ever!! So if you were at Epcot 11/11-11/17 and saw I high score in the low 230's it was probably us..
The best we could do before discovering the secret was 202.. If you are a current or retired GM employee or GM dealership employee, you need to show your ID and license to have access to the conference center. The Conference Center is only open Monday-Friday from 9:00am to 5:00pm, and is accessed by going through a door to the right of the main que entrance. Once through that door you go down a long hallway to an elevator where you press the call button, and have your ID ready to show.Our first 2 days(Saturday & Sunday), the center was closed so you need to go to the GM information desk located in the post-ride showroom area and show them your ID for a fast pass. The conference center has an amazing view of the park. If you look up when going to test track, just above the track you can see the large windows of the center.. FYI, if you want to make your car design without being timed, there are kiosks located in the post ride area. Just make sure that when you go to the design studio in the que that you do not rescan your card or magic band(whichever one you used) or your car will be erased! Wait until you are getting on the ride to scan your car again.. So if you work for GM or a GM dealer, or are going with someone who is, make sure you check it out! I have worked for them for nearly 25 years and this is the first time I used it! Had I only known years ago!!
To be continued....
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