The Museum of Pin-tiquities Trip Report

Well, it's time for another trip to WDW. I leave very early tomorrow morning for the Most Magical Place on Earth. This time, a significant part of the trip will be to attend this year's Pin Celebration event - The Museum of Pin-tiquities.http://www.wdwforgrownups.com/forum/index.php?tid=909

I will try to post a daily summary of my activities while I'm there. So far, we have planned a dinner with a large group of people (last count, 20) at Sanaa at the newly-opened Kidani Village, we will be doing a Wishes Fireworks Dessert on Friday evening, and while we haven't made the reservation yet, we will look into doing parasailing over the 7 Seas Lagoon of we can find a good day for it.

So it promises to be a jam-packed trip. I will also be posting short, live report (my version of Tweeting) to my blog if you care to follow along. This will be in addition to my report on here, of course.

Cheers!

Zz.
 
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ZapperZ

ZapperZ

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
nibblesandbits said:
Too bad about the instant updates from Florida...that seems weird.
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Yeah, but it seems to be working now, I just tested it.

Anyway, we made it into Orlando, and spent the afternoon at DHS. Didn't get to do much since most of the lines were very long.

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We did go to the Animation Academy, and lo and behold, we got to draw a character that we had never drawn before - Dopey!

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Here's my sketch of it:

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We then decided that we will stand in the stand-by line to do ToT. They had the full queue line running, and also all the mister, which is a good thing since it was quite a warm day.

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Unfortunately, but the time we got into the lobby, the ride broke! They didn't know how long it will take, so we left.

We are now back at our resort at SSR, and it has gotten quite dark over here. We are under severe thunderstorm warning, and there have been a few lightning and thunder. So I'd say we got back just in time.

We'll probably hang around the resort or go to Downtown Disney the rest of the evening before turning in early. We plan on doing the early Extra Magic Hour at DAK tomorrow.

Zz.
 
ZapperZ

ZapperZ

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We had a great time at DAK this morning. It was busy, but the wait time for some of the attraction was just out of this world. We did Everest during the extra Magic Hours, but by the time we came back to do it again with our Fast Pass, even the fast pass line was extending beyond the normal entrance for the attraction. So we left.

We rested a bit this afternoon at our resort, and now we're getting ready to do the DVC Members Mixer at the Atlantic Dance Hall.

We weather should be quite good, with almost no chance of rain. So it should be the best for the week. It is warm, but not getting to the high 90's, so should be manageable considering the time of the year.

Zz.
 
ZapperZ

ZapperZ

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Here are some pictures from our morning excursion to DAK. It didn't appear to be horribly packed, but for some odd reasons, the wait times at the popular attractions were just building and getting longer, especially after the EMH.

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We started at EE, of course.
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I got another shot of the Yeti. This one might be the best yet that I've captured.
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We then headed over to Africa, with the intention of doing the Safari, but the wait time was insanely long, like 70 minutes, and this was around 9:30 am! We couldn't fast pass it because we already gotten fast passes for another round of EE later in the morning.

So we did It's Tough To be a Bug instead. This is the view of the Tree after the show.
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We went back to EE for our fast pass time, but the fast pass line itself was extended beyond the main entrance to EE. It looked like it was at least a 20 minute wait! The stand-by line extended way beyond the fast pass distribution area!
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We ditched EE and waited for Flame Tree BBQ to open for lunch. During the wait, we were entertained by the Village Beatniks. It was a lot of fun!
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We then left DAK and headed back to the resort to rest up a bit for the evening.

Zz.
 
ZapperZ

ZapperZ

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
In the afternoon, we headed out to the Atlantic Dance Hall at the Boardwalk for the DVC Member Mixer.
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We had a fun time, and a nice parting gift. We then headed to Epcot to do some shopping, and to ride Spaceship Earth.
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Also did a little shopping at the Japan pavilion, and took a picture of the window display outside of the toy "museum".
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We viewed Illuminations from Italy. Major problem here was that the sound was not very loud, so the music was barely audible during the fireworks. Not good! I think at least one or two of the speakers there were not working.

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Today the pin event starts. Early registration is this afternoon at the Beach/Yacht Club Convention Center, and pin trading will also being in earnest. We might stay till late afternoon/early evening for the Pin Trading night that will be opened to all guests.

Zz.
 
foreverbelle

foreverbelle

Well-Known Member
we haven't done the DVC member welcome home Wednesday's yet. Was curious on how they really are. Don't really know to much about it....
 
ZapperZ

ZapperZ

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We had a long day yesterday. Spend the late morning at Downtown Disney before heading over to the Beach/Yacht Club Convention Center to do the early registration and merchandise pick-up for the pin event.
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After meeting up with friends and yapping a little bit, we headed on over to Epcot. It was hot, humid, and very long lines for almost all the attractions. Test Track had a 140 minute stand-by wait time, and 20 minutes for fast pass line! Soarin' was any better, 95 minute wait time. We we decided to do an early dinner at Japan. It actually was fun because periodically, they had a demo on how to make a sushi roll, in this case, the California maki. I thought it was rather ironic because California maki is an american invention and you can't find one in Japan. They could have at least chosen something authentic.
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What they were doing was also projected onto a large screen for all diners to see.
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After dinner, we went back to the Convention center to see if there's anything interesting going on with Pin Trading night that was opened to the general public (there was none). We bumped into more friends, and spent most of the time we were there simply catching up and yapping away. We did do some pin trading, but we're saving most of it for the main event the next day.

[cont...]
 
ZapperZ

ZapperZ

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
[...cont]

We then walked back to Epcot to do the EMH. I took a few more pictures on the way there.
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We started off by doing Figment since it didn't have any line at all.
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Then we did Soarin', which had a 40 minute wait at that time (but grew quite a bit by the time we walked out).
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We did the Donald ride at the Mexico pavilion, and by the time that was done, it was around 11:00 pm already. We headed back. It was interesting that almost everything at the park was closed by that time, but the pin cart was still open! :)
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Today is the first official day of the 2009 Pin Celebration Event. It moves to the World Showplace at Epcot. I can't wait to see how it is decorated. Plenty of pin trading, and pin games to do. And tonight, we have our Wishes Fireworks dessert at MK. We'll see what that is about. So it will be another very long day.

Zz.
 
ZapperZ

ZapperZ

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Pin Shoppers Beware!

While we were at Downtown Disney yesterday, we went shopping (of course) at World of Disney. We bought a few pins there. Now, the pins have color codes at the back that tells you how much the pin costs.

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Now, this would have been fine, except that I think this is a new pricing structure. Previously, the prices for each color was about $2 higher. I don't know when the new pricing structure went into place, but it must be very recent.

In any case, when someone in our party bought a number of the "green" pins, she was charged $8.95, rather than $6.95 per pin. Luckily, she looked at the receipt before she left, and went back to double check the color code prices. It seems that the cash register was still charging her the old prices, not the new ones! So of course, she went to another cash register and showed them what had happened. It got change and she was charged accordingly. But how many people didn't do that and got charged more than they should? $2 per pin is A LOT!

So, pay very careful attention to the prices, especially the pins, during the next few weeks while they sort this out.

Zz.
 
MKCP 1985

MKCP 1985

Well-Known Member
Thank you for sharing your pin trading adventures with us - I appreciate the insight into a whole aspect of the Disney experience that I'd never otherwise know about. :)

So far, so good . . . but if there isn't an appearance by one of these guys, I'm going to think this year is a let down compared to last.

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not to mention one of these . . .

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Good luck today - can't wait to see what Disney had in store for you! :wave:
 

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