Tri-Circle-D

48 minutes ago, Seals said:

Even with fast phones I have terrible luck at lotteries/prize drawings.  We do have parkhoppers and I was planning vaguely to switch early afternoons to a different park each day.  Ideally I like to go to a resort to eat lunch and then go to a different park.   Both AK and HS I was only able to get late afternoon FP.   Our FP for Slinky Dog is late afternoon on March 4 which is the same day Micky and Minnie Railroad opens. That date wasn't announced back when I made my HS FPs and I'm not giving up that one now but I'm assuming it's going to be even more crowded that day so I wasn't going to go until close to FP time.  We'll see.  It's just my husband and I so there's no pressure to make sure the kids get to do everything which will be nice for a change.   

I don’t know if it’s true, but I heard that FP’s for the Runaway Railroad don’t begin until the afternoon of opening day. Unfortunately, that means the usual first day circus with guests showing up at 3 am and hoping to rope drop the ride. All of them will probably try for Rise of the Resistance FP’s as well. So, that will not be a pleasant situation for anybody. 

My girls are still blocked out of DHS, so we won’t be there for opening day of the new ride.  They will be riding it soon at CM previews though.

TCD

1 hour ago, keith_h said:

However it isn't worth replacing my ancient but functional phone so I have a fighting chance at getting a boarding pass.

Yeah that ancient but functional phone will probably not score you a boarding group. But, you are welcome to join one of the 90 minute plus standby queues for the Millennium Falcon or Slinky Dog rides.  That’s what you get for being cheap.  WDW doesn’t want cheap or poor people.  They want dummies who waste money on the newest phones.  They’re more likely to buy one of those $300 lightsabers.  

TCD

2 hours ago, LONE-STAR said:

Disney always wins.

That’s a catchy saying. Where have I heard that before?

TCD

3 hours ago, Seals said:

This thread is helping me make the decision to not even try this when we're there in a couple of weeks. Only have 4 park days and it sounds like it would take up a lot of time that could be more fun spent elsewhere especially since it's been a couple of years since we've been.  We're not die hard SW fans and it was more of a doing it to say we've done it.   But our phones are slow and we're slow on our phones.  (I see a great money making scheme of renting a young person with a fast phone). 

After this trip we'll still have one park day on an old non-expiring ticket so I guess we'll save that for 5? years from now when the madness has worn off and they've fixed the ride. 

If you’re planning to visit DHS, then it’s worth a shot, but do not plan your day around it. One consequence of the current system is that DHS is super busy from the moment it opens- so Slinky Dog and Rockin Rollercoaster begin the day with 60 minute wait times and it gets worse from there. If you don’t have parkhoppers, you probably ought to forget about it.

The new ride is amazing, and it’s definitely worth taking a shot to ride it. But have a solid backup plan.

TCD

7 hours ago, LONE-STAR said:

It seems like it has only gotten harder to get on the ride since we were there the first 2 weeks of January.  I used a iPhone xr on sprint service with no problems. We did it once both weeks.

In the first two weeks of January, those who got into the park could start trying for a boarding group immediately after they entered, and it was first come first served. Currently, they let everyone in and then flip the boarding group switch on at 8 am. Thousands are trying at the same time for hundreds of spots. Most people lose. 

TCD

7 hours ago, twiceblessed....nacole said:

Which makes you wonder if it's better to have small groups try (instead of one large group)... at least MAYBE some will get on??  Mercy.. this stinks.  They really, really need to extend the hours at this park.

One key to success is to have a new phone. Phones a year or two old have slower processing speed than newer phones, so they get beat by guests with new phones. 

That stinks. 

Longer hours aren’t going to solve the fact that the ride is constantly breaking down. The harder they push it, the greater the chances of a catastrophic failure. 

That stinks. 

Bottom line is Disney doesn’t care about what an awful experience this is for guests. They’re raking in the dough. Maybe they’ll get it working better in a few months.  Maybe not.

Tough luck if you planned your trip around the new ride. 

TCD

13 minutes ago, PGHFiend said:

He's speculating that it went to a lottery system in the app as he was a single rider. 

I don’t understand this comment. 

The current boarding pass system IS a lottery.  It’s no longer first come first served. Everyone tries at once- some guests get a boarding group. Some get standby. Some get nothing. 

It’s all a big scheme to hide the fact that the attraction breaks down and has to be evacuated several times EVERY day. They opened the attraction knowing full well that its  current capacity cannot come close to meeting demand.  But they can’t be honest about that because it would hurt resort reservations and ticket sales.  So they have created the pretense that everyone has a shot at getting a boarding group, when there’s less than a 50% chance that you will.

TCD

The cabin driveways are very short. A 22’ motor home won’t fit in most of them, and the rules say all wheels must be on the pavement. You might be able to park your Class C outside your cabin, but I wouldn’t count on it. 

TCD

One more thing about how crappy it is for Disney to pack the parks with cheap tickets-

Going all the way back to December, castmembers have been blocked out of Hollywood Studios, and remain blocked out until April. So, they only way for any of them to enter the park is to buy a ticket or use a comp ticket they may have earned. 

So, castmembers are completely blocked out of the park, and Disney turns around and sells that extra space with these cheap Florida Resident passes. Greedy bastards. 

TCD

4 hours ago, BradyBzLyn...Mo said:

Ahhh... I remember those times well. Back when there were still regularly 1-2am EMH at MK and if you stuck around past midnight you could pretty much walk on anything you wanted to.

Good times...

I remember those days. I am truly thankful that my kids were just the right age for us to enjoy the heck out of the Fort and the parks before all of the gouging and cuts. We will always have those memories. 

TCD

19 hours ago, keith_h said:

I'm surprised WDW hasn't created a premium line cut pass that allows the holder to jump in before any FP pass holders or standby lines. I'm sure they'd make plenty of money off of it. I could see them doing something like unlimited cuts for $100/day, 5 for $50 or $15/ride.

Your suggested price is way too low. WDW has suckers lining up to pay $400 an hour with a 7 hour minimum to get this service via a VIP tour guide. Selling a cheap pass that does the same thing will hurt business. 

TCD

You know what’s really galling about this?  Just today I get an email offer for a Florida Resident 4 day pass with no blockout dates for $49 a day. So they stick it to their regular customers, and then fill up the parks with these cheap tickets. 

TCD

3 hours ago, Travisma said:

I was just surprised that Disney gave up that exclusive perk of booking FP's early to off site hotels. 

Then to top it off, started to charge for parking.

It might not make the once in a lifetime (or every 5 years) visitors switch to an off site hotel, but for frequent visitors it just might sway them.

But occupancy rates are fine at the WDW resorts and they have the extra revenue from the parking fees and the outside hotels. 

They don't care if they lose a few guests who are priced out by the parking fees, and they sure as heck don’t care that it’s impossible for their resort guests to get FP’s for the big attractions at 60 days out. 

In fact, as I’m typing this, I’m sure that there is an army of castmembers dreaming up the next way to gouge guests.

TCD

1 hour ago, Travisma said:

Don't some of the good neighbor hotels offer early booking of FP's?

Yes. And Disney collects a nice fee to allow them to offer that perk. I am not sure I understand the point you’re trying to make. This would be another reason to not move to a Maxpass system. 

TCD

4 hours ago, djsamuel said:

If it is to be like Disney California, they have the paper fast passes and Maxpass.  I love it, much better than the WDW system.  You pay for Maxpass, and that allows you to get a fastpass via the app on your phone ONCE YOU ENTER THE PARK.  You can then grab another pass using your phone once you used your previous fastpass.  In addition, purchasing the Maxpass (which I believe cost us $15 a day) also gives you photopass for the day.  If you don't want to spend the money, the paper based fast pass system is still there.

I am also a fan of Maxpass at Disneyland, but I just can’t see them going to the exact same plan at WDW. 

Disneyland has a fraction of the hotel rooms that WDW has, and the whole MDE model is keyed to filling the hotel rooms by offering resort guests the opportunity to book FP’s at 60 days out. Maxpass doesn’t do that.  

Not to mention that WDW has torn out all the old FP machines and spent a billion plus on MDE. 

The only thing I see coming to WDW will be some kind of pay option superimposed on top of the existing plan that will allow folks to pay for extra FP’s to the slight detriment of resort guests and the major detriment of day guests. 

I’d much rather have Maxpass, but I can’t see that happening at WDW  

TCD

2 hours ago, Travisma said:

We walked by there the other day and it wasn’t there.

The Food Truck was MIA on Friday morning, but was back in place on 2/8/20. 

TCD

The food truck menu has been updated. I took these photos this morning. No more Beef on Weck:

TCD

Looks good?

. . . at least they tried. 

TCD

1 hour ago, Memphis said:

Thanks for the update..... I think....

Are you saying they are actually driving dump trucks down Fort Wilderness Trail? 

Yes, occasionally. Most of them come in by the group camping area though. 

TCD

I popped by the Fort today and saw a few things. 

First, there’s a small construction project getting started in the grassy area between the Meadow pool and the Bike Barn. This is where they had that gem mining station a couple of years ago. Maybe it’s coming back?

Next, a crew of about half a dozen men was getting ready to put up a brand new sign at the dog park:

The new barn is coming along. It’s a nice building, but it really doesn’t fit with the Fort theme. I guess they didn’t want something too rustic in sight of the new Reflections Resort:

This is a peek through the fence behind the Settlement Bus Stop. You probably don’t recognize what you’re looking at. I am sorry to say that this was where Tri-Circle-D Farm was. It’s all gone. Everything:

Note all the huge piles of dirt in the second to last photo. There are dump trucks running non stop through the Fort bringing all of that in, and bulldozers busily moving piles around. It was noisy as heck in the 700 loop.  I guess we all better get used to that. 

TCD

On 2/5/2020 at 8:04 PM, Grumpy and Grandma said:

Didn't 9/11 and air space resttictions create more stringent rules regarding such fly overs?

13 hours ago, djsamuel said:

You are correct.  The rules changed after that.

I agree- but there were still some banner planes even after that. I recall just a few years back that there was a controversy over an organization that hired a banner plane to fly over WDW to protest Gay Days. I remember seeing that plane flying over Hollywood Studios. But since then, I haven’t seen one. I think there might have been even stricter rules implemented more recently. At least for banner planes.

TCD

I forgot to comment on how surprised I was to see that banner plane pulling the Rosie O’Grady’s/Church Street Station banner when the boat was in the canal.  That’s a blast from the past!  Disney must have found a way to ban the banner planes- I haven’t seen one in years. 

TCD

1 hour ago, PGHFiend said:

The boat ride was long...I should have mentioned that.

You have to admire the videographer’s dedication. He didn’t even stop recording when they got stuck in the canal and his passenger almost fell off. 

TCD

Great find!  Thanks for sharing. I would have been fine with about 15 minutes less of the boat ride, but the rest of the video is great. It shows the Meadow Recreation Area before the pool and tennis courts. The Meadow Trading Post and Bike Barn look the same. I love how thick the natural forest is in the footage of the 1600 loop. The train tracks, trestles, and signage are all still in place. It’s weird to see the trams being used for internal transportation. I miss the good old days. 

TCD

2 hours ago, Katman1356...Jason said:

2 hours is the stated time to return. 

My mistake. You’re the man! 

TCD