wendinator

We stopped by the Indiana Jones stadium to pull the rope on the mine shaft / well / whatever that is. It was fun, and we startled a few passerby. I’m glad that little easter egg is still there. We got in line for our Mickey and Minnie Railway journey, and I was very happy to have purchased the ILL. The line was at 70 minutes. We only had to wait about 10 minutes overall. The ride was a fun little jaunt, but it is not going to become a favorite of ours. We don’t like the new animation of the Disney characters. Goofy is just too scruffy for our liking, we much prefer the older animation. Also, it just wasn’t as much fun as the old ‘Ride the Movies’ ride. Stepping out, I made a LL for Alien Swirling Saucers for about 20 minutes into the future, and we walked into Toy Story land to look around. Toy Story Mania had no available LL options, and we didn’t want to wait in the 50 minute line, so we just took pictures, and enjoyed some people watching. We bought some water to help stay hydrated, as the temperatures were heading into the upper 80’s. Toy Story land suffers from the same issue as the carnival area of Animal Kingdom. Too much heat reflecting asphalt and no shade.
 
 


We actually enjoyed the ride on ASS ( sorry, I just HAD to use that acronym once, lol), it was a cute little ride and I love the voices of the Toy Story green aliens. I also like being flung around in circles, so that helps. Afterward, we walked back into Galaxy’s edge and explored the area. We stopped for a photo pass opportunity, and then wandered over to the milk stand and got our blue milk and green milk to try. We opted not to get an alcoholic variety. Both of us prefer the blue milk, which surprised me. Considering what is in them, I thought I’d like green milk better, since I love all thing citrus. But the green milk just tasted too bitter. Maybe they put more grapefruit juice in it than the other flavors? Dunno, but blue milk was the winner, although neither was good enough for us to get a refill.
 


Then we went into the droid store, so we could considered our ‘extra’ options to purchase for our upcoming droid. That shop was very busy and very noisy, so hearing the sounds of the extra sound chips you can buy for your droid was pretty challenging. They have a BUNCH of extra’s for the droids, more so than for the lightsabers. We checked in for our droid build with the CM holding a clipboard, and waited outside in the shade for our turn.

The droid build was much more chaotic and ‘self serve’ than the lightsaber build. You get in line, pay for your droid and wait your turn. A droid wrangler will come to you with a basket, and guide you to the conveyer belt with all the droid parts. You are shown the instruction graphic so you know which parts to pick, and left on your own. After you choose your parts, you turn around and face away from the conveyer, and another droid shop employee will direct you to your build space. Each build space has a diagram on how to assemble the droid. They are very tight together with others, there is no space to video your builder actually assembling the droid. Also, it is really noisy in there, cannot stress that enough. Not sure if they could put in sound dampeners but wow, I was a little overwhelmed.
 
 


When you have your droid assembled, the engineer will come over and get the electronics working, and make sure your droid’s chip and wheel gears are all working. You get a little tutorial on how to run the droid and they pack it up in a nice cardboard case for you. Leave your droid on when you are done, because there are some cute effects to play with. We exited the building, and started walking back to First Order Cargo to ship our droid home. As you pass other droids in the outpost, they talk to each other. Your box may start shaking as your droid discusses whatever news droids find important, with the droids waiting outside their respective buildings. It’s adorable. They will also talk to other boxed up droids if you happen to pass close to someone else carrying their new droid.
 


Back at First Order Cargo, we were met by a much more stern First Order cadet, who agreed to ship our droid off planet, but first needed to inspect the droid for contraband. (Basically, opening the box to turn the droid off, lol... a fun way to do it). Outside of the shop, we were near the Tie Fighter stage area, and more Stormtroopers were out, being gruff and trying to maintain order. There were a lot of lightsabers out, as it was dusk and they glowed beautifully, making for great photo opportunities with the lighted ship and Stormtroopers in the background. We watched the people for a while.

It's been 3 years since we were last at the Fort. 3....long....years. A lot has clearly changed.
Going to run a trip report for those who may still be around lurking on the forum. It looks like it has been pretty slow for a while. Hope this place isn't dying off.
Night 1...or I should say the day we arrived unplanned. We ended up getting to the Fort on the 18th which was a day earlier than planned. I had this idea for 3 years that I would be first to check-in on the 50th anniversary of the Forts opening but somehow we wound up getting in a day early. Due to some oddities our 1 night reservations got really messed up and somehow my name wound up on my sisters reservation in addition to mine. The funny part was that I was the primary on both reservations somehow according to the front desk but when we checked the app it all looked normal with me on mine and her on hers. This led to a very odd series of events that allowed me to still be the first to check in and get into our site.
Midnight rolls around on the 19th and I have my app open doing the online check in. At 12:09am I got my verification email that I had checked in and a few seconds later got the text notification that my site was ready. Now this may sound odd because we all know you can't check-in and get your site before the desk opens at 6am and here I was with my site shortly after midnight.
So how this worked out, we have 2 week reservations in a premium site that Jason helped us book in advance. Since we got here early we needed a place to stay and we were able to get into a premium meadows site for the night and we figured that we would have to move in the morning to our premium sites. I was all ready to get up at 4am and go sit in the outpost until they opened so I could be first in line. However I didn't have to do that. When we checked in we were put into our premium sites but they never checked us in and linked our 2 reservations together. So at midnight on the 19th I was able to do our online check in and the sites were automatically assigned to be the ones we were already in. Not only was I the first to check in, but also first to get onto our site on the 50th anniversary of the Fort due to a technicality in how our reservations were setup.
So on the 19th I started setting up our Christmas decorations. This was our first time doing site decorations and so far it's been a blast. I will grab some photos and post them later but I think the decorations turned out great for being the first time I ever did them.
After getting the decorations up I went into the camper to get things settled in. Low and behold I found a problem with the camper that caused me to lose a bit of my day at the Fort. I planned on it being cold at nights based off of the weather forecast I saw before we left home. I did a full check of the propane system. Everything was good at home and when we got here somehow a pin sized hole made it's way into one of my propane lines. It was an easy fix but it did take some time away from our vacation to fix the lines.
More to come as we progress through our trip.....

What a naive question from this blogger. Chapek isn’t going anywhere. He’s doing exactly what the Board of Directors wants him to do- maximize profits no matter the cost. A better question would be to ask how much longer will D23 be around?  The Disney company clearly doesn’t give a rat’s ass about their fans, and that isn’t changing any time soon. 
TCD

Sorry Lou I never tire seeing the EWP.  It is one of the oldest things that hasn’t changed.  I pray it lasts at least till my future grandkids are old enough to watch and remember it.  First saw it in 1992 and all my kids love it.

I cannot believe that they’re going to serve rotisserie chicken and not fried chicken. And ribs and shrimp are add ons?  Sad. 
TCD

This is not great news for anyone. 
Note this key sentence: “Those students whose programs ended early or were suspended last year due to COVID-19 are being asked to reapply.”
There are at least 20 former castmembers who worked in management positions for the DCP (about 80% of the management crew) who were canned by Disney who have not been rehired- or even been contacted with the prospect of being rehired.  I know one of them personally.  They also have not rehired 100+ other CM’s who worked screening and training the applicants.
What they do have is a few thousand college kids who made the DCP cut but got sent home early or told not to come last year.  They were already interviewed and screened for employment and hired.  Those are the only kids who might be allowed to come back. Disney wants a few hundred of them to come and bust their humps all summer because they can pay them less than the regular castmembers that they are choosing not to rehire. Those kids won’t get some of the perks that DCP kids used to get like special events and parties because everyone in that department got fired too.
Great news for shareholders.  Not even close to good news for anyone else.
TCD
 

Typical Tampa Bay Times. WDW has not been selling new APs since July. 
TCD

Not sure how long this will stay up.. Not for the little ones.
WEAR A MASK parody to BE OUR GUEST
 

2 hours is the stated time to return. 

Also, while you are in the park waiting for park opening, try and find one of the blue "guest services" umbrellas/tents and park yourself near it. If for some reason the system doesn't see that your entire party is in the park, they will have to add you to the boarding group on their system. Being close to them will speed up that process.
 

OK, you've seen the videos and heard the reviews of the Pixie Dust pumpers, but here's the truth: the TCD gang likes the Skyliner. The twins and I got to ride it during a castmember preview last night. 
For the previews, they have you park in the DHS lot and head to the station. Our arrival time was 7 pm, so the sun was setting, and it was in the high 80s with low humidity when we arrived. That helped a lot. 
The first thing we noticed was the queue isn't very big. Guests were overflowing out of the queue, so we wondered if they goofed on that. But the next thing we noticed is how fast the line moved. As advertised, the Skyliner cars never stopped, and the line moved steadily right up until we boarded. That was good. 
The next thing we noticed is the Skyliner cars are much bigger than they look from the ground. When I heard the capacity was 10 guests per car, I figured that would be with half the guests standing.  But, there's plenty of room for 10 with two facing benches that can easily seat 5 guests each. Signs in the cabin suggest that guests should remain seated. 
Another observation- there are a lot of the decorated wrapped cars- I thought there would be more unwrapped, but that was not the case. It is easier to get a wrapped car than not. 
For our first ride, we took off immediately, and what they say is true- there's great air circulation when the car is moving. As I said, the sun was going down, and it was a pleasant evening, so we were comfortable. But as others have noted, I don't think that would have been the case if the sun was beating down or the temperature and humidity were higher. As I have suspected all along, the term "passive cooling" is a lie. Passive cooling is no different than rolling down the windows in a car without air conditioning. It feels cooler when the car is moving, but the temperature and humidity inside the car is never going to be lower than outside. 
On our very first ride, we stopped for about 45 seconds over Buena Vista Blvd, and the cabin instantly became stuffy.  Also, we were so high at that point that I can't see how they would be able to evacuate guests from the cars there if there was ever a need.
One thing that I hadn't understood up until our ride was how the different routes for the Skyliner work.  It's actually simple, but not very convenient.  The Skyliner only goes to one place from DHS-the Caribbean Beach Resort station.  When you get there, you have to get off.  From that station, you can get in a new line to take the Pop Century/ Art of Animation route, or the Riveria Resort/Epcot route.  The lines move fast, but you do have to exit and change cars.  The Pop/AoA line is a straight shot and takes you to the bridge in Hourglass Lake. That's a great location for guests.  Same deal there- you can't stay in the car- everyone has to get out and get in line to reboard to ride back to the CBR station.
i didn't realize that the Riveria Resort has its own stop, but it does.  They let guests stay in the cars there for the previews, but I wonder if that will still be true when the resort opens. From there, you head to Epcot, with a turn at Boardwalk, and then arriving at the International Gateway station.  Same deal there- no round trips- get out and reboard.
All the line segments mean this is not the most efficient way to park hop, but it's great do the Riveria guests who have a straight shot to and from Epcot, and the CBR guests who get a straight shot to DHS.  Not so great for anyone else.
Bottom line, the Skyliner is nice and fun, but probably not during the day in the summer.
TCD

Thanks for the tip about free snacks. I'll be looking for those in about 4 hours from now. 
TCD

Thanks for the map for the zoom photo! Going to try and explain that to my parents who are there now.

My condolences on the loss of your mother in law. 
 
I’m glad to see your report, will there be tea?? 
I never realized airports had a landing  curfew, glad you made it! Talk about cutting it close. 
The AK tour looks really neat!! 
Looking forward to more. 

We loved that excursion when we did it a couple of years ago - absolutely wonderful..  So glad you enjoyed it.
 

In and First!! I'm ready for the ride, thanks for sharing

Enjoyed reading along.
Note to self: book Boma breakfast next time.

Coincidentally, beginning this fall Mickey's Backyard Massage Parlor and Casino will begin offering the Naughtily Ever After Fireworks Dessert Party.  Enjoy a buffet dinner at Minnie's Ho Down Smorgasbord, a private rooftop VIP viewing area for the nightly show, plus the fireworks, followed by a whipped cream dessert extravaganza.  Only $249pp.
Guests of Loop 3000 will also have access to the FWG lounge including their famous bottomless kungaloosh mugs.  

Excellent. I was waiting over that way at rope drop, and never saw these before. I'm glad to hear it's not a bench used for experimentation on guests. 
TCD

Here's a bonus post. We still had the plusses to use and felt bad about not doing a waterpark, so two weeks after this we drove to Typhoon Lagoon for the day.
Really wish we'd gone sooner, we were all really impressed.  Next time I'm getting a large locker when they say one backpack in a standard they mean a small backpack. This would have been easier if we'd gone from the Fort, we would have gotten there earlier, be able to charge to the magic bands, and not needed to carry a credit or gift card on me, and would have gotten towels for free.

Got there about 11, a little surprised there is no bag check here.
Took advantage of as many photos as we could as we still had a valid memory maker and we left our phones in the locker so not too many photos.  I wouldn't mind getting an inexpensive waterproof camera for next time, anyone have any recommendations?  Saw a range from what looked like expensive cameras, phones in those pouches, go pros and even a few people just holding their phone in the wave pool with no case!
Got a locker and then found some chairs by the wave pool, did this for a bit and the kids did the bay slides. Then we got a couple of the refillable cups and went to get some lunch at Leaning Palms. I had to run back to the locker to grab a credit card because, although we'd bought a Disney gift card with us I forgot about the cost of the drink cups.
Anyway, no photos of lunch but the kids had pizza. I don't know why they keep insisting on pizzas when they aren't very nice. I had the chipotle chicken rice bowl and was very impressed. Much nicer than I would have expected at a water park. Since we'd only gotten two refillable cups, I got a beer. Didn't get the souvenir cup this time.
After this we head to the lazy river, getting into those tubes isn't easy. My wife eventually gets one of the chair shaped ones, which is a lot easier. 
My son and I get out before the others and end up meeting them back by the wave pool. 

Headed to the slides next, the kids did Keelhaul Falls and Mayday Falls, and my wife joined us on Gankplank falls.  I really enjoyed Keelhaul found it quite relaxing.
Had a two-hour drive back so, went to get ice cream before getting changed and leaving. Had a quick look in the shop, thinking of getting a rash guard shirt but didn't see anything worth buying given the prices.

We keep meaning to get over to Beaches and cream and do the kitchen sink, but this is the sand pale.

Just as well we were leaving now as a storm was starting.
Will definitely do a waterpark again, was much better and a lot more shaded than we expected. The only other park I've done was Wet and Wild before it closed and I guess I was expecting more like that.  
Still at some park days and plusses to use but this is it for this trip.

Next time have her stay off site.   Like Cleveland.  

Thanks for the little report. I hope someone takes me to Disney when I'm 96. Glad to hear she liked the shows.

Wow, August in Georgia without A/C.  You are a brave man.  My wife would have ditched me and walked to a hotel.  

Just as an update -
 
It worked like a charm. We got the 10 day hoppers for $996
We entered Epcot with the hoppers and walked in a circle to the exit. Went to their guest services and upgraded to 2 AP’s for $700. 
That ended up saving $110 plus a few cents over just purchasing 2 AP’s!
While at guest services we had our tickets prioritized on the Magic Bands so the AP’s get used rather than the 7 das remaining on our non-expiring tickets. We even found we had 4 remaining “pluses” each, giving us 4 water park entries....