TCD is Thankful for Thanksgiving @ The Fort 2012

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Having Thanksgiving with Mrs. Specularius' family. Her Aunt is the personal secretary to the President of Ole Miss. She invited us to tailgate and watch the game. It was very fun.

What?

Does her aunt have anything to do with admissions?

Ole' Miss is on DD's short list (LSU is on there too).

TCD

[alexwyattmommy 181]

Hmm, I may need to start sending Christmas presents to Mrs. Specularius. My son has Ole Miss on his list too. He's only a freshman, so there is plenty of time for butt kissing.

[dvccamper 32]

An added bonus to the trip report, nice! Not sure how I feel about the new Test Track. I think I already miss the preshow with the guy from Best in Show. Interested to hear your thoughts on the ride itself.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Hmm, I may need to start sending Christmas presents to Mrs. Specularius. My son has Ole Miss on his list too. He's only a freshman, so there is plenty of time for butt kissing.

Sounds like a plan. If my DD makes it, she should be running the place by the time your son applies, so he's a shoe-in.

An added bonus to the trip report, nice! Not sure how I feel about the new Test Track. I think I already miss the preshow with the guy from Best in Show. Interested to hear your thoughts on the ride itself.

My thoughts are in the next post.

I always liked the preshow. They really did a good job with it. I will miss it.

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

OK- here comes another bonus update.

This one has a bit more Test Track stuff, and then we will be leaving Epcot for that college visit.

Here we are in the loading area. The big doors that used to open from the pre-show room are now gone:

At the boarding area, there are RFID readers:

There is one reader for each guest. So, we had to tap our card on all three. All displayed our design:

Now here's the part that doesn't make any sense. That design is not shown anywhere on the ride. The ride vehicles still just have one small video screen in the center, but those screens don't show the car you designed. Along the track, there are a few places where there are images of cars shown and those signs supposedly show how those cars perfomed. But our car never showed up on any of those. I think it's supposed to. I am guessing that it just wasn't working.

One big change we all noticed is that the camera that used to blind you right before your "crash test" is not there anymore. I figured they had just removed it. But it turns out they moved it to out along the track. Twin #1 found it right away and, as usual, I was clueless:

The first thing you come to in the room after the ride is this big display screen. If you tap your card on a sensor, your car design shows up along the bottom:

The center image shows the leading design for the day. It had a score of 232.

You can see here that our car earned a design score of 213:

I'm not sure if the rest of the display worked or not. If they were really keeping track of how your car did on the track based on the reader right before you board, then I don't see why you would need your car read again here. I think it's fake.

The next room you walk through has a bunch of stations where you can record your own Chevrolet commerical and email it to yourself or anyone you want:

The girls had fun with this. There are a lot of options. For example, here's our car on the moon:

Then you go into a room with a bunch of interactive games. These all seemed to be the same- car race tracks. You were supposed to tap your card on the reader, and your car would be displayed on the track:

It was working for some people. But our card stopped working or something. We tried several stations and got nothing. There was not a single castmember anywhere to be seen to help guests. That wasn't a good plan.

There were also several large photo booth type things in this room where your family could pose for a photo with your car projected on a screen, and presumably email it somewhere. None of these were working either, and again, no castmember was there to help. Lots of guests tried to use the stupid things, and wasted time typing in email addresses, etc, only to then find out the scanners and cameras weren't working. Bad show here.

They had a bunch of cars on display- but they were all Chevrolets- not the assortment of GM cars they used to have.

All of this stuff in the exit area could be really cool. If it worked.

One other thing the girls commented on is that they liked all the music that was played during the ride. I hadn't noticed it, but they both did.

Here's a shot of the stage they had set up outside:

As I mentioned, we had grabbed Fastpasses before we got on the ride, and they had a 9:45 return time. That gave us a few minutes to walk over to look around the big gift shop and then come right on back. I am glad we had the Fastpasses, as the standby line was already out the door now.

But, we were able to walk right on in.

For Fastpass, you don't go into the big room to design your car. They have a pile of the cards and six stations in the Fastpass Queue. On these stations, the design process is very abbreviated. You only get to make a few choices, and you are sent on your way. I didn't like that so much. I think they ought to have the Fastpass folks go into the design room.

Anyway, here's a better look at the loading area showing the exit doors from the preshow rooms are gone:

I didn't miss the camera on our second ride:

One more look at the stage. I took these photos to show that the stage wasn't getting much use. I guess they set it up hoping television crews would come in and film, but there weren't many. Maybe they came in the afternoon:

So, we had a pretty genius plan to try to carry out at this point. The plan was we would go and eat an early lunch at the quick serve in the Land. And then grab Soarin' Fastpasses at around noon, and then head over to our tour. By noon, the Soarin' Fastpasses should have had an evening return time, and we could come back later and use them. The plan worked great, we got our lunch, and a little before noon, I went over to get our Fastpasses. The return time was from 3 to 4. That was too early for us. Dang.

So we headed on out. I said let's check and see what the return time was for Test Track Fastpasses. It was 6:15 to 7:15. That would work. So we got those. What this tells us is that the TT Fastpasses are going faster than the Soarin' ones. It's been a long time, and maybe never, since that has happened.

At right around noon, we headed out. Our car was in the parking lot, and it the place we were visiting was allegedly only a 15 minute drive away. But, I told the girls I wanted to allow at least 45 minutes, because I didn't believe the 15 minute thing.

On the way out, we got to see the topiaries we missed on the way in. Here's Stitch. They gave him a Santa hat. Good:

And here's Bambi that they use every year in the Flower and Garden Festival butterfly garden:

Here's Goofy:

And we headed to our car.

On the way past the buses, we noticed that there was a castmember directing guests to this charter bus, which was parked in a space saying it was going to the Ticket and Transportation Center. We hadn't seen the monorail in a while, and I think it may have been shut down:

We loaded up and headed out.

I told the girls I would time how long it took and show them I was right for allowing extra time.

In 12 minutes we were there.

12 minutes!

From Epcot to the school.

The girls were very impressed.

And we were very early.

There was a brand new Publix across the street, so I pulled in that parking lot to wait a bit.

Then we made our way through the guard shack and to the parking lot.

This place didn't look like a college. It looked like a resort:

Check out the directory. They have a beer and wine lab:

We took our tour.

Our guide was a young lady who was a senior who already was employed at Disney World.

The girls loved her.

This place was like a palace.

There are dorms on this campus, and she took us to see the Freshman floor, which had been decorated in a Finding Nemo theme:

FSU has a well regarded hospitality management program. We have friends who have a daughter who graduated with a Hospitality Management degree from FSU a couple of years ago. She is doing great. And that is where Twin #2 has wanted to go too.

But then we saw all of this.

The twins have some thinking to do.

They saw the dorm their big sister lived in at FSU. It was pretty bad. And that was a nice one. And the UF dorms are so bad they won't even show them on tours.

Plus this place is 12 minutes from Epcot.

12 minutes!

I told the girls if they went here, I could visit them all the time.

They didn't see that as a plus.

So time will tell.

But, we all agreed this would be a great choice for the girls.

Next up, we take our 12 minute ride back to the World, and pay a quick visit to the MK.

TCD

[GaDawgFan.....Kelly 799]

We should have made it out to the Grove when we had the chance last year. Because of the extra teams, UGA probably won't play them there for 10 years. The problem was that we had 3-4 home games before that game and being away from home that many weekends in a row gets tiring.

[GaDawgFan.....Kelly 799]

We should have made it out to the Grove when we had the chance last year. Because of the extra teams, UGA probably won't play them there for 10 years. The problem was that we had 3-4 home games before that game and being away from home that many weekends in a row gets tiring.

That campus looks VERY nice. I bet there are a lot of Disney internships too.

[GaDawgFan.....Kelly 799]

How did I quote myself? LOL

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

We should have made it out to the Grove when we had the chance last year. Because of the extra teams, UGA probably won't play them there for 10 years. The problem was that we had 3-4 home games before that game and being away from home that many weekends in a row gets tiring.

I know what you mean.

I haven't even thought of attending an away game. It's hard enough to get to the home games.

One thing I don't like about the new SEC teams is that we won't play the teams from the West as often.

That campus looks VERY nice. I bet there are a lot of Disney internships too.

Yes. They told us they have more internships than they do students and all of the internships are PAID positions. My ears perked up at that. My older DD has never had a paid internship.

TCD

[Nicki aka Rebelstand 272]

How in the world will the girls choose.... so many options and decisions to make.

[magnoliafig 51]

What?

Does her aunt have anything to do with admissions?

Ole' Miss is on DD's short list (LSU is on there too).

TCD

I don't think so TCD, but I could buzz her and find out.

[AC in A2......Aaron 693]

All caught up.

I know it took awhile, but at least I got back to it and read it all.

And as usual, you did not disappoint sir.

[caveat lector 181]

10,000+ views and counting. ROCKSTAR status indeed.

Although, I'm a little concerned that you wanted your test track vehicle to look like a hippie mobile. I thought I knew where you stood on such issues. :)

[kampfirekim 260]

Your boys can feel free to mock me all they like. My daughters already do. No bear maulings. Not even an angry armadillo.

:whew: Glad I won't need to worry about leprosy. Even if there is a cure.

Initially, I was not happy about the Test Track changes. I still don't really like the new look but the interactive stuff looks like fun.

[h2odivers...Ray 952]

I will say that Tennessee's should only hold about 90,000. That place is CRAMPED. Sanford Stadium holds just under 93,000. My dad is a Tech fan, so he's always blown away when he comes with us.

And as for just tailgating, LOTS of people do that. We have several people in our RV tailgate lot that just watch on TV. There's one thing southern football fans can all agree on... We have amazing tailgates. It could be that way up north, but I get the feeling pro football is bigger there. Someday I want to make it over to the Grove.

Tell Mrs. TCD that I love the gator with the headdress on.

I agree that us southerner s know how to tailgate on Saturday. But I have a good friend who played for the Wisconsin badgers and next to an Oklahoma University tailgating party it was awesome. They had a grill as big as a semi truck trailer that was sponsored by johnsonville brats. It's was beer, brats, and the Badgers band. What a good time.

[Momof6....aka Marty 769]

I agree that us southerner s know how to tailgate on Saturday. But I have a good friend who played for the Wisconsin badgers and next to an Oklahoma University tailgating party it was awesome. They had a grill as big as a semi truck trailer that was sponsored by johnsonville brats. It's was beer, brats, and the Badgers band. What a good time.

Man, this thread is making me hungry!

[stefa70 205]

Who'd a thought when I jumped in yesterday to update my TR, you were posting almost the same pictures from Test Track?

We skipped all the after the ride stuff. We saw a few folks mingling around with dumbfounded looks on their face. I figured since it was a soft opening, none of that stuff was working properly.

My level of patience is not high enough to mess with stuff they haven't worked the bugs out of yet. I imagine it will all be pretty neat when it's working properly.

As the third honorary twin, I would like to cast a vote for my sisters to attend UCF.

Close to home, close to WDW and a beer & wine lab?!?! How could you go wrong?

[SCTigerCock 171]

Beer and wine lab?

At clemson we had a milk lab from all the cows.

Dang it.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

How in the world will the girls choose.... so many options and decisions to make.

For this brief moment, they don't have to make a choice.

They will hear from FSU within the next week, and then decisions will have to be made.

I don't think so TCD, but I could buzz her and find out.

I was only kidding. I think she will get in one of the schools she applied to.

If she does end up going to Ole Miss, though, I would definitely appreciate some input about apartments and things like that.

Mrs. TCD has a cousin with two kids who went to Ole Miss so we already know a bit about how things are there.

All caught up.

I know it took awhile, but at least I got back to it and read it all.

And as usual, you did not disappoint sir.

Thanks, Aaron.

Good job getting caught up.

That was a lot of reading.

10,000+ views and counting. ROCKSTAR status indeed.

Although, I'm a little concerned that you wanted your test track vehicle to look like a hippie mobile. I thought I knew where you stood on such issues. :)

I hear you about the hippie mobile. For the record, I insisted on the big, inefficient super-charged engine. So it may have looked like a hippie mobile, but it surely wasn't.

:whew: Glad I won't need to worry about leprosy. Even if there is a cure.

Initially, I was not happy about the Test Track changes. I still don't really like the new look but the interactive stuff looks like fun.

I think that interactive stuff, the lights and the music will appeal to kids and teens, which I guess is a good thing.

As much as I liked to old version, it needed an update. I don't think they needed to scrap the whole thing, but all the new interactive stuff, if it works, will make the ride more interesting in the long run.

I agree that us southerner s know how to tailgate on Saturday. But I have a good friend who played for the Wisconsin badgers and next to an Oklahoma University tailgating party it was awesome. They had a grill as big as a semi truck trailer that was sponsored by johnsonville brats. It's was beer, brats, and the Badgers band. What a good time.

No doubt. Cheeseheads do it up right.

Man, this thread is making me hungry!

Me too. I could go for a nice bratwurst about now.

Who'd a thought when I jumped in yesterday to update my TR, you were posting almost the same pictures from Test Track?

We skipped all the after the ride stuff. We saw a few folks mingling around with dumbfounded looks on their face. I figured since it was a soft opening, none of that stuff was working properly.

My level of patience is not high enough to mess with stuff they haven't worked the bugs out of yet. I imagine it will all be pretty neat when it's working properly.

As the third honorary twin, I would like to cast a vote for my sisters to attend UCF.

Close to home, close to WDW and a beer & wine lab?!?! How could you go wrong?

Thanks for your vote.

I think I already said how this visit was probably more about getting out of school for the day and visiting Disney than it was a serious inquiry about attending that school. We had a long discussion on the way there that morning about how a place like this might be nice, but it wouldn't provide a "real" college experience. Since then, we have been questioning the value of the "real" college experience. The dorm their big sister lived in was a dump, and she had the standard crazy roommate, and there were many stressful phone calls that first year. That all was definitely a growing experience for her, but it wasn't very pleasant at the time. This place is a paradise. But, maybe being sheltered like that isn't what's best. If it were up to me, I would probably vote for them to go to school at the Rosen campus. But, we are going to wait until they hear from FSU and UF, and discuss this to death before we make a decision.

Beer and wine lab?

At clemson we had a milk lab from all the cows.

Dang it.

As far as I know, we didn't have any kind of beverage lab at UF.

But, there was a place that served beer on campus.

And the legal drinking age was 18.

So no complaints from me.

I wanted so bad to take photos of the beer and wine lab, but the twins got mad on one of our previous college tours about me being the only parent taking photos, so I didn't.

I found a video of it on YouTube. Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-EFQKP76F8

Crazy.

TCD

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

Wow! Getting to visit WDW and a college tour on the same day! That campus looks great.

TT interactive things -- I can imagine them being fun for kids and teens too. If they work properly. Surprised Disney did a soft opening with all these elements down.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Wow! Getting to visit WDW and a college tour on the same day! That campus looks great.

TT interactive things -- I can imagine them being fun for kids and teens too. If they work properly. Surprised Disney did a soft opening with all these elements down.

It is amazing how nice that campus is. My tax dollars at work.

The sad thing about the interactive stuff not working is that this was not a soft opening. Test Track was officially opened the day before, December 6th, and we were there on the 7th. I understand if stuff doesn't work, but they should have had CM's directing traffic away from the things that didn't work- not having guests try to use it and then find out on their own that all this fancy stuff doesn't work right. That is a bad show.

TCD

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

The sad thing about the interactive stuff not working is that this was not a soft opening ... That is a bad show.

TCD

I agree!

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

We left off with our visit to the UCF Rosen School of Hospitality Management campus.

About 15 minutes after we left there, we were on a boat to the MK.

Mindboggling.

What a perk to going to school there.

The fog from earlier in the day had burned off, and we had beautiful blue skies:

We had thought at one point that we might make it to the MK for the 3:00 parade, but we missed it by about 40 minutes.

There was a MVMCP at the MK tonight, so the MK would be closing at 7. We didn't plan on staying long, as we wanted to get back to Epcot and use those TT Fastpasses and maybe see the Candlelight Processional.

I was surprised to see that they were letting the Christmas party guests in before 4 pm and handing out wristbands. I took this photo at 3:41 pm. I have heard of guests being let in at 4, but not this early:

Our first stop was going to be the Firehouse for our SOTMK cards. There was a rumor going around that there was going to be a special card released for the Fantasyland Expansion grand opening, which had just occurred the day before.

We stopped for a moment to enjoy the MK Christmas tree. We realized that we never got to see it last year, as we didn't get back to MK after Thanksgiving:

You may have also noticed that the MK flag was also at half staff.

It turns out that the Fantasyland SOTMK card rumor was just a rumor. But, at least we asked.

The girls had seen photos of the new Rapunzel tower that popped up recently over by the Haunted Mansion, so we headed that way.

We also were hoping to maybe see some freaks in the Peter Pan freak zone, but we were too late for that. Darn. No Peter Pan Fan Girl or Dude in Skirt.

Here's the tower:

It was not as tall as some of the photos we had seen suggested.

This thing is pretty cool. It has a lot of detail:

There was a small gap in the construction fence which was just large enough for a camera lens. So here's a look behind the fence. At the lower left of this photo, you can see that there are forms and excavation for what looks like it will be a small stream. Above that in the photo, you can see what will clearly be a bridge over that stream. The building you see in the background is a good size and seems to be too large to just be for new restrooms, which is what they say this area is going to be. You can also see that they have created a bunch of fake rocks by the base of the tower. On the Disney Parks Blog, and Imagineer said that there are no current plans for a meet and greet at this spot. I say Bull. This isn't just going to be bathrooms:

Here's another shot from the same hole in the fence. You can see the stream bed and bridge. The building to the left is the Yankee Trader gift shop. I believe that there will be a new walkway on the other side of the Yankee Trader which will connect this new area to the Haunted Mansion area:

Here's one more shot through the fence, turned just a bit to the right-you can see the bridge and the size and detail on that new building:

Here's a look at the tower and new construction from over by Small World and Peter Pan. This gives a beter idea of the size of that tower. it's tall, but not imposing. I don't think it is even as tall as the old Skyway station used to be. All the rooftops you see over the fence are new. There is no way this will just be new bathrooms:

Now we are just a bit further away, close to the Peter Pan entrance. You can see that the Rapunzel tower really isn't all that tall from this angle:

We next headed over to New Fantasyland. It was officially opened the day before. Maybe there would be something new in there?

We walked past the Fastpasses for Little Mermaid, which you pick up at Philharmagic. The return time was only 15 minutes from now. I don't think people know this Fastpass machine is there. I said we may as well get Fastpasses since we are here. But the machines were all broken. There were some engineering types working on them. But they couldn't say how long it would take to fix them. They could have had a CM there manually handing out Fastpasses. But they didn't. I didn't want to wait around for who knows how long, so we passed on the Fastpasses. No big deal.

Stef beat me to the punch by posting photos of some new features they have on the construction fence around the new Mine Train ride, but I'll share mine anyway.

They now have places where you can take a peek through the fence. I very much appreciate that:

So here's a peek. You can see track coming out of the big building in the back. On the far right center of the photo, you can see the base of an outdoor portion of the track, which then curves around to the bottom part of the photo right in front of us:

If you look toward the center back of this photo, you can see a roof on the other side of the fence. That is the roof for the Bon Jour gift shop. The cinder block wall in front of that, inside the fence, is the other side of the big bridge that crosses from the BOG retaurant over to Gaston's Tavern and the Little Mermaid part of New Fantasyland. I think that water will flow under that bridge eventually and connect with water features over here:

You can really see the outdoor track bed in this photo:

From all that I can see, I think this Mine Train ride will be pretty cool. It seems to be larger than Big Thunder Mountain.

There is new artwork all along the construction wall for the Mine Train ride. I am assuming that this must depict the entrance to the new ride. Note how it depicts the Little Mermaid ride in the background:

This drawing appears to show the interactive queue for the ride:

These must be scenes from the ride:

We headed around the wall to the Little Mermaid ride. The standby line was 50 minutes. I wish we had been able to get those Fastpasses, because we weren't going to wait 50 minutes to ride it.

We also found out that the walkway between the Little Mermaid and Storybook Circus was not open. It had been open once on one of our previous visits, and I had read somewhere that it was open for the Grand Opening. But it wasn't open today. So, we had to walk back out the way we came.

We noticed this artwork on the wall, and the girls pointed out that Dopey's sandcastle looked like the Little Mermaid ride, and that Bashful was combing his beard with a dinglehopper. Cute:

This is a look at the Mine Train ride from the side facing the LIttle Mermaid ride. Those buildings there on the side must be the future Little Mermaid gift shop:

Here's a look at Beast's Castle from here. You can also see that this area is very congested. They need to open that walkway:

Here is another piece of artwork which was on the wall over by Belle's cottage. It shows Dopey as the Beast (complete with red cape) and Doc holding Lumiere:

Lots of people took a peek:

]

Here's yet more artwork over by Pooh. I waited for a group of people to pass so I could get a photo, and then this lady on the scooter pulled right in front of it:

Yet another drawing, over by the Teacups:

There was another take a peek place over here on this side, so I took a peek:

They have a long way to go with this.

But I think it's going to be worth the wait.

One last drawing on the wall, right near Storybook Circus:

In case you haven't figured it out, we were heading to Storybook Circus.

There was something there that we wanted to check out.

But on the way there, we ran into something that caught me by complete surprise.

And we ended up seeing three completely surprising things there.

I have photos of all three, which I will share in the next update.

TCD

[MinnieMom 4]

Wow. A trip report within a trip report. And a tailgating side trip. Nice! I can't wait to see the new Fantasyland stuff for myself.

[alexwyattmommy 181]

Waiting for the next update. This one was really good.