timfreeman

That line is coming from FastPass. That happens when ever a ride breaks down and has to stop operation. All the fast passes that didn't get used during the down time are still valid for use when it re-opens. I'd bet that's what were seeing here, as Space Mountain is one of the rides that does this on almost a daily basis. There was no down time that day and I didn't think to take a picture until half way through it. It went all the way back to astro orbiter. Thunder mountain was backed up to the bridge. Toy story was backed up to marina (whatever it is now). The safari was backed up to the normal line. They have now built ropes in for the fast pass lines for most of the mentioned above. The lines really aren't "longer", they have just moved to the outside. Once you pass the RFID point, most were walk all the way to the ride.

Welcome to spring break.

So last year, we stood in line for my son to get Ray Parks autograph and ended up getting the 1st standby. Stood in line again when time and the last 5 people took 20 minutes and we didn't get in. I'm trying to remember when we got in line. It seems like we got up extremely early, but don't recall. Anyone have any idea when we need to get there tomorrow? Also, it's unclear on how they are doing Ashley Eckstein and James Arnold Taylor this year. Are they bracelets this year, or just stand in line and hope you make it?

ToT should have been in the maybe section and probably moved to the must do when my wife gets the list. It was more of a time thing for me. I added Pooh because it's our 4 year old favorite ride, so we normally ride it 20 times in WDW. I thought Monster Inc was a photo op for some reason, I'll add it. We'll use singler rider as much as possible.

It sounds like I'll try to get showpasses for the 9:00 WOC, but may skip it if time is an issue. We will definitely hit Fantasmic as it's our favorite "show" of WDW and I want to see the dragon. Grizzly will most likely be skipped due to being in DCA first. Being a water ride, I know my wife won't want to walk the rest of the day wet. I've read it's similar to Kali River Rapids and you definitely get soaked on it. I'm good with spinning like TSM or Dumbo. It's fast spinning like tea cups and dinowhirl that get me. I'll try to hit Roger Rabbit from the description. It sounds like we'll be skipping: Tea Cups Dumbo Muppet Vision (not a fan of Burton or the Frankenweenie previews) It's Tough to Be a Bug Grizzly River Run Tower of Terror Tiki Room Peter Pan Snow White As for things on our definite list: Space Mountain Thunder Mountain Splash Mountain Haunted Mansion Its a Small World Winnie the Pooh Matterhorn Mr Toad Pinnochio Pirates California Screamin' Roger Rabbit The Little Mermaid Mater Radiator Springs Soarin Alice in Wonderland? We'll hit these if there is time: Star Tours? Buzz? No line if it's different Monorail? Nemo? Toy Story? Anything I'm missing? Also, we'll be staying at the Fairfield Inn. No specific reason other than it looked walkable so we can check in and just walk to the park entrance. If there's a better tactic, I'm all ears.

In #1 & #2, you have 4 fast passes on entering parks. Are the 2 parks not linked? I assume showpass is different than fastpass? My thought is to skip any "doubles" that aren't main attractions (mountains, pirates, etc). We can even skip Splash if it's the same as my wife doesn't really like water rides. If the Monorail is 20 minutes, we'll probably skip it unless we are doing great on time. I should also mention I don't do spinning rides. Not sure if it applies other than the tea cups, but I don't do well on those. Fantasmic is at 9:00 and 10:30 that night and World of Color is at 9:00 and 10:15. I assume we can't make it to both and not sure we'd want to eat up that time. Which one should we hit, or skip both?

Thanks. I thought I had notifications of new replies to this post, but apparently didn't. I think Indy is closed. Are Muppet Vision and Tough to be a bug different than what's in WDW? We've seen both of those numerous times in WDW and figured time would be better spent on new or different attractions. Don't recall seeing Grizzly, I'll look into it also. Also forgot to mention Fantasmic. We'd love to see that if it can be fit into the schedule.

Now that it's closer, I have more information on our visit so hopefully get some more insight. We are flying in on Sunday Oct 7th and should be able to get to the park by noon. Disneyland is open until midnight and DCA is open until 11pm. Is it too extreme to try and hit both parks? I don't know anything about crowd levels for either park during this time of year or on Sundays. Being a "WDW expert", it makes me nervous to know little or nothing about these parks. Should we attempt both parks or just stick with DL? Is there a strategy you'd recommend on when to go where and how? Rides we'd want to hit at Disneyland: Pirates of the Caribbean Haunted Mansion Space Mountain Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage Splash Mountain Matterhorn Bobsleds Big Thunder Mountain Railroad "it's a small world" Alice in Wonderland monorail jungle cruise Mr Toad Pinocchio I think the rest are the same as the WDW rides. If there's any I missed, or any I should skip, please let me know. If we go to both parks, we'd want to hit these in DCA: California Screamin' Mermaid Radiator Springs Soarin' (think it's the same as EPCOT, but my wife's favorite ride)

Tried to search through the topic, but 415 pages is hard to take in. My wife and I are going to be in LA on our way to our second honeymoon. Since we went to Disney World the first time, I thought it would be great if we could visit Disneyland on our 15th anniversary. I made our layover as long as I could, but it's really only one night. We arrive around 10:20am at LAX, so I assume we can't make it to the park until noon at the earliest. We fly out the next morning, so we have 9 or so hours to get what we can done. I don't want it to be stressful, so what plan should we use on the rides? Which ones should we skip? Are there any benefits on staying on or close to DL?

Wooohooo, here come more dinosaurs!!! Hopefully I'm wrong, but don't see another coaster coming for a while.

Hopefully that wasn't directed at me as I agreed with you and geared my posts to be about Guest Services. To clarify my last post to Swimace, it was more geared to "customer service" in general. I used the CM term to give it more relevance. It's seems some people's tolerance and comprehension stops when they get OUT of the parks. That conversation isn't going anywhere either so I'll drop it too.

If that is your actual mentality before you walk into guest services, I can see why the outcome wasn't to your liking. -chris "wonders why anyone would like to "smack around" a cast member while they are visiting "the happiest place on earth""connolly Way to take things way too literally. I should have put about 20 smilies in the post, cause if I don't, I get this. I know the CM sitting in guest services has no control over what another CM does in Tomorrowland. I've never even asked for a "freebie" unless you count being stuck on a ride for over 2 hours and asking for a FP to re-ride when it's fixed a freebie.... If I'm going into guest services, it's for a legitimate complaint and I state my case calmly. If the CM cops an attitude with me, I ask for a manager.

Believe me, I know you have to go in there with a smile on and your best foot forward even though you want to drag them over the counter and smack em around. Not sure they could pay me enough to take a job in that field. My guess is that I got them after they dealt with an extremely unpleasant visitor, but that shouldn't be my problem.

That's because our group is filled with intelligent, sensible people. This is what makes TPR different from all of those other boards. The only valid argument I see here against the change is that some people might miss a fast pass time due to a fault by Disney (slow restaurant service, ride breakdown, incorrect queue time). If any of those things happen to a guest and they don't get consideration from front line cast members then all they have to do is walk over to guest services and they'll get on the ride. Case closed. This actually made me laugh out loud and spit Coke on my monitor. Not the "intelligent, sensible" part, but the "walk over to guest services" piece. In all my years of going to WDW, I've never gotten anything accomplished for major issues using guest services. If and when this actually takes affect, people will try to use every excuse in the book, including reservations. What do we get when we sit there for 45 minutes waiting for a dining reservation we made 6 months ago? I've been stuck on rides for over 2 hours and had cast members gruffly tell me to go to guest services. When I got to guest services, I couldn't even get 1 fast pass out of them for the last 2 hours they killed. I think I'll play my day to sit on the benches outside guest services and watch the anger and venom of people exiting the building.

I think people are reading more into posts that what is meant, or maybe I am. There are many ways to work the system, not just with FP. See the queue fill up after fireworks? Go DURING them. Have a FP that's 5 hours from now (Toy Story anyone?), ride less crowded rides until you can get another one. Using the DHS example, Star Wars never seems to get over 40 minutes and Muppets can fit 4 meeelion people. Also, let the kids play. Kids have too much energy needing to expelled that can't be done standing in line all day. They seem to love the Honey I shrunk the kids area. Finally, take a break. Most of family "conversations" I see are because the kids are just plain wore out. Go back to the hotel and have some downtime. I understand some people don't get to visit often and have only a day to do everything. I truly feel for those as it can be overwhelming. Try taking kids, all of which *LOVE* Star Wars, to Star Wars Weekends and your life will change. You will see plenty of people "work the system" to the detriment of others. Getting in line for a bracelet at 6am to get an autograph, only to get standby. Then see a kid, or more common an adult, with 5 bracelets on (when you are only allowed to get one) cut you off 1 minute before the deadline because they are running from their last autograph session and cast members doing nothing. Try explaining that to your 8 year old son who just wants to meet Ray Park or your 9 year old daughter who adores Ashley Eckstein. My family is past the point of planning our days down to the minute as it got impossible. We now enjoy the time (what a concept ) and go with the flow. The wife and I narrow the parks down to the less hectic ones, then have the kids vote on which park to hit the next day. With that, they list the most important things they want to do. We'll hit the top of their lists, then move down as we have time or as it fits within the course of the park. We had to come to the realization that WDW is actually meant to be "the happiest place on earth" and it wasn't at that point.

I will preface this by saying I could care less either way. 90% of the time, we make our allotted time window. With that, the problem is it's *NOT* like making dining reservations as you can't plan your time 6 months, 90 days, a month, or even 1 day ahead of time. I'm thinking most debating how the change is good is either single or small family. You can't predict what fast passes will be available at what time. Your daughter want to see the princesses, you have to get in line and that line could be 90+ minutes. Good luck guessing which ride has passes to fit after that. I won't go into 50 different scenarios as I'm guessing people will argue anything. It's Disney. They can do what they want, when they want, how they want. I think it's a massive, sweeping, generalized chess play that won't change anything by itself. It's just another step to making the FP exclusive for resort guests. Waiting 10 years to enforce a rule was a bad idea. However, it is a rule and they can choose to enforce it whenever they want. Good luck dealing with the backlash.

I think people put too much disinterest into Potter and overlook the theme and environment. If it's strictly due to the Forbidden Journey, I can't comment as I've never ridden it. I know nothing about Greek mythology, but the Lost Continent was one of the best themed areas in any park. My biggest issue with Potterville is the crowds. There were way too many people crammed into 1/3 of 1 park while the rest of the areas were essentially empty. While I'd much rather have Transformers, Kong, BSG, Flash Gordon, etc....spreading out all the people in WWOHP can't be a bad thing. WIth that said, I doubt I'll be visiting the parks anytime soon. Passes expired in April and I have no reason to buy them anytime soon.

That web page is old. They changed it from picking kids out of the crowd to sign ups last year in Orlando. Also, the ages are from 4-12. Get to Hollywood Studios early as it's getting as bad as Toy Story for lines. When they let you through the gate, if it's before opening, head down the path between Hollywood & Vine and Echo Lake. They will be signing kids up there. If it's after opening, head to Sounds Dangerous with Drew Carey. There's an entrance right beside the gift shop were they sign the kids up. The kids you are signing up *HAVE* to be with you to sign up. No kids, no training. They start at the first show and fill it up and move to the next show. If you are early and already have plans during a show, you can choose a later show (in case of lunch reservations).

Visited again today to see how they handle a crowd. We'll ignore the cluster at the security line as that should not be in place for go live. For the entrance, they had a line for each side of the "V". They had 2 cast members forming the lines with a roamer between the two. They were also explaining how to use the new entrance. At the actual mouse heads, they had 2 more people helping. Then at the entrance clearing they had 1 more person making sure everyone was legit. None of these guys looked like management or observers, so I'm assuming this is how they are looking to implement this. That's 6 people for 8 "turnstiles", so at least to begin, there won't be a decrease in jobs. The line keepers would only let 4 people go at a time (if your family was larger than 4, they'd let you all go). Once they cleared, they'd send 4 more. Using this setup, technically, the line would move 4 times faster (not counting stroller time or issues).

back on topic.... magnetic strip is bad.... RFID is good....

This is Disney I'm talking about too. We've came down here at least 6 weeks the last 3 years (4 weeks the few years before that). Most of the time it's considered off season when we travel. If we don't call the day you are able (it's changed once or twice to 90 days), we've never gotten our preferred dining times. Normally we had to plan our days around whatever dining reservations we got which is far from optimal. The *ONLY* time we've gotten CRT is when the Office of the President of Magic Kingdom made the reservations for us. We've taken our dining down to a couple a trip and eating the rest of the time at one of the digs on 192. Cheaper for us, but disappointing that we can't get one decent reservation. Using this trip for example. We decided on our vacation in the middle of September (over 2 months in advance). My wife immediately started calling and the only things available were Cape May for breakfast (could get any of these we wanted), and 4 Crystal Palaces for late lunches (we ate today at 2:10). We were able to get one Chef Mickey's breakfast at 8:00 the first day we were here. No CRT, no Coral Reef, no Le Cellier, no Ohana, those are the ones that pop up in my mind, but nada. This is the week BEFORE Thanksgiving which is considered an off week. Next week was even worse. I think we got a T-Rex on Thanksgiving for a late lunch (3:00 I think) and a Crystal Palace the day after.

It's not that the ticket is put in the wrong way as there isn't a wrong way (at least at Disney). You can put the ticket in any way and it will read it. The problem is the "magnetic strip" technology. Anything can mess it them up, so just having the more fault tolerant RFID would improve dramatically. It's not unusual for me to have to replace several tickets a week. They blame it on credit cards, wallets, cell phones, anything (all of which I keep in opposite pockets due to the issues). If you have to rub the ticket to warm up the strip before using it, there's a problem. That was my fear. Try making a dining reservation for your stay...it's virtually impossible unless you jump on at 12:01 6 months before your trip. Do all those reservations get used? Nope. Most those people will book 400 reservations because they don't know their schedule. They are trying to fix it a little by charging $10 per person per reservation if not cancelled with 24 hour notice. Doesn't really help the consumer as they have to keep checking for free reservations the day before while on vacation which isn't much of a vacation to me. I assume the daily fast pass would keep the current "one at a time" strategy, but the on site rumors have me a little concerned. In general, it wouldn't have a major affect, but think of rides like Toy Story which requires a mad dash at opening to get a fast pass..... Not directly related, but the other concern I have is the special events like Jedi Training. If things like this get moved to booking reservations for on site guests, those off site, with passes, or even local won't have a chance.

Ahh but you're assuming you'll only be able to request a fastpass at the actual ride, I'm assuming we'll see kiosks all over the park where you'll be able to do things with your bracelet...reserve a ride, dining, add money, view photos, etc. Yes and no. With a 3 year old, one of us always ends up running for passes while the other takes them to the bathroom, grabs some food, watches the parades, rides non-me friendly spinning rides, etc. Having multiple kiosks would make it easier on traveling to the actual ride, but would still need to grab all the bracelets from the group. On the plus side, maybe it would discourage the group of 40 sending one person to grab 40 passes. With my luck, I'm always behind that person.

Today, they had the left side of the entrance using the RFID with the pods, the right still used the old turnstiles. It never worked for us. Walked through the security check and they scanned our tickets and got the sticker put on. Going to the "pods", the system turned blue. They had to swipe our tickets again in a iPhone/iPod housed with a scanner to fix them. A bit later I had to run back out to the car for something and didn't scan again. I'm assuming due to re-entry, but not positive. Asked a few questions and they said it was going to be a 2 week test which means it'll be used during the busy holiday next week. Even though I didn't have a stellar first encounter, I see it as a great move. Even before reading this here, I was telling the family of all the benefits and information Disney could glean, forecast, and even advertise (tie in texting/Disney app with locations). The iOS interface to the database is already there, so the possibilities are endless. As for security....let security handle it. For those with bags, have the RFID there as they scan the bags. For those without bags, have the "V" shape of pods set up. If it fails, send them to one of the people who would have been handling the turnstiles and now hold an iPhone scanner. If they can't fix it in under a minute, send them to Guest Services. This would get rid of the stroller issues in the turnstiles and still separate those with bags from holding up other people. The downside is I don't see anything helping with those that can't seem to grasp the concept of putting in your ticket and scanning your finger. This would blow their minds....Also, if the "key to the world" changes to bracelets, this means whoever runs for fast passes will have to carry 5 bracelets instead of 5 cards.

Was in the header, sorry. Big Thunder Mountain.