A Night at the Movies with the TCD Gang

[Momof6....aka Marty 769]

I have been assuming that all the work around the Hub will be gone by the time i get there next - 4/29/15.  Now I am not so sure.

 

But MK with ugly construction walls is still MK. :D

[shoreline99 137]

Just realized we were there at the same time. Sorry we missed you guys in the MK that day! if I see myself in the background of any of your photos I'll break out the purple crayon.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Plaza steak fries......mmmmm.

 

That's right!  I love them, but they also make me sad when I think how we used to get those very same fries at the Fort with our GAG's. 

 

Maybe you could ask your new BFF the Iron Chef to bring them back?

 

I have been assuming that all the work around the Hub will be gone by the time i get there next - 4/29/15.  Now I am not so sure.

 

But MK with ugly construction walls is still MK. :D

 

I would be very surprised if the work around the hub is done anytime soon.  They are moving so slow.  The twins heard before Christmas that there was a push to get things done for the Christmas parade taping. For a while, they were actually working hard. Then that passed.  The new areas that they've been working on look like they'll be open within the next couple of weeks.  But, after that, I expect them to wall off the Rose Garden and tear that up.  At the pace they work, my best guess is they won't be done until the end of the year.  And maybe not even then.

 

Just realized we were there at the same time. Sorry we missed you guys in the MK that day! if I see myself in the background of any of your photos I'll break out the purple crayon.

 

Please do.  I knew you were at the Fort, but I didn't know you were at the MK when we were there.  That was a very busy day.  Did you have any FP+ trouble that day?  MDE was definitely acting up. 

 

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Well, it looks like I'm going to be out of bonus content from 2/14/15 after this update.

 

Time to go back.

 

Actually, Twin #1 was back at WDW this past Sunday.  I had to pass.

 

We left off with us riding through the Haunted Mansion.

 

Our next FP+ return time wasn't up yet, so we needed a detour.  The oldest DD came up with a very random idea: Merida.

 

She was meeting until 6:30, so we figured we could maybe get in to the last group to meet her.

 

We headed that way.

 

But first, we needed to stop here:

 

 

 

After the Tangled pit stop, we headed toward Merida's place.

 

When Twin #1 and I had been here the previous Sunday evening, the Peter Pan standby line was very short.  Two Thirds of the TCD DD's haven't yet seen the interactive queue, so I thought this might be a good time to try that.  Nope:

 

 

So, the standby line said it was 110 minutes.  What about the FP+ line?

 

It started here:

 

 

And stretched over toward the carousel:

 

 

We were heading that way, so we got to walk past all of those happy people who were enjoying the magic of FP+.

 

Everyone behind Cotton Eye Joe here was in the Peter Pan FP+ line:

 

 

And that wasn't the end of the line.

 

The sun was setting, and just the top of the 7DMT hill was illuminated. I like how it's framed between those new towers and walls they built:

 

 

Have you ever read a report from someone who loves FP+?  A lot of times, they say how great it is to be able to go to a kiosk after using their third FP+ and get a 4th, 5th or even more extra FP+'s.  The thing you need to pay attention to is when any such FP+ fan was in the park.  On slow days, that works great.  On days like today, you will be waiting 20-30 minutes to get to the kiosk and find out that you can get a FP+ for Philharmagic (which you could already be watching if you hadn't stood in that line for 30 minutes).  This is how the FP+ kiosks looked at around 6:15 on Saturday night:

 

 

Well, you can't really see the kiosks, can you?  They're on the other side of that happy mob of guests waiting their turn to use the kiosks. 

 

Aren't you glad that Disney spent $2 Billion to give us this wonderful convenience?

 

The line of guests waiting for Merida didn't look too bad.  It looked like the group inside the meet and greet area was about half-way done, so we figured that we would have maybe a ten minute wait to see her.  It was around 6:15, and she was done at 6:30.  We figured 6:30 is when they would cut the line and let us in.

 

As you may know, the line to meet Merida stretches up the walkway on the east side of the castle.  That walkway has been closed for over a month now, because they have that big crane set up on that side of the castle doing who knows what.  Here's how the walkway looks:

 

 

You may not know this about me, but looking over and around construction barricades is something I do.  Here's what's on the other side of that door:

 

 

And this is what's down the path:

 

 

 

It was 6:14 when I took those photos, and this one as well:

 

 

It turns out we were wrong guessing that we would be admitted around 6:30.

 

I took this photo at 6:41, and we were in the same place we were at 6:14:

 

 

CM's had come up the line and assured us that we would be meeting Merida.  For some reason, she was delayed, and would be meeting a bit past her 6:30 pm cut off.

 

None of us minded the delay. The MK was crazy busy, and we still had time left on our SM FP+'s.  It was better that we went toward the end of our return time there, as then we could head right to our Big Thunder ride after that.

 

We were the last group to see Merida.  I personally had only been here once, a long time ago, when Merida first began meeting guests.  That was before her movie even came out.  Everything was pretty much the same:

 

 

The only thing different is that she used to have her bear brothers there with her.  They apparently are the same ones they are using on her float for the FOF parade now.

 

The Merida photos were taken on one of the girls' phones.  They must not have been good, as they have not appeared anywhere on social media where I can swipe one.

 

Next, it was time for us to cash in our SM FP+'s.

 

As I mentioned earlier, I didn't do anything tricky for this impromptu visit- just three regular FP+'s for each of us on our own MB's.  They worked fine on the Haunted Mansion, and I didn't expect any issues here.

 

Once again, we found a line that we had to wait in just to get to the FP+ scanners.  From that line, we could see the standby line, which was outside of the mountain.  You can't read the posted return time in this photo, but it was 120 minutes (aka 2 hours) :

 

 

Which means that all the people you see in that line/mob voluntarily joined that line knowing that the posted wait time was 2 hours.

 

It took a few minutes for us to reach the scanners.  A lot of guests in front of us were having issues, and were being sent away.  Dummies.

 

Our turn came up.  My oldest daughter and I went to the scanners first. Green lights.  Good.  Based on past experience, we waited for the twins to scan their MB's.  Green lights.  Good.  In we go!

 

Not so fast.

 

The CM looking at the screen next to the scanners said the twins' MB's were blank.

 

No, they're not, I said.  They just turned green.  See ya.

 

No, he said.

 

The system was down.

 

And, he said, everyone's MB's were scanning greet tonight.  No blue lights tonight.

 

We needed to show him that we had FP+'s on one of our phones by pulling up the MDE app.

 

I had tried to pull up the app earlier, and it wouldn't load.  Which is nothing new. The app stinks.

 

I told the CM that I had a screen cap showing our FP+s, and asked if that would work.

 

He said yes.

 

I showed him, and we were good.

 

So what was going on here?

 

I think they were just picking random guests to check to see if they had actual FP+'s on their bands.

 

Everyone else was just coming on in.

 

That's why the other standby lines we saw (MH and PP) were so bad.

 

The danged MDE had crashed.

 

I guess we were lucky I had that screen cap.

 

That outside photo I posted above was taken at 6:58.  This photo was taken at 7:12, after we had ridden.  So, even with the extra commotion, we didn't do too bad:

 

 

As you can see, the girls went with the classic look-the-wrong-way pose.

 

I went with the creepy hoodie guy look:

 

 

Even after stalling with Merida and the hassle getting in to SM, we still had a short time to kill before we could use our Big Thunder FP+'s.

 

That meant either Peoplemover or COP.  We went with the former.  As luck would have it, our car came to a full and complete stop above the Stitch standby line.  Look at all the dummies waiting to go in:

 

 

Laugh Floor looked pretty busy too:

 

 

As you probably guessed, we did resume motion immediately after that, and were on our merry way to Big Thunder.

 

At Big Thunder, the standby time was 70 minutes, and we all went through the scanners without incident.  As you may know, when your band is scanned, your first name is displayed on the screen facing the CM's.  I turned to look as the girls scanned their bands, and they screens were blank. These CM's didn't mess with asking us to show proof we actually had FP+'s and just let us go.  It wasn't until here that I realized that we probably could be heading through other FP+ lines tonight.  But, we had to head out now, as we were driving back home, and wanted to be gone before the throngs began heading out after Wishes.

 

We headed to the bus stop to head back to the resort where we had illegally parked for the day.

 

Look at this rogue bus driving through the WDW bus area:

 

 

Who does that joker think he is?

 

This made me realize something.  I don't think there's anything in place which would stop a regular car from driving in to this bus area.  I'm surprised we don't see that happening.

 

This sign will give you a clue where we parked:

 

 

If you're ever in WDW for Fat Tuesday, go to the Port Orleans French Quarter resort.  Look at all the fun they had planned!

 

I think it was last year that fellow Fiend Grumpy went there and posted some photos of the little parade they have there.

 

Here's something else I didn't know- they have karaoke on Saturday nights there.  But, they have a live musician playing the keyboard for the singers.  We were lucky to get to hear Karaoke guy singing New York, New York.  Classic:

 

 

And that's all I have for you.

 

For now anyway.

 

I have a pretty good feeling that there will be some more bonus material to share next week.

 

TCD

[shoreline99 137]

Yes, we had problems with MDE and also with FP+. My son and his friends got stuck on Space Mountain that afternoon. Lots of rides shut down sporadically (Space, HM) and completely (Pirates). We had trouble trying to change FP+'s using MDE for the rides that were closed during the day, but when we came back that evening (remember, it was Valentine's Day - I took my wife to a nice dinner at Artist Point) it was working fine and we were able to grab a few fast passes right away.

[Momof6....aka Marty 769]

Oohhh...  Karaoke.  I wonder if the WW would want to go to that?

[DaveInTN 3,247]

So on a very crowded Saturday evening of a Holiday weekend, fastpasses were operating on the honor system?  

 

That's incredible.    

[momof3kids-Yvonne 596]

Not too sure about the whole costume wearing thing.

Well unless it is something like this. Shared with permission from my cousin. She made all the costumes for her children. Definitely got some extra attention and Pixie Dust.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Yes, we had problems with MDE and also with FP+. My son and his friends got stuck on Space Mountain that afternoon. Lots of rides shut down sporadically (Space, HM) and completely (Pirates). We had trouble trying to change FP+'s using MDE for the rides that were closed during the day, but when we came back that evening (remember, it was Valentine's Day - I took my wife to a nice dinner at Artist Point) it was working fine and we were able to grab a few fast passes right away.

 

Sounds magical. I'm glad to hear they got things fixed later in the evening.

 

Oohhh...  Karaoke.  I wonder if the WW would want to go to that?

 

Good luck getting the mic away from Mr. New York,  New York and his buddies.  They seem to be in charge there.

 

So on a very crowded Saturday evening of a Holiday weekend, fastpasses were operating on the honor system?  

 

That's incredible.    

 

Not really incredible.  More like par for the course.

 

I don't think I've ever shared my thoughts about the folks who run Disney and the $2 billion they spent on this MB fiasco, or have I?

 

Not too sure about the whole costume wearing thing.

Well unless it is something like this. Shared with permission from my cousin. She made all the costumes for her children. Definitely got some extra attention and Pixie Dust.

 

 

Thanks for sharing those photos!  I remember seeing a couple of them before, but not all of them.  Those costumes and photos are great.  They look like they had a blast.

 

TCD

[GaDawgFan.....Kelly 799]

MDE is AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Everything is awesome! Everything is cool... oh wait. 

 

Yvonne, great costumes!

[Momof6....aka Marty 769]

Yvonne, those costumes are amazing!

[momof3kids-Yvonne 596]

MDE is AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Everything is awesome! Everything is cool... oh wait. 

 

Yvonne, great costumes!

  

Yvonne, those costumes are amazing!

Thanks, but I can't take any credit. She is an awesome seamstress. I have mentioned before that she and her husband are part of the 501st in the Detroit area. She made her Princess Leia costume. Both she and her husband also have Storm Trooper costumes which were made by them.

[momof3kids-Yvonne 596]

Kelly and Marty, I sent you FB invites to "like " her page.

[sherryberry 35]

Very impressive costumes! And the children are adorable as well!

[lklasing 16]

Oh wow.  I had no idea I was so behind on this report!  Good updates.  Too bad you didn't figure out that the whole FP system seemed to be down before time to go.  It would have been fun for you to test that and see what all y'all could have gotten on without FPs.

[fowlandfishmommy 10]

A couple of things.

1.)  I am really having a hard time understanding the stuff going on at the hub.  I wish I could see an aerial or panoramic photo of before, now, and the final plans.  I can not grasp what is going on here.  Although I do think putting the artificial turf down so that strollers can go over it, but it will be a nice place to sit is a good idea.  Even though we won't be going anytime in the future, I can't stand when stuff takes forever just because.  I know Disney could get this done faster because I've seen how fast they do other things.  It I went on my first trip and all that mess was going on, I'd be pretty disappointed.  And the rose garden NOOOOOOOOO!  I love that area.  I hope it stays somewhat the same.  

 

2.) I'm so glad the cute little disney bounding thing has become popular with kids.  I do not have girls but if I did, I'm not sure I could handle those princess dresses that you buy.  They look miserably uncomfortable to me and so itchy.  And I'm sure they trip 50 times on them.  If I did have a little girl or if for some reason God gives us a little girl (I'm totally fine with no girls FYI - whole different conversation) I'd have to go with these...

 

https://www.etsy.com/listing/179865466/modern-disney-outfit-ariellittle-mermaid?ref=related-0

[fowlandfishmommy 10]

One more thing.  What's all this business at Downtown Disney.  Changing the name?  I'm so out of the loop.  I HATE Downtown Disney, so I'm sure I won't be seeing the changes anytime soon.  :) 

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

Another great report!

It was great to see you again.....maybe another meet-up will be in the offing for November?

[h2odivers...Ray 952]

Omg! Yvonne those are the best costumes ever!

That was some serious pixie dust and serious character time. How much time did they spend with them? I don't think I've seen characters spend that much time with any one kid(s).

[momof3kids-Yvonne 596]

Omg! Yvonne those are the best costumes ever!

That was some serious pixie dust and serious character time. How much time did they spend with them? I don't think I've seen characters spend that much time with any one kid(s).

Ray, I sent you a link to her Sewing page via Facebook messenger. I am not sure how much time the characters spent with them. They were also asked to open the Indiana Jones show. Her oldest is really shy and didn't want to, but her younger two did.

[GaDawgFan.....Kelly 799]

Omg! Yvonne those are the best costumes ever!

That was some serious pixie dust and serious character time. How much time did they spend with them? I don't think I've seen characters spend that much time with any one kid(s).

 

I've heard of the sisters riding the carousel with kids. The pictures here are the best I've seen though.  

[LWQuestie 0]

Jeez.  That's kind of disturbing.

 

From what I understand, the ADA prevents Disney (and all other businesses) from questioning a person's need for a guide animal. 

 

Which opens the door to this kind of strangeness.

 

TCD

 

This is a topic close to my heart, so here are the rules:

 

When it is not obvious what service an animal provides, only limited inquiries are allowed.

Staff may ask two questions:

(1) is the dog a service animal required because of a disability, and

(2) what work or task has the dog been trained to perform.

Staff cannot ask about the person’s disability, require medical documentation, require a special identification card or training documentation for the dog, or ask that the dog demonstrate its ability to perform the work or task.

 

A person with a disability cannot be asked to remove his service animal from the premises unless:

(1) the dog is out of control and the handler does not take effective action to control it or

(2) the dog is not housebroken.

When there is a legitimate reason to ask that a service animal be removed, staff must offer the person with the disability the opportunity to obtain goods or services without the animal’s presence.

 

http://www.ada.gov/service_animals_2010.htm

 

I suspect feathers could be ruffled by asking what tasks the animal is trained to perform, but those people are also likely trying to get one over.

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

Super late catching up but love the recent HM photos!!

 

And bonus points for scoring the sweatshirt at a steal.

 

Yvonne... thanks for sharing those photos.  Adorable children are always allowed to wear costumes.  :)

 

Oohhh...  Karaoke.  I wonder if the WW would want to go to that?

 

Oh I bet a few could be convinced. 

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

For the sake of completeness, I have an update to this part of the TR:

Next, we found Bill.

 

A bunch of teenies were there taking a photo with him with their selfie stick:

 

 

That one photo right there shows a lot of what is wrong with our society.

 

Here's Bill:

 

 

That guy's career sure came to a sudden and shameful end in a hurry, didn't it?

 

 

The Orlando Sentinel has reported that Bill's bust was to be removed on Tuesday, July 7: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-disney-bill-cosby-20150707-story.html

 

TCD