Ultimate Bragging Rights! TCD's New Fantasyland Passholder Preview TR

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

TCD and beer, first picture? :heart:

I'm done.

Thanks for taking the time to write this report.

Hey Thanks!

You just saved me a lot of work.

You're right- who needs the rest of the report?

I already posted the best part of the day.

Womp Womp to being on page two. But thanks for the UBR² by default :)

Top of page 2 is good.

I meant to wish you good luck reading all the old TCD TR's before Saturday.

I don't think you have enough time.

Better postpone the trip.

TCD

[TurkeyPants...Nicole 92]

Top of page 2 is good.

I meant to wish you good luck reading all the old TCD TR's before Saturday.

I don't think you have enough time.

Better postpone the trip.

TCD

We are scheduled to fly out on Saturday and our family is worried we won't get out due to the storm. I don't know why they're worried - We'll just drive or I'll fly the plane myself. We are going no matter what. I am now at the obnoxious excited point where all I am talking about is my vacation because that is all that matters :)

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

We are scheduled to fly out on Saturday and our family is worried we won't get out due to the storm. I don't know why they're worried - We'll just drive or I'll fly the plane myself. We are going no matter what. I am now at the obnoxious excited point where all I am talking about is my vacation because that is all that matters :)

That is real Fiend talk there!

Good job!

Have a great trip.

I know you will.

TCD

[SCTigerCock 171]

Congrats TCD! :jumpforjoy

TCD is da un homme for overpriced French Beer. :flush2:

I :heart: BEER!

BUT, WDW MK should be dry. IMH BEER :heart: ing O (IMHBLO) :clint:

I just need to quote myself to correct myself. :suspense: :faceplant2:

MK should be dry IMHBLO! All the REST of WDW should be ...... wet.

Bless all things Holy and Bubbly and Yeasty and Hoppy....AMEN.

:beer: :clint:

[SCTigerCock 171]

We are scheduled to fly out on Saturday and our family is worried we won't get out due to the storm. I don't know why they're worried - We'll just drive or I'll fly the plane myself. We are going no matter what. I am now at the obnoxious excited point where all I am talking about is my vacation because that is all that matters :)

You got an up arrow from me. :clint:

[ajcjmom 8]

Glad to have you.

And you're leaving out something, aren't you?

You are going to get a shout-out in just a little bit in this report.

I was waiting for my time to come in the TR.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

OK, let's kick this TR off!

As you already know, this trip was centered around one thing: The Passholder Preview of the New Fantasyland at the Magic Kingdom.

In case you don't already know, they have been working on the biggest expansion of a theme park in Disney history for the past two years.

This expansion is focused on the Fantasyland area of the Magic Kingdom.

It is a huge project.

Parts of it were finished and were opened earlier this year. Those parts were in the new area known as Storybook Circus. Storybook Circus is where the old Toontown used to be. They ripped down Mickey and Minnie's houses there as well as Donald's boat and the circus tent gift shops, and rebuilt. They moved Dumbo into that space. And added a second spinner full of elephants there. They also built a new train station and added a water play ground. And, of course, there is a huge new gift shop and a character meet and greet area. It is all very nice. But we have already seen all of that.

There is another section of the Fantasyland expansion, though. It's called the Enchanted Forest- and it includes an interactive experience with Belle, the new Be Our Guest Restaurant, a brand new dark ride based on the Little Mermaid movie, and a new grotto where guests can meet Ariel whenever they want. Eventually, this area will also include a brand new, and huge, roller coaster called the 7 Dwarfs Mine Train. The new roller coaster is still under construction and won't be open for another year.

Since Disney likes to hype everything to the extreme, a while back, they announced that there would be a grand opening of the new Fantasyland on December 6. And that there would be soft openings of certain portions before that. They told Passholders that there would be a special event for them on November 3 and also on November 10 and 11. They announced this a couple of months ago, and said details about how to register for the special event would be forthcoming. They have also announced exclusive events for Castmembers and for D23 club members.

The details came forth, as promised. First, Passholders were told to register on a certain date on the passholder website. Then, on the day which was announced as the day to register, Disney announced that due to technical difficulties, they were delaying registration for a week. The week went by, and the time for registration arrived, and I tried to register. I couldn't even get the site to load. It had crashed. After more than an hour trying, an announcement came up saying that they had postponed registration until that evening.

So, I tried again that evening. By some stroke of luck, I was able to get through, and got signed up for the 5 to 8:30 pm time slot on Saturday, November 3. We were in. A lot of people were not as lucky. Disney finally tried to make they way they bungled this right by opening up a bunch more dates for Passholder previews. But, we didn't need those. We were in for the first day. I could have signed up for an earlier slot, but the girls pointed out that the later slot would let us see the new area both in daylight and in the dark, which would be cool.

After we were registered, we made a weekend trip to WDW, and, as luck would have it, were allowed in to a "Dress Rehearsal" of the new Fantasyland. So, we got to see everything that we would see for the preview. Except, we only had been able to see one room of the BOG restaurant. The information for the Passholder preview told us that we would be able to tour the restaurant. It also specifically said that we should eat before we arrived, as food choices in the new area would be limited. There was nothing suggesting that the restaurant would be open an serving food for the preview, and we did not expect it to be.

Still, we were all excited to go back for the Passholder event. Maybe there would be something special we had not been able to see or do during the dress rehearsal.

The confirmation email we got about the preview told us we had to check in and get wristbands at the Transportation and Ticket Center, and then report to the gates of the new Fantasyland by 4:30 pm.

So we planned around that.

We decided that this would just be a day trip for us.

We had just camped at the Fort two weeks before.

Since it would be kind of a late night, we slept in a little, and left home around 8:30 am.

We decided that we would go to Hollywood Studios that morning, as there was something new there we wanted to see.

So that's what we did.

These are probably the first photos you will see of the Christmas decorations which were already up at Hollywood Studios on November 3:

It was kind of busy there, so we checked the tip board.

We decided that I would go and get some Fastpasses for Rock and Rollercoaster, and then we would go check out the new thing we came to see.

On the way to RNR, I noticed these flags, which I think are new, because I normally notice such things:

In case you're curious, like me, those flags spell out CATEDDIES.

I guess that's short for the name of the place- Catalina Eddie's.

With Fastpasses in hand (or in pocket actually), we headed to our intended destination.

We are going to see Ralph:

If you don't know who that is, let me introduce you to Wreck It Ralph.

It's the newest Disney animated film.

It stars Ralph, who is a video game bad guy. But just because he's a bad guy doesn't mean that he's a bad guy.

He just started making appearances at DHS.

In the animation attraction.

This is the same place where you used to be able to meet Lotso from Toy Story 3. And the UP! characters before that. And, the Bolt characters before that. The last occupant of this space was Mr. Pooh.

But the Pooh queue is now Game Central Station:

The last time we were in this space, it was decorated like the day care from Toy Story 3. Now it looks like the area where the video game characters hang out in Wreck It Ralph:

That's a Cybug there on the wall. There are a lot of these in the movie:

This Game Central Station is obviously a play on Grand Central Station. In the movie, the characters travel in and out of their games through here. They travel through the electric cords, which are plugged in to the Station. That is because the station is really a power strip. The inside of the power strip looks like a big train station, complete with signs with scrolling announcements. They have included that here, and tried to make it funny:

As you can see, they tried to make it look like the inside of a power strip, and this is a pretty good copy of how it looked in the movie:

I don't remember these JL panels from the movie, and don't know what the JL stands for. My guess is that it's a tribute to John Lasseter, who was the producer of the movie:

You can see that this looks like the inside of where an electric cord would be plugged in- see the two prongs up top? :

I have to admit that I didn't "get" most of the funny sayings. I graduated high school in 1979, just as the video game thing began to become popular. The arcades of my youth were filled with Skee Ball and Pinball machines, not video games. I never got into video games much, so after PacMan and Asteroids, I'm lost. But, here are some of the sayings that some of you younger folks may find funny:

I did get the Star Wars reference in this one. We all wondered if it was added as the result of Disney's recent purchase:

This is the exit from the waiting area to the meet and greet set:

And this is the other side of that same door- you can see another one of those cybugs up there above the door. It looks different from the one we saw in line- you will need to see the movie to find out why:

This window makes it look like we are inside a video game:

And then it was our turn. Please meet Ralph and Vanellope:

The girls got to meet Vanellope first:

And then Ralph:

Twin #2 got a fistbump from Vanellope:

And here they all are:

The photopass photographer offered to take my photo too, so I hopped in:

And there you have it.

The first of the brand new things we had never done at WDW.

Next up, a fun time in animation class.

TCD

[stefa70 205]

Very cool. I recognized a few of those game references, but not many.

Vanellope? Is that like vanilla and Penelope mixed?

Ralph is cute and "stuffy" Guess I should go see the movie before going to DHS?

[anolefan 8]

I like the game references, especially the Pitfall one. I loved that game and suffered many game ending falls due to said reference.

Kind of sad to see Christmas decorations up already, but Thanksgiving is right around the corner.

[doodlebug....Cherie 461]

My son and his girlfriend went to see Wreck it Ralph last week and said it was awesome!! I did recognize many of the game references, that's what comes from raising a gamer.

[charitycase20....Charity 10]

Yay!! Another TCD trip report!! Took the kids to see Wreck It Ralph on Saturday for the little man's birthday. It was adorable, of course now all Zach talks about is wanting to see Ralph at Disney! lol

[Nicki aka Rebelstand 272]

I got many of the game references but not all

[Brent... Just Brent 83]

Beer, Wreck it Ralph, RnRC... so far sounds like a great day!

[whatdimiss 1]

TCD, your trip reports are fantastic. Used to lurk and read them on another site (not sure if I can mention names or not, lol). I'm glad I found FF, not least because of your consistently great posts.

The idea of beer at the MK took me a minute to get used to, but thats partially because I'm more of a fruity drink guy (much to my embarrassment). Since it's in a restaurant at dinner I don't have any worries about Princesses Gone Wild or anything...

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Very cool. I recognized a few of those game references, but not many.

Vanellope? Is that like vanilla and Penelope mixed?

Ralph is cute and "stuffy" Guess I should go see the movie before going to DHS?

Yes, you need to see the movie.

They don't explain where Vanellope's name comes from, but I love her full name: Vanellope von Schweetz.

If you threw on a hoodie and put some sprikles in your hair, you would be a dead ringer.

And she loves racing!

I like the game references, especially the Pitfall one. I loved that game and suffered many game ending falls due to said reference.

Kind of sad to see Christmas decorations up already, but Thanksgiving is right around the corner.

I didn't even know Pitfall was a real game.

Sad.

I agree with you about the decorations, but we saw WIR at Countryside Mall on Sunday, and they had all their decorations up.

My son and his girlfriend went to see Wreck it Ralph last week and said it was awesome!! I did recognize many of the game references, that's what comes from raising a gamer.

Cool.

Doodle raised a gamer!

I'll bet you played a few too!

Yay!! Another TCD trip report!! Took the kids to see Wreck It Ralph on Saturday for the little man's birthday. It was adorable, of course now all Zach talks about is wanting to see Ralph at Disney! lol

Man, a lot of people saw WIR.

I guess it set a record for a Disney Animated film- 49 million for its first weekend.

Not bad.

I think they need some more WIR stuff at the gift shops.

I got many of the game references but not all

Another youngin.

Beer, Wreck it Ralph, RnRC... so far sounds like a great day!

You are right.

What could have made it better?

How about meeting some Fiends for the first time?

TCD, your trip reports are fantastic. Used to lurk and read them on another site (not sure if I can mention names or not, lol). I'm glad I found FF, not least because of your consistently great posts.

The idea of beer at the MK took me a minute to get used to, but thats partially because I'm more of a fruity drink guy (much to my embarrassment). Since it's in a restaurant at dinner I don't have any worries about Princesses Gone Wild or anything...

Well thank you very much!

That is very kind of you to say!

I don't know, I might like to see the Princesses Gone Wild.

I know a guy who would for sure if Jasmine was there.

Am I right FWG?

TCD

[Big Kahuna aka John 71]

Wow... all but page 3... this work thing is really starting to impair my ability to enjoy TCD life moments.... I may have to give this work thing up... :rofl2: ..... I do hope that you took that glass and placed it on your shelf at home unwashed.... That was history there...

[dvccamper 32]

Wow, one of the first legal beers consumed in the Magic Kingdom! Well I hope you realize you probably made Walt's head roll over in it's little cryogenic tomb. But seriously, you deserve bragging rights on that one.

[beccaewert 10]

awesome---my boys are gonna love seeing WIR.....how long do you think he'll be there?

[dellasgirl 7]

Removed

[Southern Blessings 4]

Wow, I guess beer in the MK isn't so bad if it's only in that restaurant. Wreck It Ralph seems like a cool movie, glad y'all were able to see the characters there. Can't wait to read more!

[wak648...Bill 94]

WTF is Robert flavored water?

Damn, or is it dam, maybe dame auto correct. It was supposed to say beer flavored water.

[h2odivers...Ray 952]

Awesome!

That beer makes you look so good. Or maybe you make the beer look good? Either way that is do cool that you where there first. I'm trying to reservations there for our up coming Christmas trip for my DD8.

[mommy rainbo.....Bo 41]

I'm in. I needed a pick me up today and TCD you are providing. Thanks.

[stefa70 205]

The idea of beer at the MK took me a minute to get used to, but thats partially because I'm more of a fruity drink guy (much to my embarrassment).

:rofl2: That's funny stuff!

If you threw on a hoodie and put some sprikles in your hair, you would be a dead ringer.

TCD

Uhhh, should I be offended?

Should you have said "with all due respect" first?

If I do decide to go that route, where can I get sprikles in my hair?

[stefa70 205]

Double posted