On this week’s episode of the WDW Fan Boys Podcast we discuss some of the smaller issues with the parks that drive fans crazy. From rides cut without a replacement, to broken or dormant effects, to offerings being cut entirely, we discuss everything that we can recall. Micechat.com: How RFID is being used at Disney World
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For every $1000+ in combined purchases you spend per calendar year through our Amazon link, we will give you a t-shirt of your choice. Our new shop is up and running, and we have t-shirts available with our current and classic, regular and uncensored logos. All you need to do is send us a list of the items that you purchased, we’ll verify it against our records and then we’ll send you the t-shirt of your choice.
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On this week’s episode of the WDW Fan Boys Podcast we answer more of your listener questions. We discuss the soundtrack to Space Mountain, room reservations, celebrities in Disney World, branding, the Food and Wine Festival, Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, Bay Lake Tower, Football and more.
To listen to this podcast, you can use the player above or (right click and save as) on the Download link below the player or you can click this button.
FanBoy Loyalty Program
For every $1000+ in combined purchases you spend per calendar year through our Amazon link, we will give you a t-shirt of your choice. Our new shop is up and running, and we have t-shirts available with our current and classic, regular and uncensored logos. All you need to do is send us a list of the items that you purchased, we’ll verify it against our records and then we’ll send you the t-shirt of your choice.
Project Fan Boy Contest
Win a chance to appear on our show in a short segment where you can talk about a topic of your choosing with us. Winners will also receive WDW Fan Boys swag, and Brett will record a custom outgoing voice mail message for you.
To enter the contest send us an e-mail, video, or audio file explaining why you should be on the show. The funnier the better. All entries should be submitted to questions@wdwfanboys.com.
While we kept a sane pace, we accomplished quite a bit today. Like we have in the previous days, there was some crisscrossing of the parks to accommodate the need for Fastpasses. Couple that with really light crowds, and we were able to do quite a bit.
Before we got to the parks, we stopped at the Fossil store in Downtown Disney. I needed a new watch band, and twenty five dollars later, my $15 Timex Digital watch was as good as new.
We took the Monorail from Downtown Disney to Tomorrowland where I enjoyed my fourth defeat of the trip on Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters. More importantly was the 60+ year old man on a scooter that we saw. That in itself is unremarkable, but the fact that he was wearing a Disturbed t-shirt. For the uninitiated, Disturbed is a heavy metal band that you typically wouldn’t associate with this type of clientele.
After our brief stop in Tomorrowland we headed over to California Adventure where Soarin’ Over California was out of Fastpasses. It turns out that one side of the attraction wasn’t working causing them to shut off Fastpass. Even with the halved capacity, the peak wait time we saw was 65 minutes. This is a testament to the crowd levels for the day, and the crowd levels at California Adventure in general.
Another point of note, with Soarin’ Over California no longer distributing Fastpass as of 11:45 AM, the only attraction that was distributing Fastpass at California Adventure was California Screamin’. With that in mind, we saw a midday wait time of 15 minutes for California Adventure, as well as the shortest possible Fastpass return time (40 minutes) as well. We have found with our touring that most queues hover in the 10-30 minute range. There is rarely a walk on, but there are rarely ridiculous waits either. That may change come the weekend as the locals should descend on the park.
Because of the long waits all day, we elected to skip Soarin’ Over California, but we still did several things over at California Adventure. We stopped by Muppet Vision 3-D, and noticed a few things in a show that I’ve seen dozens of times.
The California Adventure version features the scrolling time clock that was once featured in its Florida Counterpart
The California Adventure video is a much cleaner copy. I believe it’s digital but I’m not positive. I’ve heard positive reports out of Florida about Muppet Vision post refurbishment, so here’s hoping both coasts have digital copies.
The glasses that are used in California seem to have a bit more of a glare on them. Perhaps we’ve been unlucky, or perhaps they’re a different product.
I was told that in the scene where Kermit says, “Unfortunately, none of them showed up,” Puppeteer Frank Oz is visible in the bottom left hand corner. I was looking out for him, but didn’t see him.
This came up on the WDWMagic Forums in the discussion over the recent refurbishment. At the end of the attraction Sweetums appears both on screen and as a walk around character in the theater by the right door. It seems unnecessary to have Sweetums in the theater at this time, and while I never noticed this until it was pointed out to me, it seems like a stupid mistake that was never corrected.
After visiting several more things in California Adventure we made our way back to Disneyland. There were still several things we hadn’t done on this trip (mainly Fantasyland) so we hit several rides before grabbing some dinner.
After dinner we headed over to Adventureland where I noticed a cast member cleaning up several blank Indiana Jones Fastpasses. I politely asked him for some of the blank ones and he obliged with an uncut strip of 12. While in Adventureland we had a great Jungle Cruise Skipper for the second day in a row. Today’s Skipper was Jarred, and yesterday’s was Gareth. Prior to Indiana Jones we also had our first Dole Whips of the trip.
I’m guessing that many of our readers play the “right/left” game when queuing for Disney attractions. No one wants to be the one to make the wrong decision, and claims of ruining vacations arise just because you dispatch 30 seconds later.
After short waits for Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion, we made our way over to Space Mountain with our Fastpasses from earlier in the day. The standby wait was listed at 60, and we were informed by the cast member checking Fastpasses that we should expect a 35-40 minute wait for the Fastpass line. Apparently the ride was down for 3 hours earlier in the day causing the backup (per the cast member). We decided to wait anyways, but were mystified by what was going on. It appeared that the Fastpass line was longer than the Standby line, and Standby was getting priority. It wound up not mattering as we only waited 7 minutes before the Fastpass merge point, and 20 minutes total for the ride. Having said all that, I would argue that Fastpass should be given the priority, and under no circumstances should Fastpass have a longer line than Standby.
Given everything we did all day, I’m mystified how anyone can complete the Ultimate Touring Plan at the Magic Kingdom. That’s 40-50 attractions in one day. I don’t think I’d get the enjoyment out of the attractions while I’m doing them, and all it would be is a faux sense of accomplishment at the end of the day when your feet detach from your legs.
That’s it for today. Tomorrow will be less time in the parks but maybe I’ll write about some of the other things we have planned.
Attractions Visited
Disneyland
Alice in Wonderland
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters
Disneyland Railroad
Haunted Mansion
Indiana Jones Adventure
Jungle Cruise
Monorail
Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride
Peter Pan’s Flight
Pinocchio’s Daring Journey
Pirates of the Caribbean
Snow White’s Scary Adventures
Space Mountain
California Adventure
Animation Academy: Turtle Talk with Crush
Blue Sky Cellar
California Screamin’
Monster’s Inc Mike and Sulley to the Rescue
Muppet Vision 3-D
Tower of Terror
Toy Story Midway Mania
FanBoy Loyalty Program
For every $1000+ in combined purchases you spend per calendar year through our Amazon link, we will give you a t-shirt of your choice. Our new shop is up and running, and we have t-shirts available with our current and classic, regular and uncensored logos. All you need to do is send us a list of the items that you purchased, we’ll verify it against our records and then we’ll send you the t-shirt of your choice.
Project Fan Boy Contest
Win a chance to appear on our show in a short segment where you can talk about a topic of your choosing with us. Winners will also receive WDW Fan Boys swag, and Brett will record a custom outgoing voice mail message for you.
To enter the contest send us an e-mail, video, or audio file explaining why you should be on the show. The funnier the better. All entries should be submitted to questions@wdwfanboys.com.
OK, so maybe this entire trip report isn’t about Walt Disney World. We started our day in Sea World, and you’ll have to forgive the quality of some of these photos, as taking pictures inside aquarium settings isn’t the easiest thing in the world. I had wanted to try Manta, and we saw that the rain was coming our way so it was the very first thing that we did.
For the unitiated, Manta is a flying coaster, meaning that while guests are loaded upright (with the track overhead), their seats are then rotated 90 degrees so that they are facing the ground. The effect simulates flight, and is different than any other roller coaster experience. Manta itself was a fun ride, and is a comparable counterpart to the other coaster in the park. I like to classify roller coasters in three different ways:
No theming – this is your standard roller coaster that you might find at a six flags or local amusement park. There is no backstory, onboard audio, or other theming. I would argue that Dueling Dragons and The Hulk over at Islands of Adventure could fall into this category.
Light theming – This type of coaster will typically have exposed steel, but may have on board audio, or other thematic elements that make it a notch above the “No theming” coasters. I would classify Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rock It at Universal Studios, and California Screamin’ over at Disney’s California Adventure in this category.
Themed – This is they type of roller coaster where you are totally immersed in the environment. Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at the Magic Kingdom or The Mummy at Universal Studios would fit into this category.
The fact that Manta was over water and rock work put it a notch above the No theming coasters, and when combined with the associated Aquarium that they built it was a fantastic addition to the park.
Our next stop was Turtle Point to view the Green Sea Turtles, we would walk by this again later to see some pelicans.
After this, we went to the 10:00 AM showing of Blue Horizons. This is a show with stunts performed by Dolphins and False Killer Whales. Additionally, they have human divers doing tricks from a high platform, and they have macaws flying around the stadium, narrowly missing guests. It’s a good show, although I wish the focus was more on the animals than the human divers.
Our next stop was Sting Ray Lagoon, followed by Dolphin Cove.
We continued up the path to the Manatee Rescue area and the Alligators. For anyone keeping track at home, Sea World refers to their employees as “team members” instead of “cast members”.
After the various animal exhibits, we made our way to Kraken. We decided to wait 20-25 minutes for the front car, as it’s a better experience. Unfortunately, it started to rain while we were on the ride so we had the pleasure of being pelted in the face with rain drops. It would rain the rest of the time we spent at Sea World, which meant that we didn’t have the opportunity to ride either of their roller coasters a second time.
As it was already raining, we had no qualms about getting wet on Journey to Atlantis – it’s a fun ride, but as discussed in our Top 50 Attractions in Orlando podcast, I don’t think it’s as good as Splash Mountain. We followed up Journey to Atlantis with the Believe show. This is their Killer Whale show, I was able to get quite a few photos of this as you can see below.
We followed this with lunch at Mango Joe’s, because would better fine dining opportunities than fajitas in a theme park. I of course also dropped our moisturizer into my guacamole.
After lunch, I went on the Wild Arctic simulator, and Marie bypassed the simulator to go straight to the animal exhibits. The simulator is a vehicle that’s larger than Star Tours, with the same size screen. It’s a bit more intense than Star Tours, and I’m typically not a fan of these types of simulators. Watching the Polar Bears and Walruses was far more interesting than the simulator. Unfortunately they were refurbishing the Beluga whale area so we didn’t see them.
Following Wild Arctic, we walked through the Shark Encounter area.
After this we finished our day at Sea World with a visit to the Penguin Encounter. After this we drove back to our hotel.
A video from our experiences at Sea World.
There were several animals on our balcony, as we rested for a bit before heading over to Hollywood Studios for evening Extra Magic Hours.
Our evening at the Hollywood Studios went like this: Toy Story Mania, ABC Commissary for Dinner, Tower of Terror, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, Toy Story Mania, Tower of Terror, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, fudge. I finally cracked 200,000 points on Toy Story Mania.
Trip 1: Tim 199,100, Marie 173,600
Trip 2: Tim 206,200, Marie 159,400
On Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster we learned that the “pusher car” on the launch is situated under row 5, so that seat “feels the fastest”.
Wait times throughout the day:
5:39 Toy Story Mania: Standby 60 minutes, Actual 39 minutes
6:57 Tower of Terror: Standby 13 minutes, Actual 8 minutes
7:12 Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster: Standby 20 minutes, Actual 16 minutes
7:32 Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster: Standby 5 minutes
7:40 Toy Story Mania: Standby 40 minutes, Actual 28 minutes
8:24 Tower of Terror: Standby 20 minutes, Actual 10 minutes
8:43 Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster: Standby 30 minutes, Actual 19 minutes
**Note**
I forgot to mention this yesterday. When we were riding along the Epcot Monorail loop, the monorail driver exceeded the speed limit and our monorail stopped completely. He acknowledged it over the PA, before we started up again.
FanBoy Loyalty Program
For every $1000+ in combined purchases you spend per calendar year through our Amazon link, we will give you a t-shirt of your choice. Our new shop is up and running, and we have t-shirts available with our current and classic, regular and uncensored logos. All you need to do is send us a list of the items that you purchased, we’ll verify it against our records and then we’ll send you the t-shirt of your choice.
Project Fan Boy Contest
Win a chance to appear on our show in a short segment where you can talk about a topic of your choosing with us. Winners will also receive WDW Fan Boys swag, and Brett will record a custom outgoing voice mail message for you.
To enter the contest send us an e-mail, video, or audio file explaining why you should be on the show. The funnier the better. All entries should be submitted to questions@wdwfanboys.com.
On this week’s episode of the WDW Fan Boys Podcast we discuss some of the smaller issues with the parks that drive fans crazy. From rides cut without a replacement, to broken or dormant effects, to offerings being cut entirely, we discuss everything that we can recall.
PixieVacations.com: Making Magical Memories Disney World Sweepstakes
