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Paul Allen posted:So Memory Maker...thoughts? Both for and against are welcome. A few weeks ago I went to Disney and bought the $49.99 PhotoPass which was only for ride pictures and got great usage out of it. When I go back I really think I'll go for the Memory Maker. There were loads of photographers all over the place and I cant remember seeing a queue for any of them outside of character shoots. Edit: new page, have a pic of Fantasmic. 
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Apr 17, 2014 12:14
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Paul Allen posted:So Memory Maker...thoughts? Both for and against are welcome. The best thing in a long time in all honesty. We didn't even bother taking the nice camera for our family shots when we were just down there, and we have so many options from Memory Maker that it isn't even funny. Really great if you're the type of family that likes a good family picture and to see all the goofy faces on things like space mountain
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Apr 17, 2014 19:52
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I love the Memory Maker and I always recommend it to my clients. You get every photo taken of you by a Disney photographer (including rides and character meals) and they automatically load to your MDE acct. From there you can share them or order them printed by Disney, or take them to Walmart or wherever and have them printed. Some of the fun ones are really cute, you know the ones where they photoshop Tink or whatever into your photo. It's $149 if you prepurchase and $200 if you buy on property and then you have to wait 2 or 3 days for it to kick in. Definitely recommend.
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Apr 18, 2014 03:21
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They introduced some new atmosphere entertainment at Animal Kingdom. It's...uh...something. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN0XOIJyti4
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Apr 19, 2014 20:51
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TheBigBudgetSequel posted:They introduced some new atmosphere entertainment at Animal Kingdom. It's...uh...something. That's pretty cool, but I feel they could have masked the guy wearing the dino suit better. Like why not paint the suit the same color as the dinosaur, at least in the chest area? Still if I were a kid, that would freak me out.
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Apr 19, 2014 20:58
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That's really weird... It honestly looks pretty horrible, especially considering that these things have been around for years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvHzTnfZUjY The only thing I can figure is that they want something that wasn't very realistic so kids wouldn't get scared?
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Apr 19, 2014 23:54
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Why even bother with this, when back in Glendale, this fellow is collecting dust now that Hong Kong is done with him https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBLwyxqx4mk
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Apr 20, 2014 00:50
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TheBigBudgetSequel posted:Why even bother with this, when back in Glendale, this fellow is collecting dust now that Hong Kong is done with him That's what I thought people were talking about when they mentioned a dinosaur in Animal Kingdom. I want to see what happens when Universal catches wind of a "Jurassic Park" "Raptor" in every sense (the drat thing makes the same noises) in Disney. (In other news, Dinoland continues it's commitment to being Things That Make Paleontologists Drink: the Theme Park Land.  )
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Apr 20, 2014 00:56
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Rahonavis posted:I want to see what happens when Universal catches wind of a "Jurassic Park" "Raptor" in every sense (the drat thing makes the same noises) in Disney. You won't they keep their legal and underworld slap fights hush-hush. It's bad for business otherwise. The poo poo they get up to competing with each other is absolutely brutal though. This one time Universal lured away a bunch of Imagineers with promises of creative control and more money, made them design a theme park, then fired them all. They were then persona non grata at both companies. LOL.
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Apr 20, 2014 02:41
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Someone I know is a show writer for Disney, and when he posted a video of it, I noted that the sounds were familiar. He instantly went "Yep they are from Jurassic Park." I doubt he had anything to do with the dinosaur, but haha, even the people at Disney are like "yeahhh"
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Apr 20, 2014 05:28
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TheBigBudgetSequel posted:Someone I know is a show writer for Disney, and when he posted a video of it, I noted that the sounds were familiar. He instantly went "Yep they are from Jurassic Park." Just wait. You could well be the Velociraptor.
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Apr 20, 2014 15:02
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When does Disney open up their booking site for 2015? I'm planning to take my 3 year old in late January, but until I can see what package options are available there's not much I can do. I've read the first couple of pages, some random stuff in the middle, and the last few pages, so it's possible I just missed this information buried somewhere. The urgency is a result of an extended family member who wants everyone to rent a house off property for the week, but I'm not convinced it wouldn't be a giant hassle and time sink getting into and out of the park every day that outweighs any cost savings vs. staying on property. I'm hoping to spend four days at WDW, one at each of the main parks. I guess if anyone has any advice inre: renting a house in the area that would be welcome too.
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Apr 25, 2014 11:49
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Usually Disney opens costs for packages for the next year in July or August. That being said, you can make room only reservations over the phone up to 400 days in advance (I think that's right, It's over a year at least). And then when the package prices are released in the summer you can call back to turn your room only reservation into a package This is actually pretty important for January as with a room reservation you can make dining reservations for the entirety of your trip at 180 days out from the first day (you get 180 days + 10 days), where as if you don't have a room reservation you can only make dining reservations for 180 days from the actual date of the dining reservation, meaning you'd have to call back each day to make a reservation for 1 day of your trip. For January the fact that you can make room only reservations is important because your 180+10 day window would put you sometime in June, prior to the package prices for next year being released.
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Apr 25, 2014 14:39
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All good information. Thank you!
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Apr 25, 2014 14:43
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You can make room only reservations 500 days in advance. As was mentioned, the 2015 package pricing usually comes out mid - late Summer.Loucks posted:The urgency is a result of an extended family member who wants everyone to rent a house off property for the week, but I'm not convinced it wouldn't be a giant hassle and time sink getting into and out of the park every day that outweighs any cost savings vs. staying on property. I'm hoping to spend four days at WDW, one at each of the main parks. I personally don't think staying off property is worth the savings. Getting back and forth from the parks is harder because you have to drive and sit in traffic. The Disney buses have access roads they can use that you can't to avoid the bulk of the traffic jams. Not to mention the offsite shuttles don't run as often as the Disney ones do. When you're off property you can't get Extra Magic Hours or the dining plan. Plus you have to pay for Magic Bands when you're offsite and you can't use the My Disney Experience app to make FastPass+ reservations. You have to stand in the kiosk lines in the parks and that's a pain in the rear end. Not to mention, they just raised the parking price to $17 per day. I don't advise any of my clients to stay off property. I just don't think it's worth it. Braksgirl fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Apr 25, 2014 |
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Apr 25, 2014 16:22
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Trip report! I got back from a 6 day stay at Wilderness Lodge. Like Braksgirl says above, I personally think staying on property is the way to go, especially if you have small children. We had a 1 year old and a 4 year old with us. The boat from WL to MK was perfect, it runs almost constantly and got us to the park within 1 minute of it opening. WL itself was what I would deem good, but not fantastic. The huge plus of course is being on property you get all of the perks. The boat ride is probably 10 minutes to magic kingdom, and it drops you off even closer than the boats do. The rooms and food were pretty mediocre, but they are fine for just sleeping in. With so much to do, we hardly spent any time in the room apart from my mom who watch the baby while she took a nap. Highly recommended. WL for us was cheaper than Poly and Contemporary, the monorail is nice, but not worth the 2k more it would have costed us. We went to Epcot one day, and while the garden topiary's were cool, the HGTV area was a letdown, there was no one there and everything was dead. The butterfly tent however was the highlight of the day. Just great. We ate at Cheds de France which was fine, and we walked by the Frozen princeses and found out about the 4.5 hour wait  We spent 2 days at MK, and pretty much went on every ride. If you can, do Big Thunder and night, that was neat. Also hadn't been on space mountain for years and years, it was even better than I remember. Fastpass+ for all the negativety I was reading online before the trip, was absolutely a game changer for our trip. Since the kids got us up at 6am every day anyway, we were at the park at 8am (early entry hours) and were able to go on anything we wanted until probably 11am when the park started to clog up. We then had lunch and used our passes in the afternoon. Even though the MDE app is terrible, it worked and we had little problems changing our times. Being able to literally bypass the entire line and get onto a ride with virtually no wait was completely fantastic especially with the 4 year old. The last day we couldn't get a FP for jungle cruise and ended up waiting for over an hour, and he almost had a few meltdowns. The JC guide was hilarious and well worth the wait in the end. If anyone else is going, be sure to check your emails before your trip. my sister got a reservation code for Be Our Guest for her family, and when we went the next day there were able to add my mom and I to the reservation without an issue and we went right in. I am not sure how they found our table, but our food was brought out and it was pretty good. Best food we had at the park by a mile. I had to be so hyperbolic, but between Belle's House and Be Our Guest, this was Disney at its finest. Great presentation and really special, my nephew couldn't get enough of the decoration and the dark room with the withering rose. Tldr: WDW was awesome, stay at wilderness lodge.
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Apr 25, 2014 18:57
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So I sent Disney time off request when I learned I could do that in advance of my upcoming program with them. I did this so I could attend my graduation, but that requires flying from Florida all the way to Boston and then back, and whoo boy is it expensive. Haven't found an airline with a deal for less than 500 bucks. (I guess flying to Orlando on a Sunday is what all the tourists do, so they crank up the price. smart, but lovely) This, combined with my school pull some dumb poo poo after I graduated that leaves a bad taste in my mouth have basically made me decide to just stay in Florida. So now i have these days off, and it's technically my big "got out of college" moment, so I thought I might treat myself to a brief stay at a deluxe resort, since I've always wanted to and with my discount, it'd be less than a plane ticket to Boston and back. Poly would be my first choice, but the construction makes me think maybe not. What do y'all recommend?
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Apr 25, 2014 21:10
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I would stay far away from Poly. Too much construction right now. I would do either Animal Kingdom Lodge or Grand Floridian.
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Apr 26, 2014 02:42
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I'm honestly not sure I'd go through with that plan. This is going to be in the middle of your program, right? The hotels are nice and all but not nice enough to pay hundreds of dollars to sleep there when you have a perfectly acceptable apartment a few miles away (that you are also paying for). I'd save the cash and go do symphony for the senses when it happens or something. There are a lot funner ways to blow that money. That said, if you just want to veg at a hotel for a day or two, I'd say a savannah-view room in the AK lodge would be pretty awesome. Might not be considerably cheaper than that airfare though, even with the discount.
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Apr 26, 2014 03:09
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Braksgirl posted:I would stay far away from Poly. Too much construction right now. Did they ever get the bug problem under control at AKL?
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Apr 26, 2014 04:09
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I wasn't aware there was one.
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Apr 26, 2014 04:13
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Braksgirl posted:I wasn't aware there was one. It's mostly just an issue of it being Florida and people leaving doors open long term to watch the animals graze nearby from what I understood but it seemed particularly grouched about the past couple years on allears and mousesavers.
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Apr 26, 2014 04:23
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My husband and I stayed at AKL last summer for our honeymoon and loved it when we were there. They upgraded us to a savannah view and it was amazing. I didn't notice a bug problem at the time. However, I don't think any of the hotels are really that interesting if all you are going to do is stay in your room. The restaurants at AKL are great, but besides watch giraffes and water buffalo all day, there isn't much else to do. I'd say save your money for when your internship is over and you have to find a new job/ home. Maybe take a day trip to the beach or see Cape Canaveral.
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Apr 26, 2014 04:34
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Take the money and take a Disney cruise instead.
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Apr 26, 2014 05:30
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Fromage D Enfer posted:My husband and I stayed at AKL last summer for our honeymoon and loved it when we were there. They upgraded us to a savannah view and it was amazing. I didn't notice a bug problem at the time. The keys are also nice. You could take that "sitting in a hotel" money and go diving in near-paradise. For a bit longer a drive you could also see Miami, which I never did and somewhat regret.
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Apr 26, 2014 07:16
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Braksgirl posted:When you're off property you can't get Extra Magic Hours or the dining plan. Plus you have to pay for Magic Bands when you're offsite and you can't use the My Disney Experience app to make FastPass+ reservations. You have to stand in the kiosk lines in the parks and that's a pain in the rear end. This isn't quite true. You can book fastpass online as a off site guest, it's just that the booking window is only 30 days rather than 60. And while it's true you have to buy magic bands, I have not seen any reason why an off site guest would really want to in the first place. For us staying off site made the most sense. I'm not sure how much money we would need to spend for 9 people to stay at Disney for a week,but I'm guessing it would be a lot more than $1500.
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Apr 27, 2014 09:47
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I guess I should have clarified that if you want to make changes on the fly to your FP then you'll have to use a kiosk. And with the new changes to the FP system where you can make more FP selections, those kiosk lines are going to be even longer.
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Apr 27, 2014 14:32
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Wow. A sign that Epcot is about to get a major redux: wdwmagic.com: Tom Fitzgerald Takes Epcot I know this is a planning thread and not a general info thread, but I figure everyone here would be interested in this. I'm curious about the "original intent" of World Showcase. Isn't it pretty much unchanged since opening day (aside from the new pavilions, of course)?
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Apr 27, 2014 18:57
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The original intent of EPCOT was for it to be an innovative city. Since that's obviously not the case, I'm really not sure what he means. Apart from getting rid of the thrill-type rides and characters (both of which there's no way in hell they'd do), I can't think of much else that would take the park back to its early planning stages.
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Apr 27, 2014 19:30
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Lincoln posted:Wow. A sign that Epcot is about to get a major redux: They were always supposed to be adding new countries. That weird "Outpost" that sort of resembles Africa was supposed to be a full fledged Africa pavilion at one point, and then a Brazil one at another point. I think Norway was the last one to be added (or Morroco, can't remember) Tom Fitzgerald could bring some new stuff to the table and he's done a lot of good stuff. Unfortunately, he also did the revamp of Journey into Imagination (both the first attempt and the rushed "put Figment back in" version.
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Apr 27, 2014 20:56
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Future World used to be a lot more fleshed out than it it now. The Wonders of Life pavilion is no more, and the Imagination pavilion might as well be vacant. Universe of Energy sure needs an update, and I can't remember the last time I walked into Innoventions. Maybe they plan on a major Fantasyland-scale update to that half of the park. Who knows. World Showcase is just inherently evergreen. I mean, some of the attractions need updating, but it's mostly restaurants and shops. I'd love a new pavilion or two. Australia? Russia? Brazil? Oh God, I don't want to attract even more Brazilians. As I understand it, any plans for a future Africa pavilion at Epcot were shelved when Animal Kingdom opened up, as half the park is pretty much "Africa."
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Apr 27, 2014 22:09
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Lincoln posted:Future World used to be a lot more fleshed out than it it now. The Wonders of Life pavilion is no more, and the Imagination pavilion might as well be vacant. Universe of Energy sure needs an update, and I can't remember the last time I walked into Innoventions. Maybe they plan on a major Fantasyland-scale update to that half of the park. Who knows. Long have there been rumors of an Imagination reboot (again) and recently there was talk of using the trackless ride technology from Japan and Hong Kong to make it feel like the ride is being controlled by Figment (if they keep him) rather than a traditional track.
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Apr 27, 2014 22:25
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After getting stuck on Spaceship Earth and having to walk out and get a good look at how old and rickety it is, I'm honestly hoping that they build a new one. Make it a little bigger and keep the dark ride aspect but do more with it. Don't get me wrong, I love it (the smell of Rome burning pretty much tells my brain that I'm at Epcot) but it's pretty stagnant. After AT&T left, they did away with the whole futuristic segment and put in the goofy cartoon on the back of the headrest and the pavillion area at the bottom seems pretty dead. When we were talking to the cast member on the way down from the evacuation, she said it has to be evacuated every few months now, which is kinda crazy for the flagship ride. I can't imagine the headache it'd cause but I think it would be well worth it. The whole future world just needs reworking. I get it, supercomputers and crazy networking stuff isn't interesting these days- every kid has a phone that can do pretty much whatever they want, gaming consoles are incredibly powerful now and it's no longer "look at the future" because the future is pretty much here. As it is right now, the entire future world is basically "ride that creaky old ball, make your friends drink Beverly and go ride the car ride while your parents take your baby brother to the old dinosaur ride". I'm not an imagineer so I can't really figure what exactly needs to be done but I'd start with maybe focusing on the far future- get input from people like Michio Kaku or Neil Degrasse Tyson and just do something fun and different. They redid Cosmos on TV, why not a new Horizons?
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Apr 27, 2014 23:49
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The best part of Future World is The Land, because the ride, while dated in the indoor section, the greenhouse part is very entertaining (also relaxing and soothing. I dont' get why, but there we go) and then they added Soarin. Also Sunshine Seasons, the big rear end food court in the center, is really good eats.
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Apr 28, 2014 00:29
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Am I the only person who likes Beverly? It's just chinotto, which is a classic italian soda. I love the stuff. I'm mad I can't get it in the states without paying through my nose.
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Apr 28, 2014 01:45
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Lincoln`s Wax posted:After getting stuck on Spaceship Earth and having to walk out and get a good look at how old and rickety it is... This goes for nearly every ride at MK/EPCOT and quite a few in MGM (which I still call MGM for brevity). It's the nature of the backside of a stage. I was horrified when I found out that the emergency lighting power supply for Space Mountain was a car battery that had drat near welded itself to the floor and the ride control "computer" (using the term extremely loosely) is a 1950s mainframe complete with random blinking lights, programmed in the mother of all evil programming languages, COBOL. Same thing with the haunted mansion, it's awesome to see how they do the tricks but that poo poo is held together by two by fours and crazy glue. Also you're a lucky SOB I always wanted to see the inside of spaceship earth but never got a chance even while working at WDW. quote:The whole future world just needs reworking. Yeah it really does. It owned when I was a kid but that was 20+ years ago. The "future" stuff for half the pavilions is now standard daily tech. They better not gently caress with the living seas or the world showcase too much though or I'll bitch till I die. BlueBayou posted:Am I the only person who likes Beverly? Yes.
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Apr 28, 2014 06:13
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I couldn't imagine evacuating Space Mountain. SE was a bitch- we were at the part where you're almost fully reclined going backwards (where the blue light strings are) and there are stairs to your left but getting to them sucked. We had to kinda half-stand on the back rest and find footing- we were at a curve, so there was a gap that looked to be about a foot between us and the stairs and the only thing to stand on was the top of a 2x4 that held the track up. I almost slipped off of it and that would have been pretty bad by the looks of it. The part where we were was boring, block cloth over plywood walls and stairs. We both wondered what would happen if someone had mobility issues were stuck where we were.
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Apr 28, 2014 07:16
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Lincoln`s Wax posted:I couldn't imagine evacuating Space Mountain. SE was a bitch- we were at the part where you're almost fully reclined going backwards (where the blue light strings are) and there are stairs to your left but getting to them sucked. Awww, boo. I'd hoped you'd stopped somewhere interesting like the zenith. As for evac on space mountain, it was extremely easy for about half the possible brakes for a car to stop on and somewhat worse for the other half. The low sections of track like the light tunnels or really any part of the last quarter of the ride are close to ground level. You get off the car onto a metal platform, walk down some metal stairs, across the concrete that the coaster is bolted to, and up some stairs to the ride exit area. The higher brake stations were only accessible by a interconnecting maze of catwalks, stairs, ladders, and an elevator. The footing from the car to the platform was always good because the brakes were at set locations, but then you might be 5 stories in the air and have to navigate some interesting paths. If you got stuck at the very top it was a pretty quick and easy trip to the elevator, but midway up or back down could mean stairs and ladders in your way. Unlike open air coasters, the maintenance paths are all pretty fenced in. We had to manually reset brakes in order at at location after a breakdown, and a lot of the guys would just run a whole track in 3-4 minutes. It might sound slightly dangerous but it's really not, the whole thing is a nest of steel with very good footing. If you want an image, googling "space mountain with the lights on" gives pretty good results. I couldn't find one that illustrated this post perfectly, so seeing a couple might be a little more helpful. Also note how close Metal Things are to the tracks at some points: this won't surprise any previous riders because you can distinctly hear them whizzing past during the ride.
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Apr 28, 2014 08:10
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Ha well apparently our December vacation is still sitting in the shopping cart:  I have a feeling they wouldn't be sending me this stuff if the item in the shopping cart was a T-shirt. I notice there's not really a "deal" I can see...no %-off the room rate or anything, but there's still a "package code" they want me to enter at the website. And I could not figure out where to enter the code. FWIW, we're almost certainly going the first week of December, but I'm not going to book until I know when the theoretical 30%-off check-in dates are. For those who've never done this before: whether or not you get a seasonal room discount or free dining plan (assuming they ever bring that back) depends on your check-in date. For instance, they'll say, "Discount applies for arrivals on 11/21-12/01, 12/03-12/15." So in that case, you definitely don't want to arrive on 12/2, because you get zero discount even though all but one of your days are in the proper window. But if you arrive on 12/15 and it's a 5-night stay, you get the discount for all five nights. It's weird.
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Apr 28, 2014 12:54
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Nathilus posted:Awww, boo. I'd hoped you'd stopped somewhere interesting like the zenith. Space Mountain feels precarious enough with the lights off. You know what ride must be a BITCH to evacuate? Peter Pan.
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Apr 28, 2014 12:55
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