Perhaps we shouldn't have waited until the last day of its 4-day stay in New Orleans (near the Mississippi River levee behind Audubon Zoo), but we arrived on a Sunday earlier this month around 1:15 p.m. It was hot and overcast and line was already HUGE!
I had built up this experience with my kids as they were complaining about having to do this! They are 14, 11 and 9. I told them how cool it was going to be: to see how they made the movie, costumes from the movie, the face morphing experience and best of all, being able to see the clip of the upcoming 3-d movie!
At the end of the line, "they" (not sure who they were) were selling small bottled waters for $2 and large cookies for $1. So 2 hrs. before getting on the train, I quickly spent $12! When we arrived closer to the tented area outside the train door, they had mister fans set up and containers and cup where the ice water was FREE!!! Obviously, no one at the end of line knew about this!
I tried to make the best of the situation, including the snaked lines under the tent with muddy water & grass. We were so hot and our feet and legs were hurting from standing so long. I so looked forward to being inside the cool train!
Upon arriving inside the train, there was no cool air that I could feel! They had fans set up to circulate the hot air! The kids were tired, hot, sweaty and grumpy that we couldn't slow down and enjoy the exhibit (like I would have wanted to). The face morphing experience was "kind of" cool, except when my kids weren't the right height to line up your face on the screen to take the photo. Everyone was crammed inside this exhibit and my daughter ended up doing her photo at least 6 times, because it didn't look right!
After that part, we walked to the end of the exhibit and I asked about the movie preview. The lady gave me the bad news that the heavy rains from the day before had ruined the place where they were showing the movie: THERE WOULD BE NO MOVIE PREVIEW!!
We walked out of the train experience very disappointed! The outside sun and heat hit us again like a ton of bricks as we dodged mud puddles to hike the long walk back to the car! My 9-yr. old son said that "was the worst day ever"! I had to agree and apologized for wasting 3 1/2 hrs. of our Sunday. (Our drive to the exhibit was 1/2 hr. and then we had to drive back home another 1/2 hr.)
I did treat them to a snowball afterwards to try and cool off, but the day had already been ruined!
My advice: if you can help it, DON'T WAIT UNTIL THE LAST DAY of the exhibit and if there is anyway to find out in advance if the movie is being shown that day, please do so BEFORE waiting in line.
Also bring your own free water and snacks, as the lines will probably be long and you don't want to be ripped off by paying $2 for a small bottled water. Actually the $1 cookie was good deal, but I don't know who was making money off of everyone in line who bought from them!
An umbrella would have helped keep the sun off of us, but with 4 people someone would not have been shaded and we probably would have poked the people around us!
I really felt sorry for the handicapped older man I saw sitting in his wheelchair under a tent (with no fan!) near the train, waiting for his party to snake through the line! They could have let them cut the line! When his party arrived at the front of the line, they place his wheelchair on a "hand cranked lift" and hoisted him up to the top of the train to meet his party. He did have a hat on but was wearing long pants and I'm sure he was exhausted and miserable. If this event was hosted by Disney, they could have handled THAT much better!
I hope everyone else's experience is 500% better than ours! We will still go see the movie when it comes out; however, I may have to talk my kids into it though....
