Eggs-plaining the Egg-stravaganza -- The 2016 Hunt Is Over!!!

[sherilaine]

I hope this doesn't affect the crowds - I really am not a fan of Easter and thought I'd avoid anything to do with it.

 

[rentayenta]

I think we will be able to participate this year.

 

[Sherry E]

We will be there the weekend starting March 18. I hope they still have the maps because while my adult kids are riding rides, I can wander and soak up the atmosphere, and find eggs! I am assuming that there will not be a Springtime Round-up, but decorating cookies at the GCH would be fun, too! I'll keep watching this thread to see what springtime activities pop up. Thanks for doing this thread, too, Sherry!

Thank you for joining in!

Of course I have no way of knowing when the maps will sell out, but my feeling is that -- since the Egg-stravaganza is getting started so much earlier this year and since it is going to last longer this time around than it lasted for the past 2 years -- they must be ordering more maps. Those maps may still sell out early, but maybe there will be enough for a while. Another possibility is that they could sell out in Disneyland first, but the California Adventure maps might be plentiful, or vice versa.

I have a feeling the Downtown Disney maps could sell out super fast because those will be accessible to non-park goers. In other words, even people who don't go in to either park can participate in the egg hunt in Downtown Disney, as well as the people who have been in the parks. So more people will have access to maps. Plus, the DTD egg hunt is brand new this year, so there is a bit of novelty to it. I have a feeling that hunt could be really popular.

I wish the Springtime Roundup could return this year. I keep hoping that Disney has been planning something -- some sort of alternate space for it. The thing is, the specific location at the Ranch/Festival arena where it was held was just perfect for seasonal celebrations. It was a great spot to have the Halloween Carnival, the Jingle Jangle Jamboree and the Springtime Roundup. I don't know which specific location in either park or in DTD would be comparable, or would be even possible as a replacement site for those events. I kind of think that Disney is just going to do away with all of those events.

But they should be able to set up the egg decorators somewhere -- they need a station to hunker down and create their masterpieces. However, the pumpkin carvers were not there last year so I don't know why I think they'd make room for the egg artists.

I do hope that the cookies will be back at the GCH this year, although that only happened for a weekend, I think. It was a very short time span -- not for the whole season. It was like a "blink and you'll miss it" deal.

I hope this doesn't affect the crowds - I really am not a fan of Easter and thought I'd avoid anything to do with it.

Good point. I don't know how much it will affect the crowds in the parks -- possibly a bit -- but since this is the first year that this hunt has ventured into Downtown Disney I think that DTD and the hotels might be seeing a lot of extra foot traffic, for sure.

One thing that might possibly work in favor of spreading out the crowds so they aren't so concentrated in one short time frame is the fact that this time the egg hunting will be going on for almost a whole month. Last time it was only 10 days, so there was a smaller window of time for people to hunt. Now they will have almost all of March, save a handful of days.

I think we will be able to participate this year.

Jenny, I remember you thought you might be able to do it last year and then it didn't happen. It sounds like this might be the better year for it, since it involves both parks and DTD too!

 

[Sherry E]

Here are three noteworthy changes to this year's Egg-stravaganza, in comparison to the last couple of years:

• Previous Egg-stravaganzas lasted about 10 days. This time, the egg hunting will last from March 2 - 27 ... or a total of 26 days of eggy fun!
• The map prices (there will be 3 different maps) have gone up. They were $4.95 plus tax last year and in 2014. Now they are $5.95 plus tax -- and AP discounts cannot be applied to them. In fact, no discounts of any kind will be applied. The price is still reasonable, I think, as you can keep the maps and stickers as a souvenir, and you will get a prize character egg.
• This is the first year that the "Downtown Disney District" (which apparently includes all of the hotels too) is getting in on the Egg-stravaganza action. I was hoping they would eventually expand out of the parks. I look forward to seeing where they put the eggs in, for example, the Grand Californian Hotel. The Disneyland Hotel could have a lot of great hiding spots all over the grounds, but there will probably only be a couple of eggs there.

 

[taniahappy]

So doing this... thanks for the great info.

 

[flyingdumbo127]

Thank you Sherry for this most egg-cellent news. I had been wondering for a while what DL was going to do this year Easter wise. I hope to get to participate as well.

 

[Sherry E]

So doing this... thanks for the great info.

You're welcome! It's a fun event, even in just the 2 parks (and a few years ago it was only in one park!), but the fact that Downtown Disney and the hotels have been added into the mix makes it all the more enticing. And the way it is broken up, people can do only one of the 3 hunts, or maybe 2. Or they may do all 3. If they are at DR for multiple days they can do one per day and there is no rush to do them all at once. Or, I would assume there will some folks (such as I) who will attempt all 3 in one day. It's a lot of walking around, as it involves going from land to land to land, all around both parks, and now to the areas outside of the parks too. But I like the challenge, so even if I keel over from heat exhaustion (El Nino, where are you?), at least I will do it in the name of eggy fun!

Thank you Sherry for this most egg-cellent news. I had been wondering for a while what DL was going to do this year Easter wise. I hope to get to participate as well.

I saw your previous thread, wondering about what was going on for Easter/Spring. That was one of the things that made me think, "Oh, I have to bump my thread and get that going again." I really didn't think we would hear about the Egg-stravaganza right now, because I didn't know it would start so early in March. So I figured I had at least another couple of weeks before I had to bump this thread -- and then, lo and behold, there was the news on the Parks Blog today.

Not only are they doing this event again, but they are doing it for almost the entire month! I guess they finally realized they could actually make some money from it, so by eggs-tending the event and adding in a 3rd area to hunt, they will sell more maps.

I am wondering if the eggs will still be fairly simple to locate, as they have been (for the most part) in the past, or if they will start hiding them in trickier spots. In the Looking for Mickey Quest some of the hidden Mickey locations were quite surprising, and not as easy to find as would be eggs-pected.

I can't stop with the egg puns!!!!

 

[ten6mom]

Sherry, you 'crack' me up!

I hadn't even thought about this for this year. Last year we surprised the boys with an unannounced one day out and back on Easter Sunday, which we are NOT doing this year. But I am bringing just my 9 yo on March 5th for a long promised "just us" trip and I am now wondering whether he will want to do a hunt. I shall just ask him, since this very short trip is all about what HE wants to do without worrying about his older brother pestering him to go on things.

 

[Angrose]

Yay, I am so excited about this! I missed out on this the past few years with my mid-March trips, but since it's starting so much earlier this year I will get to participate! I will be there March 4-5, so can't wait!

Sherry, it's good to see you active again around here. You were missed. You have such a wealth of information to share and you have always been so helpful and enthusiastic! I do have a question about the egg hunts...how long do you think it takes to complete one? I would love to do all three, but I'm not sure I'll have time for it. I'll do one for sure, maybe two.

I will miss the springtime round-up I caught the tail end of it last year in May, but the egg decorators were already gone. I loved seeing the characters in their springtime best. It would be a shame if they weren't out somewhere. I wonder if they could fit them in over in the Paradise Gardens area in DCA where they have Viva Navidad?

 

[flyingdumbo127]

LOol, ten6mom! Sherry., I also enjoyed your egg-cellent humor. I am also glad you have come back on here The egg hunt news is eggs-citing indeed. I am disappointed there is no Roundup this year. As I have shared before, I may have gotten to do the egg hunt once as a young kid and that was all. No memory of meeting all the bunnies. I did ask this in my other thread, which now there is no need for thanks to Sherry for starting up this one , if any of you go to Minnie’s within the next few weeks, I would appreciate if you’d find out if the characters will indeed be Easter/spring dressed. I did chat with a CM last night online and he did not know. I got to do Minnie’s for my first time in December and that the characters were Christmassy dressed made the whole thing even cuter and more fun
I wish all of you an eggstra-ordinarily hoppy weekend.

 

[Sherry E]

I really must remember to sign in to The DIS using Firefox. I don't know why I keep trying to use Explorer, as that browser seems to hate this forum. Constantly having to retype my replies when Explorer crashes is getting... here we go... eggs-hausting and eggs-asperating. I'm sorry. This Egg-stravaganza beings out my terrible inner stand-up comic, apparently.

Sherry, you 'crack' me up!

I hadn't even thought about this for this year. Last year we surprised the boys with an unannounced one day out and back on Easter Sunday, which we are NOT doing this year. But I am bringing just my 9 yo on March 5th for a long promised "just us" trip and I am now wondering whether he will want to do a hunt. I shall just ask him, since this very short trip is all about what HE wants to do without worrying about his older brother pestering him to go on things.

I really was very surprised to see that the Egg-stravaganza was going to start so early this year. I expected (oh, okay, eggs-pected) that it would possibly start around St. Patrick's Day. I really did not think that it would be going on for almost all of March, but I think that it was a very good idea for DLR to stretch it out. It will give more people a chance to do the hunt, and hopefully it will mean that the crowds will be spread out over the 26 days instead of crammed into only 10 days, as usual.

Do you think your son would want to do more than one of the hunts, or just one? Seeing that some of the eggs will be very easy to spot anyway, even without maps, will the actual map/prize aspect of it be important? I would think so.

Yay, I am so excited about this! I missed out on this the past few years with my mid-March trips, but since it's starting so much earlier this year I will get to participate! I will be there March 4-5, so can't wait!

Sherry, it's good to see you active again around here. You were missed. You have such a wealth of information to share and you have always been so helpful and enthusiastic! I do have a question about the egg hunts...how long do you think it takes to complete one? I would love to do all three, but I'm not sure I'll have time for it. I'll do one for sure, maybe two.

I will miss the springtime round-up I caught the tail end of it last year in May, but the egg decorators were already gone. I loved seeing the characters in their springtime best. It would be a shame if they weren't out somewhere. I wonder if they could fit them in over in the Paradise Gardens area in DCA where they have Viva Navidad?

Thank you for the kind words. I truly appreciate the outpouring of kindness from everyone who has reached out or spoken up.

Let's see... how long the hunting takes really depends on a lot of factors. If you decide to knock out one of the hunts in one park, searching each egg one by one, without stopping to do anything else, then I can't imagine that it would take more than a couple of hours, if that long. It's so hard to say, though, because some people practically race walk through the parks and some people leisurely meander. Some people make a lot of stops in between egg locations, to ride rides or eat, or shop. To do 2 hunts (one in each park), without stopping more than a couple of times, and walking at a normal pace -- not super slow or super fast -- it took us 3-4 hours total for the two combined. There is generally at least one egg hidden in every land, but sometimes they could be out in the open, in the middle of a flower bed, or up on a balcony, or even inside a shop.

A lot of the time spent also has to do with how easy the eggs are to find. As I have said in this thread, most of the eggs are very, very, very easy to find (they are large) and you will see a lot of them without even needing a map. However, each year there ends up being one or two clues that are a bit misleading, directing guests to a certain location that isn't quite clear. Personally, I think Disney does that on purpose -- throwing in the random misleading clues just to add a bit of a challenge because 95% of the eggs are so easy to spot.

I have no clue how long the Downtown Disney hunt will take, because I assume it means going to each hotel.

My hunch in regards to the displaced Springtime characters is that they will be relocated somewhere. I think that Mickey and Minnie in their pastels, as well as the assorted Disney rabbits and the Easter Bunny, will be set up somewhere in one of the parks. It could end up being Critter Country, or maybe just out in the middle of Town Square.

The egg decorators are a bigger question mark. Disney did not come up with any place to set up the pumpkin carvers last year, and I think that they might do away with the egg decorators too. But it shouldn't be that way, as there are all kinds of places that seem like reasonable alternatives in my mind (Paradise Gardens is a great idea). Even if they had to be set up in Downtown Disney, it's better than not setting them up at all. Those character eggs were so wonderfully clever. It would be a shame for people to miss them.

All of the Springy decor that was at the Roundup is probably gone forever. Maybe the large floral heart that was kind of near the entrance might be set up in Town Square, but the other Springy touches will probably not be seen.

 

[sherilaine]

So the very first day of this is on a Wednesday - which we were hoping would be quiet - will there be a lot of people going just because this is the first day of an egg hunt? Or will it be more popular later in the month, closer to the actual Holiday?

 

[Sherry E]

So the very first day of this is on a Wednesday - which we were hoping would be quiet - will there be a lot of people going just because this is the first day of an egg hunt? Or will it be more popular later in the month, closer to the actual Holiday?

It's a popular event -- but not on the level of, for example, the holiday season or Halloween Time. My feeling is that, while I do think there will be some people who head out on the first day to hunt eggs, the local visitors would probably show up after work or school. I can't see the early part of the first day being extra crowded just because of this egg event alone. The maps might sell out at some point, so I don't know how many people would wait until late in the month either.

When is spring break this year? To me, that -- as well as other factors like the 60th anniversary, etc. -- will be a more dominant factor in the crowds in March, more so than the Egg-stravaganza itself. A lot of people won't even realize there is an actual egg hunt going on until they are in the parks. Many people don't follow blogs or keep up with what's happening, and they learn about the Egg-stravaganza when they are already at DLR.

There is also still a chance that we could get a lot of rain throughout March (even though our expected El Nino rain has largely been delayed or sidetracked by assorted atmospheric conditions) so if that happens it will severely reduce the number of egg seekers on the rainy days.

 

[ten6mom]

I really must remember to sign in to The DIS using Firefox. I don't know why I keep trying to use Explorer, as that browser seems to hate this forum. Constantly having to retype my replies when Explorer crashes is getting... here we go... eggs-hausting and eggs-asperating. I'm sorry. This Egg-stravaganza beings out my terrible inner stand-up comic, apparently.

Do you think your son would want to do more than one of the hunts, or just one? Seeing that some of the eggs will be very easy to spot anyway, even without maps, will the actual map/prize aspect of it be important? I would think so.

I love your inner stand up comic!

I am not sure what he will want to do. I asked him yesterday if he wanted to try it (knowing we really have only one full day and perhaps a morning of another) and he said yes... but we shall see. I'll have to research further on where/how to procure the map so we don't waste valuable park time trying to get that sorted out. He mentioned the different rides he wanted to do and THOSE span both parks so we will probably make it a goal to do both.

 

[Disney127]

This sounds like a lot of fun and much easier than Mickey Quest (we didn't even finish Mickey Quest but did claimed our prizes). And less expensive too. Looking forward to hearing about how Disney does Easter this year, we really wanted to see the characters and activities at the Springtime Roundup but sadly this area is no longer. Maybe, next year we can plan an Easter trip down to DL.

 

[Sherry E]

I love your inner stand up comic!

I am not sure what he will want to do. I asked him yesterday if he wanted to try it (knowing we really have only one full day and perhaps a morning of another) and he said yes... but we shall see. I'll have to research further on where/how to procure the map so we don't waste valuable park time trying to get that sorted out. He mentioned the different rides he wanted to do and THOSE span both parks so we will probably make it a goal to do both.

The map locations are a listed in the Parks Blog about the Egg-stravaganza, and also on page 1 of this thread (first post). There are multiple locations in each park, as well as in DTD. But you can't, for example, buy a Disneyland map in DCA, or vice versa. You can only buy a DCA map in DCA, a Disneyland map in DL and a DTD map in DTD. You can get the maps first and then save the actual hunting for later, if you are concerned about the maps selling out. I think that some people actually collected their prizes right up front too, right after getting the map -- before doing the hunt -- because they were concerned that the prize eggs might be in short supply by the time they finished hunting.

This sounds like a lot of fun and much easier than Mickey Quest (we didn't even finish Mickey Quest but did claimed our prizes). And less expensive too. Looking forward to hearing about how Disney does Easter this year, we really wanted to see the characters and activities at the Springtime Roundup but sadly this area is no longer. Maybe, next year we can plan an Easter trip down to DL.

I really think that the characters (Mickey and Minnie in spring pastels and the Disney rabbits) will be set up somewhere, along with the Easter Bunny. They may not be out on March 2nd, when the Egg-stravaganza begins, but I think they will be out greeting guests for the second half of March, through Easter at least. The characters are a bigger priority for Disney. It's just the egg decorators that are in jeopardy, and the spring décor that was all around the Roundup.

The egg hunting is very easy -- not very challenging at all, with a couple of exceptions.

 

[Sherry E]

I just happened to notice that Michelle from the Parks Blog finally returned to respond to several comments under her original Egg-stravaganza blog (I am sure she is super swamped and doesn't have a lot of time to reply), and in one of the responses she mentioned that this year people will be able to pick the prize (mini-character egg) that they want. She specifically mentioned that in the past there was an "egg scramble" to pick an egg (that is what the colored dome half-eggs are in my photos on page 1 of this thread -- they are part of the egg scramble), but this time around people can choose what they want.

Her specific comment is:

"...You do actually get to pick which egg you want, again, based on availability. In the past we have had an egg-scramble game, but this year, it will be a little easier, as we will let you choose the egg you want."

I would normally refer you to look for comment #10 or #12 or whatever number, but since the Parks Blog changed its layout there are no more numbers next to the comments. In any case, you can read all of Michelle's replies (and mine! ) to many of the egg-y questions -- HERE.

​

 

[Metalliman98]

We so want to do this but we aren't arriving until 3/13 and are worried the maps will sell out. Granted they have significantly extended the run this year and we are arriving during the first half, but there are no guarantees. I wonder........we are staying at the GCH, if we contacted them could we pre-order a set of maps and have them hold them for us until arrival? We'd even pre-pay for them if they wanted. I know if you are booked at a Disney hotel you can order MHP tickets from them, but IDK if they'd extend that to the maps.

 

[Sherry E]

We so want to do this but we aren't arriving until 3/13 and are worried the maps will sell out. Granted they have significantly extended the run this year and we are arriving during the first half, but there are no guarantees. I wonder........we are staying at the GCH, if we contacted them could we pre-order a set of maps and have them hold them for us until arrival? We'd even pre-pay for them if they wanted. I know if you are booked at a Disney hotel you can order MHP tickets from them, but IDK if they'd extend that to the maps.

That's a great question, and I really wonder if they will be able to do it for you. I have never heard of anyone doing that, but it could be that no one ever thought to do it and didn't try. It's possible that the Concierge desk or the Guest Services/Information desk (or whatever it is called at the hotel) could have some maps sent to the hotel (a map for each park and a DTD map) and added to your account. I don't know if they would do it too far in advance of your arrival on March 13th, though. They might be able to do something like that the day before or the morning of your arrival.

It can't hurt to ask the hotel, or ask Vacation Planning.

The tickets for MHP are probably held or set aside as a courtesy to onsite guests who may, on a whim, decide they want to attend MHP at the last minute. And it benefits Disney because those tickets are expensive, and last minute purchases will be full price (no discounts). In the case of the Egg-stravaganza maps, which are inexpensive, it's more like you're buying merchandise. So the hotel would probably handle the maps in the same way they'd handle ordering merchandise for you before your arrival.

I have to think that many more maps have been ordered this year since the event is now lasting more than twice as long as it did last year. Some of the maps could still sell out -- I think that the Downtown Disney maps might be in danger of that sooner rather than later -- but chances are you will get something by the time you arrive on 3/13. Still, though, you can never be too sure.

 

[my*gracie*girl]

We will be at Disney 3/19-3/26 and I really want to do this. I just looked on ebay thinking I could buy the maps there and there are listings with a set of eggs and all three maps. Of course, at a mark up. I wonder if it would be worth it to do that just to make sure we secure one of each map set. We will making the long drive home on Easter Sunday and it might be a fun surprise to have some of the other eggs set aside to give dd also. I don't usually like to overpay, but this time it might be worth it!

edited to add: I am going to do this. It feels a bit wasteful $-wise, but since it is something we will really want to do I am telling myself it is not more wasteful than paying for a dining package to get a better view of Fantasmic! or WoC. We have done that in the past because those were important aspects of our trips. This will be a highlight of this trip and worth it in the end.