epcot open 30 min early for soarin??

[Cherlynn25]

My sis in law just returned from wdw and tuesday morning they arrived at epcot about 40 min early. They noticed it looked like some people were getting in early, so they went over to turnstiles. They CM said oh you didnt hear about this? you can get in and ride soarin before the park opens. My sis in law said it appeared they let a hundred or so in and then the rest had to wait until 9. No wait on soarin and then went to TT, had to wait a few min for ride to open then rode that. Anyone heard of this?

 

[hlkeck]

ummm...April Fools right?

 

[MareSINY]

Nope, not April Fools joke... I read about this from another poster earlier this week. Some posters said they do this from time to time when the crowd levels are predicted to be high, like during Spring break.

 

[ShannonMB]

I hadn't ever heard of this, but it makes sense why they would do it. How fun!

 

[Rosetta89]

Wow! Never heard of that! That has to be so awesome

 

[PIRATEGIRL007]

This and similar early openings have been reported all week, its b/c of the extremely large crowds for spring break.

I would not expect this to happen any other time of the year, except maybe Christmas week.

 

[lklasing]

No joke - it happened to my family on March 17 - crowd levels were at 10 that week.

 

[LJC1861]

It happened to us on 3/25 and the predicted crowd level was an 8. We were among the first to enter the turnstiles at about 8:30. There were CM's standing close together preventing us from going too far into the park. A manager got up on one of the cement barriers for the topiaries and announced that as a special surprise we would get to ride "Epcot's newest attraction" before the park opened. Then we all walked quickly back to Soarin'.

Afterward I waited and was the first to get my fastpasses to ride it again. We zipped on over to Test Track and as we walked past the Character spot we noticed all 5 there with no lines. We were able to get pics with all of them in just a few minutes and then rode Test Track with no wait at all.

It really helped us to make the most of our day to be able to ride that one big ride before the park opened.

Linda

 

[Traveliz]

My daughter works at Soarin' and they have been doing this pretty regularly the past two weeks.

Liz

 

[reelmom]

This happened to us last April when we went for Spring Break. It was really cool because we had never ridden it before.

 

[SignMeUp]

Do they only let in guests early for Soarin' at the main entrance? Is there any chance of being let in early if we are at the Interntional Gateway?

 

[princessdi81]

Well, well, well.....thank would explain why there was already a 90 minute wait when we got there 5-10 mins after park opening in December. We were MIGHTY mad!

 

[Traveliz]

Do they only let in guests early for Soarin' at the main entrance? Is there any chance of being let in early if we are at the Interntional Gateway?

Hmm that is an interesting question. I will ask my daughter and see if she knows.

Liz

 

[Traveliz]

Well, well, well.....thank would explain why there was already a 90 minute wait when we got there 5-10 mins after park opening in December. We were MIGHTY mad!

They only did it a couple of times in December the week between Christmas and New Years -- is that when you were there? We were let in late on one morning that week (we knew it opened early but we didn't get let in) and there was really no wait. It was around the 30th of December.

I do know that a wait showing of 90 minutes that early is pretty rare and would be more likely to one or even both of the theatres going down.

Liz

 

[Hook's Girl]

Well, well, well.....thank would explain why there was already a 90 minute wait when we got there 5-10 mins after park opening in December. We were MIGHTY mad!

Nope. This is a magical moment where all riders must be clear of the ride before the park officially opens. If there was a 90 minute wait it was due to high crowds and not a magical moment

 

[jmkjr72]

we had this magical moment back in january
as we were walking out the ride the mass crowd from rd was just getting there

 

[Mom23Disneybelievers]

They did this 2 mornings at Epcot while we were there last year, the week before Easter. The crowds were unbelievable that week.

 

[DisneyNeophite]

Well, well, well.....thank would explain why there was already a 90 minute wait when we got there 5-10 mins after park opening in December. We were MIGHTY mad!

Was it an EMH day?

 

[Cherlynn25]

They were super excited! Altho in my opinion they made a mistake by not grabbing a fast pass when they came off the ride before going to test track! =)
nope, not an EMH morning