Mission Space - soft v.s. official opening?

[Kallison]

It says MS has a soft opening on 8/15 and official opening in October? What is the diff? Can we get on Mission Space now or do we have to wait for certain times or the whims of the CM's?

 

[Cindy B]

I thinks its officially open now, but the grand opening in October/November is the media opening...

The official opening was on the 10th, not the 15th.
I have heard that there will be Fast passes, (read some reports about people having fastpasses), and single riders.

Its apparently open all the time now (pending breakdowns etc...)

 

[Baloo]

Soft opening is a time when Disney is working out the bugs of a new attraction.How the ride works ,what the crowd flow is,guest reactions and opinions.So in case something does need to be worked on visitors shouldn't be up in arms that an attraction is closed because it isn't "officially" opened then anyway!!

From what I understand MS is up and running pretty well at this time.

The Press Event is on Oct 9.So by then it should be on a regular schedule just like all the other attractions.

 

[whozit]

We were at WDW 8/2-8/13. The first day we went to Epcot was 8/8 at about 5pm. The park map showed "future site of MS", but we went straight to MS, the FP machines were operating....there wasn't much of a wait in the standby line, but we got a FP and then went to Norway (we noticed that on the MS FP, it showed that we were eligible for another FP in 5 minutes (although it would not let us get a 2nd FP for MS in that time frame, we were able to get a FP for Maelstrom). Went back to Epcot on 8/9, again around 5pm, got FP for MS again. Went back on 8/10 at 9am, went straight to MS, got a FP (it still showed that we could get another FP in 5 minutes, so we went to Test Track and got a FP)....along with the TT FP came a Surprise FP for MS that had to be used before 10am. We went back to MS and a CM asked if we saw that MS was on the park map....we still had our map from a couple of days earlier, so we said no, we just saw that it showed the future site and she said "No, as of today we are on the map, you need to get a new map". Later we did pick up a new map and a picture of MS has replaced the picture of TT on the front of the map and instead of "future site of MS", MS was now on the park map (and is listed as a FastPass attraction). Later, back at the resort, in the rack with the park maps, there was a separate card announcing Mission Space.

There is also a single rider line that is actively in use, but there wasn't always a line of people available (one of the times we rode, we had only three riders in our capsule).

 

[eeyore0062]

The official opening was yesterday, August 15th. The wait for the Mission: Space at the opening of Epcot yesterday was 1 hour and 20 minutes long. In celebration of the big event, countdown pins were sold at Epcot starting this past Monday-- 1 for each day up to the official opening, and were a big hit with guests! The press opening for this attraction will be on October 9th.

 

[Pkdcoastrs]

Originally posted by eeyore0062
The official opening was yesterday, August 15th. The wait for the Mission: Space at the opening of Epcot yesterday was 1 hour and 20 minutes long. In celebration of the big event, countdown pins were sold at Epcot starting this past Monday-- 1 for each day up to the official opening, and were a big hit with guests! The press opening for this attraction will be on October 9th.

Ugh...I didn't know they were selling special pins I was at WDW August 10-15 (technically the 14th). Oh well.