Berlioz, I have to ask (I don't want to seem like a creepy stalker)...were you in the New Fantasyland yesterday around 10:00 a.m., meeting Gaston? I thought I recognized you from the picture earlier in the thread...the person I think was you had on a blue maxi dress and a birthday button...if that was you, we were right behind you in line!
Back on topic...we checked out New Fantasyland on the 14th and yesterday. One word....Amazing. The attention to detail is outstanding. On the days we were there, they opened the area around an hour after park opening. On the 14th, they still had the planters up, but they were pushed to the middle of the walkway. Yesterday, it was just a rope. We saw them taping some sort of interview with someone right outside Ariel's ride yesterday.
We got to do the Belle M&G, and the kids loved it. Both kids got pictures with Belle although only one of my kids participated (our CM invited all kids who wanted pics with Belle to come forward at the end of the story time). The Little Mermaid ride is probably the favorite in the park. On the 14th, the posted wait time was 35 minutes, so we almost didn't do it, but we had time to kill so decided to check it out--and we ended up walking right on. The queue is amazing and so detailed. We also did the M&G with Ariel both days, which was awesome. My two year old was in awe meeting a real mermaid. He kept saying, "She has a tail! She has a tail!" We met Gaston yesterday and he was a hoot. I did notice his M&G seems to move around quite a bit...we saw him meeting in a few different places over the course of the days we were there.
All in all, I think this expansion is amazing. The only downfall, IMO, is that it makes the rest of Fantasyland look outdated. Hopefully the rest of the area will get some sprucing up after they're finished with the mine coaster.
Oh, and we were at MNSSHP on the 14th, and New Fantasyland was open that night. We didn't go into it because we'd already visited (it had been open all day that day) and had party stuff to do, but we did see that it was open and heard people talking about it. I think, though, that these previews are so hit or miss, it's hard to really know what's going to happen. When it first opened on the 14th, they were letting people in everywhere but the Voyage of the Little Mermaid wasn't running. Then a little later the ride was up and everything was running. They were letting people into BOG to look around (but obviously not eat). Yesterday, everything was open and running, but they weren't letting people into BOG. The thing is...so few people know about it, particularly in the morning, that once the area opens, it's easy to do everything, and if the Little Mermaid is running, the FPs will be, too. Even without knowing the area was going to be open, we were able to easily incorporate everything into our touring AND hit everything else in Fantasyland that we wanted to (which was all rides except the Barnstormer) in just a couple of hours, and that was with two little kids in tow.
