Soft Opening for New Beauty and the Beast Ride?

[kbmartin]

We just learned that the new Beauty and the Beast ride and area will be officially open on April 15th, which is the day we leave Japan! We will be at the parks from April 6-9th. Our only hope of checking out the ride is a soft opening. Has anyone ever experienced a soft opening for a new ride at TDR? If so, what was your experience? For example, was a ride/area open to everyone or did you have to be "chosen?" How far in advance of the opening was your experience? I'm hoping for the best... Thanks in advance!

 

[JKalai]

Are you staying on property?

When we stayed at Miracosta, they were doing a lottery for hotel guests to go on Soaring: Fantastic Flight early.

 

[kbmartin]

Are you staying on property?

When we stayed at Miracosta, they were doing a lottery for hotel guests to go on Soaring: Fantastic Flight early.

Thanks for the info!

We're staying at the Hilton Tokyo Bay. We definitely aren't able to do the Miracosta or TDL Hotel.

Here's hoping that isn't the only way!

 

[gelatoni fan]

There's two ways to get in, a preview and a sneak. For previews, the easiest way is to stay at a Disney official hotel. I assume you won't be able to get a Japanese credit card, work for a Japanese media company, have a relationship with the rides sponsor or have some type of business deal with Disney to get you in to a preview. The other practical way to join a preview would be joining Disney Store Club for 500 yen but the chances of winning the lottery for a preview (if they even have one) are slim and those likely won't be on your dates. Funderful Disney is quite expensive so it doesn't make sense to join that if you only care about a slim chance of getting access to a preview.

What's left is to hope for a sneak. The sneak for Soaring was July 20 from 10:30 to 14:00 and July 21 from 8:00 to 17:00. On the 21st, they issued Fastpasses which ran out in about 30 minutes with the Fastpass return times ending at 20:00. They will be testing the posted wait times so those will not be accurate but most people reported waiting a minimum of 120 minutes to over 240 minutes during the sneaks. The sneak was not posted in the app so the two ways to know about it from official sources would be to walk in front of the ride to see it open or to see it posted on the board in the front of the park.

 

[kbmartin]

What's left is to hope for a sneak. The sneak for Soaring was July 20 from 10:30 to 14:00 and July 21 from 8:00 to 17:00. On the 21st, they issued Fastpasses which ran out in about 30 minutes with the Fastpass return times ending at 20:00. They will be testing the posted wait times so those will not be accurate but most people reported waiting a minimum of 120 minutes to over 240 minutes during the sneaks. The sneak was not posted in the app so the two ways to know about it from official sources would be to walk in front of the ride to see it open or to see it posted on the board in the front of the park.

Thank you - that is really helpful! Just to make sure I understand - did only people with Fastpasses get in during the sneak? Or could anyone choose to wait in line? Either way, we'll probably make our way over there really early on our TDL days!

 

[gelatoni fan]

Everybody could wait in standby for the sneak before they closed the line. For the second day they were testing how the standby line would work with FP and closed standby early to see how it would work with FP only after standby closed.