OK... so this isn't really a normal trip report... but I couldn't find a better place to put this, so here goes
I was at the parks with my wife and brother in law last Saturday and we spent the morning in AK, then hopped to HS in the afternoon, then spent a couple of MK hours at the end of the day.
We had done pretty much everything we wanted to do at AK and had fast passes for Dinosaur... I think it was about 2:30 or 3:00 or so... so we headed to Dinosaur for our last ride at AK. We turned in our fast passes and made it to the front of the line and we were about 4 people away from being put into a car when the ride stopped. We waited for about 15 or 20 minutes and got to watch the maintenance guys run around (and under) the ride trying to fix things. They couldn't get it going and finally they announced that they were going to have to shut down the ride and anyone who was stuck out on the ride should keep waiting and someone would be there to 'rescue' them shortly.
They gave everyone in line a new fast pass for Dinosaur for later in the day when they got it fixed (actually, just a handwritten note with the number of people in your party on Fast Pass paper), but since we were heading over to HS we wouldn't be able to use it. I went to guest services and explained what happened and they were kind enough to exchange that for a Fast Pass for any HS ride. I was a bit disappointed really, since I've never done Dinosaur, but given that I now live in Orlando (I moved here about 3 months ago) and have an annual pass now, I don't think I'll have to wait too long to go on it
From there we headed over to HS and after doing Indy and a few other things we decided to see if Toy Story Mania was running. It was, but it had a 50 minute wait listed. We really wanted to try it since it was new and all and decided just to head into the singles line. That was a bit of a mistake because the singles line was moving increadibly slowly. We asked a few people as we were getting onto the ride and it turned out that we waited in the singles line about 5 or 10 minutes longer than the people who went through the regular line. The worst part though, was that again when we were about 10 or 15 people away from getting on the ride... it shut down. This time though, after 20 or 25 minutes they managed to get it going again and we were able to ride it. All in all we waited almost an hour and 15 minutes before we got on. Great ride though... not sure it's worth an hour plus wait, but definitely a great ride
Finally, at the end of the day we headed over to the MK and got there about 10:00... we had been in the parks since we got to AK at about 9:30, so we were getting pretty tired and our feet were definitely sore. We started out in Tomorrowland, but eveything we wanted to do there still had a bit of a line, so we Fast Passed Space Mountain and decided to walk over and try our luck on BTMR.
We took the (very long, after you've been at Disney for 13 hours) walk to BTMR from Tomorrowland and saw that it had a 10 minute wait listed. We 'climbed' the mountain and were just at the top of the steps when everyone in front of us on the steps turned around and started to walk up. Then they made an announcement saying that BTMR was down and we would have to go back out.
I think this was the worst blow to us... not because we were so disappointed about not being able to ride BTMR (we actually were able to stay on it and ride it like 4 times in row at the end of the day on Thursday), but because we had taken that walk from Tomorrowland just for BTMR... and now we had to walk back to Tomorrowland... but we made it and the lines had thinned out by the time we got back, so we did about four trips through Buzz Lightyear (and believe it or not, the Buzz ride stopped for about 2 or 3 minutes while we were on it and we were afraid we were going to go through it all over again, but it started it up again pretty quickly. There were a couple of wheelchairs near the exit and I suspect they stopped the ride to load those passengers).
Finally we used our Fast Passes for SM and as we walked into the loading area I was trying to show my brother in law the cars as they went by above us and I couldn't find them... we looked down and realized that there were about 5 cars all backed up in the loading area and it dawned on us that this ride had been stopped too. Luckily, about the time we were starting to realize that it was down they made the announcement that it was starting back up again, so we made it on without any problems.
All in all, though, we spent the whole day Thursday and the whole day Saturday at the parks with my brother in law and had a great time. This was his first time at Disney World and he originally just got a one day one park ticket... then half way through the day on Thursday he decided to upgrade to a park hopper so he could do more... then when we decided to come back on Saturday he upgraded to a 10 day no expiration... so I think he's definitely been bit by the Disney bug
Brett
I was at the parks with my wife and brother in law last Saturday and we spent the morning in AK, then hopped to HS in the afternoon, then spent a couple of MK hours at the end of the day.
We had done pretty much everything we wanted to do at AK and had fast passes for Dinosaur... I think it was about 2:30 or 3:00 or so... so we headed to Dinosaur for our last ride at AK. We turned in our fast passes and made it to the front of the line and we were about 4 people away from being put into a car when the ride stopped. We waited for about 15 or 20 minutes and got to watch the maintenance guys run around (and under) the ride trying to fix things. They couldn't get it going and finally they announced that they were going to have to shut down the ride and anyone who was stuck out on the ride should keep waiting and someone would be there to 'rescue' them shortly.
They gave everyone in line a new fast pass for Dinosaur for later in the day when they got it fixed (actually, just a handwritten note with the number of people in your party on Fast Pass paper), but since we were heading over to HS we wouldn't be able to use it. I went to guest services and explained what happened and they were kind enough to exchange that for a Fast Pass for any HS ride. I was a bit disappointed really, since I've never done Dinosaur, but given that I now live in Orlando (I moved here about 3 months ago) and have an annual pass now, I don't think I'll have to wait too long to go on it
From there we headed over to HS and after doing Indy and a few other things we decided to see if Toy Story Mania was running. It was, but it had a 50 minute wait listed. We really wanted to try it since it was new and all and decided just to head into the singles line. That was a bit of a mistake because the singles line was moving increadibly slowly. We asked a few people as we were getting onto the ride and it turned out that we waited in the singles line about 5 or 10 minutes longer than the people who went through the regular line. The worst part though, was that again when we were about 10 or 15 people away from getting on the ride... it shut down. This time though, after 20 or 25 minutes they managed to get it going again and we were able to ride it. All in all we waited almost an hour and 15 minutes before we got on. Great ride though... not sure it's worth an hour plus wait, but definitely a great ride
Finally, at the end of the day we headed over to the MK and got there about 10:00... we had been in the parks since we got to AK at about 9:30, so we were getting pretty tired and our feet were definitely sore. We started out in Tomorrowland, but eveything we wanted to do there still had a bit of a line, so we Fast Passed Space Mountain and decided to walk over and try our luck on BTMR.
We took the (very long, after you've been at Disney for 13 hours) walk to BTMR from Tomorrowland and saw that it had a 10 minute wait listed. We 'climbed' the mountain and were just at the top of the steps when everyone in front of us on the steps turned around and started to walk up. Then they made an announcement saying that BTMR was down and we would have to go back out.
I think this was the worst blow to us... not because we were so disappointed about not being able to ride BTMR (we actually were able to stay on it and ride it like 4 times in row at the end of the day on Thursday), but because we had taken that walk from Tomorrowland just for BTMR... and now we had to walk back to Tomorrowland... but we made it and the lines had thinned out by the time we got back, so we did about four trips through Buzz Lightyear (and believe it or not, the Buzz ride stopped for about 2 or 3 minutes while we were on it and we were afraid we were going to go through it all over again, but it started it up again pretty quickly. There were a couple of wheelchairs near the exit and I suspect they stopped the ride to load those passengers).
Finally we used our Fast Passes for SM and as we walked into the loading area I was trying to show my brother in law the cars as they went by above us and I couldn't find them... we looked down and realized that there were about 5 cars all backed up in the loading area and it dawned on us that this ride had been stopped too. Luckily, about the time we were starting to realize that it was down they made the announcement that it was starting back up again, so we made it on without any problems.
All in all, though, we spent the whole day Thursday and the whole day Saturday at the parks with my brother in law and had a great time. This was his first time at Disney World and he originally just got a one day one park ticket... then half way through the day on Thursday he decided to upgrade to a park hopper so he could do more... then when we decided to come back on Saturday he upgraded to a 10 day no expiration... so I think he's definitely been bit by the Disney bug
Brett
