Seven Dwarfs Mine Train Opens May 28th! Press Preview at the Magic Kingdom

Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
The construction walls are down now around the new Seven Dwarfs Mine Train ride at Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, and Disney’s two-day preview for the press began yesterday. Cameras and press people were everywhere.

The big announcement is that the attraction will open for all guests on May 28th, with FastPass+ reservations available beginning on that date. There could also be soft openings ahead of the 28th, but nothing official at this point.

Here are a handful of pictures taken yesterday:
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train at Magic Kingdom
Disney wasn’t allowing any “regular” guests to ride the attraction, but every now and then you could see some of the press folks on the ride.
Mine Cars
I like the detail on the ride vehicles, but I’m not sure if these guys riding the cars could look any more excited…  🙂
Grumpy
Grumpy was playing his part well.
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train - Park Location
The above picture shows the location of the ride entrance which is on the far left edge of this shot. As you can see, the entrance is located just across the street from the Winnie the Pooh exit.

For those of you using RideMax, stay tuned! We expect to have this new attraction added to RideMax soon for dates beginning May 28th. We’ll use some very rough wait time estimates before it opens, and expect to refine those after we’ve had the chance to see the queue in actual operation.
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Three Tips to Reduce Your Wait at Radiator Springs Racers

Radiator Spring Racers at Disney California Adventure

Even though Cars Land opened almost two years ago, the crowds can still be pretty intense, especially for this new land’s centerpiece attraction, Radiator Springs Racers.

Here are three tips to reduce your wait.

Tip #1: Use FastPass (duh!)

This may seem obvious, but using the FastPass system is a good way to reduce your wait on this ride. The trick, however, is that because the attraction is still so popular, FastPass tickets can run out very early in the day. So in order to take advantage of this tip, you’ll need to get in line for the FastPass machines no later than about 40 or 50 minutes after the park opens. You might get away with later than this on days of very low attendance, but why push your luck?

Another less-obvious point here is that the lines can start out very long just to get a FastPass ticket, with the line forming near the Carthay Circle Theater even before the park has opened for the day. After about 30 or 40 minutes though, the line to get FastPasses will normally start to die down. As a result, if you’re using RideMax to plan your visit, you may find that the plan doesn’t have you get in line for the FastPass tickets until after you’ve already visited another attraction, while you wait for the FastPass line to die down a bit here.

Tip #2: Use the Single Rider Line

Radiator Springs Racers Single Rider Line Entrance

A perhaps less well-known fact is that Radiator Springs Racers offers a separate “single rider” line. For those unfamiliar with the single rider concept, you can use this line to avoid most of the wait, but the cost is that your party will most likely be split up, so that you ride in separate vehicles. The picture above shows the entrance to the single rider line, which is just to the left of the main attraction entrance.

The single rider line likely won’t be an option for you if you have very young children who would be uncomfortable riding with strangers. But for older children and adults, it offers a very viable alternative to standing in a very long standby line. We’ve sometimes found ourselves even lucky enough to either ride in the same vehicle with someone else in our party, or — and this is even more fun — racing against someone in our group who happened to be seated in the car we “competed” with as part of the ride experience.

Tip #3: Arrive Early on a Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday

Radiator Springs Racers - No Line

You may have read this tip and thought, “OK, I can see the logic in arriving early, but what is so special about Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday?

Disney offers “Extra Magic Hours” (EMH) to its hotel guests, where they are allowed to enter DCA one hour before the “official” park opening time. EMH for DCA takes place on Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. So even if you arrive early on one of these days of the week hoping to beat the rush to Radiator Springs Racers, you’ll find hotel guests already in the park, many (most?) of which will try to visit RSR during the EMH hour, making for a long line right at park opening time.

One common misconception here is that park-hopper “bonus” ticket holders sometimes think that their one-day “Magic Morning” privileges apply to DCA — they don’t. Magic Morning is ONLY available for use at Disneyland. If you want access to DCA’s EMH, you’ll need to stay at one of the Disney hotels.

You know I have to save something for subscribers, so if you’re a RideMax subscriber, please also be sure to check out our “Tips & Hints” pages within RideMax itself, where we give some very detailed advice — complete with pictures — regarding this particular tip, including where to position yourself once inside the park. That advice can help you further beat the crowds to Radiator Springs Racers right at opening time.

For those of you who have visited DCA since Cars Land opened, what did you think? Do you like the new attractions? What is your favorite?

Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

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Epcot Flower and Garden Festival 2014: Flora and Food!

The annual Epcot Flower and Garden Festival officially opened yesterday, but I went mostly for the food! Here’s a quick mini-tour of some of the flowers — and the food.

Snow White Topiary at Epcot Flower and Garden Festival 2014

First up is the Snow White topiary (click on any of these images for a larger view). Is it just me, or is this the first year that Snow has actually had EYES painted onto her face? To me this looks way better than previous versions.

As a comparison, take a look at Belle in the image below, who is stationed in the gardens near France.

Creepy Belle

A bit creepy, no?

Like last year, Disney is offering FOOD for the Flower and Garden festival this year, and in my opinion, this really helps kick the whole experience up a notch. There aren’t as many food kiosks as you’ll see during the Food and Wine Festival, but the selection is still very good, and for the most part, Liesle and I both found the food delicious. We didn’t sample everything (all the more reason to go back!), but here’s a quick take on what we did try.

Lemon scones near UK

First up are the Fresh-baked Lemon Scones near the UK pavillion. This may have been Liesle’s favorite treat of the entire day. The dish could use a bit more of the raspberry and creme dipping sauces, but otherwise these were really, really good!

Peter Pan Topiary at Epcot

Look up and find Peter Pan watching over the festivities. #peterwantsafacetoo

Parisian-style Dumplings

Next up, in France, we tried the “Gnocchi Parisien à la Provençal” (or Parisian-style Dumplings with Vegetables and Mushrooms), shown above. This was also very good, sort of a rich pasta dish with enough vegetable “accents” to provide some variety in the flavor.

Orange Blossom Macaron with White Chocolate Ganache

Also in France is the Orange Blossom Macaron with White Chocolate Ganache (or the “Macaron à la Fleur d’ Oranger” for those of you who prefer to eat in French). A very tasty dessert!

Lumiere Topiary

Along with Belle, the Lumiere Topiary is also nearby. I’m still not sure why Lumiere gets a face and Belle doesn’t. Maybe the candlestick union just had really good representation at the face-bargaining-table?

Temaki hand roll

The Temaki hand roll in Japan was probably one of our least favorite dishes of the day, although it was still OK, I guess. I’ve lived in Japan for a couple of years, so I’m somewhat used to the nori seaweed flavor, but there was so much of it here in comparison to the rest of the dish that it sort of overwhelmed the other flavors. We ended up scooping out the “insides” and enjoyed the rest of the dish nori-less.

Japanese Torii in Epcot

It looks like they’ve recently repainted the Torii Gate in Japan. It looks a lot more “orange” (less red) than before. I think these are supposed to be “Vermillion” in color. Maybe this is closer than the previous shade of red?

Pulled pig slider with cole slaw

Next up is the “Pulled Pig Slider with Cole Slaw” near the America Pavillion. This was very good, and very filling. The cole slaw added just enough change in texture and flavor to the rest of the dish that it enhanced it quite a bit.

Epcot Bacon cupcake with maple frosting and pretzel crunch

Also near America is the bacon cupcake with maple frosting and pretzel crunch. This was a very good, but also very dense, cupcake. It also contained a surprisingly generous supply of bacon. If you try this, make sure you have a beverage nearby to wash it down with. (I say this because I didn’t, and regretted it.)

Epcot - Shrimp and stone ground grits

From the Florida Fresh kiosk near Germany (why not?!!), this dish is “Shrimp and stone ground grits with andouille sausage, sweet corn, tomatoes and cilantro.” Be forewarned that it’s a bit spicy, but it was also really, really good! Our dish contained three large-ish shrimp, and was quite filling. I think I’ll be having this one again before the Festival is over.

Epcot Watermelon Salad

This is the watermelon salad, also at Florida Fresh. The dressing was a balsamic reduction, and the combination of flavors, including the watermelon on the bottom of the salad, made this one of our favorite dishes of the day.

Rafiki and Simba Topiary at Epcot

Hang on, Rafiki!

Epcot Beijing-style candied strawberries

By this point in the day we were pretty full, but the Beijing-style candied strawberries are one of Liesle’s favorites, so we had to stop and get these. Delicious, as always!

Epcot frozen desert violet lemonade

We finished the day by washing everything down with the frozen desert violet lemonade, at the Pineapple Promenade.

Bambi topiary at Epcot

Finally, here are a few more scenes from the park. Above is Bambi. Note the face. Not sure how Bambi qualifies for membership in the candlestick union though.

Epcot Flowers

Pretty flowers everywhere!

Pretty flowers under the monorail at Epcot

More pretty flowers still!

Inside the butterfly garden at Epcot

The picture above was taken inside the butterfly garden, as are the two below:

Epcot butterfly garden

Epcot butterfly garden

Epcot sand sculpture

Still working on the sand sculpture. It’s looking good so far!

All in all, we really had a good time touring the Flower and Garden Festival, and I expect we’ll be back soon to try some of the dishes we missed this time!

What about you? Will you make it to the Flower and Garden Festival this year? Do you have a “must try” dish? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

 

 

 

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My Incredible RideMax Journey

Buzz Lightyear

For some reason I’ve been in a reflective mood today, thinking back to the beginnings of RideMax, and how incredibly grateful I am that I get to do what I do for a living!

The picture above, of my wife Liesle and me earlier this week at the Magic Kingdom, reminds me of how RideMax started, way back in the late 90’s. Our young family was visiting Disneyland, trying to get as much out of our limited time in the park as possible. I don’t remember the exact attractions involved, but we were trying to decide whether to do attraction “A” next or “B” next, as the morning crowds were starting to build.

Whichever attraction we chose to visit next, we chose wrong.

By the time we exited that next attraction, the line for the other one had a very long line, even though the attraction we had just visited still had a short line — about the same as when we boarded. It occurred to me that had we just swapped the order of the two rides, we could have saved ourselves a good chunk of time in line.

Then the thought occurred to me: why not take this to the extreme? If I had wait time estimates for all of the attractions as the day went on, I could use a computer to plug in the list of attractions I wanted to ride, and have it do a gazillion plan comparisons to come up with an “ideal” one designed to minimize the time in line.

I was working as a software engineering manager for a major networking company at the time, and thought, why not give this a try? That was the beginning of what would eventually become RideMax.

It took a LOT of hard work and experimentation to refine the optimization algorithm that’s at the core of RideMax (it turns out that optimizations of the sort RideMax does, especially if it involves more than about 12 attractions, are pretty difficult to do in a reasonable amount of computer time). And of course it also took a lot of legwork to sample those wait times at different seasons of the year and at various times of the day.

I still remember when I finally thought I had something that was “good enough” to try in the park. I created a plan for Disneyland that included all of the rides in the park (well, those that were open that day, anyway), and which began when the park opened, and finished later that night. If I remember right, it even included a nice break in the afternoon.

Liesle and I took that plan to the park on a busy fall Saturday. And even though I had written the software myself, I was actually sort of stunned by the results. The park itself seemed very crowded — we could definitely see the mobs of people around us — but we hardly felt the crowds at all.

As we used that first plan, it sort of felt like we were in an alternate universe where lines barely existed. It seemed that the park had given up a huge secret, one that had lay hidden from everyone who had ever visited the park since 1955, but that had finally been handed to just the two of us. It was an incredible experience!

As time went on and RideMax became more and more popular, it allowed me to leave the world of “big” programming and strike out on my own, doing RideMax full time. We moved to Florida to make it easier to cover the Disney World parks, and, as they say, the rest is history!

Of course, I realize that I wouldn’t be able to do this without your help. I think RideMax has sometimes succeeded in spite of me, rather than because of me. Most of our “advertising” has been plain ol’ word of mouth from satisfied customers.

And for that — for being part of this incredible journey — I thank you!

 

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Avoiding the Wait at the New FP+ Kiosks

FP+ Kiosk

This is a short post for those planning a visit to Walt Disney World in the near future. Disneyland visitors can rest easy — at least for the time being!

After visiting both Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Epcot yesterday and looking again at the situation with the new FP+ kiosks, it’s pretty clear that your selection of which specific kiosk to visit can make a huge difference in how long you’ll have to wait at the kiosk itself, especially if you don’t arrive until after opening time and there are already crowds in the park.

Consider the line for one of the FP+ kiosks yesterday at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. I took this picture at the kiosk near the Tower of Terror shortly before 11:00am:

Line for FP+ Kiosk

I should note that setting up those FP+ reservations inside the park is something of a labor-intensive process for the cast members staffing the kiosks, so these folks could be standing in line for a while. (And the irony is that FP+ is supposed to help reduce the time you spend standing line.)

Now, look at the line for the kiosks near American Idol. The picture below was taken just a few minutes after the one shown above. Here you can see two very unbusy cast members, complete with FP+ tablets in hand, who without prompting from me were nice enough to pause and smile for the camera, as there wasn’t anyone in line for them to help at the moment:

FP+ Kiosk Near American Idol

As this was only about a three-minute walk from the very crowded kiosks near the Tower of Terror, it would have definitely been worth the walk for the poor folks standing in line over there.

FP+ Kiosk Near Muppets

I should also note that if you were in the back of the park, the line for the FP+ kiosks near Muppet Vision theater were also non-existent. Note the open machine on the right in the picture below.

FP+ Kiosk - No Line

Given how unevenly the lines for the kiosks are playing out so far (I saw similar disparities at Epcot), we expect to have some in-plan “tips” in RideMax soon to help steer folks to the shorter lines. In the meantime, remember that it can really pay to look around a bit before you commit to a particular FP+ kiosk.

Have you experienced FP+ yet, and if so, what did you think of the experience?

Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

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