More RideMax Roulette at the Magic Kingdom, Pecos Bill Cafe Southwest Burger Review

I headed out to the Magic Kingdom this morning for another round of RideMax Roulette. The catch is that I was primarily Periscoping the experience and didn’t have my regular camera with me, so the photos in this post will be somewhat, er… limited — both in quantity and quality.  🙂

Before I get too far, I should note that you can find my Periscope feed here, though Periscope deletes the videos after 24 hours, so you may not find this too helpful, unless you’d like to follow me for future broadcasts.

For those not schooled in the great RideMax Roulette tradition, this is basically where I use a random-number generator to give me a list of attractions, which I then plug into RideMax. The software then spits out a game plan to cover those attractions, which I take to the park.

For today’s round of RideMax Roulette, I basically had twelve attractions to cover. Here they are, in no particular order:

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Epcot’s Arendelle Construction Progress, Japan Children’s Day, L’Artisan des Glaces Ice Cream Review

Spaceship Earth - Epcot Walt Disney World

A relatively short post today, as Liesle & I stopped into Epcot this past Thursday, May 5th, for a quick tour around World Showcase. We also wanted to eat some of our favorite Flower & Garden dishes again before the festival wraps up at the end of the month.

As you can see in the picture above, we were greeted with beautiful weather — blue skies, not too hot. A great day, really.

We first stopped in front of the construction walls outside Norway, and I couldn’t resist pointing my camera over the wall to check on the progress.

The picture below is the result:

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MyMagic+ App Enhancements in Action, Rivers of Light Construction Progress

My Disney Experience Enhancements - Magic Kingdom Walt Disney World

One big hassle with FastPass+ at Walt Disney World is that until this month, guests were only allowed to make three FP+ reservations on their own — you had to visit an in-park kiosk once you used those first three if you wanted to schedule additional FP+ experiences.

Well, Disney has just enhanced their iPhone and Android apps to allow guests to make their own fourth (and more) FastPass+ selections using a mobile device, rather than visiting an in-park kiosk. You have to make the additional reservations one at a time — and only after using your first three — but for those who end up using this feature, it holds some hope of cutting down on the hassle we saw in my previous post with insane lines at the FastPass+ kiosks during spring break.

I downloaded the new version of the app to my iPhone and gave the feature a whirl last Monday, April 11th. Before I begin, I will note that the week of April 11th saw much lower crowds than the week before, as the “Easter rush” had sort of died down a bit by then.

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Fan Mail from Australia, February Crowds, Rivers of Light Construction Update, Flame Tree Barbeque Dinner and Dessert Review

World of Color - Disney California Adventure

First up today, I hope you’ll indulge me as I share some RideMax “fan mail” sent in by Leon from Australia, who visited Disneyland this past holiday season. He writes the following:

I spent 5 days at Disneyland (2 days) and California Adventure (3 days) with my wife and 2 children (ages 6 and 9) which included New Year’s Eve which I understand is the busiest day of the year.

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Magic Kingdom Fifteen Attractions Before 2:00pm — Follow Along LIVE Tuesday on Periscope

Magic Kingdom Rope Drop

I had enough fun earlier this week using Periscope briefly to live-stream a ride on Expedition Everest, that I thought I’d next try something a little more ambitious.

So, in that spirit, I’ve created a Magic Kingdom RideMax plan for Tuesday, January 19th, that should allow me to visit fifteen attractions by 2:00pm. More significantly, I plan to live stream the entire visit on Periscope. I’ll have my extra phone batteries (and leg muscles) ready to go bright and early Tuesday morning for park opening.

What is it that appeals to me about Periscope for this? Three things, really.

First, Periscope will allow me to show off this RideMax plan in a real-time setting. And since it’s a *live* video, you know that what you see is what you get.

Second, I expect to keep broadcasting even as I’m walking from one attraction to the next, and while I’m standing in line. And although if everything works out the lines should be fairly short, if anyone viewing the broadcast has questions you’d like to ask over Periscope during this lull between rides, I’ll try and answer what I can as I’m moving about the park.

Finally, I’d like to be able to share some of my favorite tips for visiting some of the attractions, and live video seems ideal for doing this.

If you want to join in but don’t want to spend all day watching for your favorite attraction, here is the plan I intend to follow, and yes, I already have those FP+ reservations lined up:

MagicKingdom15Rides

As you can see, the day begins with what might be the ultimate rope-drop challenge in all of Disney’s theme parks, visiting the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. I’ll try to show you how I navigate the crowds for this to (hopefully) end up near the front of the line. That 10-minute estimate may look optimistic, but it all depends on how you make your way into the park, and hopefully the live-feed video can allow me to show that.

Looking at this plan you may be wondering if I plan to take a lunch break, and the answer is yes, sort of. I guess I’m cheating a bit by virtue of the fact that, based on the current weather forecast, I expect Tuesday to very cold, and that 31-minute estimated wait for Splash Mountain will instead be closer to 5 minutes. This should give me time for a lunch break somewhere in that timeline, probably right after Pirates.

I also decided I wouldn’t attempt to broadcast a ride on Space Mountain, as there wouldn’t be too much to see in the dark, so it’s omitted from the plan. In addition, Buzz Lightyear is scheduled to be closed for refurbishment, so that doesn’t leave us with much to see in Tomorrowland. Then again, I do have to admit that simultaneously driving and filming the Tomorrowland Speedway should be… interesting.

At any rate, if you want to join in the fun, be sure to follow me on Periscope. I’m new to “scoping” and don’t have a huge following there; this should make it easier to answer your questions as we hit those 15 rides.

I expect that the Magic Kingdom will open at roughly 8:45am, and I’ll start the scope just prior to that time.

I hope to see you on Tuesday!

 

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