WDW Prep To Go - a Disney World planning podcast
July 2024 - day 3 (MK Lightning Lanes)
Hello from the area, exit area of Tron. There's 11.36.8 in from Magic Kingdom. And I just rode the front row on Tron, which is probably my most favorite ride ever. I didn't even ask to be in the front row. I just got placed there and that was a good, good time. Today we did not rope drop. We originally were thinking about rope dropping, but decided not to. And it's probably a good thing because the things that we wanted to do were not available park opening as it turns out, seven doors was down, space knot was down. Tiana was down, and Peter Pan just closed her refurbishment, so I don't know what people were doing at 8.30 or 9 o'clock. But we got here and used a pre-purchase single, past light evening for seven doors, and then I used a single past light evening for Tron. So obviously those were, those were like eight or ten minute waits those times. Easy peasy. Strange mountain is still down, so when we rode the people mover in between those, the lights were on. So if you ever want to see the lights on Space Mountain, then if it's closed, that's a good time to hop on people mover, their chances are they will be on as they work on it. So it's hot. I don't, that goes without saying I guess, but it's just hitting me at the space of life. This isn't a lot, but I am walking to meet up with Heather, who did not want to ride Tron today, and we have a lunch reservation at VR Guest. We have been there in a few years, so we're looking forward to checking that out, especially because the beast is now meeting in his own room again, like he did in the before times. So I will be back to telling you all about that later. Hello, it's 1249 inside VR Guest restaurant. So we were able to check in in the app, and they allowed us to come and wait inside and they called our names, and then we received them the main dining room. It is very empty, lots of empty tables, and I think it's because summer crowds aren't super high, but also the price. $140 for the two of us, although the food is delicious and included appetizer, entree, dessert, and La Miance is great. That price is really hard to get over, and it bums us out because you remember the days of breakfast and lunch being quick service with delicious options, and even dinner was fine and not, I don't think it was fixed price in the before times. So good experience. This is the only way to be able to come into the castle, and it's been any kind of time. Service has been amazing. It's just that price tag is so high, and we often multiply things out like whatever we were finding it for. Obviously, you're looking at a couple hundred bucks just to have lunch and dinner here. So, anyway, good experience. I think the price is too high, so we probably won't be back on our way out. We will be meeting the beast. That's a possibility now. He has been, before now, roaming the dining room, so you could kind of just see him or take a selfie with him, but you can pose with him now in his own room as you exit after you eat. So that is a good way to meet him, but again, that price tag. So while we were sitting here, Tiana's came back up, so we're happy about that because we have both virtual queue and lightning lane, and it looks like our virtual queue is going to be called pretty soon, so we're excited to be able to get on Tiana's. We also have not redeemed any multi-pass lightning lanes today, only single-pass lightning lanes. And as I've mentioned on the other days, we think having those multi-pass lightning lanes earlier in the day is really the way to go so that you can tap in and churn and book more, and ours were just not set up that way, but that's why we're here to test things out, see how things go, but for us, the first multi-pass lightning lane starts around one, so we will be doing that as well, and kind of seeing what the availability looks like once we get to tap in and read book. I will be back later. Hello at 3.50pm from the main street train station, it's been a few hours since I last updated, and we were on our way to do some rides, and we did, starting first on a mansion where we tapped in, that was our first multi-pass lightning lane, they stand by, it was a surprise in 50 minutes because it's not super busy, but on a mansion line was long, and we got right on the ride, and then when we tapped in, we were able to look at availability for other attractions, and it was mostly tier two level attractions that were available, and they were available for quick returns, so those tier two ones are really easy to churn through, like you could book it for, you know, 30 minutes out or look within the hour or so, for the tier one, that this park, it's going to be important to pre-book them as lightning lanes, get a virtual queue, do them at road drop, that kind of thing, so just be aware of that, but for those tier two's, really easy to churn, for instance, we got a pirate to the Caribbean that we rode, an hour later, we got it to small world, that kind of thing, so after the high mansion, we were off to ride, Tiana's Bayou adventure, it is kind of a nice first time on it, this was with a virtual queue, and it was a walk-on, I don't think a virtual queue is usually ever a walk-on, but because the ride had just reopened, they hadn't pulled a lot of boarding groups, so there just weren't a lot of people, there were only two of us and one other woman in our ride vehicle, so I don't think that's probably going to happen again, but it was such a delight, what a beautiful, beautiful ride. I've always liked the length of that ride because it's like, okay, you can kind of settle in and have a nice 11-minute ride versus some of the other ones that are over so quickly, so big hit with us, and then we decided to go from there to go to Country Bear Jamboree, which has just reopened recently, and I think that one is, you know, taking a lot of parks enthusiasts off because the original music was gone and now it's the music from the movies, but it was a full theatre, ours is full, and the one after us was full, so I think it's going to be a hit with, you know, the casual visitor for sure, and I think that seems to be the trend, the trend that Disney is going in is appealing to a general visitor that's going to like the songs they know from the movies. At that point, we did ride pirates because we were able to snag that lightning lane earlier, and then it was time to use our lightning lane for Tiana's, and we didn't know this time was the line going to be any longer than the virtual queue, but it wasn't, again, a walk-on. When we did Slinky Dog and we did Tiana's, we thought, they could definitely increase the capacity, but it was to our benefit, so we got on it again, a delightful ride, and then we boarded the train, which had just pulled into the train station right there at Tiana's and came right back to the front of the park, which is great with the heat index of over 100. So, with that said, we are walking out of the park. We are headed to French Quarter to get some vignettes. We are staying at Riverside, so we're going to have some vignettes, maybe even grab some dinner to go to take back to our room so that we can watch the Olympics, but I'll be back one more time today to let you know how it goes. Hello, at 6.15 p.m. from our room at Riverside, after my last update, we took the bus from Magic Kingdom to Portland's French Quarter, because we wanted to have some vignettes. We got went to the food court and got some food first, then we went and had vignettes. We always get the order of three Mickey bignettes with a side of sauce. It's plenty, and we actually only ended up eating one each. I saw a lot of people getting in three per person, and either they're more hungry than us, or they left a lot of food on their plate, but just joining those vignettes are huge, but they're so good. Best vignettes ever. So we were able to get our early dinner and dessert there, and then we took the walk back to Riverside to our room. It took maybe 10 minutes or so. It was a little hot, but a lot of that path is shaded, and it's really beautiful. So we came back and able to jump in the shower, rinse off the sweaty sweat from today, just at the top, and then we're doing some work, and I'm going to watch the Olympics tonight. So it's storming right now. This has been the pattern every night. We often talk about the summer having afternoon storms, but this trip, we have evening ones. So it's like thundering, and it's going to be a big storm coming in. So I'm glad that we have planned to be in anyway, and just watching the Olympics, because I don't want to be out in it. We have one more day left for animal kingdom, and using the lightning lanes over there, it was the easiest booking process to booking and looking them lightning lanes. I put in my selections, it gave me the times, they were ideal, and I just purchased it. So the parks do vary a little bit on that, on availability and times and the strategy and all that. That's why we're here. So that is it for today. We have one more day. I'll be back tomorrow to let you know how it goes. [BLANK_AUDIO]