Today we're back in Florida with another great update from Walt Disney World. Today we're joining Renée as she runs 19.3 miles through the parks of Walt Disney World with some Storm Troopers, Droids and even Matt. Written by Renée Girard The Star Wars half marathon weekend kicked off at WDW today! Tomorrow and Sunday we'll be journeying to the Dark Side. While at the Star Wars Half expo, be sure to stop by the Cantina. You can get a Dole Whip in a Chewbacca stein! I don't think I've ever seen this much as far as snacks and drinks at a RunDisney expo. think this is my favorite shirt at the Star Wars Half expo. We'll be up early the next 2 days for the Dark Side Challenge. Good luck to all running, and stay hydrated! In a corral far, far away... awaiting the start of the Star Wars 10k. Looking forward to the new course! Star Wars themed costumes are always popular among the runners. I've already spotted a few Matts this morning. See you in 6.2 miles! Storm troopers and Spaceship Earth! This is the race you're looking for. The Star Wars 10k runners approaching the finish line at Epcot. Finished! One race down, one more to go. I don't think I've ever seen wait times posted for the characters. Great to see this addition! We're back for another early morning run. It's time for the Star Wars Half Marathon! The first runners are on their way! May The Force be with us all to conquer the Dark Side Challenge I always look forward to seeing the creative Star Wars costumes and shirts along the course. Editors Note: For some reason this picture and tweet blew up on Twitter on Sunday and we have no idea why. It's certainly clever, and we always love a good Pun. Guess sometimes you never know what people are going to enjoy. Running through Disney's Hollywood Studios. What's up DCA? =) Finish line and medals at Epcot! Wait times if you wanted to meet a character after the race. Celebrating finishing the Dark Side Challenge with a cold beer. Congrats to all who participated. Cheers! Related Updates: Happy Monday everybody, we hope you all had an awesome weekend. We had an exceptionally busy weekend which means we've got a LOT of updates for you this week. We'll start off with a look at Star Wars Land at Disneyland where buildings have finally gone vertical, and some seem to be going underground? We'll explain below. Written by Gregg Condon Here we are, back on the Mickey and Friends parking structure and taking a look at a Galaxy Far Far Away ... As you can see to the left, one of the buildings has gone vertical, and it doesn't look like it's done growing yet. Obviously we don't know what is what at this point just that it's going to look like Star Wars eventually. Obviously lots of work to be done in the next 2 years. From here you can also get a look at the new "berm" for the Disneyland Railroad and some of the rock work they are doing. To the far left (just below the Matterhorn) you can see one of the entrances to Star Wars Land that will go under the railroad. Moving over to the right, lots being done that we can't see due to the trees. Oh, and there is Guardians Tower of Terror (which we totally forgot to get pictures of) A closer look at some of the rockwork going on. As we move up to the top of the structure, a few more overview pics. Alright, that's going to wrap it up for this update. Maybe one of these days we'll actually get inside the parks and do a proper Star Wars Land update. But since we visit so rarely we're hoping to plan a trip after the Railroad opens this summer. Thanks for reading. Related Updates:
Today Disneyland announced some changes to their Fastpass system. We're going to attempt to break it down a bit and hopefully add some much needed levity to the typical online reaction of these changes being a "cash grab". Written by Gregg Condon First and foremost, here is the link to the full description of the changes. Parts of it are kind of vague but here it is in a nutshell:
Ok, so let's break this down piece by piece. Fastpass being added to Toy Story Midway Mania and Matterhorn: Not sure why. Neither one of these attractions has the capacity to support Fastpass. If they want to add Fastpass to TSMM they need to add a third track like they did in FL. Matterhorn has two separate tracks and not a whole lot of queue space. Just doesn't make sense to us. MaxPass system (and Photopass) for mobile fastpasses for $10 per day: If I was a frequent visitor/AP I'd for sure have concerns about this. They are giving the option to add this to your AP price so you can use it on every visit (no price given) or you can use the $10 a day option. As an infrequent visitor (our last visit to DL was in November 2015) I'm all in on this. On our last visit we rode about 5 attractions due to the crowds and FP's being gone. Disneyland is called the "Disneyland Resort". But it's not a Resort. It's a locals park. There are over 1 million Annual Passholders right now. If Disneyland wants to reach that resort level they need to start catering more to tourists who make periodic visits and make sure that they are able to experience attractions while they are at the park. Period. The current paper fastpass system is NOT going away Obviously with this new system there is the possiblity of paper fastpasses being reduced by a certain amount. Because if somebody is paying $10 to get Fastpasses they need to be able to actually get them. There will probably be some kind of trial and error period but it's possible that the amount of paper fastpasses will depend on how many people use MaxPass on any given day. But again, details are vague. Unlike the WDW system, this will not allow advanced reservations, you will not be able to use the MaxPass system unless you are in the park Right now, Disneyland has over 1 MILLION annual passholders. The week leading up to Christmas this year with all APs blocked out except the very top tier had ride lines that averaged about 30 minutes each day. This was less crowds than a Tuesday in September or October. And once AP blockout days were lifted on January 4 the park reached capacity. Something that hadn't happened through the entire holiday season (including New Years Eve). So to say that APs are greatly influencing the historcal "off season" structure of the park is an extreme understatement. But let's say that this new MaxPass system allowed reservations, and was free. And like WDW you were able to go on say 30 days before a visit and make a FastPass reservation. They would be gone within SECONDS. People would be getting Fastpasses "just in case" they were going to visit that day. It would be chaos. It would insure that anybody who is a "day" visitor or "vacationer" would have zero ability to get fastpasses. The announcement definitely presents more questions that answers, but of course that doens't stop people from freaking out about it. This change has been inevitable for years, and with Star Wars Land coming in a few years the time to make this change is now. Couple this with the rumored changes to the AP Program coming next month (including elimination of the payment plan) and it seems Disney is trying to reduce the number of APs but also increase revenue. It's something that worked for Universal Studios Hollywood where they reduced APs, had moderate attendance over the summer but had the HIGHEST guest spending and guest satisfaction in the history of that park. So you can bet Disney has been paying attention to that. As more news comes out about these changes we'll keep you updated of course. So what do you think? Is this something you are going to use when you make visits to Disneyland? Are you able to at least see the AP/Non-AP side of it? We are interested to hear your thoughts, be sure you share them below. Related Updates:
|
Categories
All
Archives
March 2024
|