Originally Posted By Kidz-n-k9s We one a slot for 8 am to noon. I'm surprised and excited to see this! Anyone else in this time slot? Based on what I'm reading on the AP FB page, most are not winners. Too bad they couldn't have fewer pay to view days are more preview winner days.
Originally Posted By 9oldmen I got a 6 P.M. slot for the same day. I wasn't sure what the odds were, or how lucky I got, but this has never happened to me before.(like when they did the same thing for Finding Nemo Subs back in 07).
Originally Posted By Witches of Morva ORWEN: Would anybody like to trade their slot for a nice tour of a medieval castle in the Land of Prydain? It's a massive place just begging to be explored. It has many interesting passageways and is built on top of a mountain. It's a must see!!! (Disclaimer: The castle to be toured is run by an evil resident known as the Horned King, who requires that all tourists be tortured in his dungeons for up to an hour or more. Life Insurance policy is a must.)
Originally Posted By Dagul I won 8am-12pm slot! Can anyone confirm if its only a walkthrough or I can ride the RS racer
Originally Posted By 9oldmen I'm sure that even the company doesn't want to promise anything as to what will be open or not, but I would imagine that 4 days before the hard opening, 3 days before the media day, they will probably want to be able to put everything through it's paces, especially the "Racers" ride. Having won a 6 P.M. slot, I'm hopeful also to be able to ride, but I'm prepared for the possibility of things being otherwise, and am also planning to be there the morning of the 15th.
Originally Posted By Dalia3001 I'm not an AP holder and I'm going to one of the paid preview days. Is this the sort of thing we need to arrive at very early in case rides are open or something? Or should we just wander in at some point during the window to look around? Does anyone have any idea how many passes they are handing out per "window" or how crazy these events are going to be?
Originally Posted By Kidz-n-k9s Sorry Orwen. I'll pass. <<Having won a 6 P.M. slot, I'm hopeful also to be able to ride, but I'm prepared for the possibility of things being otherwise>> That's my feeling too. The list of disclaimers talks about the possibility of very long waits and no guarantees of availability, which makes me think we can ride them if they aren't down. I also look forward to the Buena Vista Street preview. I assume the trolley will be there, but not functioning since the tracks go outside the construction walls. << Is this the sort of thing we need to arrive at very early in case rides are open or something?>> I'm going to do just that, but my time slot is 8 am. The parking struture opens at 6:30 and I have to go to the ticket booths to get our wrist bands. So I'm leaving ourselves a lot of time to do this since I still have no idea how many people won our time slot. Plan for the worst, hope for the best.
Originally Posted By Kidz-n-k9s From the rules of the sweepstakes, there were up to 3,500 winners for each time slot: Maximum of Three Thousand Five Hundred (3,500) GRAND PRIZES for each Select Time (depends on each winner's Party Size [1 to 6 Members]). Maximum of Ten Thousand Five Hundred (10,500) GRAND PRIZES for all three Select Times.
Originally Posted By x Pirate_Princess x <<I'm not an AP holder and I'm going to one of the paid preview days. Is this the sort of thing we need to arrive at very early in case rides are open or something? Or should we just wander in at some point during the window to look around? >> I also bought one of the preview tickets for this Saturday. I read that they'll start checking people in at 6:30am for the 8am tour. Looks like I'm leaving my house at 5am on Saturday!
Originally Posted By Dalia3001 The preview was great! For anyone attending, they let us into Buena Vista St hours before our window for Carsland opened, so we were able to hang out, take a ton of photos and shop like crazy at our leisure. Carsland looks fantastic; the scenery is really astounding. We used the single riders line to ride Radiator Springs Racers twice with less than ten minutes wait both times, and the first time we were even seated together! We enjoyed it a great deal. We walked on to Mater's Junkyard Jamboree (or whatever it's called), which was cute and better than I thought it would be, and skipped the tires as they had a two hour line, had broken down as we were watching and looked sort of boring as it was running. The diner looks amazing. It took us about an hour and ten minutes to do all that and walk through all the stores and restaurants. We thought it was worth it, and had a great time!
Originally Posted By CuriousConstance ^^^ Thanks for the info! Glad you had a great time! Wonder why is Junkyard Jamboree is a walk on, and the tires are a two hour wait?
Originally Posted By Kidz-n-k9s We had a great time too! First impressions was "WOW!! This looks incredible!!" We had the 8-noon slot yesterday. Unfortunately, the racers were down for the first ~90 minutes, so we wasted almost an hour waiting in line before we gave up and went to the Junkyard Jamboree with a 15 minute wait. That ride was a lot of fun, but my 4 yo son did bump his head on the side at one of the rotations. So, do a better job than I did of keeping your wee ones next to you, OK? It was fun, the music is cute, and lots of other folks smiling and laughing on this ride. After that, we hit the cozy cone to spend a ton on souvenior cup cones and McQueen popcorn containers. DH immediatley spilled the popcorn, blaming it on the packaging (um, the kids got it right!), but the CM was SOOO nice about my wasted $12 and gave us a new batch. The racers still were not up yet, so we talked about waiting 90 minutes for the tires, and by the time we were standing for almost 10 minutes in that line, the Racers came back to we jumped out and rode them. THEY ARE FUN!!! I won't give away anything, but we all really liked them and the speed is fun and not too fast for my wee ones. Waited about 45 minutes, but later on we say the line at only 25 (15 for single rider). The details on this ride are amazing, but I did have a hard time hearing what some of the characters were saying. While I liked this ride A LOT, it has not eclipsed Indy as my favorite of all time. We did shopping in the many shops, ate at Flo's V8 cafe (good stuff!!), took our photo with McQueen, and went back to the tires at a 30 minute wait. It was 11:30, so we knew this would be our last ride. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but the trick I found was that you need a wide open lane and then you can get your tire to MOVE! If you are bogged down in congestion, you're stuck. My daughter and I did have a good time as we found open lanes twice and 'flew' pretty fast. The beach balls are a distraction and need to go...I would do it again, but never for more than a 15-20 minute wait. We took a last photo with Red on the way out, and strolled back through BVS on our way out. It is very nicely done and I happen to really like the architecture. The shops are mainly the same as Main Street, but there is some BVS and Red Car themed products. We were back on the road for our 6 hour trip home by 1:00. We'll likely not be back until October (unless Hojo opens AP rates this summer), so I'm very happy to have won this adventure yesterday. <<Wonder why is Junkyard Jamboree is a walk on, and the tires are a two hour wait?>> Capacity. The JJ has a lot more riders per cycle.
Originally Posted By tashajilek "While I liked this ride A LOT, it has not eclipsed Indy as my favorite of all time. Even today Indy is amazing and it would be a really tough ride to beat. Even though my all time favorite is Splash Mountain.
Originally Posted By Autopia Deb (unless Hojo opens AP rates this summer) I got an AP rate this summer 20% off.
Originally Posted By Kidz-n-k9s <<I got an AP rate this summer 20% off.>> Sorry, I meant the AP Retro Rate. We had the $59 room this past weekend. Such a deal!
Originally Posted By Autopia Deb Ah yes, a different animal all together. I'm splitting the room with a friend, otherwise I'd probably be at the Super 8 or much farther from the park on my upcoming trip.
Originally Posted By Kidz-n-k9s I'm surprised to see that HoJo has the Retro Rate available from today all the way through Sunday night! Folks going to the opening might want to check into this...
Originally Posted By SuperDry ^^^ Although not on sale, all 3 Disney hotels currently have availability throughout the weekend. That surprises me.
Originally Posted By 9oldmen I did the 6-11 P.M. slot. We actually got in a little early and I was on and off the "Racers" attraction by 6:04. (single rider line). I tried to get on again but it went down and was not back up again for over two hours. Then, I did it two more times. Definately more than what I expected as far as the indoor show building part, and I heard other guests saying the same thing. We've come a long way from "Heimlich's Chew Chew Train", where the vehicle goes through that animal crackers box, giving unsuspecting guests the fase impression that they're going to go inside a show building for a dark ride section, only to just exit the other side. It's really something to see how now it's the other way around. You know that this park has officially turned a corner when you note that: a) It opened with one dark ride, which was originally supposed to be a high speed chase through Los Angeles and Hollywood, and now it has an entryway themed to old Los Angeles and Hollywood, and a ride featuring a high speed race through the mid-west...and.. b) It opened back in '01 with too many restaurants, some of which closed down(with sponsors jumping ship), and now it features new dining options, including one upscale one, which are already doing well, or which soon will be. One advantage to the 6-11 slot was seeing the area in a little bit of sunlight, and after dark, and being able to observe the "neon lights" presentation.(where they recreate that moment in the movie with all the neon coming on, with that "Life Could Be A Dream" song. I'm sure everyone here already knows about that).
