Originally Posted By AutoPost This topic is for Discussion of <a href="http://www.LaughingPlace.com/Latest-ID-77976.asp" target="_blank"><b>Latest: Disney World Promotes Star Tours with an Off-Property Van and Medal Ceremony Invite</b></a> <p>A Mom and the Mouse at the Orlando Sentinel reports on a promotion Disney World is doing for Star Tours. The Star Tours Central Florida Tour van greets visitors on International Drive and U.S. Highway 192 with Star Tours Characters and giveaways including Star Tours mouse ears. They also give a certificate that allows guests to participate in a medal ceremony with Princess Leia at Hollywood Studios.</p>
Originally Posted By HokieSkipper <<Does Star Tours actually need all this hype...?>> Have you seen the basically non-existent wait times for it?
Originally Posted By SeventyOne The other day, I counted 3 sandwich board signs hyping ST as I walked thru the TTC to MK. Taking characters off-property like they did at the FL Mall and now here seems unprecedented. Am I forgetting some promotion in the past?
Originally Posted By sjhym333 I was off today and decided to head to the Studios to finally ride Star Tours. I also wanted to pick up something at the Art of Disney but thats another thing all together. Got to Star Tours and there was a 40 min wait posted so I grabbed a FP forn 90 mins later. As I was walking away I noticed that one of the greeters was an old friend and after some chit-chat he offered me a current FP. Very nice. Headed up the ramp and into the building. Couple of quik observations: 1) Didnt seem like much of a change in the queue. Did notice some slight differences but nothing major. 2) There were 2 CM's inside the queue, one to take FP's and one to keep both lines full. I assume this is to keep the preshows full, but seemed like a waste to have 2 people doing a job that one could do just as easily. I also thought...I wouldnt want to be standing there for an hour. Most FP merge points have a console or something, this was just a mid-queue position. 3) Rode the attraction twice. Had Yoda once and Darth Vader once. The upgrade and new movie are ok but nothing extraordinary. Thought a couple of times...we waited a long long time for this? Not a bad redo, just not great. 4) Thought the 3-D was a waste. Walked past Toy Story Mania which had a 50 min wait on my way out. Ran into an old friend working at the front gate who told me that it wasnt too busy today. They also told me that Disney is having major problems with counterfit tickets coming from the Hwy 192 area. Seems that some very talented people have been able to break the ticket coding on the magnetic strips and producing not only counterfit regular tickets but resort id's. The only thing that Disney has to tip them off are the bio-scans of the finger and I gather that if the bio-scan doesnt work then Disney is double checking the tickets to see if they are real or not.
Originally Posted By EPCOT Explorer >>>The other day, I counted 3 sandwich board signs hyping ST as I walked thru the TTC to MK.<<<< Saw these, too, and they look incredibly cheap and desperate. This, from the once great masters of marketing, Disney.
Originally Posted By leobloom >> 1) Didnt seem like much of a change in the queue. Did notice some slight differences but nothing major. << Agreed. If I hadn't read it online, I probably wouldn't have noticed the changes in the queue. Nothing that screamed "major upgrade". >> 3) Rode the attraction twice. Had Yoda once and Darth Vader once. The upgrade and new movie are ok but nothing extraordinary. Thought a couple of times...we waited a long long time for this? Not a bad redo, just not great. << I rode it once, and really had no desire for a second trip. It was just Star Tours with a new coat of paint. Nothing exceptional about the new film (or I should say nothing exceptional about the film segments I got). >> 4) Thought the 3-D was a waste. << For the amount of 3-D that I saw, I didn't understand why they couldn't have done the film in HD. Not even sure I noticed anything 3-dimensional other than Leia transmission. In short, won't be rushing back to MGM anytime soon to ride this or the Toy Story Wii Ride. Other than the Fantasyland stuff, is there anything major coming up for the parks? Because I'm looking at the attraction line-up and not really seeing any reason to revisit the parks anytime soon. Now Hawaii on the other hand...talk about a trip worth saving your money for!
