Disney World 50th Anniversary Trip Report (Part 5

This is going to be a different trip report post. The short version is that today was super weird because everything revolved around the 50th Anniversary celebration, which meant heavy crowds who were mostly interested in popcorn buckets and other merchandise. We didn’t do any real touring until the evening, so there’s limited strategy for a low-wait night at Hollywood Studios at the end of the post.

The first part of this post is mostly photos with accompanying brief descriptions. We sort of wandered around at our leisure most of the day and did a lot of small things we wouldn’t usually do, so 300 words explaining each little decision would get tiring. The second part focuses on some quick evening touring at Hollywood Studios. We’ll resume our normal full-day touring-focused content in the next post.

Main Street was already busy by 6:56AM. There was a virtual queue in use for access to the special October 1 merchandise. A few videos of the scramble for merchandise went viral, but these videos were actually of the merchandise in Emporium, which was available a few days beforehand and, as I write this post a few weeks later, still available.

Getting into the virtual queue for the special merchandise was a drag. They had removed the QR code from the signs by the time I entered and indicated it would be replaced when the queue reopened. Actually, what one needed to do was find a Cast Member with the QR code on a sheet of paper, scan it, and refresh throughout the day until you lucked into a spot in the queue.

Early Entry was available and started earlier than the advertised 30 minutes before park open. This wasn’t particularly surprising and I expect it will be a one-off (though it’s not historically unheard of for parks to open early regularly).

I caught the new welcome show from afar. Most days the welcome show is a little tricky to catch. If you have Early Entry, you have to deliberately time a visit to the hub, where all the non-resort guests are, to catch it. Even without Early Entry, you stand to lose a little bit of ground to the crowds heading to rides if you stand somewhere with a good view of the show. The show itself is short, just a few characters coming out, saying hey, and a quick firework at the end.

No picture, but if there’s one cool thing to be learned in this post, it’s my new trick for getting coffee—specifically cold brew—at Magic Kingdom. While I prefer Starbucks on Main Street, I’m always willing to get Joffrey’s because the Starbucks line is often ridiculous. But so often all the Joffrey’s lines, even the Westward Ho line in Frontierland, get really long. Anticipating this, I hopped on mobile order on the My Disney Experience app and ordered cold brew from Friar’s Nook, which worked out perfectly.

Zoe loved playing in the Dumbo play area. It’s in the queue of the Dumbo ride, if you’re unfamiliar. If the ride is operating with a short wait and the play area is open, you can basically walk right in and use it at your leisure. If the ride is busier, you might have to wait to get into it.

We rode the Liberty Belle, which continues to be one of our favorite places for Zoe to nap. The above gallery has multiple photos (use the arrows on either side).

We waited 61 minutes from the time we tapped “I’m here” on our Cosmic Rays mobile order until the food was ready. To placate our toddler during that wait, we had to give Z some pouches in the Baby Care Center. Entering the Baby Care Center, the door handle and its wood block mount fell on Emily. Not a huge deal, but doors shouldn’t be falling apart in Disney World, and it was heavy enough that if it had fallen on, say, Zoe, I would have raised all sorts of hell.

I like that the new Cosmic Rays veggie burger has avocado. I don’t like that it is covered in messy flour—er, “moon dust.”

Once our virtual queue spot was called we were able to buy some October 1 merchandise in Peter’s Silly Sideshow / Big Top Souvenirs. The above gallery has some pictures of some of the items that were available.

Zoe got to play in the Casey Jr splash area. Loved it. We visit with a swim diaper (which is technically required in the area) and a body swimsuit.

We took the bus back to the resort, waiting about 20 minutes for a pickup. Zoe played in the playground next to the Coronado Springs pool for a bit.

Emily loved October 1 before it was cool, in the sense that she’s celebrated it as a fall holiday since I’ve known here. Fortunately and unfortunately, our lifestyle has taken us all sorts of places on October 1, from the relatively on-theme London, to the completely off-theme Disney World for the opening of the Skyliner, to the very on-theme Prague.

Unfortunately Florida just doesn’t have those fall vibes, and we hadn’t taken the time to wait in the coffee line on Main Street to get pumpkin beverages. To make up for this loss (and in light of our coffee fiasco at Coronado a few days ago) I ordered two Pumpkin cold brews, a pumpkin scone, and a pumpkin muffin from Starbucks on Uber Eats.

I’ve used Uber Eats maybe once before, and while these services are all pretty straightforward, it’s worth pointing out this Uber Eats driver had the same challenges many Uber drivers in the area have. She missed one turn that added like 10 minutes to her trip to me.

Around 4PM we got the notification that Magic Kingdom had closed to park hopping. There’s a few reasons to suspect this was a one-off and not something we need to regularly worry about. The chief thing is that a large number of guests in the park weren’t riding rides, and almost all of them were there planning to see Disney Enchantment, the new firework show.

I don’t know how these decisions get made, but knowing that almost no one was going to leave the park for the rest of the night, and that they were all going to try and pack onto Main Street probably informed the decision to close the park to park hoppers.

I worked in the lobby of Gran Destino, one of my favorite lobbies in Walt Disney World, but ultimately decided I needed to spend time in the parks gathering content. I decided to go to Hollywood Studios to see the Tower of Terror “Beacon of Magic” effect and do some touring.

Evening Touring at Hollywood Studios

Now, you definitely can’t count on having the type of evening I’m about to have most days. But the takeaway is sometimes you need to seize opportunity. If this evening had been planned as “resort” time on your trip and you made a quick decision to switch it up, you’d have covered a lot of ground.

Hollywood Studios is only 5 minutes from Gran Destino by Uber, which I paid $8.41 for (no Zoe, so no car seat). It was about 6:45PM and I had until 7:45PM, when the Tower of Terror Beacon of Magic started. I planned to be down Sunset Boulevard—by Tower and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster—around that time. New 50th Anniversary maps debuted:

I started with Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway which had a posted wait of only 15 minutes. I waited 9, boarding at 6:55PM. From there I made the short walk over to Toy Story Mania, waiting six minutes and boarding at 7:11PM.

I could have squeezed in Alien Swirling Saucers, but I decided to play it safe and head toward Sunset Boulevard. Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster was a posted 15 minute wait so I used the single rider line (something I usually avoid when here for work, but which serves the “get the most of out of a little time” theme of tonight well), waiting only 6 minutes.

The Tower of Terror Beacon of Magic effect is a projection overlay on the tower. The actual “show” aspect of it takes only about two minutes, but the tower remains illuminated and the show repeats every 15 minutes throughout the night. I walked right onto Tower of Terror following the show.

Rise of the Resistance was astonishingly posted at 10 minutes when I got back there around 8:05PM. I wound up through the entire experience and back in Galaxy’s Edge in 23 minutes at 8:28PM.

While this wasn’t a sprint through the queue and onto the ride, 23 minutes is the absolute fastest I would say you can count on getting through the ride. If it was a posted 0 or 5 minute wait, I’d plan at least 23 minutes from getting in the queue to being back in the land.

Smugglers Run was posted 10 minutes wait but the single rider line was closed. This was a bummer mostly because the single rider queue is incredibly short, while the standby queue is much longer. To top it off, I was behind some really slow walkers. I wound up spending 9 minutes in the queue—all walking to the ride—boarding at 8:40PM.

This was another opportunity to try and squeeze Alien Swirling Saucers in, but it wasn’t worth the risk. at 8:50PM I got in line for Slinky Dog Dash, which was a posted 30 minute wait. I waited 14 and got great views of Hollywood Studios at night and a distant view of some of the Enchantment fireworks at Magic Kingdom.

But I wasn’t done yet! Hollywood Studios was now closed, but Harmonious over at Epcot was starting at 9:45PM. From park-to-park I made the Hollywood Studios to Epcot walk in 15 minutes, arriving at 9:27PM with plenty of time to pop into Rose & Crown for a beer.

I grabbed a spot with a view of the main Harmonious ring barge but with obstructed views of the sky (where fireworks would be).

My take on Harmonious is pretty simple—if you’re at Epcot for a day, you’re going to stay and watch it, it’s a fine show, so I’m not going to belabor my analysis of the show because that’s just not what I’m here for. Personally, I tuned out about 3/4 of the way through because it’s lots of disconnected Disney songs (okay, connected in the sense that “culture”) that I hear all the time anyways.

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Evening Touring at Hollywood Studios

It’s back to regular touring tomorrow with a great day at Animal Kingdom!

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