Facing (and Overcoming) Fears at Disney World

 

I'll admit it - I'm kind of a ride wimp.  Whenever we go to a "normal" amusement park, I always balk at roller coasters.  I don't love anything that goes really high, especially when my legs are free (more on this later!).  I won't go on any ride that goes upside down.  Even at a theme park like Universal, I avoid some of the "better" rides in the park (like Velocicoaster or Incredible Hulk) because they're just not my speed.

But Disney World is different.  Right?  It's supposed to be a family friendly complex, with rides for children of all ages.  What could possibly be scary about the rides there?  Well, I'll admit that I have been afraid of a few things.  But on this last trip, I decided to face my fears.  And since I'm here writing this, I lived to tell the tale.  We're going to talk about this here, but know that if you're hesitant about certain rides, you are not alone.

Tiana's Bayou Adventure Opening Date

 

At long last, Disney has made it official - Tiana's Bayou Adventure will open June 28 at Walt Disney World.  This post will look at that announcement, talk about how you can ride and discuss some of the previews that have also subsequently been announced.

Let's start with the announcement itself.  Ever since Disney moved up the opening of this attraction from "late 2024" to "summer 2024", it was only a matter of time before we heard something officially.  What's interesting is that there had been numerous opportunities (shareholders' meeting, earnings call, etc) to make the announcement in recent weeks, and Disney didn't take any of them.  

Tron Lightcycle Run Ride Review

 

We recently returned from a trip to Walt Disney World, where we had our first opportunity to ride Tron Lightcycle Run, Disney's shiny new launch coaster in Magic Kingdom.  Over the course of our trip, we were fortunate enough to ride it not once, not twice but three times.  This post will talk about what we really thought about it, how easy or difficult it was to secure boarding groups, and how it fits into the big picture at Disney's flagship park.

As we talked about in this post, Tron was a long time coming.  It took over five years from announcement to opening, which seemed long considering it was a clone of an existing ride.  Yes, the pandemic happened in the midst of this, but this one seemed to drag on for a while.  The canopy was under construction on our list trip in 2022 (and possibly in 2021 as well?  I'd have to look back at photos to be sure).

Island Tower at the Polynesian to Open December 2024

Disney today announced the opening month for the newest DVC resort on property, the Island Tower at Disney's Polynesian Villas & Bungalows (Disney loves a good long name - I'll probably just refer to it as the Island Tower whenever I talk about it here).  There's some new concept art, notably of the inside, as well as discussion of what types of rooms are available and when they can be booked.  We'll talk about that here, as well as some brief commentary.

The new artwork as well as an opening (sort of) date are really the only new things here, and I've mostly said my piece about this resort here.  Not much has changed here, including the concept art, so one has to assume that the final product will resemble these pictures pretty closely (right now it's mostly a concrete tower).  Oh, I guess the name is new too, as I think this is the first time I've heard the term "Island Tower" used in conjunction with this resort.

How We Did Most of Animal Kingdom In Four Hours (Without Genie)

 

I recently wrote about how we did mostly everything at Epcot in one day with the help of Genie+.  In that piece, I revised my opinion about Genie, saying that it was a big help at Epcot, even if not strictly necessary.  If you have a limited budget, Epcot would be one of the parks I would skip purchasing Genie+ for, though it would make for a longer and more stressful day.

Today I'm going to talk about Animal Kingdom a bit.  As the title of this post should make clear, I did NOT revise my opinion about this park as it relates to Genie - I still don't see any way in which it's worth it, at least until Tropical Americas opens (in other words, we're talking about years, not months).  The only way in which Genie makes sense at Animal Kingdom is if you start at a different park and plan to hop here later, and you've already purchased the Genie+ multi-park option.  In that case, I can see an argument for stacking a few rides so that you can get more done in a shorter amount of time.  If you're really itching to spend money at Animal Kingdom, there is a better use of your funds (which will be discussed below).

How We Did Every Attraction in Epcot (with the help of Genie)

 

We recently returned from another successful trip to Walt Disney World.  I've had a lot of thoughts over the years on how best to "beat" each park and we had some opportunities to test out these various theories over the course of a week.  I'm going to be talking about some of these here, and the first one today will be about Epcot.  This is going to challenge or perhaps revise an old opinion of mine related to Genie+ and talk about some options whether you choose to purchase it or not.

The day that I'm going to focus on here today was our first day in the parks.  We had an incredibly early flight to Orlando, and were therefore at our resort by mid-morning.  After leaving our bags and reorganizing things we'd need to take with us, we walked from the Boardwalk over to Epcot, arriving right around 11:00 a.m.

Crowd Report - New York Week (Boots on the Ground Style)

 

Even when I'm not in the parks, I like to look at wait time data.  That information can help be predictive, and can also show where we (and Disney) were right and wrong, once the actual crowds play out over the course of a week (or more).  I tend to post about these things here, since it doesn't necessarily need me to be at the parks in order to analyze trends.  I most recently discussed this here, if you were curious.

So even though the week of 4/20-4/26 wasn't a "big" week by most measures, I wanted to do an analysis of the crowds here since I can not only look at the data but supplement it with my own personal observations since we were there.  We can look at how our week was compared to those around it, and what factors may have contributed to these levels.  As always, the data here comes from Thrill Data.  

Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind Review

 

This may be old news to some of you, but Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind opened at Epcot about a month after we had visited in 2022.  Just recently we had our first opportunities to ride this attraction, so I wanted to post my thoughts on this.  We'll talk about how to ride, how it stacks up to other recent additions and address some of the questions and concerns that have been talked about since the ride opened.

For some background, Guardians is the first ever coaster at Epcot (which is an impressive feat, given that Epcot has now been open for more than 40 years).  The pavilion that houses the coaster replaced the Universe of Energy pavilion, which closed in 2017.  Originally announced as opening in 2021, this attraction, like so many things, was delayed by Covid and eventually opened on May 27, 2022.