I’m tired (as always on a Sunday evening) so I’ll try to keep this brief (as always on a Sunday evening ;-)).
Crowds were the lightest I’ve seen in a long time at the park gates when I arrived this morning at 7:15. I’m sure that’s almost entirely due to the rescheduling of the early entry guests (they’re now at DCA on Sunday mornings). Perhaps two percent of it was due to the rain ;-). For the first time in forever, we were the first into the park, something I always love. See the pic below of the empty Main Street.
At the rope, we saw (and spoke with) Mary, a legacy Cast Member, who’s been with Disney for approx. 38 years. She’s always very pleasant and kind and is often in charge of the park. At such times, her call sign is “Theme Park One.” That was nice because we hadn’t seen her in several months.
We waited towards the center of the hub for rope drop at 8:00. We then made our way briskly to Peter Pan. We wanted to be first on it, since this morning marked the return of the true rope drop experience (i.e., without EE guests already ahead of us). Fortunately, we were able to manage it. As always, it felt like the perfect way to start the day.
We did a few other rides in FL and then I headed to Buzz. In short, although I managed a few respectable scores, I had a lot of trouble on that (frustrating and maddening) attraction. About five of my scores didn’t come through and two of them were given to riders either immediately ahead of or behind me (one of them was 1.9M!). Fortunately, I'm wise to Buzz’s ways, checked the adjacent pics and both times was able to claim my score. I only broke 2M once today, but that was good enough, given all of the challenges and limitations.
The Space Mountain single-rider queue has returned to its original location close to the loading area. In recent months, guests would enter a queue that ran alongside the standby guests. That’s no longer necessary, which is nice. This is the second week in a row that I’ve done it and in both cases it took me less than a minute to board. Recently I considered getting in the SR line… but it had about 30 people in it. At that point it would have been just as practical to go standby (sort of ;-)).
Last week I posted that a CM told me that park maps would soon be phased out. I noticed this morning that
none of the lines at the park gates were stocked with them (I checked again in the afternoon and still nothing). I spoke with a few CMs about the issue and I was told that they’re certainly
cutting back on them but, for the moment, there are no plans to eliminate them
entirely. That’s a relief.
It rained slightly today and I left the park at around 1:30. Just as I merged onto I5 headed north, the sun came out.
One really nice thing happened at around 12:30. As many of you know, Haunted Mansion will close tonight for several months to implement the several planned changes. I was talking to a (very attractive, cool and kind) Cast Member and she told me about some of her favorite park memories. As I was about to take my leave, she asked if I’d like to enter HM by way of the Lightning Lane. I accepted, graciously, and the ride was virtually a walk-on, even though the standby line was approx. 30 minutes. That was special and it helped to make my day. I found her after I exited and thanked her again. I love when CMs go well beyond the call. Some of you may recall that a similar thing happened to me on Buzz
last Sunday.
As always, I’ve got park maps for anyone who’d like a set. Simply send me a direct message with your preferred mailing address. Domestic delivery is preferred but on occasion I’ll accommodate overseas requests if a compelling case is made.
On a personal note, some of you know that I’m a writer who aspires to write for television. On Friday I pitched myself and my latest pilot script (an original show) to a rep at a well-known agency. That’s nearly always a hopeless strategy since connections in Hollywood are
usually made through personal recommendations or by meetings at parties/other social events. I felt that the pitch I wrote was both clever and convincing and one of the agents must have agreed because he requested my script on Friday evening within 20 minutes of my email to him. That’s always a great way to head into the weekend. Wish me luck!
Park pics.
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