Author: touringplans.com

Holiday weekend crowds made today the busiest day of the past month at the Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, and Animal Kingdom.  Our own researchers Erin and Chrissy are still testing touring plans in the Magic Kingdom, too.  Look for their report and photos shortly.

Magic Kingdom Wait Times

These attractions had their highest average standby waits of the week and month today: Astro Orbiter, Buzz Lightyear, Mad Tea Party, Mickey’s PhilharMagic, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, The Barnstormer, Haunted Mansion, Magic Carpets of Aladdin, and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.  If you were looking for an attraction that wasn’t experiencing peak crowds, it was Jungle Cruise.  Its average posted wait of 42 minutes today was only #4 for the week, and #12 for the month.

EPCOT Wait Times

Like the Magic Kingdom, several EPCOT attractions experienced their highest average posted wait times of the past month today, including Journey Into Imagination With Figment, Living with the Land (an underrated ride, if you ask me), Mission: SPACE, Soarin‘, The Seas with Nemo & Friends, Spaceship Earth, Test Track, and Frozen Ever After.  One of the few attractions that didn’t experience monthly high crowds was the Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros.  Perhaps everyone was at La Cava del Tequila, which would be completely understandable.

Hollywood Studios Wait Times

Crowds were relatively lower at Hollywood Studios today than the other parks.  Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway had an average wait time today of 83 minutes. Its 7-day average is 83 minutes, so today ranks #3 for this week. Its 30-day average is 83 minutes, so today ranks #15 for the past month. (It doesn’t get more average than that!) Over in Toy Story Land, Slinky Dog Dash had an average wait time today of 73 minutes. Its 7-day average is 67 minutes, so today ranks #2 for this week. Its 30-day average is 61 minutes, so today ranks #4 for the past month. Its 365-day average is 76 minutes, so today ranks #136 for the past year.

Animal Kingdom Wait Times

Every attraction at Animal Kingdom had their highest average waits of the month today.  Avatar Flight of Passage had an average wait time of 71 minutes. Its 7-day average is 51 minutes, so today ranks #1 for this week. Its 30-day average is 44 minutes, which means today ranks #1 for the past month.

Kilimanjaro Safaris had an average wait time of 27 minutes. Its 7-day average is 20 minutes, so today ranks #1 for this week. Its 30-day average is 19 minutes, so today ranks #1 for the past month.

Along with Flight of Passage and Safaris, Dinosaur, Kali River Rapids, Expedition Everest, It’s Tough to Be a Bug!, TriceraTop Spin, and Na’vi River Journey posted monthly high wait times.

The post Busiest Day of the Past Month! Here Are the Walt Disney World Wait Times for Saturday, October 10, 2020 appeared first on TouringPlans.com Blog.

From our friends at touringplans.com
Filed Under: Walt Disney World (FL), wait times

If you love cakes and cupcakes, a visit to any Disney resort hotel can satisfy your cake craving. Each quick service location at each of the Disney resort hotels offers delicious desserts. Practically every location has at least one cupcake, and many locations have Mickey Mouse celebration cakes too! All are available through Disney’s mobile ordering.

Our team recently visited Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort and Disney’s Contemporary Resort to check out the latest cupcake offerings. At Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort you can have the perfect pair of cupcakes. Mickey and Minnie Mouse each have their own cupcake. Minnie’s is vanilla, and Mickey’s is chocolate. These are superbly simple with classic frosting and sprinkles, and solid cake without any filling. Each one is $5.99.

Over at Disney’s Contemporary Resort, you can always find a variety of cupcakes at the Contempo Cafe. Right now there are three different varieties of gourmet cupcakes available. Our team decided to tackle the seasonal Monster Cupcake. A confetti cupcake is filled with Candy Bar Custard and topped with lots of purple buttercream frosting. The Candy Bar Custard was not a treat for our team. The texture is wet like that of eclair cream, but not as delightful. Each cupcake is $5.99.

If you’re celebrating a special occasion and need to celebrate in a hurry, you can order Disney Celebration Cakes via the MyDisneyExperience app. You can choose between chocolate cake with chocolate ganache and mousse, or vanilla cake with white chocolate ganache and mouse. Each one is $35.00 and can serve 4-6 guests.

We’re always out in the parks and resorts researching the fun and magic of Walt Disney World. Become a TouringPlans Subscriber so you have all our tools at your fingertips – even when there’s frosting on them.

What’s the best cupcake you’ve ever had at Walt Disney World?

The post REVIEW: Disney Cupcakes and Cakes Available Through Mobile Order appeared first on TouringPlans.com Blog.

From our friends at touringplans.com
Filed Under: Dining, Observations, Resorts, Snacks, disney cakes, disney desserts, disney dining, Disney Resorts, disney’s caribbean beach, disney’s contemporary, on site disney hotels

Today we highlight our EPCOT touring plan for parents with small children that reflects the closures due to the ongoing pandemic. This plan is designed for parents of children ages 3 to 8 who wish to see the very best age-appropriate attractions in EPCOT. Every attraction has a rating of at least 3.5 stars (out of five) from pre-school and grade-school children surveyed by our site and The Unofficial Guide book. The plan keeps walking and backtracking to a minimum.

STEPS
1) Spaceship Earth Start the day with a ride on Spaceship Earth. Epcot’s signature landmark, Spaceship Earth spirals through an 18-story geosphere, taking visitors past animatronic scenes depicting mankind’s developments in communications, from cave painting to printing to television to space communications and computer networks. Spaceship Earth ranks high with all ages.
2) Rest If you’re hungry, grab some lunch. If not move on to the next ride and eat any time between now and after you ride Test Track. (Note: It may seem early for lunch so soon after arrival, but with EPCOT’s late opening time, young children may ask when is it time to eat at the first whiff of food.)
3) Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros Make your way to the Mexico pavilion and ride the Gran Fiesta Tour. The Gran Fiesta Tour is a slow-moving boat ride that incorporates animated versions of Donald Duck, José Carioca, and Panchito—an avian singing group called The Three Caballeros from Disney’s 1944 film of the same name.
4) Frozen Ever After Head to Norway and ride Frozen Ever After. Frozen Ever After is a nice boat ride through the pretend kingdom of Arendelle. The premise is that you’ve arrived just in time for the Winter in Summer celebration, in which Elsa will use her magical powers to make it snow during the hottest part of the year. Nearly every major and minor character from the original film is represented, from Olaf the snowman to Sven the reindeer, along with much of the soundtrack’s songs with brand-new lyrics.
5) Test Track If your kids are tall enough, try Test Track in Future World East. Test Track takes guests through the process of designing a new vehicle and then “testing” their car in a high-speed drive through and around the pavilion. Guests board a six-seat ride vehicle, attached to a track on the ground, for an actual drive through Chevrolet’s test track. The vehicle’s tests include braking maneuvers, cornering, and acceleration, culminating in a spin around the outside of the pavilion at speeds of up to 65 miles per hour. Test Track is one of EPCOT’s most popular rides.
6) Mission: SPACE Green Start your astronaut training at Mission: SPACE on the green mission. Guests enter the International Space Training Center, where they’re introduced to the deep-space exploration program and then divided into groups for flight training. After orientation, they’re strapped into space capsules for a simulated flight, where, of course, the unexpected happens. Each capsule accommodates a crew consisting of a group commander, pilot, navigator, and engineer, with a guest functioning in each role.
7) The Seas with Nemo & Friends Go to the Seas pavilion and ride The Seas with Nemo & Friends. The Seas with Nemo & Friends is a hightech ride featuring characters from the animated hit Finding Nemo. You ride in a “clamobile” for your journey through the aquarium. The attraction features technology that makes it seem as if the animated characters are swimming with live fish. Almost immediately you meet Mr. Ray and his class and learn that Nemo is missing. The remainder of the odyssey consists of finding Nemo with the help of Dory, Bruce, Marlin, Squirt, and Crush. Unlike the film, however, the ride ends with a musical finale.
8) Journey Into Imagination With Figment Visit the Imagination Institute and ride Journey Into Imagination With Figment. Journey into Imagination takes you on a tour of the zany Imagination Institute. Sometimes you’re a passive observer and sometimes you’re a test subject as the ride provides a glimpse of the fictitious lab’s inner workings. Stimulating almost all your senses (thank goodness for no taste tests!), it hits you with optical illusions, a room that defies gravity, and other brain teasers. All along the way, Figment (a purple dragon) makes surprise appearances. Ranks high with Pre- and grade-schoolers.
9) Disney & Pixar Short Film Festival Go next door and watch the Disney & Pixar Film Festival. This theater screens three 3-D shorts— Pixar’s Feast and Piper and Disney’s Get A Horse.
10) Living with the Land Walk to the Land Pavilion and ride Living with the Land. The boat ride takes visitors through swamps, past inhospitable farm environments, and through a futuristic greenhouse where real crops are grown using the latest agricultural technologies.
11) Soarin’ Staying in the Land Pavilion, take a ride on Soarin’. Soarin’ is a thrill ride for all ages. Rows of seats swing into position, making you feel as if the floor has dropped away, and you’re suspended with your legs dangling. You embark on a simulated hang-glider tour, with IMAX-quality images projected all around you and with the flight simulator moving in sync with the movie.
12) Eat Dinner Use your remaining time to ride anything again, or try something new. Don’t forget to grab dinner.

There’s no FastPass+ being offered at this time so you’ll have to do only stand-by lines. Don’t forget, you can customize and optimize this or any of our other touring plans using our personalized touring plans creator on the site or in our mobile app, Lines. Be sure to check out our other touring plans that will help you save time and money in Walt Disney World.

The post EPCOT Touring Plan for Parents with Small Children: Updated for COVID-19 Closures appeared first on TouringPlans.com Blog.

From our friends at touringplans.com
Filed Under: Trip Planning, Walt Disney World (FL), touring plan

We are loving how certain Disney resort restaurants are offering food to-go through mobile ordering. One of the latest restaurants to join this convenient movement is The Wave… of American Flavors. Our team headed to Disney’s Contemporary to try out mobile ordering at The Wave for take out dinner, and discovered the lounge has reopened here too.

This hidden gem of a restaurant offers some of the best breakfast and fresh, flavor entrees on Disney property. The lounge at The Wave is a favorite spot for creative cocktails that differ from the standard Disney lounge menu. Our readers give The Wave a 90% thumbs up and rank number 29 of 103 full service restaurants at Walt Disney World.

Our team placed their order at The Wave at 2:00 p.m. and selected the arrival window of 5:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. You do not need to be a resort guest to use the mobile ordering for The Wave To Go, or any other available restaurant. At 5:00 p.m. a notification was received that the arrival window had opened. While waiting for the order to be ready our team browsed the concourse of the Contemporary and eventually headed back down to The Wave’s lounge.

A batch of three seasonal cocktails are available in addition to the wonderful cocktails regularly available. Our team selected the Wild Apple Mule, with Crown Royal Apple, ginger beer, and sparkling apple cider. It is a hit, packed with sweet apple flavor balanced with spice and pucker!

At 5:17 p.m. a notification was received that the order was ready for pick up. Our team was able to get the Wild Apple Mule poured into a to-go cup, and off they went with freshly prepared food from The Wave, takeout style. Our team decided to head back up to the concourse to dine there. Should you decide to take advantage of The Wave to go, you can certainly take your food wherever you wish – back to your villa, along the shores of Bay Lake, back to a different hotel, wherever you like.

The menu at The Wave is full of fresh contemporary American flavors. Many ingredients are sourced from local farms. Our team selected the Seared Gnocchi. With forest mushrooms, sweet potatoes, rainbow swiss chard, and brown butter parmesan-sage cream, this dish is rich and full of comforting flavors. The gnocchi texture held up well even in the to-go container, though perhaps could become chewy if your transport time is longer than a few minutes. The portion is good for $22.00.

The Chocolate Flight proved irresistible as well. Chocolate Croissant Bread Pudding, Brownie Creme Brulee, and German Chocolate Cake make up this Chocolate Flight, for $11.00. The Brownie Creme Brulee stands out as the winner. The Chocolate Croissant Bread Pudding is good, so long as you obviously like bread pudding. The German Chocolate Cake is good as well, but is not a stand out.

Overall, we think it is fantastic that there are now three resort restaurants currently offer takeout through mobile ordering (Sanaa, Kona Cafe, and The Wave). Remember you can view listings for every Walt Disney World restaurant on TouringPlans.com including ratings and rankings from over 500,000+ surveys in the past few years. Get every resource you could ever need to plan your trip by becoming a TouringPlans Subscriber.

Where do you want to see mobile ordering takeout available next at Walt Disney World?

The post REVIEW: The Wave To Go Food AND Drink appeared first on TouringPlans.com Blog.

From our friends at touringplans.com
Filed Under: Dining, Drinking, Resorts, disney bars, disney dining, disney drinks, disney food to go, disney lounges, disney’s contemporary, the wave to go

Grab your floo powder, this week we are whisked away to Hogwarts Castle and the iconic attraction Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. Located in Islands of Adventure, Forbidden Journey opened with Hogsmeade Village in 2010 as part of the first Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Unlike the rest of Hogsmeade Village (which replaced Merlin’s Woods subsection of Lost Continent), Forbidden Journey was built on a new plot of land set aside for future expansion.

Quick Glance

• Location: Islands of Adventure
• Attraction Type: Motion Simulator Dark Ride
• Scope: Super Headliner
• TouringPlans Rating: 5 stars
• Height Requirement: 48 inches

The Experience

Perched high atop a Scottish cliff, Hogwarts Castle is home to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Hogwarts, as it is known colloquially, is United Kingdom’s premier school for young witches and wizards. We, definitely not witches and wizards, are invited to tour the school grounds by headmaster Albus Dumbledore with the hope one of us could be the next great wizard. Of course, none of this story actually matters because we are so excited to live our own Potter fantasy. The queue acts as a tour of the magical boarding school walking through caves, greenhouses, offices, classrooms, and common rooms.

Throughout our tour are dozens of magical “moving” paintings – think stationary dioramas with moving actors. Using patented techniques (digital manipulation, clear brushstrokes over a projection, and more) Universal creates a passable illusion of a painting come to life. These paintings facilitate a conversation between the founders of Hogwarts, give story details, and even deliver the attraction’s safety spiel.

Characters from the film also appear in the queue through complicated holographic projections similar to the ones used to reanimate dead musicians. Michale Gambon as Dumbledore welcomes us to Hogwarts and wishes for us to attend a lesson on the history of magic. Once inside the lecture hall we catch up with Harry, Ron, and Hermione who have a better idea: ditch class and catch a game of Quidditch.

We swiftly enter the Room of Requirement and board our transit: magical flying benches. The “magic” comes from Kuka Robotics technology – fans of the old EPCOT Innoventions attraction Sum of all Thrills are familiar with these amazing articulating robots that toss and turn guests. Unlike Sum of all Thrills, the magical benches at Forbidden Journey travel along a dark ride track through elaborate show scenes and seamlessly transition to and from projection domes. What guests experience is the closest approximations of levitation any of us will likely experience.

While the plot of the ride itself is totally nonsensical (something about Quidditch, dragons, and Dementors), it still hits all the major elements that made us fall in love with the books and movies. Our benches travel throughout Hogwarts, past iconic characters, and dodge a whole host of monsters. Thankfully Harry saves us at the last minute and we are given a hero’s welcome back to Hogwarts.

The Opinion

Ten years later and Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey remains one of the high watermarks of the themed entertainment industry. Epic in scope and execution, Forbidden Journey was the first attraction since the Tower of Terror that shoved attraction design forward. Every time I take new riders onto the attraction they walk away speechless from the experience. The attraction, along with Hogsmeade, revitalized Universal Parks & Resorts and redefined the industry for decades to come.

Be warned: Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey is the ride most likely to cause motion sickness outside of Mission: Space at EPCOT. If you are prone to motion sickness we suggest walking the queue then ducking out right after the Gryffindor Common Room.

Restrictions & Accommodations

• Guests must be 48 inches or taller to ride
• Forbidden Journey features roller coaster-like movements, theatrical fog, strobe lights, and scary scenes. Expectant mothers and those with heart, neck, or back injuries are advised not to ride.
• Rider Swap is offered for parties with members under the height requirement; see a Team Member at the entrance for assistance.
• Guests must transfer out of an ECV or wheelchair to ride.
• Guests with a waistline 40 inches or larger might not be able to fit on this attraction, a test seat is available outside the attraction to verify if a guest can ride.
• Guests must be able to sit upright, brace their bodies with at least one upper extremity, and legs (natural or prosthetic) must extend to the edge of the seat.

Touring Tips

Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, along with Hagrid’s Magical Creature Motorbike Adventure, draw guests all day. Ride either immediately at the park open or immediately before close. A Single Rider line is also available to cut waits down significantly but we suggest walking through the main queue once to take in the story and detail.

The post Getting to Know Universal – Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey appeared first on TouringPlans.com Blog.

From our friends at touringplans.com
Filed Under: Harry Potter, Universal Orlando Resort, Forbidden Journey, Hogsmeade, Islands of Adventure