We’ll follow all of these other bloggers into Magic Kingdom to see if there are any life changing menu updates or new walls to cover. This is a followup to this post, which covered my morning touring starting with Mine Train and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh before moving on to Space Mountain and Astro Orbiter.

As I mentioned earlier, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh broke down while I was riding. I’ve been evacuated from a number of rides over the years – the procedure at Winnie the Pooh is not particularly interesting. You sit there and cast will arrive with a tool that manually opens the door before placing a stepping stool on the ground for an easier exit. I happened to be just about in the middle of the ride or the furthest away from the entrance, so they came back and started with us and then we walked with cast from vehicle to vehicle along the track rescuing each car individually. Somebody commented that seeing the ride with the lights on “sort of ruined the magic,” but I quipped that people pay a pretty penny for the same view during a behind the scenes tour. You do also receive a paper FASTPASS to return later in the day. Winnie the Pooh is one of the older carnival-ride-esque attractions in Magic Kingdom. Disney obviously opted to pull out The Scary Adventures of Snow White to make way for Princess Fairytale Hall. You wonder what the remaining shelf life is on this one, which is incredibly prone to malfunctions. It sees downtime at some point during the day more than 80% of the time.

That downtime can have a significant impact on wait times both via standby and FastPass+ for the rest of the day as more people with FP+ return during a smaller window of time. With Disney already pushing 70% of an attraction’s capacity to FP+, increasing the number of returners in a shorter period of time means pushing closer to 80% or 90% of capacity to FP+. When something like Toy Story Mania is down for an hour in the morning, you might see four standby riders admitted for every fifty FastPass+ users. That’s not at all an exaggeration.

Depending on whether or not you’re feeling lucky, you can always play picture roulette with these posts. Each picture is numbered, in this case from https://i2.wp.com/easywdw.com/reports13/uyrsgd1.jpg to https://i2.wp.com/easywdw.com/reports13/uyrsgd325.jpg. Something like 70% of those photos will be used in the post, while prizes like this one often end up uploaded but forgotten. Had you plugged in https://i2.wp.com/easywdw.com/reports13/uyrsgd43.jpg into your browser, you could have previewed this beauty last week. As somebody mentioned in the comments of the rope drop post, if your party is two adults and you’re interested in riding Astro Orbiter, I highly recommend going as two parties of one person. It can be incredibly uncomfortable to try to fit two full size humans on this ride. At a minimum, you’d want to be good friends with whoever is sitting in front of you because you’re basically sitting on their lap.

On relatively cool days, the Casey Jr. Splash ‘n’ Soak Station is more like the Casey Jr. Stand ‘n’ Constantly-Refresh-The-App-To-See-If-Anybody-Cancelled-Mine-Train-FP+ Station as the water is turned off. In my dreams, I imagine some poor dad setting up his tripod and camera and then getting his group of 18 to carefully pose in front of the clown car, only for some cast member to push the “water on” button accompanied by a chorus of every cast member in the Park letting out maniacal laughs. I think if a cast member did that, then came over and punched me in the face, raised my camera over their head and smashed it on the ground, stuffed me in a body bag, and dragged me through Magic Kingdom and out the main exit, then I might consider paying $1,000 to cut my vacation four days short. But even then it would depend on whether or not the bar was still open.

The “eclectic” seating is back in the Storybook Circus tent in the back of the area. There are power/USB outlets for charging devices like hoverboards that don’t leave the ground and drones for battling the Electric Water Pageant floats.

If you pull up Prince Eric’s Village Market at DisneyWorld.com, and by some miracle the page actually loads, you’ll find this gem describing tubs of seven grapes for $5.

“Whenever I go on a ride, I’m always thinking of what’s wrong with the thing and how close the next turkey leg cart is.” – Walt Disney. With turkey legs moving away from Cool Ship now that Frontierland is again offering them, Prince Eric’s is one of your “opportunities” to purchase one of these revitalizing rainbow snacks.

This is across from Ariel’s Grotto and ~ Mermaid Ride.

You may remember that Gaston’s Tavern no longer serves the pork shank.

Or maybe I just really realistically Photoshopped an illustration of the Tavern Beef Stew onto the menu board in a desperate attempt to increase pageviews. That seems more plausible.

The seasonal overlay of Lefou’s Brew should be enough to silence the critics claiming Disney is cutting back on holiday offerings like Osborne Lights, Country Bear Christmas, and Lights of Winter.

This sums up every relationship I’ve ever been in.

You wonder how long it will be until Adobe throws its hat into the world of attraction sponsorships. “Cinderella Castle Crane Presented By Adobe Photoshop” has a nice ring to it.

Of course, instead of Photoshopping out the cranes, you can go in the opposite direction and add more instead.

I do have to apologize, as the six or seven of you that still visit this site because you forgot that you don’t like it anymore may have experienced some downtime early on Sunday morning. Apparently the server’s hard drive was full with “way too many pictures of construction walls for any one account.”

That ends the recycled-Twitter-jokes portion of today’s post.

I mention this because Castle Couture is now out from walls and scrims, as this lousy panorama illustrates.

it’s a small world has seen a few changes recently as we begin the recycled-Facebook-posts portion of today’s entry.

The Polynesian room has a new color scheme.

Larger: https://i2.wp.com/easywdw.com/reports13/its_a_small_world_polynesian_room.jpg

On one hand, I think I like the more natural colors in the original color scheme.

On the other hand, the new colors differentiate the room and give it a unique “feel” compared to the rooms that precede it.

It really does “feel” like you’ve moved into a new location, which may not have been as obvious with the similar color palette.

#squadgoals

One of the main objectives of the 2+ billion dollar MyMagic+ initiative was to finally catch up to Universal’s technological advancements circa 1990 in E.T. Adventure.

After massive budget overruns and a deployment timeline that took 18 months longer than expected, it’s a small world may finally display your name at the exit. Color me impressed.

I have no idea if these “Haunted Mansion inspired” D-Tech headphones are new, but they’re at least $140 less expensive than the Chewbacca version.

With Skipper Canteen serving food to a half empty restaurant on the daily, Princess Tiana returns to her gazebo. Why I’m not writing this post from Tiana’s Palace I’m not sure.

In an effort to bring you only the most important news, I won’t mention that these carts in Frontierland have pivoted a little and now face this way instead of being more parallel with the Pecos Bill/Country Bear Jamboree side.

Yes folks, turkey legs make their triumphant return to Frontierland. I know at least one of you is thinking that the Legs here are $11.25 and they were $10.49 in Fantasyland, but tax is included here and not over at Prince Eric’s Tent Revival. That does mean Turkey Legs are still 7.815 cents less expensive when you buy them under the sea.

Hamburger Whiners rejoice, you achieve yet another victory in reinstalling the burger back into Magic Kingdom’s vast and varied culinary landscape. Every morning I wake up in tears at the thought of just how few places there are in the United States of America to order a hamburger. Thank goodness somebody came to their senses and added one topped with cheese here for $13.49.

It almost makes me want to go back to Pop Century and check out one of their crazy burgers. And by almost I mean never.

They also removed that Chicken Enchilada Soup for chili.

They should be able to make the rice bowl for both kids and adults should you ask. And I do recommend asking as it’s the best thing (not) on the menu.

Here just before 12pm on January 21st, Big Thunder is at 35 minutes.

45 at Splash.

I feel like Disney should start printing, “I survived January’s massive Walt Disney World crowds and all I got was this lousy $57 shirt” shirts and charge $68 for them.

We are decidedly in, “will we die in line if we don’t have a snack first” territory at Pirates of the Caribbean. The website can’t help but tip its proverbial hat at all of you that managed to persevere through crowds of this magnitude.

I feel like I should start handing out medals or something, assuming of course I could fight through everyone to present it to this kid in the red shirt. “Sir, Sir!!!!!” Obviously he would not be able to hear me no matter how loud I yell.

I enjoyed a very pleasant lunch at Skipper Canteen and was back out in front of the restaurant just after 2pm. We’ll get to that review shortly.

Waits have gone down at Splash Mountain in the middle of the afternoon!!!!!!!! I thought this was supposed to be a low crowd time!!!

And a drop of 10 minutes at Big Thunder Mountain later in the afternoon? I’ve never been so deceived!!!!

Holy moly would you look at that traffic jam on the Rivers of America. I’m fearing for the lives of my unborn children.

Liberty Square Riverboat was closed for refurbishment as we see some work going on at the dock.

Strolling back through Old Fantasyland at the busiest part of the day.

You may remember I waited ten minutes first thing in the morning.

I mentioned in a post back in December that The Lunching Pad in Tomorrowland, located at the base of Astro Orbiter, added a Ham and Cheese-Stuffed Pretzel. I’ve been training to try and strengthen my stomach’s lining ever since by eating nothing but grass clippings and drinking lots of gasoline. Hey, it’s cheaper than bottled water and more calorie-dense.

The ham and cheese is encrusted inside of a sort-of-wide, sort-of-long pretzel tube.

They’re served hot, though I think they have a tendency to overcook them a bit or at least they get a little stale depending on how long they’re sitting inside the warmer. Otherwise, the pretzel offers a crispy, chewy exterior to a lot of ham and cheese rolled up inside. I think the way it looks is opposite of how it tastes – the pretzel looks like it has a lot of flavor and really doesn’t, and the ham looks kind of grey and gross but actually tastes good. The dusting of poppy seeds helped cut some of the salt in what otherwise tasted like your typical pretzel bread. Overall, I’d be happy to cut one of these into thirds for a snack on the way elsewhere, but I’m not sure you’d want to commit to one per person. The Waffle Sandwiches from Sleepy Hollow would be be fresher and more flavorful for the same money.

I can’t tell if anybody is waiting at Stitch’s Great Escape or not.

Monsters Inc. is another good choice in the afternoon, along with Carousel of Progress of course. With those three and PeopleMover, you could easily enjoy two hours off your feet here in Tomorrowland.

The foliage where the old Swan Boat Dock used to sit is filling in.

Everything else in the Hub looks great.

Except this maybe.

There we go.

The scenic ride back to the Transportation and Ticket Center.

We’ll take a look at Skipper Canteen and then move on to Disney Springs construction with lunch at Morimoto Asia and dinner at The BOatHouSE.