April 4th Part 3
We parked at the TTC, took the monorail in and made it to the Magic Kingdom entrance by 6pm. We took some obligatory photos.
HEA is back!
Still some lingering 50th anniversary stuff.
Rob and Kira were starving so we headed to Columbia Harbor House. I like this spot because it's usually not too crowded, we can always find a quiet corner upstairs to eat and it has good air conditioning.
Rob got the salmon, which will become his staple this week at MK, Kira got some chicken strips and I got some water.
Sadly, they don't have the good honey mustard here, like some other places. They only have that crappy Heinz stuff.
My kiddo likes the 4 long strips, as opposed to the 8 nuggets that some places serve but she also loves that honey mustard sauce, and her and I both need an air conditioned place to sit while we eat, so it's hard to come by a place that has all three of those things.
Us picky women, huh?
I know many people are drawn to all of the food booths at the Epcot festivals but in all of my years of being at those festivals, I think I've only stopped once at one of those booths. I'm grouchy and picky. I don't like lines, or crowds or eating on top of a garbage can. I like to sit in the A/C, bonus points if it's in a quiet corner.
I had wanted to get some spring rolls but I also didn't want to eat before we went on Tron. Like I have mentioned a bazillion times already, I don't do well in the heat and often, when I eat, it makes it worse. I have a hard time regulating my temperature, even when it's not really hot outside. Anything above 18C/65F is hard for me.
If I had my way, I would only visit Orlando in December, January and February. And even then, during some of my previous visits in those months, it's been really hot! I was here for work last January and there was a cold front and it was FABULOUS!!! I had to scrape ice off my windows in the morning but I was doing it in shorts and a t-shirt and was very happy!
Sadly, my kiddo can't miss school so in order to have these experiences with all three of us, it has to be during her school breaks. I will say though that we've been here in the Summer three times now, over at Universal Orlando and it was WAY less crowded and WAY less hotter than it was this week!
I had heard that the new Tron store would only be open today for people who had the digital experience booked and that there would be a special Tron merchandise area open at Star Traders but I wasn't sure if they were going to have the entire selection available or just some opening day merch.
Let me start this whole Tron chapter with some backstory. When Tron Legacy came out in 2010, Rob and I went to see it on opening day and it quickly became a favourite movie of ours! We loved the music, the cinematography, the actors, it was just a great movie. Rob even bought us matching shirts (and hoodies) for us to wear to see the movie in the theatre but sadly my Extra Large shirt did not fit my extra large...ummm....bosoms, so I never got to wear it.
As Kira grew up, she kind of got hooked on the movie because we watched it a lot and like her two music-loving parents, she is also obsessed with music and well, Daft Punk just makes amazingly catchy music!
Eventually, her and Rob would watch it together without me and it kind of became their movie. So, all three of us are massive Tron Legacy fans so you can probably just imagine how excited we were when they announced that they were building this ride at the Magic Kingdom. In fact, during our last trip together, in 2018, we said that we would come back once it opens. Sadly, due to the crapshow that 2020 was, it was delayed but oddly enough, here we were for the official opening day.
I had gotten up at 7am and purchased ILL's for 8pm. I wasn't sure if I would be able to do it but since the ride had an almost two-month soft opening, and I have quick fingers, I was able to secure us a spot on opening day! We were stoked!!!
So, now that you know that we are huge fans and since many of you already know that my husband likes to shop, you can probably imagine that he was about to make a nice dent in this particular store.
This is what he was after....the Tron MB+! I thought it was ridiculously overpriced at $65 but that's Disney for you. He ended up getting this one and Kira got the regular Tron MB. They also got matching shirts, the bluey-green ones that say Tron coming in 2023 but the better ones, in my opinion, were the passholder ones but since we are not passholders, we couldn't get them. Personally, I think it's so dumb for Disney to sell merch to only a certain select group, especially since they had paused the sales of annual passes for so long but whatever!
I get maybe giving the passholders first dibs but why limit it? I've seen tons of passholder merch in the outlets, it's crazy that they wouldn't just sell it for full price to non-passholders! I was thinking of getting that black passholder shirt too until I realized that it was passholder merch. I liked it way better than the non-passholder t-shirt they were selling. I think that black shirt was $40, so Disney lost out on $120 just from us! Silly.
Rob ended up getting three pins, a patch, the MB+, the t-shirt, and the digital disc, which is also a Bluetooth speaker. He was like a kid in a candy store.
I had gotten us a
DAS for Space Mountain when we went through the tapstyles. It was now time to ride. I had to pry my husband out of the store.
You can see that Rob was wearing his Tron hoodie. It glows in the dark.
I have a matching blue one at home, that also never fit me, so it belongs to Kira now.
Only Rob is crazy enough to wear hoodies in Florida in April.
We had some time to kill so we went on the Peoplemover, a classic! I always need to take a pic with my kiddo when we ride. It is a tradition that started with me and my mum when I was a kid.
We were so excited, we could see it from the ride! Not long now!
It was now after 8pm, our ILL time and we headed to the ride. Just a tiny bit excited.
The whole esthetic vibe just works! I mean, it's gorgeous and very reminiscent of the movie. We loved it! We went back a couple of days later during the day and it's just not the same. You have to see it at night. Even if you don't ride it, just walk around the area at night. Every once in awhile, the blue flashes white and then turns to orange. It's sooooo pretty! It also helps that they play some of the music from the movie. You cannot go wrong with Daft Punk.
Rob was kind enough to wear the GoPro on a chest strap for me so we would have some footage of the ride for my videos. It's the only way they legally allow you to record on this ride. I know many people just take their phones out from the little storage thing on the bike and film but technically, you aren't allowed to do that.
It took a minute to get the GoPro on and set to the right settings and then we entered the Lightning Lane line. I had heard that the VQ line that day was 1-2 hours!
We all loved the pre-show room where they "digitize you into the world of Tron". Loved the reveal of the track below!
We put our stuff into the lockers, which are just like the ones at Velocicoaster where you drop off your stuff on one side and then pick it up on the other side.
My excited, blue family.
We all wanted to ride in the first row, so Rob and Kira went together first and then I went on the next train.
The ride photos here are awesome. When you get them.
They take photos from both sides, which is great when you ride with someone you don't know. Rob put his hoodie up for the photo.
They also give you video of both sides too.
We rode this ride three times that week and I never got any photos or video of me. I ended up having to email Photopass and they just found my three ride photos and my last ride video a few days ago. I never did get video of my first two rides.
The ride itself is really great, especially the outdoor part, it's just wayyyyyyy too short. I feel like it was only half a ride. Rob and Kira said they were just fine on the bikes but as someone who carries some extra weight, the bike was super uncomfortable for me. All of the videos I've seen mention the whole calf issue. There is a pin that comes up and locks into place behind your knee and if you have bigger calves, it can be very uncomfortable and even leave marks and bruises. Well, my calves were just fine but my inner thighs were being pinched the entire ride! The bike seat, in my opinion, is very wide and I don't know if I just didn't spread my legs wide enough or if that's just the way it is for us pooh-sized folks but it was very uncomfortable! You literally have seconds to get into your seat and pull the handles down so that your seat locks and then once that happens, you are stuck until the ride is over, so my suggestion is to make sure you take some time, get as comfortable as you can before you lock yourselves in!
It was a nice smooth ride, nothing scary, no big drops. I wouldn't say it had any thrills, not like Space Mountain or RNRC. It was just fun! Minus the crotch pain.
When I got off the ride, the CM at the front was screaming at us to get off the ride as fast as possible and get up the ramp as fast as we could! Wow, that's a little rude and overkill I thought.
,
As I was getting off, since I was at the front and the ramp is near the middle-back of the ride, I had to wait for the rest of the people on the ride to go up first. There was a little kid who had lost a flip flop coming off the vehicle, so that group was kind of slow to get off and another CM was yelling at them! I was like, what the frick is going on? Why is everyone being yelled at? Did I step off and enter the Twilight Zone??
Then I go up the ramp which leads you down the narrow corridor and the other door was wide open (from the other side of the track) and people were pouring out from there too! Remember us trying to get past the Lion King Festival? That's what it felt like! So many people, inching along slowly, all the while being yelled at by Cast Members.
By the time we got half-way down that long corridor, I had noticed the lights on the walls were flashing. Okay, I get it now, the alarm had gone off and we were all being evacuated. It makes sense now but man, that was a rude awakening! And really, maybe NOT yell at your guests?? I don't think screaming at anyone will make anyone go faster.
I finally made it to the area with the lockers and I found Rob and Kira and they both had a slight look of panic on their faces. Apparently, they were worried about me because after they got our stuff from the lockers, they were waiting for me, also not knowing what was going on, and they saw hundreds of people go pass them and thought they might have missed me or thought maybe something had happened to me. Once we were reunited, we walked further down the hall and there were CM's on each side of us, every 10 feet or so and they were all yelling at us to get out!
Even once we left the building, there were tons of them, on both sides, all the way down the ramp, all yelling!
What the heck!
I stopped for a quick second just to put my fanny pack back on and I got yelled at!
"Keep moving, DO NOT STOP!!!" right at my face! Sweet jesus! This was not a pleasant experience!
We got all the way down the ramp, past the Tron Lightcycle Run sign, as the fireworks were being set off (you could actually hear huge bangs inside of the building, even as I was getting off of the ride vehicle, which really didn't help with the chaos because most people didn't realize what that noise was until they got outside and saw them) and I stopped for another second to grab my water from my bag and I got yelled at again!
Holy crap! Enough with the yelling already!
So, apparently, the fireworks had set off the alarm and the ride was evacuated. Although they had been running this ride now for two months, it's only been running during certain hours. I think this might have been the first time that they were running the ride while the fireworks were set off.
So, the high that we felt after riding Tron for the first time was definitely overshadowed by the unpleasantness of the evacuation.
We waited until the fireworks were done so we could cross over to ride Big Thunder, which we had gotten a DAS for after Space Mountain.
I had hoped to grabbed my spring rolls on the way there but apparently, the cart had closed at 7pm.
I was starving, I had only had that kid's hot dog meal at Satu'li but it was late and still a billion degrees so I decided just to skip dinner that night.
The park was open for another hour but we were thoroughly exhausted so we just headed out.
We took the Ferry back to the TTC. So pretty!
Back to the resort. Here's a better view of the cute new mugs...
I was still debating on getting a MB+. After opening Rob's and comparing the two, I just decided to not buy one and just use my old band. I find the regular bands to be a little bulky and the MB+ ones were even bulkier. I wear my fitbit but it's really thin, whereas Rob is used to wearing an Apple watch, so it didn't bother him at all. Plus he liked how it lit up. I asked him if he knew that it would light up after a light tap and he said "No way!!!" It never did seem to work for him though.
Another long day with many steps. Time for bed!
The plan for the next day was to get up at 7am, try to grab a VQ and a midday ILL for Tron and a late night ILL for Guardians of the Galaxy.
Stay tuned to see how those plans turn out.
Though like you said go go go so....
