OT: A humble request of all Disney experts...

by Brendan ⌂ @, The Chemical and Oil Refinery State, Monday, May 08, 2023, 13:22 (642 days ago)
edited by Jay, Tuesday, May 09, 2023, 08:16

We're going to Disneyworld August 19th to 26th with our three sons, ages 12, 12, and 10. Hardly the best time to be in Orlando, I know, but my wife is a teacher so it has to be in the summer, and that puts us after the start of school in Florida so hopefully it'll be a bit lighter.

We're staying offsite but not by much, at a family timeshare ten minutes away from the main gate. Obviously Magic Kingdom is a must, and the boys have said they want to hit Hollywood Studios. We're torn on Epcot and Animal Kingdom, and we also want to work in one day at Universal (mostly for Harry Potter) and one day of nothing (for chilling at the resort).

That's about as much as we're sure of. As far as park logistics, Genie/Fastpass, dining, what order of attractions makes the most sense, etc., we have absolutely no idea. Any advice from the crew here and/or any additional planning resources you can point us to would be greatly appreciated.

And yes, ftr, I consider spending time with the Mouse to be a soft-spoken but clear middle finger to DeDoofus.

--
"Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy." - Yeats

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travel

Definitely get the Genie/Fast pass for Hollywood Studios

by HullieAndMikes, Yelling at Sam Cane, Dunedin, Wednesday, May 10, 2023, 08:32 (640 days ago) @ Brendan

We went without on our recent trip, and I thought the lines and everything were OK except for the Star Wars and Toy Story stuff in Hollywood Studios. That's where it would definitely be worth the extra splurge, as we waited more than an hour in a virtually non-moving line for the Millenium Falcon ride before bailing.

My humble Disney info...

by AlDogg, Wednesday, May 10, 2023, 06:13 (641 days ago) @ Brendan

If you are into Star Wars, there is so much at Hollywood Studios to see and do in the area. Download the app, you can hack droids, ships and doors.

Rise of the Resistance is one of the best experiences I have had - I would recommend getting there at rope drop and making a bee line for it and ride it right away.

I could have spent all day in the Star Wars section... there is so much little things to do if you are patient and just observer the surroundings. The Millenium Falcon ride is amazing too - you get to literally walk onto the Falcon.

For a SW geek like me, it was awesome.

The extra pass is worth it just for the train ride

by atxND, Tuesday, May 09, 2023, 11:45 (641 days ago) @ Brendan

The Harry Potter train ride between parks is incredible. After a full day in the sun, you'll be convinced you're standing at 9 3/4 and riding the actual train to Hogwarts. Universal really surprised us in terms of how much fun we had. The Harry Potter stuff is all really well done.

The $75 Harry Potter wands are also worth getting, in spite of the cost. Kids have a blast making things happen in the various storefront windows.

Universal Studios is funny

by CK08, Wednesday, May 10, 2023, 07:21 (640 days ago) @ atxND

A big section of it is pretty dated...they should just lean into it and brand it as "90s Land."

But then you walk through that unmarked building and arrive in the completely immersive Diagon Alley, then board the Hogwarts Express, come out of Hogsmeade Station in Islands of Adventure, and...boom, there's the castle.

It's really freaking cool, even for an adult. Very well done.

The Star Wars character meets are cooler than I expected

by HCE, Tuesday, May 09, 2023, 10:10 (641 days ago) @ Brendan

I thought it would be lame, but then Darth Vader started yelling at me, in James Earl Jones' voice, about stolen Death Star plans. My inner child was delighted, even if my actual children were a bit scared.

Interesting read "LARPing Goes to Disney World"

by Albie, Tuesday, May 09, 2023, 09:16 (641 days ago) @ Brendan

I have never LARPed, but I did play D&D before getting a license and discovering beer and girls. This article is just kind of mind-blowing, because even though I am not in target market I would never have known this existed if not for seeing this article. Fascinating stuff.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/05/30/larping-goes-to-disney-world

n February, when it was cold and wet in New York, I rode a jitney under blue skies from the Orlando airport into Disney World. Before reaching the Magic Kingdom, the bus passed a range of gray crags perched on scaffolding—a sliver of Black Spire Outpost, which, in the “Star Wars” universe, is a settlement on a planet called Batuu. Nearby, the Millennium Falcon rested below a control tower built into the rock; Stormtrooper helmets were for sale at a sun-bleached military-surplus garage. Black Spire is also the destination of the Galactic Starcruiser, a spaceship that carries hundreds of interstellar tourists to and from the outpost, on what Disney calls an “immersive adventure.” The Starcruiser begins its journey floating in space, light-years from Batuu and Black Spire. In reality, the spacecraft is a massive brutalist building that sits beside a highway.

In 2012, Disney spent four billion dollars to buy Lucasfilm, which produces the “Star Wars” films and TV shows, and acquired not just the imaginations at Lucasfilm but those of its fans. The creation of the Galactic Starcruiser suggests a wager: many “Star Wars” enthusiasts, not content with repeat viewings of “The Mandalorian” or dressing up as a Stormtrooper at a convention, will pay to experience this fantasy universe through live-action role-play, or larp. In a Larp, players, often in costume, improvise stories and borrow from such genres as medieval fantasy, science fiction, and vampire movies. In the indie LARP Dystopia Rising, people spend the weekend staggering around as zombies—or hiding from them. In Sahara Expedition, the Italian larp collective Chaos League, inspired by the fiction of H. P. Lovecraft, leads archeological expeditions that dig for artifacts in the African desert.

For more than a decade, Imagineers—Disney designers and researchers—have been looking into larps and interactive theatre, and running “playtests” in the parks. In 2019, Disney opened Black Spire Outpost, which put some of its experiments into practice. Disney calls nearly all its employees “cast members,” and at Black Spire Outpost most cast members are Batuuan. As guests walk between gift shops and rides, the cast members invite them to role-play. A local in earth-toned robes might draw a visitor into his confidence, to sell her a lightsabre, while a hero from another planet leads a kid behind trash cans to hide from soldiers in white armor. At Black Spire Outpost, these interactions last for a few minutes; on the Galactic Starcruiser, they go on for two nights.

“Do you know about the term ‘magic circle’?” Lizzie Stark, an American larp designer, asked me, a few days before I went to experience the Starcruiser myself. “It separates your reality from the reality of the experience that’s being created for you.” In the nineteen-fifties, when Walt Disney sought real estate for his first theme park, in Southern California, he feared that the grandeur of the Pacific would overshadow his creations, so he settled away from the ocean and encircled the park with a railway. Every part of Disney World builds boundaries. Guests board the boats of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride only after walking through a warren lit by lanterns and piled up with cannonballs and wooden barrels. By the time they get to their vessel, they can almost smell the sea.
A girl taking a selfie with Princess Snow White.
In recent decades, meeting Disney characters involved standing in line, maybe getting a photo. Now you can live alongside them.

The Galactic Starcruiser encourages guests to help build the circle. After a simulated ascent into orbit, passengers arrive in the hull of a spacecraft, where crew members ask what planet they’re from. And then the game begins.

“The world is so huge now, it feels endless,” Cecilia Dolk, a Swedish larp producer and creator, told me. “When you go into a fantasy universe, it’s smaller, you can focus.” In the old parts of the Magic Kingdom, this is not always true. The day before my journey on the Starcruiser began, I stood in the park and watched a float decorated to look like a pile of treasure roll past an Early American bakery where women in bonnets made waffles. Atop the pile, Tinker Bell sat waving, like a pixie Jackie Onassis. Cinderella’s castle loomed behind her.

A greater narrative focus was achieved in 2010, a few miles away, when Universal Studios Orlando unveiled the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. The Wizarding World had roller coasters, of course, but its real innovation was the fidelity of its setting. Guests drank Butterbeer under the wooden rafters of the Three Broomsticks, then stepped out into the village of Hogsmeade, with Hogwarts Castle in the distance. At Ollivanders Wand Shop, visitors could spend thirty dollars on a wand, after a bit of retail theatre guided by a sorcerer in a purple coat. Universal had established a new kind of magic circle; within a year, according to the Orlando Sentinel, park attendance increased by forty-one per cent.

An attractions arms race began. Disney’s New Fantasyland opened in 2012. It focussed on princesses—Belle, Snow White, Ariel. You could eat at Beast’s Castle (the Be Our Guest Restaurant) or visit a cottage where you passed through a magic mirror and helped Belle relive her fraught romance with the Beast.

The latter experience, Enchanted Tales with Belle, was surprisingly popular. There are complex animatronics involved—Lumiere, the candlestick, stands on a mantel, bending his metal waist as he tells a story—but the primary appeal is the interaction with Belle. “Our live characters are the most important part of our parks and resorts; they’re the enablers,” Scott Trowbridge, a senior Imagineer, told an interviewer shortly before New Fantasyland opened. Trowbridge, who oversaw the early development of the Wizarding World, had left for Disney in 2007. “We’ll probably replace our Imagineers with robots before we replace our cast members,” he said.

Snow White used to roam the Magic Kingdom. But, even before Instagram became endemic, she was mobbed by guests who rushed her for hugs, autographs, and pictures, as if they had come across Anne Hathaway on a hike in Runyon Canyon. Many chance encounters have been replaced by “character meet-and-greets” at designated venues such as Princess Fairytale Hall.

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When I visited the hall, Snow White welcomed her guests in a transatlantic falsetto. The lights on her red cape and her ruby lipstick were bright. A little girl in a Minnie Mouse skirt offered her autograph book across a velvet rope but retracted it in anguish when a cast member told her that, owing to COVID restrictions, the Princess could not be approached. Instead, the girl got a socially distanced photo. Snow White extended one foot and folded her hands under her chin. “Have you ever had gooseberry pie before?” she asked me. “It’s the only thing that puts a smile on Grumpy’s face.”

Real-life royalty liked meeting characters from their favorite stories, too. In the sixteenth century, Henry VIII had a group of yeomen play Robin Hood and his Merry Men, so that he could eat venison with them in the forest. Decades later, as Lizzie Stark writes in “Leaving Mundania” (2012), a book about larps, Queen Elizabeth I was entertained by the ancient Greek poet Arion, who appeared riding on a “twenty-four-foot-long mechanical dolphin.”
A group of people dressed up as Star Wars characters.
Some Starcruiser passengers dress as their favorite characters. Others avoid boldface names.

Technology both propelled and inspired these fantasies. In 1901, visitors to the Pan-American Exposition, in Buffalo, boarded an airship hoisted on cables and watched painted canvases go by, representing Niagara Falls, the clouds, and the disk of the Earth. They landed on a lunar surface, made of plaster, where they ate green cheese, browsed souvenirs, and encountered moon people. After the Second World War, Walt Disney, an avid model-railroad builder, visited the Chicago Railroad Fair and watched a pageant of historical reënactments on an outdoor stage—the deadly journeys of the forty-niners, the driving of the golden spike. “Disney wept at each appearance of Lincoln’s funeral train,” Richard Snow writes, in “Disney’s Land,” from 2019. In one scene, Disney donned a top hat and frock coat and served as an extra.

In 1955, when Disneyland opened, one early ride travelled through the diamond mines and forests of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” The experience perplexed visitors, because it left out Snow White. The creators had assumed that people would want to adopt the perspective of the Princess. But the easiest identity to take on was the one they were already inhabiting—that of a guest. As the Finnish larp designer Johanna Koljonen told me, “The thinnest possible role for someone to play is a version of yourself who believes the fiction to be true.” Other rides got this: Jungle Cruise passengers are visitors on a tour; the mortals who enter the Haunted Mansion are guests of the ghosts.

By the twenty-first century, Imagineers felt that parkgoers might want to inch closer to the spotlight. Around 2008, Trowbridge invited families at Disney World to participate in a pirate-themed playtest called the Legend of the Fortuna. Some guests were resistant. “Am I going to have to wear a hat?” Trowbridge recalled one mother asking him. Her family dug for treasure on the beach and parlayed with buccaneers. Dozens of cast members trailed the families, reacting to them as they hunted for gold and pirates. “By the end of that experience, it was the mom who had her cutlass up, holding the villain back,” Trowbridge told me. (Was she wearing a hat? “She was wearing a bandanna.”)

“We’ve trained our guests really well to think in one way about how to see a character—stand in a queue, maybe get a photo with them,” Wendy Anderson, a former Imagineer, told me. The latest innovations involve guests more deeply. “We’re giving you the tools to believe it’s real.”

The Galactic Starcruiser embarked on its maiden voyage at the beginning of March. Days before, Imagineers hosted a kind of dress rehearsal, inviting Instagram and TikTok influencers, as well as journalists, to participate. (When the experience opened to the public, a cabin for three to five people cost as much as seven thousand dollars.)
Child asks parent to stop reading their bedtime story aloud
“Would you mind reading to yourself? I’m trying to sleep.”
Cartoon by Michael Maslin

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I ordered an Obi-Wan Kenobi costume from Amazon, so that I could look like the Jedi who lives on the desert planet of Tatooine and watches over Luke Skywalker, a farm boy who harvests moisture from the air. TC Conway, a former Disney cast member who used to help run a fireworks display, is a frequent poster in Facebook groups for the Galactic Starcruiser. He told me that most denizens of the groups, when choosing a costume, avoid boldface names. “They definitely want to be their own character, because they can control it easier,” Conway said. “They don’t want to be Luke. There already is a Luke. I hope I see none on the ship.”

Leaving the Obi-Wan Kenobi outfit behind, I opted to be a moisture-farm-equipment salesman, and wore a Carhartt work vest. Ivy, my girlfriend, and Tim, the illustrator of this piece, joined me on the trip. Ivy dressed as an engineer, in a black jumpsuit, and Tim, in a quilted jacket, was our adopted son, a descendant of mineral miners from the planet Mustafar. On departure day, we walked down a long corridor from the parking lot to the “launch pod,” an elevator with gray and orange panels. Screens depicted our ascent into space—orchestral music swelled as the blue sky gave way to a vision of the Starcruiser floating against the stars. The doors opened onto a twenty-three-foot-tall atrium dotted with circular couches.

“My name is Christian,” a cast member in a blue uniform told us as he signed us in. “I’m from the planet of Naboo.” He led us to a turbolift—an elevator playing a version of itself—and asked if this was our first time aboard a starcruiser.

“First time in space,” Tim said.

“Wow,” Christian replied, as he showed us our room. “So this must be all new to you!”

Many things were familiar but had novel names. Christian described the offerings of the “refresher,” gesturing toward the bathroom. Other things were more sci-fi. “That is D3-O9,” Christian explained as he walked over to a small screen on the wall. “Our logistics droid.” Pushing a white button started a video chat with a yellow-eyed robot. Like Siri, D3 responded with automated scripts. At one point, a Stormtrooper appeared as a hologram in the foreground of the screen. I told him I liked his helmet. “Our helmets, yes,” the Stormtrooper said. “Sleek, bold, intimidating—advanced onboard tech.”

We took a turbolift to the Crown of Corellia Dining Room, a vast hall flanked by a stage and a lunch buffet. Half a dozen Lukes, Obi-Wans, and Han Solos sat beneath iridescent light fixtures. At the buffet, a Luke attired in a white karate gi grabbed a plate of salmon as other passengers poured cups of blue milk, a delicacy on Tatooine. There were also people in Earth clothes. “I got this space food,” a man in a black T-shirt at a banquette said to himself. “I’m about to space-eat. Just like a space fool.”

Three decades ago, when Disney animators began work on “The Lion King,” they brought a lion named Joseph into the studio and sketched him. They also travelled to East Africa to study lions in the wild.

Some twenty years later, when Imagineers wanted to study larps, they went to Europe, where, after the release of the “Lord of the Rings” movies, “you could buy foam larp swords at the supermarket,” Bjarke Pedersen, a Danish larp designer, told me. Pedersen and Koljonen, who are married, started as vampire and fantasy larpers in the nineties. Pedersen, like many of his American counterparts, was inspired by such role-playing games as Dungeons and Dragons, though he bristled at the actuarial tables—Gary Gygax, a co-creator of D. & D., was an insurance underwriter—that determined the outcomes of combat. “It didn’t really fit the culture here,” Pedersen told me. “Nordics are way more collaborative than adversarial.” Pedersen and Koljonen became active figures in the Nordic larp scene, a community that prefers games with deep emotional involvement and few rules.

It’s difficult to overstate the ubiquity of larping in Scandinavia. Østerskov Efterskole, a boarding school in Hobro, Denmark, offers classes in which students pretend to be ancient Romans or superheroes in order to learn about math and history. The Swedish Gaming Federation has secured hundreds of thousands of dollars for youth LARPing, and the national government has long provided funding for youth clubs, hoping to promote civic engagement. (Mission accomplished: in 2016, Pedersen and Koljonen formed a company that organized a vampire larp at the European Parliament, in Brussels.)
People roleplaying as different fantasy characters.
A good LARP provides “alibi,” an excuse to act in character without feeling self-conscious.

In 2008, Cecilia Dolk, the Swedish larp designer, helped create the game No Man’s Land. Nuclear war and a pandemic ravage Sweden; small bands of survivors hunt for food and supplies. Dolk and her collaborators collected some twenty thousand euros and set about scouting locations and gathering gas masks. “One day, a guy on crutches came up to me and was, like, ‘I can do pyrotechnics,’ and someone else said, ‘I have a friend who has access to a plane and needs flight hours,’ ” she recalled.

She showed me a video of the results: survivors ran for cover as smoke rose from the rooftops around them. “If you saw that now, would you guess it’s real or fiction?” she asked. It looked real to me. “That’s good and bad, I think,” she said.

Five years later, Dolk worked on the Monitor Celestra, a larp that drew inspiration from the TV space opera “Battlestar Galactica.” The game was played three times, on a retired Swedish warship. The team of larp producers that made Celestra, one of the first so-called blockbuster larps, functioned more like a business than like a group of hobbyists. Four hundred participants paid about five hundred dollars each. Disney Imagineers were there, mixing with a crowd of veteran gamers and first-time larpers in the ship’s cramped metal corridors. Dolk and a crew of more than eighty volunteers had installed flashing green lights that warned of fictional radiation leaks and built wooden stands that displayed radar maps and weapons systems. In a secluded room, half a dozen volunteers controlled what came across the radar. At least once, a small spacecraft approached, and larpers on the bridge wanted the craft to dock on the Celestra. The team sent Dolk, dressed in a jumpsuit, to play the pilot. Control of the ship went back and forth between a moderate faction and one that wanted to impose martial law. On one voyage, there was an ethnic cleansing.

Such conflicts underscored the security of Scandinavian life. “We had too much food, too much safety,” Dolk said. Nordic larpers chase the same highs as rock climbers, she suggested. “We are emotional junkies,” she said. “Most of us larp because we can feel it and smell it with our bodies.”

“Nordic larps—they’re not for everybody,” Trowbridge told me. Some of them “can be intense experiences, and that is probably not what we want to offer to our mainstream audience.” Imagineers also studied escape rooms and fourth-wall-breaking theatrical experiences such as the noirish “Sleep No More.” (“In L.A., there’s some interesting horror-based stuff,” Ann Morrow Johnson, an executive Imagineer who worked on the Galactic Starcruiser, told me.) “We’ve tried to bring all these forms together,” Trowbridge said.

After the Imagineers played Celestra, they discussed the game with some of the larpers they had met. When I asked Trowbridge what he’d admired about experiences like Celestra, he was reticent. I asked Dolk if she or her crew had any memories of the Imagineers on the ship. “We don’t kiss and tell,” she said.

More Nordic larp designers, inspired by the success of Celestra, started setting highly produced games in popular fantasy worlds instead of inventing them entirely. “We gave birth to a new genre of larps,” Dolk said. As Disney and Universal poured hundreds of millions of dollars into interactive settings, theme parks and blockbuster larps came to resemble each other. Universal Orlando opened a second “Harry Potter” land in 2014—the year that a group of larpers leased a medieval castle in Poland and started a “Harry Potter”-inspired larp called the College of Wizardry.

In 2017, Bob Chapek, then the head of Disney’s theme parks and resorts, took the stage at the D23 Expo, in Anaheim, where Imagineers preview upcoming attractions, and confirmed rumors of a luxury “Star Wars” resort that would offer guests a “multi-day adventure.” “One of the things I’m most excited about is that every window in this place has a view into space,” he said. In other words, there would be no windows.

The next year, at Knutpunkt, a larping conference (“knutpunkt” is Swedish for “junction”), attendees wavered between excitement and anxiety about the Starcruiser project. “It’s a little bit like your favorite indie band suddenly appearing onstage at big national stadiums,” Lizzie Stark told me. “It’s really cool, but there’s also this feeling of ‘How dare they?’ ” Evan Torner, a longtime larp organizer, told me he worried that corporate players would drive out indie ones: “Only the industry can really afford to book the big arena shows.” An international group of gamers published the “Local Larp Manifesto,” pushing back against exorbitantly priced larps with elaborate costumes and expensive sets. I asked Alessandro Giovannucci, an Italian musicology professor and a member of the Chaos League larp collective, whether he was concerned that corporate theme parks would eclipse the indie larp scene. “This is the way of all subcultures,” he said. “It happened to punk rock.”

Other larpers hope that the success of the Galactic Starcruiser will draw new audiences and investors to an emerging group of professional game designers. Jay Knox, a co-runner of Sinking Ship Creations, a larp company in New York, got into such games after a friend took them to a vampire larp. “All of the cool kids I met that night are my friends now,” Knox told me. Knox and their business partner, Ryan Hart, charge each participant anywhere from a hundred dollars for an afternoon larp to around a thousand dollars for one that spills into the streets and bars of Manhattan for two days. Neither of them blinked at the Starcruiser’s price tag.

In Calculations, written by Caro Murphy, a veteran larper with a side-swept cyberpunk haircut, Sinking Ship customers play a spaceship pilot delivering medicine to Mars, where colonists have been dying from an illness that causes “shortness of breath.” Murphy adapted the game from a nineteen-fifties sci-fi story by Tom Godwin. In 2021, Disney hired Murphy as an “immersive-experience director” for the Galactic Starcruiser. Murphy said that a Disney rep had told them not to talk about their work at the park, so we spoke about larps in general terms. “There is this tension between the commercial part of larp and the community part,” they said. “A lot of people think of larp as intrinsically based on volunteer labor, but those volunteers are increasingly responsible for the physical, mental, and social well-being of everyone involved. That is a massive job.”

In January, at the height of the Omicron wave, Hart ran Calculations for me in his Lower East Side home. In the basement, I sat on a paisley-print sofa under the stairs. A laptop on a table connected me to my A.I. assistant, Gabi, voiced by Allegra Durante, a professional actor.

“This is an air lock,” Hart explained. “This leads to outer space”—he waved his hands toward the foot of the stairs. I looked around. A covered basket and a large black chest sat near a TV and a bookshelf full of Dungeons and Dragons manuals. This was my ship. “Game on,” Hart said and jogged upstairs.

Gabi told me that the ship had drifted off course because of an unaccounted-for hundred-and-forty-pound mass. In other words, there was a stowaway. I searched the ship, terrified that I would find a human body as I lifted the covering of the basket (towels) and then opened the chest (bedding). Finally, behind a pillow, I discovered a pair of eyes. A young woman with black pigtails—Lucie Allouche, an N.Y.U.-trained actor—stared at me from a crawl space under the stairs. Gabi had told me that stowaways must be sent out the air lock. If we didn’t act, the Martian colonists would not get their medicine and we would both die adrift in space. The first stranger I’d touched in two years sobbed against my shoulder. Eventually, she ascended the stairs to her death.

After the larp, Hart explained that Sinking Ship normally provides more spaceship ambience: dim blue lights, a speaker that mimics the sound of pressurized air. Such elements bolster what Nordic Larpers call “alibi,” an excuse to act in character without feeling self-conscious. I told him the game was still pretty sad. A lot of customers seek out larps that make them cry, he said. “That’s all they want from me. I’m, like, I could do a lot of shit. I can do comedy. I can do romance, action, thriller. All of those are much harder than crying.”

Tears are a metric for Disney attractions, too. “I know we’ve been successful in some of these things when I see people cry,” Trowbridge told an interviewer last year. “We’re not always aiming to hit that mark, but I think that’s got to be in the mix—to have those emotionally resonant important experiences.”

In the “Star Wars” films from the seventies and eighties, the outgunned Rebels destroy the Empire. In a trilogy of sequels that Disney produced more recently, the First Order emerges from the ashes of the Empire and the Resistance rises to defend the freedom of the galaxy. The Starcruiser story is set amid the sequels. Just before the action began on the ship, the passengers gathered in the atrium. Two Stormtroopers, led by Lieutenant Croy, a First Order officer with a sneering British accent, walked out onto the second-floor balcony overlooking the space and told us that we were all under investigation for Resistance activity. We also met the cruise director and the captain, and the onboard entertainment, two humanoid aliens, one with green skin and one with purple skin. A mechanic in a blue jumpsuit, named Sammie, darted nervously through the crowd. Each character guided smaller groups down different story tracks as passengers decided what kind of role they wanted to assume. Resistance fighters trailed after Sammie, the captain, or the cruise director. First Order sympathizers did the bidding of Croy.

The afternoon progressed quickly: in the engineering room, a dark cavern full of pipes and machines, Sammie and a group of children in white and brown robes studied the schematics of the ship. Upstairs, on the bridge, a ninety-foot screen acted as a window onto space. Players stood in groups of four or five, twisting knobs and pressing buttons at control stations. Suddenly, tumbling rocks filled the screen and Wagnerian music began to play as we heard the dull crash of an asteroid glancing off the hull. I was already sweating when, as in the Monitor Celestra, a smaller spacecraft appeared. The Resistance fighter Chewbacca roared at us. By directing drones depicted through the window, we got Chewbacca onto our ship. (Another echo of Celestra: the Galactic Starcruiser is set in a less familiar part of the “Star Wars” universe, giving the Imagineers more room to make things up and putting less pressure on guests to do homework.)

A few hours before dinner, I started to get messages from Croy on my datapad—an iPhone installed with a Disney app. He wanted a favor: Would I walk to a touch screen by the turbolift and download data from the ship’s computer systems? If I helped Croy, I might be welcomed to a clandestine meeting with him. It seemed less like a video game than like scrolling through texts on a Friday afternoon and angling for invites to the right parties.

I felt more at ease in the Sublight Lounge, a plush cocktail bar, playing a card game called Sabacc. Sabacc blends poker with blackjack and provides something essential in a larp: a reason to do nothing. Sara Thacher, a senior Imagineer, attended the College of Wizardry in Poland twice, and realized that “alibi” could encourage rest. “A big ‘Aha!’ moment for me there was just being in a castle, in a wizard robe, having a cup of tea, and having this alibi, this reason to be there,” she said. Sabacc, like the cup of tea, permits passengers to take a break from the action without breaking the fiction.

Under the dim maroon lights of the Sublight Lounge, Ivy, Tim, and I tried to hold a conversation with a musician, Ouannii, a green-skinned alien with a white faux-hawk and a mouth shaped like a Minivac. She didn’t speak Galactic Basic (English), but she did understand that Ivy wanted to pose with her for a photograph. At dinner, Stormtroopers paraded Chewbacca into the dining hall and arrested him. “Lock him up!” Tim yelled. Croy rushed over to Tim and shook his hand.

These encounters were fun, but Koljonen, the larp designer, had told me that she would not judge the Starcruiser to be successful unless guests were “ ‘Star Wars’-ing at each other.” At one point in the evening, we carried red cocktails into the Climate Simulator (a walled rock garden open to the sky), where we found two passengers who seemed ready to role-play. One, dressed like Han Solo, said that his name was Lynx. The other had long silver hair, face tattoos, and vampire teeth. Her name was Kes, and we learned that she had two hearts. We discussed the persistence of slavery on Tatooine. Lynx told me that their home planet, Iridonia, a rocky wasteland roiling with lava, had a good social safety net.
Two people looking up at flying fedoras
“I always knew fedoras would come back.”
Cartoon by Liana Finck

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For many larpers, the most valuable thing about role-play is the change of perspective. Chaos League, the Italian collective, created a larp about water shortages in the developing world, in which players received only half a litre of water per day. (The group did a poor job of communicating that they wouldn’t let players die of thirst, Giovannucci told me.) The collective has since received grants from the European Union to make larps about climate change. Betsy Isaacson, a larper who used to work with Sinking Ship, offered a simpler explanation of larping’s virtues. Sure, it can be used as an empathy machine. “But also I like frivolity,” she said. “I am pro-escapism.” During the pandemic, Isaacson organized larps with incarcerated men. She would write them as the editor of a nineteenth-century Arizona newspaper, and the inmates would send back dispatches from the American frontier. “People are, like, ‘Escapism is bad,’ ” she said. “And I’m, like, ‘Are you a jailer?’ ”

Disney has learned not to discomfit its visitors. On the second day of our cruise, I had a breakfast of whipped eggs in a “Batuu-spiced” white sauce with Ivy and Tim. The well-appointed interiors of the Starcruiser are not a typical setting for a “Star Wars” story; the films don’t usually align themselves with the upper classes. One of the sequels features a resort town called Canto Bight, whose patrician guests are scoffed at by the downtrodden protagonists. But the Imagineers felt that luxury would better fit a resort experience. “We wanted people to have impeccable service, so you can relax and enjoy your story,” Wendy Anderson, the former Imagineer, told me.

After breakfast, Ivy, Tim, and I boarded a custom-built truck standing in for a spacecraft. We were headed for Black Spire Outpost, the rugged market town. Imagineers hoped that the tension between the comforts of our voyage and the grunginess of our port of call would enhance the exotic appeal of Batuu. “When that transport door opens,” Anderson said, “it really feels like you’ve gone to another world.” She was right. As we waited outside Savi’s Workshop, a black-market lightsabre dealer—for two hundred and twenty dollars, guests can assemble their own lightsabres—cast members stood under worn brown canopies that shaded them from the hot suns (Batuu has three). They told me that they had commuted from nearby slums on dilapidated shuttles. “They’re like your transports, but junk,” one of them said.

A forty-five-hour larp is exhausting. Back on the Starcruiser, I lay in bed and looked out the porthole. We kept jumping to light speed and landing in asteroid fields. Suddenly, I heard shouts through the door. First Order spacecraft filled the window. I went out to the atrium and ran into Kes, the silver-haired larper I’d met in the Climate Simulator. “We’re being blockaded, which usually means conscriptions,” she explained. The First Order had hung crimson flags in the atrium, making it clear that we were under martial law.
People LARPing as scifi characters.
LARPers often experience “bleed,” in which imaginary feelings blend with real ones.

Tim later approached me, during a musical performance meant to act as cover for subversive activities in the atrium. He told me he thought that Kes might be a cast member. He’d seen her being chummy with Croy in the engineering room.

I used the Internet for the first time in twenty-four hours to Google the name of the larper Disney had just hired. I edged around the crowd. “Caro?” I whispered to Kes.

“Yes!” Murphy said, grinning.

I asked if we could finally talk about the Starcruiser, perhaps over dinner. They checked with a publicist. “We can go to dinner,” they said. “But I have to stay in character.”

We met Ivy, Tim, and Lynx—the Han Solo from the Climate Simulator—in the dining hall. We marvelled at how many children seemed to have aligned themselves with the First Order. “A lot of tattletales on the ship,” Lynx said. Later, Croy would boast that he had turned sons against fathers.

A red light began to flash. All the passengers filed back to the atrium, where the larp came to its climax with a lightsabre duel on the balcony overhead. Croy told the Stormtroopers to wipe us out, and I found myself shrinking in fear. When a happier outcome was revealed, most passengers cheered, some started crying, and others slipped off to the Sublight Lounge for a few more hands of Sabacc.

I spotted Scott Trowbridge and Ann Morrow Johnson standing together in the atrium.

“Sorry for the disturbances,” Trowbridge said, smiling.

“Yes,” Johnson told me. “I know it wasn’t how you’d want a cruise to go.”

I retreated to a hotel room in Kissimmee, with a lightsabre I had assembled on Batuu. I clicked it on and off. A real window looked out onto a parking lot where a circle of teens stood kicking at the ground. I turned on the television and learned that Russia had invaded Ukraine.

Larpers talk about a concept called “bleed,” the sensation that occurs when the emotions you imagine your character having mix with your own. Now the “Star Wars” fantasy of asymmetric warfare had bled into real life. On one of the Starcruiser Facebook groups, a poster complained that the “Star Wars” costume she had ordered on Etsy had been stalled because the seamstress lived in Ukraine. “We are a nation of craftspeople,” a Ukrainian larper named Ilya Kuchinsky told me from his apartment in Kyiv. Kuchinsky makes detailed plastic armor for fantasy battles that rage across the world. On Telegram, he had been joking with his larping buddies who were fighting on the front. “We talk with a lot of fantasy idioms,” he said. “We call the Russians Orcs.

“We used to be one big larp family,” he went on. But, in recent years, he couldn’t help seeing Russians as the enemy, citizens of an empire that viewed Ukraine as a colony. Still, he said, “not speaking as a Ukrainian but as a larper, it’s bad for larp, because the Russian larpers—they’re a great community.”

Kuchinsky felt that larping had made it easier to stay calm even as the war became more brutal. “We change realities so many times that the situation now is not so hard for us,” he said. “Except when we lose our friends or members of our family. You can’t be prepared for that.” Recently, he had driven a hundred miles to evacuate two families from Chernigov, a heavily bombarded city near the Russian border. “When I was driving through enemy territory,” he said, “I thought through different situations: What if I need petrol? What if I see tanks? What will I do? It was a kind of larp adventure, but with more emotional depth.”

A few weeks later, I listened to an interview with a Lucasfilm executive who had worked on the Galactic Starcruiser. The Resistance always prevails, he confirmed, but the story leaves room for players who fantasize about martial law and First Order uniforms. Or, as some larpers put it, if you play to lose, you’ll get a better story. It reminded me of advice Kuchinsky had for the Russian forces and their expansionist aims. “Please don’t try to win,” he said. “Just enjoy where you are.” ♦
Published in the print edition of the May 30, 2022, issue, with the headline “The Great Pretenders.”

google the longstanding DL "social clubs"

by Jay @, San Diego, Tuesday, May 09, 2023, 09:39 (641 days ago) @ Albie

I think the Neverlanders were the first (and maybe still most popular). These are folks who dress like biker gangs with custom jackets and meet up at the park routinely. Others are the Main Street Elite, the Bad Apples, etc. They've all been active for a long time.

Do whatever you need to do (Maybe sell one of the kids)

by Chris @, Raleigh, NC, Tuesday, May 09, 2023, 08:00 (641 days ago) @ Brendan

to go on Rise of the Resistance (Hollywood Studios) and the Avatar: Flight of Passage (If you do Animal Kingdom).

And I'm only half joking about selling one of the kids.

If you get to Universal, do the Jurasic Park coaster.
And my 3 oldest still love the Hulk Coaster.

--
"F--- everyone who isn't us."
#Team128

We weren't as prepared for Universal as we should have been

by LaFortune Teller ⌂ @, South Bend, Tuesday, May 09, 2023, 07:54 (641 days ago) @ Brendan

when we went in early 2022 (with then 16- and 9-year old girls). Kids were mostly interested in the Harry Potter stuff at the parks, which we didn't realize going in that we needed to buy tickets to the other park halfway through the day to see it all. If your family is really into Harry Potter, they'll probably want to experience both as well.

The "primary" immersive stuff was at Universal Studios Florida (Diagon Alley, Wizarding World), but the better stuff (in mine and the 16-year old's opinion) was at Universal Islands of Adventure (including what may be the most fun roller coaster I've ever been on, Hagrids Motorbike Adventure), and there is a Hogwarts Express train ride that connects the two and requires a ticket to the other park to do.

Quick Universal suggestion

by Jeremy (WeIsND), Offices of Babip Pecota Vorp & Eckstein, Tuesday, May 09, 2023, 08:02 (641 days ago) @ LaFortune Teller

They have a "FastPass" system as well, and I think its better than Disney's. I'd definitely recommend springing for it.

Some of the bigger rides aren't on it (ie, Hagrid's Motorbike, Velocicoaster, probably some others), but for everything else, I think you definitely get your money's worth.

The Hagrid coaster is great with the "surprise" at the end.

by Chris @, Raleigh, NC, Tuesday, May 09, 2023, 08:01 (641 days ago) @ LaFortune Teller

- No text -

--
"F--- everyone who isn't us."
#Team128

Good hack for young Dads

by Albie, Tuesday, May 09, 2023, 07:18 (641 days ago) @ Brendan

I think I have posted this before and while it is not Disney related per se (unless you live in Central Florida) it is something I wish I had done earlier: go to your local amusement park on Father's Day.

We kind of accidentally went to Busch Gardens on Father's Day to meet up with my wife's sister who was in Williamsburg for a wedding the day before. Needless to say, I was not thrilled, but the place was completely empty. We never waited in line for rides, food, games, anything. It was fantastic.

It is well worth giving up whatever you would normally choose to do on that Sunday to be a hero for the day and with no lines, amusement parks are pretty damn fun.

They have some great coasters.

by oviedoirish @, Oviedo, Florida, Tuesday, May 09, 2023, 07:39 (641 days ago) @ Albie

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I was there the same week last year.

by domer.mq ⌂ @, Monday, May 08, 2023, 20:50 (642 days ago) @ Brendan

I won't try to give you the PhD answer. I know WAY too much about this stuff. The suggestion below to get a Touring Plans membership, read their blog, and get their book is really good.

Just some data from our trip with a 14yo, 11yo, and 8yo at the time:

- Animal Kingdom was the hottest place I've ever been when we were there that week. I've never experienced sweating like that, and I've run 3 half marathons in the last 2 years. And after the safari ride (which is great) and Everest (which is a lot of fun), everyone was ready to go back to the hotel WAY before lunch. And I was totally good with it too. It's a half-day park. Period.

- EPCOT is under a ton of construction right now, but if your kids like thrill rides, you MUST try the Guardians ride. It's a 100% original experience. It's really trippy. Everyone loved it. And good news, since Tron opened in Magic Kingdom, it's apparently not that hard to get a ride reservation. When we did it, I was up at 7am buying the reservation, and still ended up not riding until like 3pm.

- As for Magic Kingdom: I think the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party is going to be happening while you're there. It was when we were there. It's an expensive extra, BUT IT'S ENTIRELY WORTH IT. We rode Big Thunder Mtn and Space Mtn like 10 times each that night with hardly any waits. We were dizzy with the amount of candy we were handed. And I'll even say that it's worth making sure everyone's got some sort of easy costume for the night. I was a begrudging participant on that bit, but the pictures made it worth it. It's great.

--
Sometimes I rhyme slow sometimes I rhyme quick.

If you have to pick between Epcot and Animal Kingdom

by omahadomer, Monday, May 08, 2023, 20:24 (642 days ago) @ Brendan

I'd pick Epcot given the ages of the boys. I think the food is pretty good at the "national" places to est. I'm partial to the French one because I speak pretty good French, and the waitstaff are all from France.

There's nothing wrong with Animal Kingdom, but I just don't find it all that much more interesting than a zoo and in August heat it might be a little fragrant.

The "Unofficial Guide to Disney World" is well worth the money. It's updated every year and it's written by Disney fans who aren't afraid to give you an unvarnished opinion on what's good and what isn't.

Scheduling a good stretch at a restaurant (or wherever) out of the sun and in air conditioning is excellent advice. Some of the character themed restaurants are fine for 'tween boys. There are lots of good options on dinners, some at Disney hotels.

Hats and sunscreen are as others have mentioned a must. Even if you're in the shade there's so much reflected UV radiation you can get burnt. Even you are the sort who gets tan in the summer I'd still put sunscreen on arms and legs (to say nothing of faces, necks, ears, etc.).

I've been to Universal several times. The Harry Potter stuff is all in the park that's farther back of the two. I don't remember whether a one-day pass gets you into both. As my kids got older, we tended to stay in one of the Universal hotels and keys to those got you to the front of the line and into everything.

Planning is everything. A lot of people wander in there and think they'll figure it out as they go along. Figure out in advance where you're going to eat, whether you can get (or need) reservations, what the priority rides are for the kids (and you), etc.

It's a lot of fun if you go in with a plan that everyone has bought into. The last thing you want is an argument about whether the wait in line for Space Mountain is worth it.

RE: Universal

by Domer99, John Wesley Powell's Expedition Island, Tuesday, May 09, 2023, 07:00 (641 days ago) @ omahadomer

I know this is already a booked lodging situation, but I do recommend staying at one of the Universal's Premier hotels (Loews Portofino Bay, Loews Royal Pacific, and Hard Rock Hotel). These hotels come with automatic Fast Pass and you get in an hour early. It's more expensive for sure, but not as expensive as buying the Fast Passes individually. And staying at these properties makes it easy to go back and take breaks at the hotel.

I have B14 and B11 so they've outgrown Disney but still love Universal.

I love the Hard Rock hotel --

by omahadomer, Tuesday, May 09, 2023, 08:22 (641 days ago) @ Domer99

it's a great vibe and very relaxing. My wife would tromp around all day with the kids but about 3-4 hours in the parks is all I'm willing to do. So they could get up early and I'd go work out and get some breakfast.

I'd catch up with them mid-morning, ride a bunch of rides (easy with those hotel keys), then head back to the hotel and read and have a beer or two and then we'd go to dinner. I think my favorite place was probably the Forrest Gump themed restaurant.

The funniest episode I ever had was when I had a Canadian consulting client call me when we were there and they needed an expert report ASAP. For some reason, the rest of the crew had gotten a notion to go to SeaWorld the next day, which I wanted to do about as much as I wanted to shoot myself.

So anyway, I start whining to my client about how I'm on family vacation and they say "OK, we'll pay for the whole vacation." So aw shucks I can't come to SeaWorld because I have to do this work thing but it's gonna pay for the whole vacation, which my wife understandably thought was great.

So they all went to SeaWorld, which they admitted was unbearably hot. I sat in the Hard Rock hotel's biggest bar which had excellent WiFi, did the report (which wasn't hard -- very close to something I had done before), got it done, took an Uber to a bank to get it notarized, and had a very fine day -- and the vacation was now free.

Wow, fantastic!

by oviedoirish @, Oviedo, Florida, Tuesday, May 09, 2023, 11:08 (641 days ago) @ omahadomer

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Seconded on Epcot > Animal Kingdom

by John @, Northeast Pennsylvania / NYC, Tuesday, May 09, 2023, 06:34 (642 days ago) @ omahadomer
edited by John, Tuesday, May 09, 2023, 08:21

This thread is already full of great suggestions. I like the idea of a sit-down meal (with characters), especially when it's blazing hot outside. It almost surely will be when you are there in August. Incidentally, it's usually 4-5 degrees hotter in Epcot than AK. Epcot is normally the hottest of the Disney parks probably due to all of the concrete and little shade/vegetation.

My kids are younger than yours but loved Epcot's guardians of the galaxy ride. Soarin and Test track are pretty cool too. They also love the Remy's ride. The Frozen ride is over rated (based on demand, wait times etc.) but still fun.

As Omaha noted, the Epcot food experience is pretty solid. If you are into sit down meals, Space 220 is great (if you can get a reservation) but a bit pricey. For quick service (lunch) we usually do La Cantina. It's great if you enjoy Mexican food. I have never eaten at Chefs de France restaurant Omaha referred to, but it looks solid. Oui Omaha - I will now have to try it. :^)

Also, it you have any trouble while you are in the parks, ask the Guest Experience team members under the blue umbrellas. I can say that they have helped immensely (trouble fast passing a ride, swapping out of a fastpassed ride as one of the kiddos has fallen asleep, and just about anything else you can imagine). They might not give you the answer you want to hear, but always provide great service.

Lastly, I will say this (having been there 3 times in the past year): I would never go without a travel agent helping us make plans. The agency (Red Bow Travel) we used is remarkably reasonable and the service has been impeccable. Our agent gets us the reservations we ask for - whether its Chef Mickey's brunch at the Contemporary Hotel or a Bibbidi Bobbidy Boutique reservation in MK for my daughter. She has never failed us. If you would like to hear more, please don't hesitate to email me at jaruddy@gmail.com. Would be happy to help any way I can. - John

P.S. One last thing. I always wear something with ND on it - a hat, golf shirt etc. Inevitably, I get a few "Go Irish!" quips from other park goers. -JR

My thoughts, in addition to the others' good recommendations

by oviedoirish @, Oviedo, Florida, Monday, May 08, 2023, 16:48 (642 days ago) @ Brendan

The Florida K-12 school year starts on August 10, so the crowds should be a bit lighter, as you noted. And going on weekdays is always better than going on the weekends, so your schedule should be pretty good.

August is typically our hottest month, and it's our rainy season. If it's a "normal" summer then expect highs in the mid-90s with afternoon showers. Make sure you all wear hats, sunglasses, and sunscreen. I've seen a lot of beet red folks who were going to be miserable that night and the following days. The sun is stronger here than people think! Also, go to a dollar store and get some cheap rain ponchos. Try to avoid Disney merchandize because, as I'm sure you already know, it's way overpriced. You probably won't want to carry umbrellas around either.

Bring some good metal water bottles with you into the parks. Get the good kind, like yeti, because they're worth it. Fill them up at your timeshare with ice and water and the ice will last a long time. There are water fountains all over where you can fill up the bottles, or go into one of the stand-in-line restaurants and get water at the drink fountains. You can also bring your own food into the parks, so I recommend that too, at least for some of your meals.

I don't think the order that you visit the parks matters much, except for weather. I would pay attention to the weather mainly for Animal Kingdom because most of it is outdoors. That park is better in the morning or late afternoon if you want to see more animals. I guess choosing between Animal Kingdom and Epcot depends mostly on what your family's interests are. We're big animal lovers, so we really like Animal Kingdom. But Epcot has some cool rides, and the new Guardians of the Galaxy ride just opened, which we haven't been able to ride yet because we haven't been able to get reservations and we refuse to wait for any ride longer than 45 minutes, which is quite limiting for many rides, needless-to-say. (My kids are in their 20s now, but my wife and I have kept our annual passes just for the Epcot Food and Wine Festival (going on when you visit) and the Flower and Garden Festival. We typically don't do the rides much any more since we've done most of them.)

If you decide on Epcot but want to see some animals, go to the Animal Kingdom Lodge one morning or late afternoon. There are animal viewing areas and it's just a really cool resort. If you get a chance, the Boma breakfast buffet there is really nice (but pricey, of course) (https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/dining/animal-kingdom-lodge/boma-flavors-of-africa/).

I can't help you much with the new Genie pass because we haven't used it. I've heard that many complain about it, though, because it's hard to reserve the top rides, you can only reserve one ride at a time, and it's just more of a pain in the ass than the fastpass system was. And pricey. But here are some links that may or may not be helpful:

https://familyvacationist.com/disney-genie-trip-planning-service-guide/

https://disneyaddicts.com/pros-and-cons-of-new-disney-genie-and-individual-lightning-la...

And here's info about Universal's system:

https://orlandoinsidervacations.com/universal-express-pass/


For dining at the sit-down restaurants, you'll probably want to make reservations in advance, at least as soon as you get to a park if not before. Since we're local, we typically don't eat there for dinner. Disney Springs is pretty cool and they have a lot of more reasonable places to eat too, if you're looking for something outside of the parks. Same with Universal's Citywalk.

If you have any extra time and want to get away from the resort area, Kennedy Space Center is great (https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com) if you like that sort of thing. The space shuttle exhibit is fantastic. I'd also recommend doing the bus tour.

If you like nature, visit the Orlando Wetlands Park (https://www.orlando.gov/Parks-the-Environment/Directory/Wetlands-Park). It's one of our favorite places: not at all touristy, not crowded, and it's free. You'd never know that you are close to a large metropolitan area. As with Animal Kingdom, the best times to see wildlife at the Wetlands Park are mornings and near dusk. And hats, sunglasses, sunscreen, and water are a must. That applies pretty much for any outdoor event in central Florida.

Let me know if you have any questions that I might be able to answer or find answers.

can recommend Touring Plans for some good info

by Jay @, San Diego, Monday, May 08, 2023, 14:54 (642 days ago) @ Brendan

their crowd calendar is essential and their customizable itineraries are nifty. Probably worth the $8 to help plan your trip.

https://touringplans.com/

n.b. we used it often for Disneyland back when we were passholders, but haven't been to Orlando.

Schedule air conditioned breaks during the day

by Jeff (BGS) @, A starter home in suburban Tempe, Monday, May 08, 2023, 14:46 (642 days ago) @ Brendan

We were there for two hot days over Spring Break a few years ago. One day, we grabbed lunch at a "fast food" restaurant inside of Disney. It was hot and crowded and the rest of the day was miserable. The second day, we had a scheduled 90-minute character lunch at an indoor, air-conditioned restaurant (also more expensive). That was a huge relief, and the rest of the day went much better. Worth every penny.

--
At night, the ice weasels come.

more advice from Jeff

by Jay @, San Diego, Monday, May 08, 2023, 21:53 (642 days ago) @ Jeff (BGS)

The craziest thing about that trip

by Jeff (BGS) @, A starter home in suburban Tempe, Tuesday, May 09, 2023, 08:30 (641 days ago) @ Jay

The kids remember having a great time and want to go back, despite pretty much hating every minute of their visit to Disney.

I would still choose death over a repeat of that experience.

--
At night, the ice weasels come.

I've only done the trip with girls

by Jeremy (WeIsND), Offices of Babip Pecota Vorp & Eckstein, Monday, May 08, 2023, 14:08 (642 days ago) @ Brendan

So your mileage may vary as to what the boys want to do in the various parks. For example, you can probably avoid the time/stress involved in meeting characters, particularly princesses.

Generally, I'd say that if you're going to do this right, and won't be worrying about how much everything costs every minute you're in the parks, the Genie Plus is definitely worth it. It requires some monitoring while you're down there, but its very user-friendly, and there are millions of YouTube tutorials out there to help you learn about it.

Some of the biggest/best rides aren't available thru Genie Plus, but require a separate cost to reserve a spot via Lightning Lane. Again, I think its worth it to splurge on this to avoid waiting for 2-2.5 hours for a ride.

The food stuff is very personal, so that's something I'd suggest you research on your own to see whether you think its worthwhile (ie, character sit-down meals vs. eating quickly).

MAGIC KINGDOM:

If the boys are into rides/coasters, Space Mountain and the new Tron coaster are the big attractions here. I believe both are on the Lightning Lane so you'd have to pay extra to reserve a spot. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train is also great - also a Lightning Lane. I believe everything else (Big Thunder Mountain, Haunted Mansion, etc.) is via Genie Plus so you don't have to pay extra.

Pinocchio's is a good option for quick eats. There are plenty of other places throughout the park if you're looking for something fast. The big sit-down option is the Beast's Castle. Its a cool experience, but very pricy.

EPCOT:

Some folks might tell you to avoid this since you have boys. But the Guardians ride is probably the best ride at all the Disney parks right now. Also a Lightning Lane. Epcot also has Soarin', which is sneaky underrated IMO. There's a whole heap of options for eating here. Should you choose to do a park-hopper (jump around to multiple parks in one day), that might be the best option for you for Epcot. Garden Grill is a good choice for a sit-down meal.

ANIMAL KINGDOM:

This is another one you might be able to do in a morning or afternoon. The big attraction here is the Avatar Flight of Passage Ride, which is another Lightning Lane. Really cool experience, especially if your kids have enjoyed the movie(s). There's also another Avatar ride in the same area, but you can skip that one if you're short on time. Everest is another popular ride for older kids. Animal Kingdom has a safari ride, but if you live near an area with a good zoo, you can probably skip the Safari. Tusker House is the best restaurant for sit-down eating.

HOLLYWOOD:

Presumably you're here for the Star Wars stuff. Which is really cool, but probably smaller than you're expecting. Rise of the Resistance is very cool, but another Lightning Lane. Its also frequently breaking down, but there's really nothing you can do about that. You can build droids, or lightsabers. Toy Story World is very cool here as well, but again its smaller than you might expect and can get crowded. In other parts of the park, you can meet Chewbacca, BB-8 and Darth Vader. This is all inside, which might be a good way to get out of the sun for a bit.

I haven't eaten much here, but the last time I went, the ABC Commissary was very good for a quick, sit down meal (try the tacos!).

Again, there are many YouTube channels out there that can be a great resource for planning, etc. Have fun!

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