With the car loaded and our next hotel waiting for us, we struck out on the 2 hour journey from Clearwater Beach to Lake Buena Vista. All was going swimmingly until the I-4. I HATE THE 4. There was a 20 minute delay on our route due to terrible drivers and stupidity, but it was still the fastest route to where we needed to be.
We made it to the DoubleTree Suite by Hilton at Disney Springs (our first time staying at this hotel) about 3pm and were immediately let into our room. Some of the benefits of being Hilton Diamond are both early arrival and late checkout.
It had been a long day and we had some things to deal with in the room (there was a power issue with our nightstands - see I told you power problems follow me around), plus Brian needed to get some work done, so we didn't head out until about 6:30pm. We decided to try out Epcot for our first time going without the DAS.
We arrived at the main gate right around 7pm and there was no one in the parking booths any longer, so we breezed right through and headed for the handicapped lot at the front. Bag check/security went fine and we went through without triggering the alarm. We headed towards the right of Spaceship Earth (which was down but I don't ride anyway because it triggers the MCAS) and stopped for a couple of photos. We tried the new 3D picture and then did a shot of us at the main fountain before proceeding to a restroom break, then on to The Seas with Nemo and Friends.
I stopped at the entrance and asked for a return time from the two cast members stationed there. One was completely uninterested in helping and gave no reaction to my request - where the other grabbed the machine and started trying to assist me. The first question was, "Do you have DAS?" That's when I got to explain that this was my new accommodation after being denied DAS.
Unfortunately the machine that scans my Magicband just didn't want to work. It took approximately 10 attempts to get my band to scan in and give me a return time,which ended up being immediately, because the wait time was 15 minutes, DAS removes 10 minutes from the current standby and you have 5 minutes of grace period on the front end of your time. Without the return time we could have walked right on, but we wanted to try the process out so we knew what to expect going forward. We rode Nemo and left with no issues.
Next we headed to Living with the Land. I always stop and go to the bathroom before every ride - fun, right?, so a quick stop at The Land restrooms and then we descended the stairs (the escalator was broken) to pop out right at the entrance of LwtL. I repeated the process and asked the cast member for a return time. "Do you have DAS?" Nope, I sure don't.
This is my new reality. Over and over.
She tried to scan me for a return time and had some issues, but eventually told me to just get in the LL line. Again, the wait time was showing 15 minutes so access would have been immediate anyway, but this line was NOT a walk on. I can't believe that line was only 15 minutes. They were letting way more standby through on each pass than when we have been there before, but our total wait was only 3 minutes from entering the line. I always ask for row 1, for medical reasons, and my request was granted. As we got into the fish hatchery they started making announcements that the ride was experiencing technical difficulties and to stay seated. I could tell the current was no longer running under the boat, and you could look down and see the water was now still. The technical difficulty announcement was made about 5 times total, then eventually they said over the PA that they were going to shut down and restart the ride. Even Disney's tech support asked, "Did you try turning it off and back on again?" Well, as tends to happen, the reboot worked and our total delay was 7 or 8 minutes before the boats began running again and people were being unloaded in a rapid fashion.
We left LwtL and headed for the Figment restrooms. After that stop I went to Journey Into Imagination with Figment. I went to the umbrella at the front of the building and asked for a return time. "Do you have DAS?" ARG! No. Explain again. They sent me to their manager to ask because they didn't know how how to do it. I find him and ask again for a return time. "Do you have DAS?" Is there a freaking echo in here? Now, to be fair, he was nice, and he tried. But the scanner machine wasn't working. Again. He went and told the tapstyle cast member to just override my access and let me through. But, I had a Multi Experience Pass for later and I wanted to be sure it wouldn't eat that if I tried to scan into this ride, so I had to stop and ask about that. Yep, it would have.
So, the tapstyle cast member sent me back to the manager and I had to explain the new problem. He had to go hunt up a new Magicband scanner and make several attempts to get our bands to attach a return time, but he finally had success. We tapped through both points on Figment and rode without issue. At this point it was about 8:30pm and we hadn't had dinner.
The park was due to close to off-site guests at 9pm, so we had to hustle over to Frozen Ever After for my Multi Experience Pass redemption. We stopped on the way at the Odyssey building restrooms and then fast walked to Frozen. We got in line right about 8:45pm. Because we had what amounts to a Lightning Lane, we just tapped right through and boarded in pretty short order. The wait time for the ride, 15 minutes prior to Park close was 65 minutes. There's no way I could do that standby lane any day, no matter what. My days of riding Frozen will be much fewer and farther between.
The ride had a technical glitch just before going down the final hill that ended up with our boat almost being struck by another boat, because we were stalled at the track switch, but someone was watching because the backwards heading boat was stopped during it's descent to avoid ramming us. Our track finally did switch and we made the final drop without issue. By the time we got off Frozen it was almost 9pm on the nose. We decided to skip trying to eat in Epcot and, after one more stop at the front of the Park restrooms, headed out to hit a local favorite restaurant near our hotel. We made it back to the room about 10:40pm, exhausted and ready for bed.
Overall the return time deal worked... ok. It takes a lot longer. There were other people behind us being delayed because it took so much time trying to figure out errors and issues and just having the return time added to our bands. I don't expect to have so much success at Magic Kingdom, but I don't know. Epcot has been our only experience so far. More to come as the week progresses.
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