Backstage Tales
This is the backstage tour at Animal Kingdom. I have done the backstage tour at Magic Kingdom (Keys to the Kingdom) before and enjoyed it. One of the highlights of my last trip was seeing an operation at Conservation Station so I decided that the backstage tour at Animal Kingdom would be fun for this trip. Unlike most Disney World activities, tours can only be booked over the phone, not online.
The biggest challenge of the tour was getting to Animal Kingdom for the 7:15 check-in. I tried to get an answer in advance about whether the Disney buses would run in time, but I just got the standard answer that buses start running an hour before park opening (which is clearly untrue as there are buses running to get people to pre-rope drop breakfasts). I decided to risk it in the hope of saving some money, and waited at the bus stop for about an hour before I eventually gave up and took a taxi. If you didn't want to take a taxi, I would book the tour on a day Animal Kingdom has morning EMH, in which case the buses would definitely run on time.
The check-in was just outside the gates and easy to find. One potential hitch is that they asked for photo ID, which I had never been told I needed. Luckily I had got into the habit of taking my passport everywhere just in case, but I don't know what they would have done if I didn't have it with me. There were twelve people on my tour and two main guides. In many parts of the tour there was also someone who worked in that particular area giving us additional information.
The first part of the tour was on-stage in Africa where the guides explained some of the backstory of the Africa area and then we went into the aviary. We helped to feed the birds and saw a CM checking all of the birds' leg-bands against a list to make sure all the birds were there (they have to do this twice a day!). One advantage of doing the tour on a non-EMH day was that we were still on-stage after 8am, so I don't know what would have happened if there had been EMH guests around as well.
The rest of the tour was backstage. We saw some of the areas where the animals live when they are not on the safari, which gave us a close up look at an adult and baby rhino, one of the lions, and the ostriches (technically they were supposed to be out on safari, but they came down to see what was going on while we were at the lion enclosure).
We saw the areas where the food for the animals are prepared and the huge backstage area where plants are grown. We got to go inside the veterinary hospital that you can see from Conservation Station, although we didn't spend as much time there as I'd hoped (and didn't really see anything that you couldn't see from the Conservation Station side).
About two thirds of the way through the tour we were given a rice crispy treat shaped like an elephant and a souvenir water bottle while we listened to a talk about the work that the Disney Conservation Fund was doing with cotton top tamarins. This was the only food and water provided in the almost four hour tour and also the only opportunity to use the bathroom. I would definitely recommend bringing your own water.
Overall I enjoyed the tour and I learnt a lot, but overall I'm not sure that it was worth the effort or the cost. Although the tour guides were informative, I probably could have found out most of the information myself by doing a bit of digging around on the internet. I was definitely disappointed at how little time we spent at the veterinary hospital - because I was doing the tour I didn't schedule any time to see a procedure from Conservation Station, and in hindsight I realise that I should have.
Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party
This is a separately ticketed event at Magic Kingdom held a few times during the week in the second half of September and throughout October. I went to the second party of the year, on the 18th of September. The party is officially from 7pm to midnight but you are allowed into Magic Kingdom any time after 4pm using the party ticket. I arrived at about 5:30pm.
There were separate tapstiles for people with party tickets, and after entering the park we were given wristbands to indicate that we had tickets for the party. Once the party officially started anyone without a wristband was sent towards the exit. We were also given bags for trick-or-treating.
There was a special Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom card for the party - I was available to collect this from the firehouse when I first arrived in the park, although there was initially some confusion about where they were available from. My party wristband was marked to indicate that I had picked up my card (to avoid people getting more than one).
There are no FastPasses available during the party but having a party ticket allowed you to make FastPasses for before 7. Since I only bought my ticket a few days before the event my FPP choices were limited and I didn't end up making it to the park early enough to use the first two I had made. I was, however able to use a FPP for Haunted Mansion to get me in the mood (which was a wise idea as the standby line was posted at 30 minutes and looked like it might have been longer).
The park was quite crowded at 6pm when there were still non-party guests around but gradually got emptier as the night went on. One of the draws of the party is that lines for attractions are short. That wasn't important to me as I had plenty of other opportunities to go on rides, so I focused on the activities that were only available during the party.
My main focus was on the parade and fireworks. The Boo to You parade, which only runs during the Halloween party. It runs twice each night - the second parade is less crowded, but I decided to see the first parade just in case the second was rained out, and also to give myself the choice of seeing it twice if I liked it, which I ended up doing. I saw it from Frontierland the first time and Main St the second time; I preferred it in Frontierland because the street surface allowed the gravedigger to create a lot of sparks with their shovels. Before the parade the Headless Horseman rides along the parade route, which is quite impressive to watch, although he now trots instead of galloping for safety reasons.
The fireworks are also exclusive to the Halloween Party and are called Hallowishes. Celebrate the Magic is on before the fireworks but is exactly the same as the version shown before the regular Wishes show. The music and narration for the fireworks are obviously Halloween themed. The highlight of Hallowishes was the fireworks that go off around the perimeter of the park in addition to the ones behind the castle.
The Villains Mix and Mingle show from previous years was replaced with a Hocus Pocus show this year. I had enjoyed watching the old show on YouTube but didn't enjoy this year's show as much. It was technically impressive but I didn't really enjoy the music or the characters (probably largely because I don't think I've ever seen the Hocus Pocus movie).
It was a little difficult to schedule both parades, the fireworks and the Hocus Pocus show while getting a decent spot for all of them. The plan that I settled on was to see the first parade, then the show, then the fireworks. There was plenty of time to get in front of the castle after the parade, although there were a fair number of people in front of me. After the show I turned around and walked back towards the hub until Celebrate the Magic, then walked back towards Main St and got a great spot near Casey's just in time for the fireworks. It would have been a little difficult to get a good position for the fireworks if I'd been trying to keep a larger group together.
Many characters are available for meet and greets that are not normally around, and more common characters like Mickey Mouse dress up in special costumes for the party. Many of the meet and greets are out in the open, so it is possible to see the characters without waiting in line if you're not that fussed about actually meeting them. I was able to catch glimpses of the Seven Dwarfs, Gaston, Jafar, and Donald and Daisy this way.
I decided that the characters I did want to actually meet and get a photo with were the Pooh characters, who were in special Halloween costumes. According to Kenny the Pirate they typically start meeting at 7:30, so I got in line at 7, just as the party began, with about 20 people in front of me. They actually started meeting at 7:20, so I had my photos (both PhotoPass and on my iPhone) and was out of there by 7:30.
I also met Mickey, partly because his meet and greet is inside (in the Town Square Theatre) so you can't see him without lining up (and his outfit is exclusive to the meet and greet; he wears a different costume for the parade). It was also my opportunity to experience Mickey talking. I was impressed with the huge variety of things he was able to say, although there was some occasional awkwardness that made it clear it was all pre-recorded. I only had to wait about 10 minutes to meet him after Hallowishes.
Another activity unique to the Halloween party is trick-or-treating. Since I've never been trick-or-treating it was a fun experience for me. It was also an opportunity to collect lots of different kinds of American candy that I'd never tried before. The trick or treat stations are scattered throughout the park and I visited most of them. However, apart from a few stations that are marked on the map as handing out something special (I would recommend the Werthers caramels), the stations all seemed to have the same mix of candy, so it would have been much more efficient to go through the same station multiple times. At the start of the evening I had to wait about 5 minutes at each station; later in the evening the wait was much shorter.
No comments:
Post a Comment