Disney – Your Mileage May Vary

When You’re Evacuated From Disney Attractions: The Videos!

For many Disney fans, being on a ride/attraction when it breaks down is an annoyance. The continuity of the story is broken, your time is limited and you have places to go and characters to see and a Fast Pass Plus that’s due in 10 minutes! For some, that one instance alone might even mean their vacation is ruined! 😉 (not really, of course – some people are just overly dramatic and/or want the opportunity to try to get something “extra” for their so-called “problems.”)

But for others, being on an attraction that’s suddenly “101” (Disneyspeak for “a ride is down”) while they’re on it, could mean what they see as the ultimate experience – being evacuated from the ride. And with that, you may get to see the ride with the emergency lights on, as well as backstage/behind-the-scenes areas that guests rarely, if ever see.

It’s relatively rare to be evacuated from an attraction and even less so for someone to videotape said evacuation (because Disney Cast Members [employees] are trained to try to not let videotaping happen, if possible, for fear of “spoiling the magic). But it happens here and there. Here are some Disney attraction evacuation videos that we’ve found:

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Best Award Flight Ever, Theme Park Parking Raised 50%, Don’t Mess With Sharon, & More…

HOORAY for the weekend! Happy Saturday, y’all! Here’s a recap of what we wrote on YMMV this week. From great travel deals to what we’ve written to what others wrote that we really liked and wanted to share, it’s all here, in one convenient place!

Continue reading “Best Award Flight Ever, Theme Park Parking Raised 50%, Don’t Mess With Sharon, & More…”

When Disney’s Main Street Electrical Parade Rode Up NYC’s 5th Avenue

Following in the footsteps of their very successful screenings of “Pocahontas” in Central Park in 1995, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame in New Orleans in 1996, on June 14, 1997, the Walt Disney Company, well-known for orchestrating large-scale special events both in and outside theme parks, took on the streets of New York City by bringing its world famous Main Street Electrical Parade to the Big Apple for a one-night-only ride up 5th Avenue. Part of a “Hercules World Premiere Weekend in New York,” the 3-day weekend of events that included a mini-amusement park at Chelsea Piers, it was all a promotion for its upcoming 35th full-length animated feature, “Hercules.” This all came on the heels of the Walt Disney Company doing their part to “clean up” the Times Square area with its purchase and renovation of the historic New Amsterdam Theater for its upcoming theatrical releases (the New Amsterdam had officially re-opened just 2-1/2 months earlier).

CCI13062017_7 — The Hercules logo was painted all up 5th Avenue

Both the New York Times and Variety reported about the “herculean” event (do you see what I did there?) the day before it happened. Some fun facts included:
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Carnival & Midway Games: The Science Of The Scam, And How To Win

‘Tis the season for local carnivals, fairs, festivals and lots of other events that, at least in the U.S., usually includes soft ice cream, corn dogs, kettle corn, funnel cake, fried stuff on a stick, and “spin and puke” rides. Probably in that order. 😉

When I was a kid, the things I loved the most at the carnival were the games of chance. Whether it was squirting water into a clown’s mouth, aiming a wiffle ball to land in a red cup or trying to break balloons with darts, I was positive that I could beat the odds and win that 3’ plush Snoopy I had my eye on. Unfortunately, although I spent a whole lot of money trying, I never did win that Snoopy. But I did win a working kid-sized blender on a carnival roulette wheel once, when I was about seven.

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The New Ban On 78% Of Sunscreens, New WDW Pass Options, How To Keep Your IHG Points From Expiring, & More

Happy Sunday y’all! We hope you had a good week! Here are some travel articles we’ve recently seen that we think you may enjoy.

Stephen from Frequent Miler dug a little deeper into the new Marriott hotel reward categories. He found many hotels where the number of points needed for award nights were increased just a few months ago and now were lowered. Is this a classic retail move of increasing prices just before launching your “Everything 50% Off” sale?
Sharon and I love floating around lazy rivers. Mommy Points found a rooftop one in the shape of Texas in the middle of downtown Houston. (Note from Sharon: That’s SO COOL!)

James from One Mile at a Time found a “too good to be true” rate from a travel website he’d never heard of. You might want to do your research before booking with unknown companies.
WDWMagic reports that Walt Disney World is introducing a new Annual Pass on July 9, as well as add-ons for other passes.
The Plaza in New York is changing owners. Loyalty Lobby looks into what changes this may mean if you want to stay there.
Million Miles Secrets gives some good advice on how to keep your IHG points from expiring.
Gary from View From The Wing recaps the new law in Hawaii that bans the sale of 78% of the currently available sunscreens to protect the coral reefs, maybe.

Like this post? Please share it! We have plenty more just like it and would love if you decided to hang around and clicked the button on the top (if you’re on your computer) or the bottom (if you’re on your phone/tablet) of this page to follow our blog and get emailed notifications of when we post (it’s usually just two or three times a day). Or maybe you’d like to join our Facebook group, where we talk and ask questions about travel (including Disney parks), creative ways to earn frequent flyer miles and hotel points, how to save money on or for your trips, get access to travel articles you may not see otherwise, etc. Whether you’ve read our posts before or this is the first time you’re stopping by, we’re really glad you’re here and hope you come back to visit again!

What Meds To Bring When Flying, Saving $200 on Amazon, O’Hare’s Weird Toilets & More

Hey, guess what, y’all? It’s the WEEKEND Here’s a recap of what we wrote on YMMV this week. From great travel deals to what we’ve written to what others wrote that we really liked and wanted to share, it’s all here, in one convenient place!

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Wayback Wednesday: Bye, DisneyQuest! (Our Last Visit Before It Closed) (Updated July, 2018)

JULY, 2018 UPDATE: Has it already been more than a year since DisneyQuest shut its doors to make way for the NBA Experience? Apparently so. Here’s our report of our final visit in June 2017, along with a history of the attraction, and some new additional information and media we’ve found since…

Ah, DisneyQuest. You were the collection of interactive video games in Walt Disney World that hadn’t been upgraded in over a decade. They finally closed you on July 2, 2017, with plans to build an NBA-themed restaurant in your place. You were fun while you lasted…for the first few years, anyway.

Opening in June, 1998, DisneyQuest was Disney’s attempt to profit off the popularity of places like Dave & Buster’s. Disney rarely did anything in a small way and DisneyQuest was no exception…most of the games were state-of-the-art (at the time) and the building was huge, at 5 stories tall, and 100,000 square feet. It even had an internet cafe! (back in the late 90s, that was HUGE!) After getting your ticket, you went into an elevator that, way back when, had this short animated feature starring the Genie from Aladdin:
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