Mouse Extra

Its not so good to be back. My family and I just returned from our 8 day last August trip to the Mouse. I must say that I loved this time of the year. Yes, it was HOT and MUGGY. But the parks are open later than in January and the early morning/post dinner touring is just great. And the Boardwalk is a pretty decent place to spend an afternoon.

We tried a bunch of new eateries. So be on the lookout for a bunch of reviews. I LOVED the Yak & Yeti, La Hacienda (underrated by most), and the dinner at Royal Akershsus. Man, has Mama Melroses gone downhill. It used to serve mediocre italian food but no more. Via Napoli, while good, is not the be all and end all that some make it out to be.

Star Tours 2, however, is. I love it! The Haunted Mansion queue? Go through once and that will be enough. Its not interesting enough to keep people returning all the time.

Its almost time for our trip to the World. So you might not see much from Mouse Extra. This will be my first trip in August so I hope the heat and humidity is not too tough.

We are also trying some restaurants for the first time. We will be trying Kouzzina, La Hacienda, Via Napoli, and 1900 Park Fare. But we will also be hitting some old favorites like Teppan Edo, Kona Cafe and the character breakfast at ‘ohana. I look forward to finally checking out the new Star Tours and the interactive queues at Haunted Mansion and others.

Our kids have invented some in-park games for themselves. My daughter will be bringing a massive checklist of characters to mark off as she sees them. There will be everything from Mickey Mouse to Cinderella’s step sisters to Push, the talking garbage can. My son has a scavenger hunt for each park plus one for the resorts and DTD.

It should be fun. See ya real soon.

I have noticed that one topic that never seems to die on message boards is the refillable mug. And yes, I too fondly look back on the days of resort specific mugs. I still have my Caribbean Beach mug from my honeymoon in 98. I have Boardwalk ones and even Epcot and MGM Studio ones. But those days are gone forever. In its place are the generic refillable mugs that are the same at every resort, usually reflecting the current promotional event.

It seems the generic long unchanged mugs did do one thing. People who go back during the same event brought their mugs back and continued to use them.

Yes, its bad form but there was no way for Disney to do anything about it. For several weeks now, Disney has tested a new machine at the All Star Sports resorts. Your mug will come with an RFID chip. This means several things. One, the chip shuts off the day you leave so no more bringing back the mug. Two, you have to wait 5 minutes before refilling it.  Three, you get one minute to refill. These last two things make it more difficult to get one soda and split it by continually refilling.

I have to admit, that I have never brought the mug back with me for a trip. And I have always gotten a mug for everyone. So this really does not effect me. Disney is currently indicating that this is just a test, but since they have signed a long term deal with the company who provides these chip I expect this to be fully operational at all resorts in the not too distant future.

 Today’s article is from Mike