Mouse Extra

Good old Little Red is leaving Kilimanjaro Safaris for good in the next few weeks. Disney has announced some revisions to the ride (one of my personal favorites). The poacher storyline and the action sequence at the end are also likely causalties. The refurb is set for March.

Instead, Disney is giving you more animals. Zebras specifically. Currently, the zebra herd is not a main star of the ride through. In fact, they are often difficult to spot. But that will now change. The new finale of the ride will feature a watering hole and lots and lots of zebras. The attraction will remain open during the changes with work being completed by the Fall. No specific end date has been set.

I very much welcome the change. Although I have great memories of the old storyline, I think its time for a change. To me, more animals is a step above a watered down poacher storyline with minimal thrills. A ride through a large herd of zebra with some other large herbivores would be fun.

For many years, it was common knowledge that fastpasses never really expired. Sure, Disney wouldn’t let you ride the attraction before the one hour window, but if you were late, well, that was ok. Stories ran rampant of people using thier fastpasses hours, days, months and even a year after the expiration of the ticket. Disney just didn’t seem to care.

Well, starting March 7th, they are going to start caring. Disney will begin truly enforcing the fastpass time frame. You can show 5 minutes early or 15 minutes lates. After that, well, thats too bad. The internet is abuzz with people upset about this development. The Disney community are those who generally knew this quirk in the system and expoilted it. Many Disney vets would hoard fastpass during the early part of the day only to use them at will later. This seemed to be more prevalent then I had thought. Len Testa at the Unofficial Guide quoted Disney as saying that 80% of fastpasses were used during the alloted time slots. I found that to be very low. I would have guessed over 90% to be the figure.

So, why is Disney doing this? Do things get that out of whack because people hoard them or don’t follow the time frame. Probably not. Instead, many speculate that this is the first step in a new generation of fastpass use. Soon, it is anticipated that Disney will allow folks to get their fastpasses days in advanced, almost like a restaraunt reservation. In theory, 90 or 180 days in advance you will be able to go online and book your fastpasses for the day.

Disney has to start preparing for that day. When that happens (probably next year), Disney will need to have strict fastpass times. This will also likely be in conjunction will the use of the RFID wristbands that will have all of your information on it: your park passes, your ADRs and, apparently, your prebooked fastpass time slots.

This will likely not effect me too much. I mostly used the fastpasses during the listed times. But still, on occassion, I used them hours later. It was nice to have that option, anyway. The question is how strict Disney will be. If you have a fastpass that expires at 6pm and don’t get out of your dinner until 6:30, will the cast member cut you a break? I would think likely.

Of course, guests who were “in the know” will now have to adjust and make sure they get to the attraction when they need to be. This will create more dead time. You can no longer say “hey lets jump on Pirates it doesn’t matter if our Splash Mountain fastpass expires in 15 minutes.” Of course, Disney hopes that sentence changes to “Hey our fastpass time for Splash Mountain is soon so lets jump into that gift shop” or “hey lets grab a dole whip while we wait for our fastpass time.” Inevitably, there will be a time during your next trip where you are forced to not do something because of that gosh darn fastpass window.

The folks over at Epcot have decided to try to take better advantage of water side dining. For many years, the only eatery on the water was the Rose & Crown and the counter service in Mexico. Well, we now have a new table service spot in Mexico, La Hacienda de San Angel.

I had heard some mixed reviews of the place before going so I had some trepidation. The menu is somewhat limited and well, a tad pricey. But hey, what isn’t at the Mouse. I looked over the menu and saw some interesting choices. The appetizers looked good. And they had tequila flights.

I have to say that I really liked the place. First of all, the decor is light and pleasant. There is plenty of window space and even people farther away from the windows are seated higher to offer a decent view of the water and perhaps Illuminations. The queso fundido was a touch salty but over all pretty good. However, I really liked the mixed grill that I shared with my wife. And at about 50 bucks, it was not a bad deal. Plus, there was plenty. The steak was solid, but I really enjoyed both the chicken and chorizo.

Of course, I also had the tequila flight which might have helped to make the experience more enjoyable. There were also numerous specialty margaritas similiar to the ones over at La Cava del Tequila, another personal favorite.

As a side note, the restaraunt provides overflow seating for the counter service during lunch hours. We enjoyed a seat there during one rather hot day for lunch. It was a pleasantly cool spot. In any event, count me as one reviewer who very much enjoyed the new spot on the lagoon and I hope Disney continues in this direction.