jcgoble3

I have no experience with SFMM itself, but generally speaking, Terpy is right. That Saturday is right in the middle of peak vacation season and is likely to be a super-busy day for most, if not all, amusement parks.

I'm surprised DTD signature restaurants do not have a dress code. When is your trip? Maybe Splitssville will be open at DTD. I was a bit surprised about that as well, but the PDF linked in the third post of this thread lists which ones have the dress code at the bottom of the last page. The Disney portion of my trip is September 3–9. I don't see any restaurant by that name in the reservation system. What is it?

^ Assuming KIC is one, what are the other three?

A little closer checking shows that only the Signature Restaurants located at resorts have the dress code. The ones inside theme parks or at Downtown Disney do not. Anyway, I took a look inside my closet and found the pair of dress slacks that's been missing for who knows how long. Those won't take up as much space as jeans, so I'll just pack those and a couple of collared golf shirts that I normally use for bowling so I won't have any problems.

I also have another question: there is a dress code for some of the Signature Restaurants. It's listed as thus: Are athletic-type shorts considered acceptable? That's what I normally wear at parks. They're not listed as permitted or not permitted. I can bring a pair of jeans if necessary, but considering how much space they would take up in my suitcase, I'd rather not if I don't have to. Anyone here know or should I call WDW?

OK, here's the reservations I just made: Tuesday 9/4: -- Dinner: Jiko — The Cooking Place Wednesday 9/5: -- Breakfast: Cinderella's Royal Table -- Lunch: The Crystal Palace Thursday 9/6: -- Dinner: California Grill (yep, I found an opening) Saturday 9/8: -- Lunch: Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater -- Dinner: The Hollywood Brown Derby Any other suggestions? I need to leave all day Monday and Tuesday morning open, as I found out that by pure coincidence my mother (who I don't see often) will be at WDW the same week for a church conference and those are her free time where we could meet up and spend some time with each other. I don't want to have too much of my vacation pre-planned, but I'm open to suggestions for something else that I missed.

Ignoring the enthusiasts and travelers that are already buying platinum, I'm guessing that more people already buy gold than regular and that my plan would shift that the other way. Why? Because the price difference is so small in the spring ($5 or $10) and zero in the fall that many get gold just for the free parking, as the cost of upgrading is less than the cost of paying to park once. I proposed to widen that gap to $40–50. Now those people have to make a decision; if the cost of a season parking pass (currently $40) is less than the cost of upgrading, then the decision is whether the additional gold perks are worth it. They may decide that it's not worth the extra money to upgrade everybody in the family, so they go regular instead. That family may have spent a occasional hot afternoon in the waterpark before, but they've decided it's not worth paying an extra $10 to $50 per person (because the family would only need one parking pass) to get season-long waterpark admission as well. So by widening the price gap, the more "casual" visitors will get regular instead of gold, thus reducing the number of people who can go into the waterpark at will. With only a reduced number of gold pass holders, platinum pass holders, and those who have purchased a waterpark-specific ticket able to get into the waterpark, you largely eliminate the problem of the general public migrating to the waterpark in early afternoon and making all the lines ridiculously long. That's the whole goal of this idea.

Bingo! Soak City should be a separate gate included with a Gold or Platinum Pass but not a regular pass. This would involve raising the price of a Gold Pass a little bit (let's say $115) and dropping the price of a regular pass (let's say $70). Now you have a real choice between pass levels instead of this "get the free parking perk for less than the cost of parking once and, oh by the way, you just got all the other perks free" nonsense. You'll get more people choosing regular passes instead of gold, and that translates into fewer people cluttering up the waterpark, which means that you can actually get off a slide, go to another slide, and get on it before you're dry. It will also alleviate some of the crowding issues in the wave pools and Splash River, making for a much more enjoyable experience. I know I would spend more time in the waterpark if they did this.

Somebody already has. See Kingda Ka.

My first coaster was the Great Pumpkin Coaster or whatever it was called back then. My first coaster outside kiddie land was The Racer when I was about 8 or 9. I don't really remember it, but according to my mother, I begged and begged to go on The Racer, and she tried and tried to talk me out of it, saying that it was too tall and too fast for me and that I wasn't ready yet. I persisted and won. By the time we were halfway up the lift hill, I was bawling my eyes out wanting to get off, but obviously I couldn't. That ride spooked me so bad that I did not return to KI or any other amusement park until two years ago (at age 23) when I decided to take the plunge and get my first Gold Pass. My first visit that year I stuck to the smaller rides (FD, AE, BLSC, Racer), added The Beast, Firehawk, and Vortex on the next visit, and DB, FOF, and Invertigo on the third visit. I already mentioned my first DB ride in another thread here; that was when I decided I could ride anything.

^ OK, thanks.

Out of curiosity, since I wasn't there back then, can you or someone else explain what the deal with the cards was, please?

I have yet to gray out on anything.

My first ride on DB was in June 2010. It was my third visit to KI that year after not having been there since I was a kid in the mid-90s. I got basically a walk-on during ERT, and I remember being nervous going up the lift hill and then screaming all the way down the first drop—but after that, I loved the ride so much that I immediately rode again, this time without screaming. I've been hooked on coasters ever since.

That works for me. I noticed that sign last month. Not only did they not fix both instances of "Boomerang Bay", but the closing time is now 8:00 pm, not 7:00 pm.

Nice report as usual! If you're out on the midway (and especially in the plaza between the front gate and the fountains) at the start of the fireworks, it'll be clear why that was. A character called "Dr. Sparks" get a couple of kids to help him set off the fireworks. Everybody counts down from 10, the kids push the button, and the first rocket is launched. After it explodes and fizzles out, the PA system then goes into the introduction to the "nightly fireworks spectacular" before the real show begins.

IE fails to load it also. Attempting to bring it up in it's own tab just gives the generic "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage". Those are the only two browsers I have.

Actually, the forums do not have a spell-check feature, but many browsers, such as Firefox, do. Notably, Internet Explorer does not have such a feature.

1. Alan Jackson 2. Toby Keith 3. Jason Aldean Yeah, I'm a country music guy. Never cared for any other genre.

Yes. $12 for a regular locker, $15 for a large locker, or $21 for a jumbo locker.

The picture isn't showing up for me. If I try to load the image directly in my browser in a separate tab, I get this error: "Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete."

Point, but I believe DT is more sensitive to wind than WS, as I'm pretty sure I've seen DT down for wind when WS was operating at least once this year. I may be wrong on that, though.

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, aka COPPA. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Protection_Act

Glad you had a lot of fun! As for the log flume, I advise single riders to try to pair up with another group if you want to get wet. You'll get wetter with a full boat than you will by yourself.

Sounds like you had a lot of fun!