Updates for September

Not feeling great this morning, I stayed home from church.  It gave me time to work on a few things for my upcoming trip in October.  I called tech support and spoke with a guy who knew everything.  Best 45-minute conversation ever. A few things I learned are actually really interesting:

The new fastpass+ program will not detract from visitors' ability to receive fastpasses when they arrive.  For those of you who haven't heard of the new fastpass+ program, it allows you to select virtual fastpasses on-line or in the My Disney Experience App/website.  When you arrive and are in the parks, these fastpasses can be changed (for example, if you thought you'd spend Thursday in Animal Kingdom but ended up going to EPCOT) and you can still get paper fastpasses when you are in the parks.

Here's what I learned today:

1. The number of paper fastpasses the distributing machines can hold are limited, but the number of virtual fastpasses that can be assigned are controlled by Disney each day.  
2. The fastpass wait time will not be longer - no matter how many fastpasses are distributed (both paper and virtual) - the castmembers will control the fastpass line to keep it short.  This system only rewards people who choose to use the fastpass system.
3. The regular line for rides may be affected by 5-10 minutes or so, but it will not be drastic or noticeable.  Disney has been testing this system since May and will continue to test it until they are sure it's awesome.

Animal Kingdom is going to start developing a new portion of the park featuring James Cameron's Avatar movies (the second movie is rumored to release in 2016) and the new part of Animal Kingdom is set to open in 2015 unless something slows it down.

I've been randomly selected to sample the MyMagic+ and Fastpass+ systems and will report back with my thoughts in mid-October.   I will also be eating in the newly re-opened California Grill and will give an in-depth review of the restaurant's updates.

Insider Tip: the parking lot at the Magic Kingdom alone can contain both Disneyland and the California Adventuere... what? Crazy, right?  I mean, I already knew that the Disney World property in Orlando was larger than the state of Rhode Island or the city of Manhattan, but man, that is one huge parking lot!