We made it out to the Magic Kingdom bright and early to welcome Elena of Avalor, and check out what else is new around the park.
Welcome to the Kingdom, Elena!
As it was going to be a long day, we bought FuelRods to keep our devices at full charge. If you’ve never heard of FuelRod, it’s a company that aims to provide you with on-demand, always available, portable chargers for your device. Kiosks recently popped up around property, allowing guests to have access to unlimited swaps of the portable chargers for $30. I will say that as a standalone charger, these are a terrible deal at their price. That said, the genius lies in the ability to swap out the charger for a fully charged one.
As someone who is often in the parks, and in need of a charge, I thought that the $30 price tag was reasonable. Will it be reasonable for your week-long vacation? I don’t think so, but it really depends on how flexible you can be with finding a kiosk. First off, the capacity is small. Maybe 2000 mAh, which equates to less than a full charge on your iPhone. Next, there aren’t a ton of kiosks for swapping them out. I’m sure more will be added, but at the moment it may be more inconvenient to try and find locations than to carry a much larger capacity battery and just charge it overnight for the next day.
If you should want to get a FuelRod, the process is dead simple. You find a kiosk, use the touchscreen to select a quantity (between 1 and 3), and swipe your card. Out will pop a charger with a micro-USB, lightning, and 30-pin adapters. FuelRod currently doesn’t support USB type-C. Once you’ve drained the charger, simply return to a kiosk, use the touchscreen to swap, and insert the charger. A new one will pop out instantly.
After enjoying some A/C at Columbia Harbor House, we decided to head over to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad to see what’s going on, 4 days into the months-long refurbishment. We saw plenty of walls and scaffolding.
The Haunted Mansion remains behind scrims. I’m hopeful that work may be completed by the first Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, but right now it’s not looking good.
Work also being done on the queue coverings near the extended, interactive portion of the queue.
Vines are starting to creep up the scrim.
The Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse remains behind scrims. Work should be completed in late September.
Work is continuing on subtly, but thoroughly, changing Tomorrowland and I can’t help but wonder if this guy will make it much longer.
Skies were starting to look threatening, so we ducked into Tomorrowland Light & Power Co, a spot to swap our FuelRod.
Published in late June, Disney has finally jumped into the Hidden Mickey world by putting out their own (official) book. Just briefly flipping through it, we noticed a few were missing and a few were more than questionable, but with plenty of pictures, this might be a good buy if you and/or your young ones enjoy hunting for Hidden Mickeys.
Back to Columbia Harbor House for some dinner. Disney is starting to add calorie counts to their menus across property.
Our day ended with a viewing of the Main Street Electrical Parade. After a couple days of increased internet chatter, Disney has officially announced that the Main Street Electrical Parade will have it’s last evening in the Magic Kingdom on October 9th. @DLthings was the first to break the story that the Main Street Electrical Parade would be leaving the Magic Kingdom back in early June.
Apparently Paint the Night will switch places with Magic Kingdom's Electrical Parade after the 60th
— Matthew Gottula ?️? (@DLthings) June 6, 2016
A few photos from our viewing. We’ll be taking more photos as the nights count down and hope to get some good video to post as well.
