Theme parks prep previews for Tiana ride, DreamWorks Land
Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando have shared details about annual-passholder previews for a pair of coming attractions: Tiana’s Bayou Adventure at Magic Kingdom at DreamWorks Land at Universal Studios theme park.
Both have official opening dates in late June, but passholders will be able to get early looks at the projects.
Previews for Disney World passholders will happen on June 13, 14, 16, 17, 18 and 20, and the park is using a virtual queue for the event. Park reservations are required in most instances for these previews.
Disney, via email, instructs passholders to make reservations for Magic Kingdom on the desired date to have a shot at the 7 a.m. virtual queue, accessed via the My Disney Experience app. Or, Disney says, they can make reservation for one of its other three theme parks on preview dates to join the 1 p.m. queue.
Passholders do not have to have entered any park to request the virtual queue, but if they have requested Epcot, Disney’s Hollywood Studios or Disney’s Animal Kingdom parks, they must enter those parks before traveling over to Magic Kingdom. This is the way.
(UPDATE: By midday Tuesday, all reservations were claimed for Magic Kingdom on the passholder preview days. Reservations for the other WDW parks remained available.)
However, on June 13, 14, 17, 18 or 20, passholders can enter Magic Kingdom without reservations after 2 p.m.
The virtual queue system also will be in use on June 28, official opening day of the attraction. There will not be a standby queue at first, according to a post on the official Disney Parks Blog.
During previews, passholders will be able to hold virtual queue spots for Tron Lightcycle Run at Magic Kingdom or Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind at Epcot while also being virtually queued for the Tiana ride.
And in the small print: virtual queues have limited capacity and there are no guarantees.
Meanwhile, Universal Orlando has sent out “save the date/stayed tuned” message to annual passholders regarding its new DreamWorks Land. There will be select times available May 24-27. Prospective participants will need their pass numbers and those of eight other passholders to bring along to reserve times. It will be a first come/first served/limited-space sign-up period, which will be announced later.
DreamWorks Land officially opens June 14.
The Tiana ride and DreamWorks Land, built where Woody’s KidZone used to be, are two of the major additions for Orlando theme parks this season. June 14 is also the debut date for Universal’s “CineSational: A Symphonic Spectacular,” a nighttime lagoon show with 600 drones, 228 fountains and 4K projection mapping.
SeaWorld Orlando has not yet announced an opening date or previews for its Penguin Trek roller coaster, expected to debut sometime in spring.
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