Brief review of Tron at Magic Kingdom, 3/8/23

Vater:

We've actually discussed doing a Disney cruise recently, so it's on the table. That seems more appealing than the Orlando parks.

I loved the DCL cruise I took--which was Alaska, so a bit on the adventure side. They do a good job. The food was good, the entertainment was great, and I dig the vibe of the original boats. The one thing that struck me was how much parents and kids are separated--definitely a different from the Disney parks, which have more of an everyone-together thing going.

And Jeff is 100% correct: it is much simpler than a theme park vacation, and you can sort of choose your own adventure in terms of how busy you are going to be.

22 cruises on DCL so far, another (Bahamas) next month, Northern Europe in July. Alaska was pretty amazing (though Ketchikan is an awful lot like a tropics port, with the diamond stores and what not). The Wonder is one of my favorites because of Tiana's Place in the dinner rotation.

And yeah, my kid, now 13, has been independent on the ships for years. It's not like he can get off by himself, so we originally got a $40 phone (with no service) to use the onboard chat app to keep in touch. Now he splits his time behind the Vibe, the teween club, and the pools or slides. And we park in the bars.

I rode Tron for the first time this morning. After reading so many mediocre reviews online I was shocked at how much I liked it. It's definitely family friendly, but it is a solid attraction and I wish I knew I would have a chance to ride it again sooner than later.

Also, for the record, I rode in the back row in a regular bicycle seat. In fact I only saw one train with the alternate seating while waiting on the ramp in the station.

It's clear now that they weren't using the full set of trains during the preview I attended.

I also rode the WDW Railroad for the first time since it reopened. I was surprised at how much of the Splash Mountain outdoor queue they haven't covered up. There were ladders and other random construction tools laying around in view of everyone on the train.

Also I got this photo of the overflow queue for Big Thunder Mountain around 11am. Today was not going to be a day to stick around.

We got a front row and back row(motorcycle seat,) ride last week, and were completely underwhelmed. What Jeff said is as accurate as a description as I could think of.

"As a roller coaster, the launch feels like it has a very long acceleration curve, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, there isn't much to it after that. It meanders back and forth around some fairly tight turns and then it's over. There are five or six-ish turns inside the building, with I think a total of three long block brakes (they mercifully don't slow the train). There just isn't much there. I might even argue that if you take out the launch, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train does more stuff."

I almost think they should have opened Tron before the Guardians of the Galaxy coaster because of how much more of a complete experience that ride is. It does fit well into the Magic Kingdom, but a $22 lightning lane is expensive for that. As Jeff said about the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train being a more complete ride. We rode that once and paid $12 for a lightning lane. I don't think Tron should cost more than that.

It's the newest attraction on property and does not have an option for a regular standby line. They'll charge the $20-$22 for Lightning Lane until it stops selling at that price or after they start offering a regular standby line.

Yeah, I won't be surprised to see Tron's eventual price settle below Dwarves (or even be moved to the G+ tier) but not while it is the New Hotness.

Out of curiosity, how many of WDW's attractions offer no stand-by option? Is it just TRON....the new hotness?

And Guardians

The Other New Hotness.

The two axes are:

Free access: VQ (Tron, GotG) vs. Standby (everything else)
Paid access: $Individual Lightning Lane (Tron, GotG, 7DMT, RotR, FoP) vs. Genie+ (almost everything else) vs. No skip the line (Edit: People Mover, Carousel of Progress, some other things that never have lines?)

I just got back from 3 days at WDW, 2 at Magic Kingdom and 1 at Epcot. After striking out on the early virtual queue, we sprung for Lightning Lane on Tron both days. I really enjoyed it a lot. The launch is great and that hop back into the show building is a really cool sensation. Yeah, it's short, but I'll agree that riding in that position much longer would be pretty uncomfortable. As someone that's never seen the movies, I appreciate the fact that the pre-show is fairly simple. I was a little worried about fit. I'm a squatty 5-9 at around 265 pounds. My calves are large and, even after reading up, I was still a little skeptical. I was pleasantly surprised when the attendant at the test seat told me I shouldn't have any problem before I even sat down. We only saw 1 person that was unsuccessful with the fit while we were waiting.

As much as I enjoyed Tron, Guardians is probably my new favorite ride at the resort. We only managed one ride with VQ and I would have easily paid for a couple of LL rides if they had been available. We ended up in a boarding group that was called around 2:00. The pre-show is opposite from Tron and more along the line of ROTR as far as being elaborate, but it is incredibly easy to follow for someone that's not a fan of the movies. The backward launch is great and I barely noticed the spin. It's just a damn fun ride. We ended up with September, probably my second choice behind Tears for Fears.

TFF is my first choice. I don't entirely mind Disco Inferno, which is weird because I hate disco. I still haven't had a lap with Blondie, which seems statistically improbable at this point.

I think in my 5 rides, I got Blondie 3 times. Shrug.

Got to ride this twice over the past week. Paid $100 to ride for 5 peeps. Yippee!

but maybe because I was prepared for a letdown, I liked it a lot. The launch and then the big curve around is the best part for sure. I would agree it’s probably a little short and could use maybe one more element, but it’s still alot of fun.

Got a lap on Tron myself this past week with the virtual queue. It’s a lot of fun like others reported, but also took my first ride on Gaurdians too which is really amazing.

jkpark:

Got a lap on Tron myself this past week with the virtual queue. It’s a lot of fun like others reported, but also took my first ride on Gaurdians too which is really amazing.

Guardians was amazing! I got Blondie and Disco Inferno on my rides.