Bitesize Orlando October 2024 – Issue 40

Welcome to another edition of Bitesize Orlando October 2024 and I hope you all have a fantastic Halloween. Typically October is a quieter time for news announcements as parks turn their attention to Halloween celebrations but this month we have 2 huge announcements that could affect your holiday plans for next year. Before we get onto that, a quick update on what’s been happening with the website.

Outside of the theme parks, these past few weeks have been an eventful time for Floridians with two powerful hurricanes battering the Gulf Coast in as many weeks and forcing the closure of the parks for a brief time. My thoughts go out to everyone impacted by the storm surge and resulting damage to property which will likely run into billions of dollars.

Late last month I started work on some downloadable Lightning Lane guides which have been completed, I just need to get them uploaded to the website so keep a look out as they should be arriving any day now on my Complete Guide To Disney Genie & Lightning Lanes Page, I just need a couple more days to lay out a new section to put them in.

I will begin work this week on next year’s crowd calendars so keep a check on my Orlando crowd calendar page throughout the month. There is a lot of work that goes into updating the crowd calendars, I can’t promise to have all the parks done by the end of the month but it shouldn’t be very long.

A rumour doing the rounds for the last few weeks became a reality when Disney officially announced that Lightning Lane Premier Pass is now available in Disney World and Disneyland.

Lightning Lane Premier Pass will sit alongside the existing Lightning Lane Multi-Pass and Lightning Lane Single-Pass products and will offer all the convenience of both but with less friction. Lightning Lane Premier Pass will only be sold in “very limited” quantities to guests staying in Deluxe-level accommodations including hotels, villas and DVC rental properties. I have a full list of accommodations below.

Now onto the elephant in the proverbial room, the cost. Lightning Lane Premier Pass will sit at the top of Lightning Lane options and in “very limited” quantities. The cost is dependent on the park and the day that you choose. Like other Lightning Lane options, eligible guests can see pricing in the My Disney Experience app from 7 days before you check-in. Initial price bandings for each park are below. Peak prices will only apply a few weeks a year, typically between Christmas and New Year, perhaps some other dates.

• Magic Kingdom: $329 – $449 + tax per person
• EPCOT: $169 – $249 + tax per person
• Hollywood Studios: $269 – $349 + tax per person
• Animal Kingdom: $129 – $199 + tax per person

There’s a huge difference in the base cost of a day in Animal Kingdom up to a peak day in Magic Kingdom. How much value you will derive from the passes depends on how many attractions you want to experience in the day.

With convenience, which Disney claims guests have been asking for since Lightning Lane was launched, come some restrictions and general rules.

• Premier Passes are only available to guests of Deluxe level on-resort accommodations, DVC Deluxe Villas and some other accommodations at launch. The full list is above.
• Prices are per person per day and don’t include tax.
• Guests can only purchase one Lightning Lane Premier Pass per day.
• Lightning Lane Premier Passes are only available for one park (park hopping is not allowed).
• There is no need to reserve your spot on an attraction, simply turn up and enjoy.
• Available for the same attractions included in Lightning Lane Multi-Pass AND Single Pass.
• Only one ride per attraction, no re-rides and no unlimited options are available.
• Price includes Photo Pass lenses and Photo Pass downloads at the attractions included in the pass.

We are a couple of months away from Big Thunder Mountain’s multi-month refurbishment closure. Your last chance to ride this iconic attraction will be January 5th 2025. starting January 6th the attraction will close and won’t re-open until 2026.

This refurbishment has been long overdue for such a popular attraction, Disney has likely been waiting for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure to start operating with a modicum of reliability, or at least without a virtual queue. The reliability has improved vastly since the initial opening but there has been no hint from Disney about the virtual queue situation.

Taking Big Thunder Mountain down for refurbishment at the same time as the work starting on the conversion of the Rivers of America into Cars Land makes absolute sense with the size of that project. Closing Big Thunder would allow contractors easier access to infill and start changing the terrain of the Rivers of America. They could even start laying the foundation of the new pathways that will be needed to connect existing public areas to the new Cars and Villains lands in the initial closure period.

When Will Big Thunder Mountain Railroad reopen? Officially there is no announcement as yet but a recently filed permit by Disney, first uncovered my WDW Magic, has perhaps narrowed down the opening window massively.

The permit relates to longtime Disney construction collaborator, DPR Construction which has an end date of March 13th 2026. That is a very specific date, but more importantly, that is more than a year away. The default timeline for construction permits in Florida is one year. Having an end date beyond one year from now, and on a very specific Friday that lines up with local schools breaking up for Spring Break 2026, is a massive hint that Disney wants to get Big Thunder Mountain back up for Spring Break 2026. Outside of Christmas, Spring Break is their most lucrative time of the year.

As soon as Disney confirms a date you can expect to find it here.

Ahead of Tropical Americas construction beginning in earnest, multiple attractions in what is now Dinoland USA will begin closing in January. Chester & Hester’s Dino-Rama! will have its final day of operation on January 12th, permanently closing on the 13th. Chester & Hester will join Primevil Whirl, a family-spinning roller coaster that closed in 2020 and has already been removed from the park and turned into a temporary seating area. The space of the former roller coaster will eventually become Casita Madrigal from “Encanto”.

Other attractions in Dinoland USA will remain open for now but will begin phased closures at a later date as construction moves into high gear. Further down the list of closures, “It’s Tough To Be A Bug” will close permanently in winter 2025 to be transformed into “Zootopia: Better Together” sometime in 2026.

Moving on from Animal Kingdom, Disney also shared that the opening of the new “The Little Mermaid – A Musical Adventure” will now open in the summer of 2025 after previously announcing that it would open in time for this holiday season. The reason for the delay has been confirmed to coincide with the future site of the new Monsters Inc. roller Coaster and land. From that, we could surmise that the new Monsters Inc. land is likely going to be behind the animation courtyard which currently houses the former animation studios, back office operations, a small office building and staff parking. For me, this would make complete sense with Cars Land and Star Wars at the back of the park already attracting huge numbers of guests. Putting Monsters Inc into the former Muppets area would create quite a bottleneck at the back of the park.

Big news this month from Universal who announced the official opening date of Epic Universe plus new ticket packages as well as a small delay to the opening of the new Terra Luna Resort which will now open on March 25th, 1 month later than originally scheduled on February 25th.

Both Terra Luna and Stella Nova hotels will be 2 or 3 months into operations when Epic Universe opens for the first time on May 22nd.

Ticket and hotel packages for UK visitors are now on sale for 2025. Be aware that all ticket packages for 2025, regardless of the number of days you have included (UK tickets are 14 days as standard) will only have 1 day allocated to Epic Universe. There is no need to reserve your day but you can only enter Epic Universe for 1 day. This is in addition to your standard 14-day window.

The same is true for US ticket packages which start with 2 days + 1 for Epic Universe with little difference in the ticket price. Ticket packages starting from January 1st 2026 will have unlimited visits and park hopping as standard, just as Universal’s two other parks do now. These restrictions throughout 2025 will allow Universal to manage demand when the park initially opens.

If you want to visit just for the day, you will have to wait until a near future date when single-day tickets will be available. Universal Orlando annual pass holders are currently the only guests allowed to book a one-day ticket.

Information about Universal Express Pass will also be made available nearer to the opening date, likely when Universal has a better understanding of how popular the new park will be based on ticket sales.

If you want to stay in a Universal Orlando on-site hotel you will be allowed into Epic Universe 1 hour ahead of standard operating times but operating attractions are yet to be released. The in-park hotel, Helios Grand, which will open alongside the park will not feature unlimited Universal Express Passes as standard unlike 3 of the other Signature collection hotels.

Bad news for guests of those resorts: the Unlimited Express Pass offer will not be extended to Epic Universe. Guests of these hotels will have to purchase Express Passes just like everyone else.

Hot on the heels of the Epic Universe reveal, Universal Creative just dropped a short YouTube video showing off some of the amazing audio-animatronics that have been designed for the Monsters Unchained attraction.

The lifelike audio animatronics certainly look a step above anything we’ve seen in an attraction setting. This video will only add more hype to Epic Universe’s largest attraction. I can’t wait to check it on in July when I visit Epic Universe for the first time. Check out the video below and see what you think.

Merlin, the owner of the Sea Life and Legoland brands along with countless other attractions including ICON Park in Orlando held a special charity event at its Legoland Florida theme park at the beginning of October.

The new attraction will eventually become home to 25 exhibits including a seahorse gallery, interactive invertebrate touch pool and, as is becoming standard in most Sea Life Centers, an underwater tunnel.

The event raised $1,400 after allowing guests to sign a steel beam that forms the backbone of the new building that will become Florida’s newest SEA LIFE Centre in early 2025.

That’s it for this month’s short update. I will be back next month as Christmas sweeps the parks once more.