You’ve saved. You’ve dreamed. You call and make your vacation plans. Dining reservations are made. And now, 60 days out, it’s time to schedule your FastPasses.
So, you log onto My Disney Experience and you see this:
Yep. One of your favorite rides is closed for refurbishment. This just happened to us while planning our next trip. And I’m officially bummed. But that’s not going to ruin our trip. It is, however, a big reminder that many favorite attractions or ones we want to try might be shut down.
Time to re-group.
Disney is constantly maintaining, updating and making downright changes to its attractions. It goes on all year round. If you have an attraction that is an absolute, must-do you can try to check out a Disney refurbishment schedule and work your trip around it. But there are no guarantees.
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (BTMR) is one of our favorites. On a Christmas Trip (a time of year where there are few closures because of high attendance) we had two days scheduled at Magic Kingdom. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is something we will ride over and over. We had checked out the schedule and it was going to be open for our entire trip. On the first day, we rode it once, with FastPasses. No big deal. We had plans to ride it again, multiple times (with our tips and tricks), on our last day.
We head there first, on the morning of our last day to find it closed. No big deal. We have FastPasses for later. We check again. Still closed. I quickly checked the My Disney Experience App. Nothing. No news is good news (we think) and plan to check back in another hour. But no luck. It was down. For the rest of the day. And the next day, the news was official. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was closed for the next two months for refurbishment.
You can plan. You can check and double-check schedules. But, as we discovered, there are no guarantees.
The best advice I can give is: Be Flexible. Check a reliable Disney refurbishment schedule. Make your plans and cross your fingers.
There is so much to see and do. You will barely miss your favorite roller coaster. Chances are, you’ll discover a new favorite.
Besides…..there’s always the NEXT trip!
