Two of the coveted lightning bolts I received on Friday!

Roughly 1 hour & 20 minutes was all it took last Friday for the SotMK booster packs to sell out.  As one of the lucky people to get my hands on the coveted merchandise I have to say the entire cast at the Emporium did a wonderful job in keeping the operation orderly and efficient.  Just seconds after rope drop a horde of people stormed the Emporium, causing the line to stretch out of the door closest to the Firehouse.  In an effort to avoid crowding within the Emporium, stanchions were setup just outside the door and guests were let in a few at time.  Upon entering they were moved into a shorter line in front of the set of registers devoted to the sale of booster packs only.  Disney made a very wise decision in keeping the merchandise at one register and behind the counter.  As well as enforcing a purchase limit of 5 per guest.  This resulted in a very smooth and pleasant experience for those who were able to purchase them.

There was plenty of joy and excitement in the air that day.  Especially on the face of Imagineer Jonathan Ackley who was present during the release.  He was very excited to see the amount of people who had shown up to purchase the cards.  In addition to the long awaited booster release, guests were surprised to hear that the medium level had been activated for testing.  The level will continue to be tested this week with the last day being Friday the 24th.  Immediately after making their purchase most guests were tearing into the booster packs to see what lightning bolts they had acquired.  Personally I had waited a while and observed as people made the mad dash to trade their duplicates in an effort to finally complete their set.  When I had finally opened mine, I tweeted out what I had for trade and immediately received responses from people as to what they had to offer.  I made my way to Tortuga and was immediately overwhelmed by the amount of traders.  This had turned out to be just as crazy as I expected.

With all this excitement there is bound to be disappointment.  There were many who left empty-handed and angry.  I personally witnessed a grown man have a full on temper tantrum when he was told they had ran out.  Which to me was absolutely hilarious.  There’s nothing I love more than seeing someone have a meltdown while they’re on Disney property.  Let alone an adult man who lost it over a game that was designed for kids.  One thing that didn’t surprise me is there was not a single person at least in my opinion, that balked at the price of $11.95 per pack. Let alone thought twice about purchasing the max amount.  It’s clear to me that these fans are ready and able to spend.  After last Friday Disney has to be fully aware that they have created a merchandise monster.  With the upcoming release of pins this fall, the possibilities for more SotMK merch are endless.

As far when more booster packs are to become available I’ve heard rumors as early as Wednesday and as late as Friday, however nothing is confirmed.  I will keep my eyes and ears open to do my best in keeping everyone informed via the blog and twitter.  On a personal note I’d like to thank Steven Miller for doing a great job in keeping in contact with the community and answering our questions to the best of his abilities.

Finally I’d like to give a shout out to the SotMK Helpers Group over on Facebook.  This group is filled with some amazing people who are truly making a difference in the SotMK fan community.  I highly suggest you check them out!

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I’m heading out to Magic Kingdom to see if the rumors are true, Booster Pack watch starts now!  Although I am not expecting anything I’ll still be on the lookout!  Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook Fan Page!  As I’ll be posting any updates there!

“Have A Magical Day!”

We’re roughly six months into SotMK and the amount of misinformation that is still passed on to guests is alarming.  I’ve always stuck up for the cast members working this attraction and will continue to do so.  However the lack of communication among those on stage and off stage is simply unacceptable.  I’m not sure if coordinators, management, or any other higher ups know exactly what your cast members are telling guests in regards to SotMK.  The better question is, do you even care?

I have the responsibility of gathering as much information and asking as many questions as I can for the purposes of writing this blog.  The SotMK community is a large one and I have taken it upon myself to do my best to bring them any and all information.  With that said when I’m at the Magic Kingdom I try to talk to as many cast members as I can.  For the most part all of them have friendly and warm personalities which is a plus.  However most of them have no clue what is going on with this attraction.  Which is a major problem.  Here’s some of the things I’ve been told by cast members about SotMK in the past few weeks.

• “You can still get cards 61-70 in the packs we hand out, it’s like 1 in 1000.”
• “The medium/hard levels are never coming back, the Imagineers told us so.”
• “I only need your park ticket to give you spell cards.”
• “I only need your key card to give you spell cards.”
• “I need both your key card and park ticket to give you spell cards.”
• “Yeah the system crash was due to a server overload.”
• “I don’t know why the system crashed.”
• “Oh, we’re going to start selling the cards?”

At the risk of sounding even more redundant I’ll stop there.  I understand there is a decent amount of cast member turn over at this location.  Which is likely due to the Disney College Program, and the fact this cast is considered Main Street Ops and is not solely devoted to SotMK.  However it’s no excuse to have a bunch of people working in an area in which they aren’t given any information about.  Thus when approached with a question they don’t have an answer for, at the risk of upsetting the guest they’ll make up something off the top of their head.  I’d have to equate that to having a Jungle Cruise Skipper that doesn’t know the spiel.  It’s bad show.  Get with it, everyone needs to be on the same page and there needs to be some consistency.  To be completely honest I think we’d all rather be given the stock “I don’t know.”  Instead of being fed nonsense.  Take some pride in this attraction, the guests deserve better.

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