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Storybook Circus Soft Opening Update

Storybook Circus - New Fantasyland at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom
A new poster lays out current and future attractions, stores, and dining coming to Storybook Circus. I love that Humphrey the Bear is there. I wonder if he’s replaced The Three Little Pigs who were featured on previous posters.

Took a few days of vacation last week, but returned just in time for the Magic Kingdom to do a soft opening of the first small portion of the New Fantasyland expansion on Tuesday. Storybook Circus opened half of the relocated Dumbo – The Flying Elephant. The Barnstormer returned with its new Great Goofini theme, and the Fantasyland Train Station returned with new restrooms and a tribute to Walt’s past.

This portion of Storybook Circus was not supposed to open until March 24th or so. But hotel occupancy forecasts that revised the Spring Break crowd expectations upwards forced Disney to race ahead and open the attractions 12 days early. I must say that every cast member was up to the task and very helpful. Details are obviously still being worked out in a few places, but signs of fore-thought were abundant too. All in all a great effort and result from Walt Disney World and the Magic Kingdom.

There are so many great details, I took a ton of photos and still didn’t capture but a fraction. You may have already seen a few in my post made live from the park yesterday. I’m not sure how many parts this post will have, but I know it will be more than one. So let’s get to it.

Here is a sort of overview of what I saw today, we’ll come back in and fill in the gaps in future posts.

Storybook Circus - New Fantasyland at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom
The first sign guests got that today would be different, was a new guidemap with an old image of Dumbo on the cover.

Storybook Circus - New Fantasyland at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom
Inside, the map reflects the soft opened area of the New Fantasyland expansion. They even show only one side of Dumbo being open. However, #35 has a caveat.

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