Month: May 2019

Main Street Train Station NEW $1 Penny Machines – Magic Kingdom, FL

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To try and keep up with all the new pressed penny machines I spend a lot of my “spare” time looking at online blogs, websites and reading emails, tweets and blog/vlog comments.  I always make sure to have little baggies of quarters and pennies on the ready should a new machine be posted so I can try to go visit it as soon as possible.  However when I read about these new penny machines that were released at the Magic Kingdom they threw me for a bit of a loop.  A cost increase!

To see what exactly was going on I headed into the park and made my way towards the Main Street Train Station.

First I wanted to go upstairs and check out the Train that is currently just being kept there since the actual track around the park is being relocated.  This is all due to the new Tron roller coaster currently being built over by Space Mountain.

This does make for a fun little attraction where you can get up and personal with the steam engine.

I don’t think many people realize that you can still come up here to check out the train.  You can’t get into the engine, but there are engineers around that will answer your questions.

You can look inside the engine, and they also have the pull cord for the steam whistle dangling out the window for kids (of all ages) to pull periodically.

After we finished visiting with the train, we headed inside and down the stairs to the first level.

Located just behind the staircases on the first floor is where the two new penny machines were found.  Previously in this spot were two 3-design machines, one was a penny press and the other was a quarter press.  Now both machines are 4-design penny press manual machines.

The first machine we checked out was on the left side.  As you can see in the above picture shows the new price at $1 per penny.  I will review at the bottom how to use the machine and the different payment options.

 

This first set of pennies had some cute designs with Mickey and Minnie Mouse.  One did say “Main Street” on it, and another design had Mickey in a Stream Engine.

The second machine on the right side also $1 per design and supplied the pennies.

 

This set has four more 2019 designs with images of Captain Hooks Pirate Ship, Cinderella’s Castle, Space Mountain, and Dumbo.  I always like these dated designs as they make for a fun souvenir each year.  But this is going to make for quite the project in 2020 to replace all these designs plus the other 2019 coins all over the property.

After pressing all these new coins I decided to walk around the park and see if any more of these new $1 penny machines had shown up and I’ll post separately around that so stay tuned.

Now before we finish up let me review how payment on these new machines works.  I did talk with someone that works on these machines and there have been a lot of issues with them already.  Apparently, people are not reading the instructions correction since the process it a bit different so just make sure to follow those on machine instructions.

The machine supplies the penny so you can no longer use your own preferred pennies.  If you are using cash, you turn the handle until the arrow lines up with the design you want to press.  Then insert your $1 bill, wait a few seconds until you hear the penny drop in place and then start turning the handle as per usual process.  The machine will not accept larger than a $1 bill as it doesn’t give change.  If you want to get the entire set you would need to repeat the above 4 times.  The machine does also accept credit cards or mobile payment like ApplePay.  If you use this method to pay it only allows you to pay for the entire set and charges your card $4.  Just make sure you line up the arrow to one of the designs, then swipe your card and wait for it to be approved.  Then you will hear the first penny drop in place and you just keep turning the handle and all 4 designs will press one after the other.

I witnessed someone swipe their debit card and then only roll one penny and walk away.  As I mentioned above the machine still charges you the full $4 so make sure you press all 4 of your designs.  I called the family back over and explained it to them so they could press the other 3 pennies.  I believe that some new instructions will be placed on these machines in the future to try and help make sure they are working properly and being used correctly.

Epcot Flower and Garden 2019 – New Booklet and Medallions

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Well better late than never I guess.  The Epcot Flower and Garden festival for 2019 started back on March 6th and ends June 3rd.  I’ve mentioned this in the past, but this is my favorite festival.  The flowers are beautiful and smell fantastic, the food booths are pretty good (not as good as food and wine) but the biggest perk I find is that the crowds aren’t as crazy.

I do like Food and Wine in the fall but holy cow those crowds are out of control.  So I always prefer the Flower and Garden.  Since the festival started in March we have been over to enjoy it a few times.  I was hoping for either a new pressed penny booklet like last year or even some new pennies but nothing had been released.  With nothing new to write about I was a bit sad that I wouldn’t be able to post about the festival this year.  But then on my last visit, I found not one but two new things and couldn’t wait to share them.

Before I get into the new things I found let’s take a bit of a stroll through the festival.  Don’t worry our first stop is pretty close by.  Behind Spaceship earth was a new topiary this year of Daisy Duck.

Okay, that was long enough let’s go into Mouse Gear and check out the first new item.

I’m not sure if this is just a coincidence or not, but I found a new pressed penny booklet in this gift shop.  In the above picture, it is the one on the right.  The entire booklet is pink and covered with all your favorite Disney Princesses.  Yes, that is the correct price $12.99 but it holds about 48 pennies so that’s not too bad.

Back to the festival and some more topiaries and flowers.  Here was Goofy as we leave Spaceship Earth behind and head towards the World Showcase.

The beautiful flowers all laid out around the lagoon and surrounding areas are really amazing.  The bright colors are just screaming to have their picture taken.

Right at the entrance to World Showcase, we find our favorite mice Mickey and Minnie surrounded by plenty of heart topiaries.

 

Near the Canadian pavilion was the next set of new topiaries this year depicting Bambi, Flower, and Thumper.  Flower was always my favorite little skunk.

 

In the United Kingdom area, we found Tigger, Eeyore, Piglet, and Rabbit.

 

Continuing around the showcase we headed into France and found the above fantastic topiaries of Kermit and Miss Piggy.  These were definitely fan favorites this year and there was quite a line of people trying to take their perfect pictures of the muppets.

Some of the other pavilions had similar topiaries from last year but just located in different locations.  Above were Snow White and Dopey dwarf just outside the Germany pavilion.

Of course, we couldn’t pass by Norway without seeing Anna and Elsa from Frozen.

Finishing up our tour around the World Showcase we saw the Three Caballeros near the Mexico Pavilion.

Here is my attempt at a postcard shot.  A nice reflection of Spaceship Earth and the flower beds along the water.  All I’m missing was the Monorail driving through.

Do you remember seeing this building on your trips to Epcot?  It’s called the Odyssey building and in years past used to have more going on inside.  Usually, in my past visits, this was where we would make a quick bathroom break as we cut over to Test Track or back into the World Showcase.  However, this has now become the new festival center.

During the Flower and Garden Festival, it’s being called the Gardeners Terrace.  Inside is one of the food booth locations but I heard rumor it will soon be a Starbucks when Epcot’s future world starts going through some changes and that Starbucks is relocated.

Also in this area is some Festival merchandise including shirts, Minnie ears, pictures, and paintings and a whole lot more.

While we were in here looking at some of the items for sale I turned around and caught a glimpse of this new machine.

Obviously, this is not a pressed penny (or quarter machine) like we probably would have preferred.  But instead, it had those souvenir medallions that are slowing popping up like the ones I found in Disney Springs last year.  Plus they were themed specifically for the Flower and Garden Festival.

There were four different medallions in total.  They have a section in the middle of the machine where you can see what they will actually look like.  This is a bit of a strange setup as these coins are not what is dispensed to you when you buy them.  They are just there for display.

So you may be asking how about the cost.  It’s the same as the one at Disney Springs, $5 for one, or 3 for $10.  The machine does not give out change so you either need to have exactly $15 if you want all 4 medallions.  However, something that has been changed a bit from the first machine like this I used.  If you are using a credit card when you swipe your card there is a count down on the display that gives you 10 or 15 seconds to make your selections.  This is how the machine calculates how much to charge your card.  So during the time if you only select 1 design, when the countdown is done it will confirm you are being billed $5.  But you cannot select all 4 in one transaction.  I used my credit card and when I selected the first 3 designs it immediately completed the transaction and told me my card was billed $10.  So I had to swipe a second time and select just the 1 remaining medallions to complete the set.  Then I had to stand there and wait until the timer completed making sure someone else didn’t come up and charge more coins to my card.  Just be mindful of this if you are using the machine so you are only billed for what you want.

Two of the coins are a nice shiny gold color and the other two have more of a darker tarnished look.  Two of them have Figment the dragon on them, one has Minnie Mouse with a flower and the last has the 2019 Flower and Garden logo on it.

The back of all the coins has the same design pictured above with Spaceship Earth, World Showcase, the Monorail, and the Epcot logo.

This is really a great set of coins.  Yes, I absolutely wish these were pressed pennies instead, but as soon as I saw them I couldn’t get my money out fast enough.  I love having souvenirs with the different events on them and especially the year which helps document when we were there.  These were very popular when I visited and can’t imagine them not continuing this moving forward.  Starting August 29th is the Food and Wine festival so crossing our fingers we get some new coins for that, and maybe then the Festival of the Holidays.

I mentioned at the very top that the Flower and Garden Festival ends June 3rd, 2019 so if you get a chance make sure you pick up these medallions as I’m sure they won’t be around very much longer.

Typhoon Lagoon Water Park – WDW Florida

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Our annual Disney passes were coming up for renewal and I asked our daughters if they enjoyed the water parks last year.  They almost popped my eardrums as they screamed yes they wanted water parks again this year.  Once our passes were renewed we decided to celebrate by heading over to one of those water parks.

We had visited Typhoon Lagoon last year but it had rained for most of the day and we didn’t get to enjoy the full park.  So this time we made sure the weather was going to be in our favor and headed in for some fun in the sun…and water.

As we walked in we were greeted by Lagoona Gator.  This is always a popular photo spot but a little hint if you visit this later in the day it will be less crowded.  Everyone seems to want this picture first thing in the morning.

Here is a bit of an overview of the water park.  It’s really beautiful and has plenty of areas with shade or out in the sun if you are looking to work on your tan.

We always prefer a shaded area and were able to find some lounge chairs run under a bunch of large palm trees giving us plenty of cover.  Then after we loaded up on sunscreen it was time to check out the wave pool first.  The story of this park is that a typhoon wreaked havoc on a pristine tropical paradise.  Ships, surfboards and all sorts of other items were all thrown about as the storm hit.  All the way in the back of the wave pool is the centerpiece known as Miss Tilly.  This was a shrimp boat launched during the storm and impaled atop Mount Mayday.

After spending some time in the wave pool my youngest wanted to check out the kid’s area known as Ketchakiddee Creek.  There are plenty of little slides, and water spraying from all different areas.

Eventually, we decided to walk around more of the park and just do some exploring.  We found this bridge that takes you back closer towards the Miss Tilly.  You also get a bird’s eye view of the lazy river.

This pathway also takes you behind the wave pool giving an interesting perspective of it.  As you can see we definitely lucked out with a beautiful day to visit.

Of course, there are also a few places to get food as well as a couple bars.  This was my favorite bar and thought the theming of it was really well done.

We did hop in the lazy river a few times.  But unfortunately, when the park is busy this can be anything but lazy or relaxing.  Sometimes it takes a while to find an available tube to use, and some of the areas get quite bottlenecked with all the tubes crashing into each other.

Our girls were a little too small for the water coasters Crush n’ Gusher but I headed on them and they definitely take water slides to the next level.  In most water slides you are just slowly making your way downhill, but in these water coasters, there are jets that actually propelled you uphill a bit before you start coming back down.  They really are a lot of fun and hopefully, I can get my girls on them at some point in the future when they are a little bigger.

The main gift shop is called Singapore Sals.  It’s located near the entrance/exit to the park and has beach towels, swimming goggles, and even bathing suits if you forgot one.  Plus lots of souvenirs and sunscreen if needed.

Towards the left side of the store when you are walking inside is where the penny machine was located.

I was happy to see that the designs were themed for the water park which makes them a little more unique.

Years ago this was a machine I needed to complete my WDW Pressed penny set and I remember trying to write a letter asking if a cast member would be able to press my coins that I had included in the envelope.  It took a couple weeks but sure enough, I got the pennies back in the mail with a very nice letter from the staff.  They really do go above and beyond for their guests even when you aren’t there visiting.  The designs haven’t changed since then, but I went ahead and pressed a new set anyways.

By the late afternoon, we had a full day of swimming, sliding and just enjoying the bright Florida sunshine.  Everyone was starting to get a bit tired and cranky so we knew it was time to head home.  We did really enjoy this park, and now that we have our newly renewed annual passes we will be back again soon.

Disney’s All-Star Sports Resort – Pressed Penny Design Changes

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This small change to one of the penny press machines over at Disney’s All-Star Sports resort almost went unnoticed due to all the other new machines on property.

I took a quick drive over to the All-Star Sports resort which is one of the value resorts on Disney property.  When I was younger and taking trips down to Florida on my own, these were the resorts I stayed at most.  The majority of my days were spent at the parks or resort hopping as I tried to press all the pennies and quarters on property.   So I spent very little time in my room and it seems like a waste to spend more on a resort with better accommodations that I really wasn’t going to be using.  They are still a lot of fun to stay at, but they are no frills and fighting the crowds in the food court style eatery is not a great experience.

After parking my car I headed into the main building of the resort.  Past the check-in area towards the back of the building is where the End Zone food court is found and across from that is the Game Point Arcade.  Just outside the arcade is the above group of penny press machines.  There is one pressed quarter machine, and the other three are penny machines.  A nice addition here is the change machine which is a nice way to load up on quarters if you didn’t get enough before your trip.

The machine located all the way on the right is the one that received some new/old designs.

I say as they are new to this machine, but these designs were actually located at Hollywood Studios a few years ago and had been retired.  Or so we thought.  The two Beauty and the Beast designs were originally at the Once Upon a Time store along Hollywood Boulevard, and the Mickey Film Strip design was at the Pizza Planet restaurant near Muppets Courtyard.

It just goes to show you just when you think something may be retired and no longer available they may surprise us and bring them back.  Although it’s probably just a good idea to try and get them the first time around just in case.

Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing – Ocala, Fl

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Ever since I was small I’ve always loved cars.  Playing with my matchbox cars as a very young kid I always enjoyed the orange track you could snap together and have the cars race into the craziest double loop track design I could come up with.  Then after I got my license and my first car I remember visiting some race tracks with my friends as they would race their cards down the 1/4 mile stretch.  To be honest, racing was never really my thing, I enjoyed watching other people do it back then but never wanted to try it for myself.  Now years later Nascar and drag racing seem to be more popular than ever.

Shortly after we moved down to Florida a neighbor mentioned a museum that was about an hour away and was a Drag Racing fans heaven.  I was not what you would call a big fan, and don’t know much about who even still races, but the one name I did recognize was Don Garlits.  So I eventually found some time to head up and check it out.

Don was born on January 14, 1932, in Tampa Florida.  He is considered the father of Drag Racing.  Not just a race car driver but also an automotive innovator.  He perfected the rear engine design putting the fuel and other mechanical components behind the driver which helped protect the driver better.

After many years of racing Don opened a museum on his property in Ocala, Florida in 1976.

This sign greeted me as I pulled in off the highway.  Not sure if it applies to Don or to just visitors of his museum.

The museum is split up between two buildings, and houses just under 300 vehicles, and thousands are artifacts.

I headed inside and was just completely blown away.

This truly is a museum about all Drag racing.  Sure there is a lot of history and items about Don Garlits career, but there is also plenty of other items from many different drivers and racing teams.

They have over 90 drag racing cars alone, and each is surrounded with magazine covers, newspaper articles and trophies all pertaining to each vehicle.

When I had first checked in and paid my admission fee they said it usually takes about 2-3 hours to tour the museum.  But just being the casual fan that I am, I think that you could easily spend much more time than that with all the history and amazing stories being told with each exhibit.

There is even a separate area called the Engine room and that is exactly what you will find inside.  Each of these mammoth engines is enclosed in plexiglass to keep them preserved but it still allows you a 360-degree view of them.

Hiding just inside the door of the Engine room was the first penny machine (did you think I came here just for the cars).

The penny machine only has one design available.  You slide your two quarters and one penny inside and it comes alive to automatically press your penny.  There is a large sign on the front of the machine letting you know to wait until it has finished before trying to press another penny.  I think due to the machine only having 1 design it takes a little longer for the machine die to reset each time.

The penny design was pretty cool.  It had one of Don’s famous drag racing cars and the name of the museum and location.  I always really enjoy these types of designs as they make for great mementos of the places we visit.

I continued through the first main building and just couldn’t believe how big this collection was.  They even had a simulator where you could test your speed off the line by sitting in a driver’s seat and watching the lights change to green before you pressed the accelerator.  Apparently, I made a good choice not going into drag racing since my reaction time was appalling.

Eventually, I finished with the first building and headed just a short walk to the second building.

You do need to show your admission ticket to get inside this second building and there was an attendant behind the counter checking.  Just past that counter was a second penny machine.

This machine also only had one design.

The design on the penny was of a nice looking classic car.  It also said Don Garlits Classic Cars and Ocala, Florida.

If you like antique cars or even some American muscle cars this was the building for you.  The entire building was just jammed packed with them.  Each had a placard listing all the details about the car, the engine and the history of the car.

Once I had finished looking at all the cars and taking a bunch of pictures and video I think I had been there for almost 4 hours.  That may be a bit extreme but this really was an amazing place and I’m glad I made the trip up to see it.  As I mentioned at the beginning I’m not a huge drag racing fan but I really don’t think you need to be.  If you are ever in the area be sure to set some time aside and visit this museum, it was a lot of fun and of course, you can pick up a few pressed pennies as well.  Please note that paid admission is required to access both penny machines, but it’s well worth the nominal fee and a few hours of your time.

Retired Pennies at Universal Studios Florida – Coming Soon

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Just last week was Easter weekend and I knew from previous years that the Walt Disney World parks are usually really busy.  So this year I decided to visit Universal Studios in hopes the crowd levels may be a little less over the Holiday weekend.  Well unfortunately that was not the case.

Those parks were just as busy, but my plan on this trip was just to enjoy a nice day wandering around the park, and not worrying too much about trying to get on any of the rides.  I was also going to use this as an opportunity to see if any of the penny machines had moved, or if there were any new designs.  Universal doesn’t change their pressed penny machines as often as Disney so there usually isn’t much to update.  After we walked into Universal Studios we headed towards Hollywood Boulevard and checked out the first penny couple machines in the Silver Screen Collectibles and Hello Kitty stores but they were the same, no changes.  This was the same for the next few machines as well over near the E.T. ride, Barney, Springfield and the Men In Black (M.I.B.) store.  Then I came to the San Francisco Candy Company and found that the machine had been moved to a different area of the store.

I was taking some new pictures of the machine when I noticed something.  There was a sticker in the corner of the glass window where you can watch the penny being pressed.

The sticker was announcing that the engravings (designs) would be retired in the Summer 2019.  It also showed pictures of the designs that were going to be retired and in this machine it would be all 3.  Now I had a new objective for this trip, are there more of these notices in the parks?  Then I started to second guess myself about the other machines I quickly had looked at already so I backtracked to make sure.  None of those machines had any stickers about retired designs.  Then I headed back to where I had initially left off and check the machines in the Transformers Ride, the Mummy, Shrek and Minions attractions but those were all staying the same.  The last machines to review in this park were at big Studio Store near the entrance / exit to the park.

This store has 4 machines inside and most of them are staying the same but one did have one of those stickers on it.

This machine will only have 2 of the 3 designs retired.

This one seems a little strange as the Thing 1 & 2 and Gru designs are retiring but the Kong design is staying.  Kong doesn’t have an attraction in Universal Studios anymore and instead has a new ride over in Islands of Adventure so I’m not sure why it would be staying in this location.  Next I headed over to Islands of Adventure to continue the search.

We didn’t go too far inside the park when we visited the Island Market Export store and found the first machine with some soon to be retired designs.

This machine was towards the back of the store pass the big candy counter.

There are two machines located back to back of each other.  The front facing machine has the retired sticker and apparently will have all 3 designs removed.

Next we headed into the Cats, Hats and Things store which is where you exit from the Cat in the Hat ride.

This machine will only have 1 design retired.

I would assume a new Cat in the Hat design will be coming to this machine, but it would seem strange to have something else here.

A little further down the path was the Gertrude McFuzz store.

The Grinch has a meet and greet in this store, and is right near where the penny machine is located so it can be a little tight when the line is long.

Two of the three designs here will be retired.

We then left Seuss Landing and headed into the Lost Continent.  There was only one penny machine in this area of the park at the Treasures of Poseidon store.

This machine has been in this store for a long time and the designs have been unchanged, but that apparently is changing.

According to the sticker all 3 of the designs will be retired.  Not sure if this means the entire machine is going away, or if just new designs will be replaced.  After that we cut through The Wizarding World of Harry Potty which still has no pressed pennies, and then we found ourselves in Jurassic Park.

Near the River Adventure ride (the big water drop ride) is the Jurassic Outfitters store.  All the way in the back where you get your pictures from the water ride was the next machine.

These are some nice classic designs with he Jurassic Park logo, and the Islands of Adventure logo.

But according to the sticker on this machine all three designs are going away. There is some construction nearby this area with a rumored new Jurassic Park themed roller coaster so maybe these designs are being replaced with images for that new attraction.    The next area was Toon Lagoon which is themed around many old school comic characters like Betty Boop, Popeye, and Wimpy among many others.

There is one large gift shop that runs along one side of this area called Toon Extra.  Plenty of character merchandise and of course a penny machine.

I always liked the “A Penny for your thoughts” quote on the bottom of this machine.

This is another machine with all three of the designs being retired.  The set included Betty Boop, Popeye and Spongebob Squarepants.

Directly across from Toon Extra is a small store that is all about Betty Boop.

This machine and I are not on good terms.  Years ago I was on a quick trip to Florida and visited Universal trying to press all the pennies they had, but this machine was broken.  Then I spent the next year or so trying to find someone to get the pennies but that didn’t pan out.  Eventually I came back for another work trip and when I went to use this machine it was broken again.  I just couldn’t win.  But since then I was able to eventually press the set, but I will admit I’m a little happy to see it go.  Hopefully the entire machine gets an overhaul.

the posted sticker on the machine shows only two images going away, and one Betty Boop design staying in the machine.  That was it for Toon Lagoon, and no other changes in Super Hero Island so I headed out of Islands of Adventure.  The only other machines still to be checked on where in the parking structures so that’s where I headed next.  There are currently 7 penny machine around the parking hub and 6 of them appear to be staying the same even tough most of those designs are very dated.

The very last machine I checked out was in the North Parking structure just before you get to where all the cars are parked.  This is another machine that’s been around for quite a while, I think I initially presses these designs about 5 or 6 years ago at least.

I guess the latest Fantastic Four reboot movie didn’t do enough to keep fan interested in these coins.

The entire set of 4 designs are marked to be retired.

That was all I found but was excited to know that so many coins are being retired, and hopefully being replaced with new designs.  The possibilities are intriguing with what may show up.  Some of the machines where all the designs are going away, may be replaced with those new 8-design machines.  Obviously the other machines with just one or two images retiring may get pennies for all the new attractions that have been showing up at the parks recently.

In total I found notices that 26 total pennies are to be retired.  As I mentioned above that’s no guarantee that 26 new designs will be back and some may just be gone for good.  Also there is no set date for when these are being changes out, it just says Summer 2019.  I’ll be visiting the parks on a regular basis to try and report back as soon as these start changing out.

Any ideas what you think may be on the way?  Any designs you would like to see show up.  Let me know in the comments below.  Happy Collecting!