I haven’t seen any info about this yet (or missed it buried in another post). It looks like this Fortnite thing isn’t going to be the only special event they will be doing. After doing the “special mission” earlier tonight, it definitely felt very generic.

First off, the park app (at least for Disneyland’s) brought up a notification about Hondo needing a special mission done. There was also a button on the app’s home screen under the park hours to start the mission.

Once accepted, whether by just one crew member or all, entering the video briefing before the cockpit gives a very brief bit of Hondo mentioning some of you are on a special mission. Mando will then mention having to collect special crates during the bounty hunt. ( note: i didn’t notice anything special about the crates compared to others; i also only ran the Mando & Grogu mission changes for the first time a couple days ago, so i don’t know if the fortnite stuff was already started by then but i think it started today?)

When the mission starts up, Mando will say during the practice stuff at the beginning that engineers will have to reel in the special crates and gives ones to practice on (basically same as the normal runs).

anyway, nothing mentions fortnite specifically in the actual flight (the app is the only thing that does) and i doubt they did all of the audio and server-side tech work for this just to be a single one-off. i’m sure we’ll see plenty of future content like this for other games (or more for fortnite). For instance, i could see them doing special saber parts / outfits for Cal Kestiss to use in the next “Jedi” series game, or so on.

during my run tonight, i was the only engineer in the group and the only one on the mission (i was a single rider placed with a random group and didn’t want to try to talk the people into opening the app and clicking on stuff to get more of us doing it). i managed to get what i assume was the max of three crates with a solo engineer. i assume with two, the max is six. it didn’t seem like it mattered one way or another on how many i collected.

that said, the scoring also looked different (yellow and brown rather than the normal shades of blue). there was a specific score for the crates. i could potentially see them doing something where people need to build up a collective score in order to unlock future things (like “earn 20,000 total points by collecting crates to unlock this item!”), but i think they’ll just keep it as a simple binary “did you complete the objective?” to award it.

so yeah… i doubt this is the last we’ll see if this sort of promo being done for Smugglers Run.

this is especially helpful for first-timers. be sure to download and use the D23 app. you can look at the various schedules and create a list of things you want to do by adding them. there’s a global alert timer you can also set to remind you before each one you have saved starts — 5, 15, 30, 60 mins beforehand. super helpful to plan out the day for what you want to do, which things your have RSPs for, and so on.

the UX is a bit clunky but not too hard to figure out and find things. just click on the 2nd icon at the bottom for the schedule. you can search by text string, or scroll through the various times for each day. simply click on the calendar with + sign icon on the right to add to your list.

to view what you have saved, click the calendar with the heart icon on the upper left. you can also remove saved items from either list.

hope that helps make people’s planning that much smoother! 😁

One of the things that has been a pain after I finished all other content in the game is the waaaaaay drawn out RNG for working on getting all of the map pieces and artwork from the fleet missions. After 2 days of near-constant running missions, I still need 4 more map pieces and 1 more piece of art. The down side is that I didn't start any of this until I was in the end-game chapters, only running a fleet mission here and there when i remembered to. (i'm used to the original version, which played out a bit differently, and didn't want to put time into learning the new system / UI layout until I had nothing else left to do).

i cannot stress enough that if you are trophy/achievement hunting and going for them all, always have fleet missions running! focus specifically on the ones that require schooners (these will randomly give you map pieces, when displayed before the mission start, along with the normal reward) and ones that require brigs (these will randomly give artwork in the same manner). you may get blocked on mission difficulty until you capture a man o' war and/or higher level ships for your fleet, but do them until you can't.

the huge hurdle i keep running into is i am constantly short on cloth for ship repairs. I also had a fair number of 1-star ships in my fleet that i knew i would have to replace those with at least 2- or 3-star versions. in both cases, i hadn't really found a good place to grind out materials or look for better brigs and schooners.

luckily, during one of the later story missions i was over by Fort Charlotte and spotted a nice convoy with some higher level (2- or 3-star?) schooners being led by a high-end (4-star?) frigate. since the Jackdaw was more or less maxed out, it was an easy fight and i picked up some replacement schooners.

Anyway... here's some of the things i learned from sticking to that area around the west coast of Jamaica.

• Fast travel to Fort Charlotte or The Blue Hole diving spot (both on the west side of Jamaica). You can usually spot a treasure convoy nearby, which can vary for ship types but usually consists of a frigate or man o' war with support ships. you may have to sail away from the fort and tack south before you spot it near the SW corner of the island. it's great way to grind out some reales along with building up your fleet. if you need to reset the ships in the area, just fast travel (i usually fast travel back to the mansion, collect from the reales box, then fast travel back to fort charlotte).
• This area is loaded with 3-star up to 5-star ships, including man o' wars, for both spanish and british fleets. I've seen as few as three ships when I fast traveled to Fort Charlotte and as many as nine. If you need some better ships for your fleet, it's a great place to pick up some to add. Just be cautious not to bite off more than you can chew, even with a fully upgraded Jackdaw. fighting a pair of man o' wars when a convey of 3+ other ships float by can mess up your day quickly. The fights can be difficult if you don't have a decent number of improvements to the Jackdaw and always prioritize getting the officers added to your ship at the start of the game as soon as you can. having the reduced damage when bracing along with the better ramming damage is a huge boost towards fighting harder ships.
• from what i've seen -- and i believe the original worked this way too? -- is that the max number of star rating for your fleet is 3-star, so there's a weird conversion the game does for sea-to-fleet. best i could tell is anything that 1-star converts straight to 1-star. pirate hunters tend to convert to 2-star (at least the two i captured; these could also vary?). anything else 2-star and up convert to 3-star (at least the 2-star schooners i caught by Charlotte became 3-star, but i can't say this is always the case...?).
• If you're like me and struggling for cloth to repair your fleet, the frigates and man o' wars are what you want to focus on in this area. depending on their star level and ship class, they'll carry anywhere from 40-60 cloth each (some frigates won't carry any, so always use your spyglass on them). they'll also tend to carry a decent amount of other resources, which will help replenish ammo and trade goods, plus other repair material.
• DO NOT REPAIR AFTER EVERY FLEET MISSION! I learned this the hard way and it cost me a lot of my stockpiled cloth early on. You can get away with running 2-4 missions with a 3-star ship before you need to repair it. The cost to repair is fixed regardless of total damage attained. Just be wary of the warnings when it says that you could lose a ship. I usually give myself a 10-15% padding (if a ship has 1000 hp and is down to 600, i won't sent it out on any mission that says 400-500 dmg, where worst case it could drop down to 100 hp or lower -- just to be safe).
• Don't sink ships if you can help it. Sinking a ship will leave half or less of what they were carrying for reales, materials/goods, and ammo -- but if you grab the floating loot from them. I usually leave one or two of them disabled as a way to fix up the ship if things get too hairy with the larger ships. Bee-line for one of the smaller disabled ships, board, repair, back into action.
• For the larger ships, always go for the captain's loot box. You'll get a decent number of reales as well as the occasional bonus loot (ammo, good, etc).
• Don't use ships to reduce your wanted level. The pirate hunters aren't usually too tough to take out. Plus, you'll want the bigger ships they have at higher wanted levels in order to get the captain loot boxes for the map pieces found within. (again, always take the loot box option!). ...plus there's the trophy/achievement for taking out a hunter ship when at max wanted level. there's really no reason to ever lower your wanted level unless you're still very, very early in the game.
• The best fleet config that has worked for me is 4 each of schooners and brigs plus 2 man o' wars. This will give a decent amount of trade coverage on the map (4 of the 5 zones) and the ability to reduce difficulty two at a time, even more coverage since the man o' war missions complete faster than trade missions. i don't use any frigates since those only will reset warehouse timers. those might be useful if you want to spend time robbing them for more trade goods, but if you raided each one for the artwork/maps already, plus any other time you were doing the story or clearing an island, you should have a decent amount of trade goods to get you going for trade missions.
• Once you have all of the art (brig missions) or all of the map pieces (schooner missions), salvage whichever ship type you don't need then load up one more for the other type and man o' wars in the other slots (five of one type -- either schooner or brig -- plus five man o' wars). you'll be able to cover all five zones for schooner trade and all five to reduce their difficulty as needed. Again, the area around the west Jamaican coast is ideal for getting the replacement ships.
• from what i remember, the original game used to have a way to reset the mission rewards for any un-started mission by saving then reloading (or saving, exiting, reloading), so that you could grind out the RNG items quicker. i haven't seen that working in Resynced, though. if someone can confirm that still works, great! the few times i tried it, it gave the exact same rewards or required exact same trade items where applicable (i.e. nothing changed at all upon reload).
• it seems like on console (at least on PS5) you can't start fleet missions then go to the dashboard and stream something while they are running. i tried that last night and it put the game in a hibernation so that after an hour, when i thought all of my missions would be done, they still had the 20-40+ mins left on them. ...so what i found the best way to let the fleet missions run is go work on any part of the game you haven't done yet (story missions, side quests, whatever) and then as soon as you can when fleet missions are done, go collect on them and start the new ones. if you're like me and completed everything else (including all trophies/achievements -- except the art collection in every slot one), go grind on some ships near Fort Charlotte. it's a great time-killer where you can also stockpile gold, goods, and materials. ...or go work on something away from the game for short bursts of time while you await the missions to end.

One other note for achievement/trophy hunters unrelated to the above: if you are having a hard time finding a burning ship to sit on, try fast traveling to the Black Trench diving location. There's usually a burning ship near there. I spent a good part of an hour or more using the Principe method (there's always a burning ship to the southwest after you return to the Caribbean from Principe), but after a dozen or more attempts, I never got a chair on any of the ships that spawned there. I tried the Black Trench location and got it on my second time. Not sure if that will be the case for everyone -- RNG gonna random -- but just passing it along in case it helps anyone.

[last minute edit: i finally got a mission for the last piece of art i need while i was typing all of this out, so i'll definitely be ditching my bigs for schooners & man o' wars until i knock out the last four map pieces i still need]

Addition Info... for those that need a checklist, there are 10 missions with map pieces and 19 with artworks to receive as rewards. Here's the artwork if anyone wants to use it as a checklist so you know what you may still need.

• Kast Cupboard
• Joined Armchair with Cushion
• Commode
• Clock
• Drum
• Oboe
• Trumpet
• Violoncello
• Mirror Back
• Scherer's 1700 Globe
• Whydah Galley-style Bell
• Goa Stone Container
• Wooden Term Statue of St Livertin
• Wooden Term Statue of St Adrian
• Head of an Oba
• Jar with Four Faces
• Silver Two-handed Bowl
• British Silver Teapot
• Parade Helmet a l'Antique

Bright suns, all!

With summer approaching, I thought it would be a good idea to make one of the cantina drinks at home. I had previously posted this 4 (!) years ago after it was posted on the official Disney Parks blog, but that link has changed and is no longer valid. I figured i might as well re-post the recipe along with the updated link (see below as hyperlinked to the drink title). The recipe is still the same, but for anyone who had it bookmarked -- like i did! -- now's a good chance to update the bookmark or copy/paste the recipe and save locally.

Ta'bu e tay and MTFBWY!

This adorable drink features citrus juices, coconut, hibiscus-grenadine, and ginger ale

Cliff Dweller Recipe

Makes 1 serving

Ingredients

3 oz. orange juice

3 oz. pineapple juice

1 oz. lime juice

1/2 oz. hibiscus grenadine

1 oz. cream of coconut

1 oz ginger ale

Instructions

1. Combine orange juice, pineapple juice, lime juice, grenadine, and cream of coconut in Boston cocktail shaker with ice.
2. Shake well and pour over fresh ice in a tall glass. Top with ginger ale.

Always use caution when handling sharp objects and hot contents. Please supervise children who are helping or nearby.

This recipe has been converted from a larger quantity in the restaurant kitchens. The flavor profile may vary from the restaurant’s version.

so i said i would admit i was wrong if v3 parts were released any time soon (at least before D23 Expo in August). i'm happy that we're finally getting newer pieces, i'm just always a bit cynical about things until official statements or announcements are made.

with P&C now released, there's a good chance that they'll trickle out the other three themes over the next few months, unless this was more of a limited run v2.5 to tide us over until the proper v3 parts are released. i could swear that i saw somewhere that this was supposed to be a limited run, but either i misread it or misinterpreted it but for the life of me i can't find where i read that. either way, it's nice to see some new parts after 4+ years...

if this is a full-on v3 switchover that they're starting, i would expect them to start selling v2 pieces in Dok's at some point to clear out their extra stock. whether they wait for all four v3 themes to be released first or if they immediately start unloading the v2 parts, it's bound to happen much like it did with v1 and R&R parts. please keep an eye out over the next several months for this to happen and post it here in the sub to let others know once that happens. Also please include if you see it at West or East (one part might start selling before the other), what theme, and which parts from that theme if it doesn't look like all (sleeves, switches, pommel, emitter).

MTFBWY!