Attractions That Never Were: Volume 1!
Disney Parks and Presidents!
Our Top 5 Scary Moments in Disney Attractions!
A Very Remain Seated Please Halloween Extravaganza!
Walt Disney World: 2018 Recap!
WDW Recap: Part 1!
Our Top 5 Christmas Things at Disney Parks!
Disneyland Annual Pass-ive Aggression pt.1
Friday, the blogosphere started theorising an impending hike to the cost of Disney parks admission rates from single days to annual passes. Saturday, everyone’s fears were realised and the apparent rage from APs was loud and clear. To the casual single-day purchasers, it was just another day as people write-off Disney parks as already being astronomically expensive.
This post is to try to take a look at what’s going on here with no internal knowledge whatsoever. Just an observation and some theories about what’s going on here and what it means for APs and the parks. And, perhaps, even stick up for the parks a little bit.
Cars Land, Fantasy Faire, New Fantasyland, International Expansion, etc. Parks & Resorts, as far as I can tell, operate under the same umbrella (I’m looking at you, Aulani.) Disney Parks and Resorts have really expanded in the last few years. From a business standpoint, the money Disney makes from TV, movies, games, etc. is recycled back into that entertainment division. Same with ESPN and other Disney-owned properties. Those things influence trends in the parks, etc. but for the most part, the parks themselves act as their own division of the company, and rightfully so.
Disney Parks and Resorts are notorious for spread-sheet marketing strategies and planning. “Will this _____ themed attraction bring more people into the parks?” Unfortunately for Disneyland and Disney Parks enthusiasts (APs), the variable at the moment is movie franchises. These franchises make so much for the company, the money people look at the possibility of marketing it in different ways. So much-so that they go with the Star Wars model now of building franchises around marketing strategies — and it has been working.
Cars Land, Little Mermaid, Be Our Guest restaurant, etc. We are seeing this on both coasts. No new ideas a la Pirates of the Caribbean in 1967 where there was nothing quite like it and was started with an idea as simple as “how much fun would it be to plunder with pirates!?” It was fun and became an über successful attraction that begat an über successful film franchise which then, in turn, begat an über successful film adaptation to the original ride.
All of this said — there are people in the parks — hoards of them! The strategy is working and even with the negative PR from, unfortunately, the most dedicated fans, there’s still hours of lines at all of the parks indicating to the financial folk that something is working well.
If we were to go back to prices from just 20 years ago where you could get a single day for $28.50, adjusted for inflation today would be just $44.60. Then, take into account the people who aren’t coming to Disney Parks because of the (now) $92 (at Disneyland — $95 at Magic Kingdom at WDW) and start to factor those people in at a would-be $44.60 and you’ve got capacity days year-round with barely any room for us APs at a would be rate of $313 ($199 for a premium pass in 1993).
Let’s look at the positives that come out of this:
Crowd Control. While the APs hate these price hikes because we are long-time devotees to the parks, the single day tickets will still be flying off the shelves at a steady rate and tourist traffic will still drive the parks into the proverbial black (not sure how profitable or not that parks actually are). APs descend upon the parks at a rapid pace as the days get longer and longer and this affects crowds all week-long. TDA in particular has their work cut out for them and while I may not like it, I understand what they’re doing and have to respect it. It’s all for a better guest experience, in my opinion.
It’s still a bargain in some respects. If you’re still a super devoted Disney aficionado, chances are you have a Premium AP. The price difference between the Premium and Premier pass is $310 on the west coast. That more-than pays for itself after 3 days with a park-hopper option if you were to go to WDW. Unfortunately, that’s the only tier in which it’s affordable. The difference between a Deluxe pass and a Premiere pass is $480 which wouldn’t pay for itself with even a 10-day park hopper pass at WDW. WDW has a different AP structure with only two options that I can see: Regular AP and Premium. The difference between the Premium Pass (now $776.39) and a Premier pass is $202.61 which is $7.39 less than a 2-day Park Hopper option at DLR. I would assume that any WDW passholder wanting to visit the DLR would come for more than 2 days and that would, again, more than pay for itself. However, again, the regular AP (now 648.59) at WDW is $330.41 less than the Premier pass and that wouldn’t be cheaper than getting a 5-day Park Hopper to DLR for $300. So, really, the Premier pass is still a bargain if you: a.) already have a trip planned to the opposite coast, b.) plan a stay for at least 3 days at WDW or 2 at DLR, and c.) already have a Premium Pass. Otherwise, it might be the better option to buy your park-hoppers — and that’s not even including hotel accommodations!
New Attractions. While we don’t see a ton of movement on this front, let’s look at the stuff we do have at the parks and rejoice that there’s new stuff to do everywhere and refurbishments happening elsewhere. Unfortunately, those are taking precedence over some things like OSHA requirements and safety concerns (read: Space Mountain and Alice in Wonderland at Disneyland). We are all hardcore Disney nerds and we KNOW that new Tomorrowland and Frontierland attractions at Disneyland are in the Blue Sky stages at WDI so what are we so upset about?
It just wouldn’t be possible to handle those crowds. In another post, I’ll talk about why I think crowds have changes so drastically in the last 20 years and how, really, we are kind of to blame. But hey, we love Disneyland and that’s why the parks are more crowded than ever!
Walt Disney World – Day 4: Animal Kingdom and Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party
Our fourth day brought us into a whole new world for us with Disney – Walt Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Fun fact: The island across from the Contemporary Resort to the west was once the catalyst for what is now Animal Kingdom: Discovery Island. It has been closed for the last 13 years but not too long ago, some urban explorers set foot upon the island in a less-than legal manner but provided some amazing photos which can be viewed here. It’s a pretty fun, if not lacking, read. One is left wanting more from their exploration.
Well, today, we did not go to the original Discovery Island but we did head into Discovery Island – the land – at Animal Kingdom. Discovery Island is the main hub of AK park from which all lands protrude in classic Disney park fashion. Interesting that they kept that name. We hurried straight over to Asia to ascend our most anticipated Disney mountain on Expedition Everest!
This ride is by far the most amazing at this park in terms of thrill and theming. I absolutely love it and is my favorite of any of the Disney park mountains. You go forward, backward, fast, slow, and it’s just a super awesome thrill! According to friends and family, the Yeti has been inoperable for a long while. However, having never ridden it with it being operable, I didn’t notice anything strange about it and this is such a sense stimulator that one is never left wanting anything more or feeling cheated in any way.
We walked onto this ride three times in a row. We were able to take in the detail in the queue but not stop long enough to take any photos worth really posting. You walk through a base-camp on the way up to the base of Everest with some great artifacts, equipment both old and new, and a lot of strange footprints, photos, and books about the mysterious Yeti. When the train arrives to take you to the peak, you pass even more of what appear to be warning signs. Everything seems fine until you realize that the track taking you to the summit has been ripped from it’s ties and you immediately plunge backward! You encounter the creature a couple times on your trek and narrowly escape in the end. Such a thrill and an amazing attraction! We must have done it about 6 or 7 times this day alone!
My favorite part of this park was the early-morning mist that engulfed the entire park. Extra Magic Hours got us to the park at 7am on the very last day of Daylight Saving Time so it was the absolute earliest (in relative position of the sunrise) we could be at the park for the entire year. It was absolutely magical! My least favorite part? The smell — and unfortunately the mist did a lot to carry those smells throughout the park. The flamingos are largely to blame for it, I’m sure, as they’re a foul smelling bird. The early morning beauty, however, trumped any other sensory overload provided by the park.
The second attraction I was most excited for was the Kilimanjaro Safaris! We had gone to San Diego’s Wild Animal Park (now renamed Safari Park) 5 or 6 years back and were sorely disappointed by the fact that there is no safari included in the price of admission! I couldn’t believe how expensive doing a safari on par with AK’s safari was! ($130+). The Kilimanjaro Safaris is everything you’d want it to be and more!
The safari uses real vehicles to see real animals without visible (or literal in some cases) boundaries. The animals are all out and about and mingling with one another (when appropriate). We asked where the best place to sit was for photos and were told the back left side was probably the best place because your field of view is much wider. We ended up getting the entire back row to ourselves so we were able to get some incredible pics from all sides! Make sure you set your camera for a faster shutter speed as the vehicle rarely stops so you’ve really gotta snap away and sort thru the pics later!
Another great thing this park has is an abundance of walking tours. Each takes you into a different eco system with animals to all sides of you. You can really get great shots of different species in their different habitats. If you’re lucky, they’ll come right up to you or you may just see something unexpected and not necessarily on the tour.
We went to eat at Pizzafari for breakfast. Just your standard breakfast sandwich fare to get by. We snapped a cool pic while inside.
Next up was DinoLand U.S.A. which seemed to be geared toward children yet had some of my favorite attractions at the park including Dinosaur! and Primeval Whirl. Dinosaur is like Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye at Disneyland Park but with time travel and dinosaurs. Another ride with a cool queue (like being at the Jurassic Park visitor center) that we sort of flew past because there were no lines. There is, however, a cool intro video with Phylicia Rashad.
Primeval Whirl is as close to Hollywood Studios’ (at Disneyland Paris) Crush’s Coaster ride system as you can get here in the states. It’s like Goofy’s Sky School but instead of always facing front, half way thru the ride, the car unlocks itself from the base and you spin on an axis while the coaster continues down the track. It’s a tough explanation and I’ll post a video and pictures soon of this attraction.
There’s so much at this park to take in the first time because it’s so unlike any other Disney park so most of the best pics we took here were on our second visit to the park later in the trip.
There are also some great shows and characters at this park! So much so that this park is maybe best done in two days because the animals’ bed times are pretty early. This park was closing at 5pm today so we had to pass on some things this day and plan to do them on a return trip because we really wanted to see the Festival of the Lion King show at Camp Minnie-Mickey as well as meet a slew of characters in their AK “garb.”
“The Festival of the Lion King” is another stunning example of great Floridian theatre! Seriously, if you aren’t landing gigs on Broadway or in Los Angeles, head on down to Orlando because this city has some incredible theatre within the WDW resort.
The Greeting Trails at AK are pretty neat because the characters are in different outfits than you’ll see anywhere else in the resort. Since it was just at the end of Halloween Time, we caught them today in their AK-appropriate halloween garb.
Meeting these characters were among the longest lines of our entire trip but well worth seeing them in their different outfits. Before the day was thru, we wanted to see “Finding Nemo – the Musical.” We had a while so we ran into a quick showing of “It’s Tough to be a Bug” inside the Tree of Life. While it’s the same show we have at DCA, the attraction’s building is among the most elaborate of any Disney Park. The theatre is below the gigantic Tree of Life with animals carved within the bark and roots of the tree. Even more impressive is walking through the root system while walking into the theatre and seeing all the incredible details!
“Finding Nemo – The Musical” is a lot like DCA’s “Aladdin…” show in terms of scale and length. It’s a full-blown musical and an impressive one at that! This could be on Broadway, it’s so catchy and well done! The master puppetry keeps the audience engaged and the cast is just incredible. There’s incredible fly-work, sets, lighting, animatronics — the works! They even tie it into the song at the end of EPCOT’s “The Seas with Nemo and Friends” which makes sense but is still a nice touch.
At the end of the show, we had just enough time to ride Expedition Everest again before heading over to the Magic Kingdom for Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party.
Magic Kingdom has a lot to teach Disneyland Park in Anaheim about how to do Halloween! From the scarecrows in the Town Square, the pumpkins on the lamps down Main Street, the villain’s show in front of Cinderella’s castle and most importantly, the “Boo to You!” parade!
I cannot describe this “Boo to You!” parade in terms that would do it justice and since I only got to see it once, I am sure I would forget some of the greatest details like the headless horseman starting the parade off by riding along the entire parade route holding a jack-o-lantern. I’ll just focus on my favorite and most appropriate section of the parade: The Haunted Mansion scene. My goodness! It starts with the caretaker and his dog (A REAL DOG!) wandering the parade route complete with lantern-and-all!
He is followed closely by a flurry of dancing grave diggers doing a “Thriller”-style dance number with shovels as their dancing canes. Imagine a zombie Fred Astaire in Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” music video. They danced with those shovels with the greatest of ease and they would drag it furiously along the ground in time with the music shooting sparks all over the place. CHILLS, PEOPLE!
They are then followed by the hitchhiking ghosts themselves atop a huge furiously-fogging float! While cool in person, it did not provide great photos but I am telling you, the fog worked SO WELL in person. Super awesome parade and I really dislike parades. Disneyland has a lot to learn from it’s east coast relative about how to do Halloween Time.
What the Magic Kingdom has over the Anaheim resort is space. Therefore, fireworks times and vicinity is not at all a factor. Fireworks at WDW seem to go off later than Disneyland’s and in some respects, larger fireworks seem to be used all around. What I mean is when at Disneyland, we have scenes in the show where fireworks launch all around you depending on your location. At WDW, they’re actual fireworks and not just quick spurts of flame or sparklers. It’s pretty impressive when immersed in actual exploding fireworks rather than just bursts of light.
What I found lacking was the use of a large structure like the Matterhorn in conjunction with the castle. While Cinderella’s castle towers over Sleeping Beauty’s in Anaheim, Aurora’s castle plays with the Matterhorn in many ways — projections, flying characters, etc. They don’t have this luxury at WDW. So for the Halloween Fireworks show, there is no Zero, there is no Jack Skellington host (which I am totally fine with) but a rather fun narration by Corey Burton as the Ghost Host from Haunted Mansion. The lack of Jack Skellington makes for a better Halloween show, in my opinion. Yet I believe WDW cast members might disagree since most all of them that we spoke with longed for HMH. While I do absolutely love HMH, I wish the “Nightmare Before Christmas” theme stayed in that area rather than become the Halloween mascot of the park.
Other cool things for Halloween were a Jolly Roger projection on Big Thunder, one-stop-shop trick-or-treating (there were multiple stops but they were VERY generous), and the “Villains Mix and Mingle” show in front of the castle. Best part of the villains show? That it attracts other villains! We got to meet the evil step mother and those pesky step-sisters from Cinderella!
The cast members in Florida have their characters DOWN! So much fun to play wit! Usually the face characters are sort of awkward to meet because they’re your age. I think my favorite is Lady Renata in front of the Haunted Mansion. She watches over the mansion and has a sharp tongue and quick wit! We sat and watched her for about 30 minutes which she lampooned and chided the passers-by at the mansion.
I wish she’d come visit our mansion someday! Also cool were some special photo stations where you can take a picture with some Grim Grinning Ghosts.
All in all, a great time was had at Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. Highly recommended and well worth the entrance fee for the parade alone! Well, it was back to the hotel for the night to prepare for our fifth day. Now that we had hit up every park, the (Walt Disney) World was our oyster and anything could go!
See our full gallery from this day below!
Walt Disney World: Part III – Hollywood Studios and More!
Today was the day I was to finally ride the original Tower of Terror. I was SUPER excited!
Disney’s Hollywood Studios is a smaller park that’s more focused on shows and entertainment than attractions but the few attractions they do have really pack a punch and the shows are among the best I have seen at a Disney park. Orlando seems to be a haven for film and stage hopefuls with plenty of roles to go around. Really top notch stuff coming out of these parks!
So we entered through some familiar looking gates — the new Disney California Adventure Park gates, while modeled after the Pan Pacific park theatre are actually modeled after Disney’s own Hollywood Studios park. I had no idea until DCA’s walls were about to come down in front of the new gates and a buddy of mine showed me a picture of the Hollywood Studios gate. I was surprised and thought that DCA’s walls had come down early. It’s striking how similar these parks look from the front!
And that’s not all. There’s even a Carthay Circle Theatre (which is a shop rather than a restaurant) and a lot of the same building replicas DCA has in it’s Hollywood Blvd. area. Even the gas station looks a lot like Oswald’s at DCA. I went to high school in Hollywood and lived there for about 5 years and they really nailed a lot of the tiny details. Their Crossroads of the World replica (information station at the park) is uncanny and their Max Factor building (a shopping plaza) is spot on.
After taking in the main drag Hollywood Blvd., we took a right and headed down Sunset Boulevard toward the Hollywood Tower Hotel known as Tower of Terror.
We took tons of photos of this attraction which seems to house more homages to the show than our DCA counterpart. Traveling through the 5th dimension caused me to laugh out loud in glee the first time the doors opened and we moved forward. It’s really neat and almost too stimulating upon the first ride. There’s just no way to sell how incredibly detailed and awesome this ride is. The day we came home we went to DLR and rode Tower and while it’s still a great ride and superior in a few areas, as a whole, I would have to say that Hollywood Studios’ version of the ride is in a completely different league.
Next it was onto Rockin’ Roller Coaster starring Aerosmith. We had done this at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Paris and I remembered really enjoying it. The queue in Paris seemed a little more detailed but the facade was much better at Walt Disney World.
This ride has some great holograms for the pre-show and a nice story and great theming. We are granted backstage passes to a concert that’s happening in 10 minutes and Aerosmith has demanded that their manager sense a limo our way to get us there. Unfortunately there’s traffic but our “driver” seems to know some back-alley shortcuts. We take off into the dark night past some hollywood landmarks along with some rockin’ tunes. It’s a whirlwind thrill and if I had to compare it to something, it would be a mix of Space Mountain and California Screamin’ at DCA.
We grabbed a quick bite at the farmer’s market area. What was nice was the even though this was standard theme park fare, it’s pretty regional so BBQ baked beans and cole slaw are common hot dog toppings. I loved it! They also had bacon macaroni and cheese toppings. A great treat I have yet to discover at our 3rd and Fairfax farmer’s market.
Our first new-to-us attraction at this park was The Great Movie Ride. While it’s a great ride, it seems to be a lot like Jungle Cruise in the way that your “skipper” can make or break the ride, and you have multiple ones so landing multiple good hosts can be difficult. We had two pretty bad ones but there are some great things to look at. I liked how large the ride vehicles were. They really move a lot of people in there!
The Voyage of the Little Mermaid was a fun show with some cool laser effects and some great puppetry. However, there’s a whole scene where Ariel is live on stage singing a song and animated Ariel is singing and swimming on a projection right next to her. Seemed like a mixed message. It’s also a very truncated version of the film’s story. You should go into this having already seen the film.
Star Tours! While exactly the same as ours in almost every way including the queue (minus a few things), the exterior of this one is superior to Disneyland’s. There’s an AT-AT out front walking through the Endor Moon terrain. Super fun to look at and walk through!
Walking straight into the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular, we had no idea what to expect. We walked into a very large set so we figured there’d be a lot of col stuff to see while the actors made their way from section to section in what may be a 15 minute show, or so. However, after the entire set gets used in the first scene, I was worried there wasn’t going to be much more to see. Then, the set change happened. This has to be some of the most incredible set design I have seen at any Disney park! The scenes are HUGE and the stunts are great. I highly recommend this show!
On our way back to Tower (I know, I know…), we stopped into the Beauty and the Beast show. Yet again, if you’re an out of work actor, make your way to Orlando because these shows are just top notch! Absolutely terrific performances all around and this show is a little longer than The Little Mermaid show although there’s still some plot holes if you have not seen the film.
Next was more of a showcase of all things Walt. Put together by D23, One Man’s Dream is a huge love letter to Walt with props from his boyhood desk with his name etched into the wood to his Glendale, CA office as it would have been seen on the lot. It’s a wonderful museum of Walt Disney treasures with an amazing film at the end that’s sure to bring tears to your eyes. Well done!
After this, we wandered the park awaiting Fantasmic! at 7pm. We planned on grabbing good seats at the amphitheater so a 5:30 arrival was key. We walked thru the Pixar area where their Toy Story Midway Mania was. We skipped it as the lines were just outlandish and we aren’t huge fans of the DCA version so we figured we weren’t missing anything. We saw Pizza Planet (having my birthday there next year for SURE! (I kid…)), a huge Muppet store (we skipped MuppetVision 3D), the backlot area (the backlot tour was down for the duration of our trip there), and skipped the Lights! Motor! Action! stunt show as we had seen it in Paris. After some sightseeing, it was time to go see the East Coast version of the Disneyland classic.
I took a little nap while waiting for the show but we certainly had GREAT seats! While it’s different, it was cool to see some added scenes with rarely seen characters like Pocahontas. Their dragon is like our old dragon and they have a smaller and sort of dinky version of the Mark Twain for the finale. All in all, it’s still a magical show but in the amphitheater setting, it seems a little too far away. I was still able to grab some awesome pictures. See if you can spot the Mickey with the weird eyes. What’s THAT about?
Tons more Fantasmic! pictures below! After leaving Hollywood Studios for the night, we headed over to The Magic Kingdom to take advantage of the extra magic hours. We headed over to the Tiki Room but they closed early so we went to Tomorrowland to check out Space Mountain which wasn’t bad. It’s very different and more like the pre-1998 DLR version. I really liked the star effect inside the queue — it was very convincing. Unfortunately we were not able to play with the interactive queue. Has anyone done it? Is it any good?
Before we left for the night, we went on TTA’s Peoplemover. It moved a lot faster than I expected and was visually different from our old Disneyland version but it was still a great ride with some incredible park views!
Another perfect day at WDW in the books! Nice touch upon exiting the Magic Kingdom for the night and retiring to our hotel room once again.
