Archive for August, 2008

Over at Blue Sky Disney, they have a great post about some of the upcoming additions to Disney Parks around the world in 2011. Here’s a brief run-down of what to expect:

Disneyland

• Downtown Disney becoming twice as large
• New Disney Hotel
• New attractions to Disney’s California Adventure, such as long-awaited The Little Mermaid ride and Cars Land
• New Star Tours experience

Walt Disney World

• Complete renovation of Fantastyland, also including the new The Little Mermaid ride
• Epcot should be getting a new pavilion, along with another E-Ticket ride
• Disney’s Hollywood Studios will have the most drastic changes, with the upcoming “Pixar Place” (which will replace the Studio Tram Tour) and an updated Great American Movie Ride
• Rumor has it that Disney will also open a E-Ticket ride based on a ‘huge, blockbuster movie’ to combat Universal’s Harry Potter themed land
• A ‘third gate’ park

Disneyland Paris

• Possibility of the Indiana Jones ride making its way across the pond
• Another expansion of Fantasyland
• A brand new Ratatouille attraction that will use the same track free technology as “Pooh’s Hunny Hunt” in Tokyo

Seems like some very cool stuff in the pipeline! To get all the details, head over to their blog.

It was announced on Wednesday that Disney will be opening up a children’s hospital as part of Florida Hospital. Disney Children’s Hospital, as it will be called, will serve as a model for pediatric hospitals everywhere. Much like most of its hotels, the Disney Children’s Hospital will include an all around Disney theme, to make it more kid friendly.

The hospital is said to include “…sophisticated, interactive technology for patients, as well as pediatric physicians who specialize in advanced, minimally invasive surgery,” according to Forbes.

It is expected to open in 2010.

Though Disney has supported hospitals in the past, this will be the first to bear the Disney name. Personally, I think this is a great idea. I know what a scary place for kids hospitals can be. By presenting it in a format that kids are at ease with is a great way to lower their fears, and help them have an all around better experience.

I love the old attraction posters that Disney displays at the front of their park, advertising all the sights and sounds you will see inside.

One of my favorites is the old 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea one from Disneyland. Though the ride no longer exists in its original form, the poster reminds of me the way it used to be.

I always wanted to put that poster on my wall, and finally decided to actively pursue it. Searching the Internet, I failed to come across an image large enough that would print out the size I wanted, so I decided to make one myself.

They had a fairly niced sized version in the Imagineering book that Disney put out in the 90’s, so I scanned it and blew it up a little. I printed it on 13×19 glossy photo paper, and it looks fantastic!

I figured I would post it here, in case any of you wanted to do the same! Click to enlarge:

This post marks the beginning of a new column at MagicOfDisney.net about ‘extinct attractions’ from the Disney Parks. Every so often, we’ll discuss rides that used to be, or, in this case, could have been.

Pirates of the Caribbean is one of most popular attractions in Disney history. The original ride opened at Disneyland to great fanfare in March 1967. Later that same year, planning for Walt Disney World in Florida was kicking into high gear. Though Pirates was an incredibly popular ride at Disneyland, it wasn’t even in the cards at the Magic Kingdom. It was thought that, since Florida’s history is part of pirate lore, people would not be interested. Obviously, we know how wrong that turned out, as guests to the park’s 1971 opening asked “Where the heck are all the pirates we heard so much about?” It wasn’t until 1973 that Pirates invaded the Magic Kingdom.

Like mentioned before, Imagineers originally didn’t envision Pirates as part of the so called “Florida Project.” They had other big plans, dealing with a fascination of the old west. And thus, the Western River Expedition was born.

The Western River Expedition ride was to be Florida’s counterpart to Anaheim’s Pirates ride. Marc Davis, the WED Imagineer who was largely responsible for Pirates, started to bring some concepts together from a former idea of a Lewis & Clark themed boat ride. Though that idea was squashed, he incorporated it into this new “Western River Ride,” as it was originally called. The ride was also supposed to be a step up in the audio animatronics that had been used in Disneyland. They were to be more advanced, and incorporate a much larger range of motions. It was also supposed to unite all of the scenes through a common song.

The ride would be situated in an area in Frontierland known as Thunder Mesa. The building that housed the ride was to be the largest show building than any other ride. This created the logistical problem of how to ‘hide’ the ride. As many of you know, Disney uses many tricks to hide other parts of the park so it doesn’t ruin the illusion of where you are. This, and many other problems, was one of the main reasons why the Western River Expedition was not built when the park first opened. Though it was considered to be a part of “Phase One” of Walt Disney World’s construction, it was decided to hold off on it until later.

Just because it was a huge undertaking doesn’t mean that plans weren’t set into motion. Marc Davis drew hundreds of concept drawings for the ride, many of which capture that same zany humor we know and love from him. Even a large-scale model of the ride was even built for the purpose of finalizing the elements before construction. It is even rumored that some of the animated figures went into production. The ride itself was promoted in pre-opening literature, and even included in company wide letters.

Unfortunately, it was all for naught, as the attraction would continue to be put on hold for years until it was eventually axed. Thunder Mesa did eventually see the light of day, though in a different form, at Disneyland Paris as the home of Phantom Manor.

Though I do love the parks as they are now, I would have loved to have seen the Western River Expedition come to light. It would have added another layer to Frontierland, and given us another classic Disney ride.

If you want to know more in-depth story about exactly what happened to the ride, check out Jim Hill’s website. This 10 part account goes to great length about the creation and eventual phasing out of the ride.

And for a fairly accurate run through of what the ride would have been like, head over to Widen Your World.

Have you ever wanted to own a little piece of Disney magic? And I’m not just talking about buying souveniors, and bringing them home. I mean a real piece of Disney…something that’s been used in the parks, hotels, or any other Disney place.

Well, now you have your chance!

MouseSurplus.com is a website I heard about awhile ago, but never really got a chance to check out until just recently. Whenever Disney gets rid of old, unused material (such as pieces from extinct attractions!) or generally just has a overstock they want to get rid of, Mouse Surplus purchases it. They have a warehouse showroom close to Walt Disney World that people can go visit to view all this great stuff and even purchase it. If they have the money for it, that is.

Yes, you’ll find a lot of things at Mouse Surplus are quite expensive, but that’s also because most of them are one of a kind! I came across one of the police figures from the old Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride for sale on their site. I’m sure some collector will be glad to snatch that up!

If you’re not close to their warehouse, they have a wide variety of things for sale on eBay as well.

It’s definitely worth a look to see what kind of stuff they have, even for curiousity’s sake (who knew so many people want used phones from Disney resorts?).

A few days ago, Disney released a neat concept drawing of their planned renovations for the Caribbean Beach Resort. Taking the resort’s name in consideration, they plan on retheming 384 of the hotel’s rooms, all located in the Trinidad South Village area. There is no word yet if Disney is planning on eventually expanding these renovations to the rest of the hotel’s 2,112 rooms.

The new rooms will be themed after the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, which has earned Disney quite a bit of coin. The concept art reveals some neat details about the new rooms: dressers that look like old crates, beds turned into ships, and curtains that look like torn sails. It has a very cool vibe to it.

I’m sure these rooms will become quite popular when opened.

Check out the drawing below, and click to enlarge:

If you head over to Walt Disney Animation Studio’s website, you can check out a few new pieces of artwork for The Princess And The Frog.

Click here to visit the page, and then click on Visual Development for some cool stills from the film, and also some interesting concept art!

Storm Struck: A Tale Of Two Homes, the latest ‘experience’ at Epcot’s Innoventions pavilion, is now open for business!

Storm Struck allows people to experience what happens to their home during a hurricane. When you first arrive, guests are given 3D glasses, and sit through a simulation of a hurricane. They observe how a house reacts to the storm, and then given a chance to improve upon it. As a group, the audience thing picks what type of doors, windows, and so on to outfit their house with, and then go through the experience again to see how well their ‘new’ house stands up to the test.

To me, this seems like an interesting experience, and I can’t wait to hear some ride reports about it. It seems to be a bit of a different take of Universal’s Twister ride.

Disneyland is planning on closing their three in-park McDonalds as part of a planned refurbishment, according to Reuters. The three ‘quick serve’ kiosks will be closed at the beginning of September, and reopen at a later date with a different theme. According to Disney, the new themes have not been chosen yet.

This is kind of a big deal for Disney, who also ended their movie promotion partnership with McDonalds after the second Pirates film. Though the fast food giant is losing its footing at Disneyland, it’s keeping its three eateries at the Magic Kingdom open. It’s unknown at this time if these kiosks will close as well.

In recent years, Disney has really pushed a more healthy variety of meal choices at their parks, and getting rid of McDonalds is definitely a step in the right direction. I like McDonalds as much as the next guy, but having this fast food machine inside the parks sometimes ruins the magic for me. The image of walking through Frontierland is usually shattered when I come across the french fry cart at WDW. Maybe in the next few years, Disney will give McDonalds the boot completely.

There’s a website that I’ve been watching for awhile (and even took part in a few weeks ago!) that I think a few of you folks will enjoy.

Some of you more tech savy readers probably already know what Twitter is. For those of you who are out of the loop, Twitter is the next generation of social networking. Users send in updates (or tweets, as they are called) that are displayed on their page. People from all over can read them and see what you’re up too.

Twisney takes Twitter a step further.

Scott over at Twisney has developed a website where users can send updates about where they are and what they are doing in Walt Disney World (via Twitter) to Twisney, and have them displayed on the map.

Confused?

Don’t be. Go check it out, and you’ll see for yourself.

Twisney is an extremely cool website where you can keep a real time record of your visit to the park, and even upload photos for others to see. You can even use Twisney while in the parks to see wait times (that is, if another friendly Twisney user sends in an update!).

Twisney originally started off for just Walt Disney World, but has now expanded to included Disneyland and the Toyko Disney Resort.

It’s an incredibly nifty little site, and it’s fun to watch the people’s days unfold.

If you have a few minutes, definitely check out Twisney.com, and who knows? Maybe you’ll even use it in the future!