The Westward Ho! Trading Company out in Frontierland has changed it’s merchandise from seasonal/holiday items, to pins. The pins were originally sold in Silver Spur, but have now moved to Westward Ho! Silver Spur now sells womens clothing items.
One thing I forgot to mention earlier in the week is that Project Tomorrow inside Innoventions is actually closed. It’s not known when it’ll will re-open, according to what a cast member said to me. My guess is that they’re installing some of the exhibits recently installed in Walt Disney World’s Project Tomorrow, such as Innervision, & that they need to close the whole thing to install a new exhibit, as it is much smaller than WDW’s.
Here is what we missed during our short downtime:
-Splash Mountain is once again operating at the Magic Kingdom. The ride was not suppose to re-open until February 18th.
-The Earful Tower at Disney’s Hollywood Studios is recieving its new logo:
Hi Definition Video (720p): Â Click Here
-The Pirate and Princess Parties at the Magic Kingdom may be recieving a new name in the near future, Mickey’s Pirate and Princess Party.
After a short period of closure this week, Spaceship Earth at Epcot has re-opened with an enhanced descent portion.
-The descent now features some triangle panels that light up above you (again matching the panels on the outside of SSE).
-A new video has replaced the stars and trivia segment while you wait for your future to be created on the touch screen.
-The interactive map has returned, and now adds your ride photo to the giant globe in the Project Tomorrow post show area.
-There are some new kiosks near the globe that are not yet operational, but once they are, you will be able to email photos and even the “your future” video from the attraction to anyone.
We will obtain some pictures of these updates as soon as we can, but as you know, we are having our own refurbishment problems.
Since November, the famous Goat has been missing from Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. I had wondered what was going on with it, & I’ve finally just found out exactly what the deal is. Here’s what is going on, according to Mickey News:
Missing since November, the beloved dynamite-chewing goat on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster is expected to wander back to his exposed butte in the next few weeks, according to Disneyland officials. The extended and unexplained disappearance fueled speculation on Internet chat rooms about the bleating goat’s demise and led to more than a few instances of baa-baa-bad humor.
Officially, the nameless, genderless goat is “on vacation.” Unofficially, the audio-animatronic animal is getting a new fur coat in the Anaheim theme park’s maintenance department after years of exposure to the wind, sun and rain.
Disney fans fondly recall the legendary “goat trick” — where riders at the crest of the second lift hill train their eyes on the goat throughout the subsequent sharp turn to greatly increase the sideways G-forces.
Head’s up to Sparky LD for posting this on the MiceChat message boards.
The Blue Sky Disney blog has some interesting information on what could possibly be coming during Phase II of the DCA expansion. Keep in mind that these are all rumors. One idea is to…
… take the Pacific Wharf area and turn it into the San Francisco area of the park. It’s one of several proposals that are being pitched for the Wharf area in the Second Phase.
Golden State will go from being “extreme sports/rafting” themed to a sort of national park type theme. Animatronic creatures will be added to Grizzly River Run, & a E-Ticket locomotive type ride may replace the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail.
The Hollywood Backlot area will be themed more toward the 30’s Hollywood that they abandoned in the early design phase of the park. There is a proposal to take all the area around the TOT attraction that is used for the road access to the Timon parking lot and transform it into the Golden Era of Hollywood with several ventures and areas that evoke the time when Walt Disney started to make motion pictures and buckle the system. Just as the new front entrance will give visitors a look at what Los Angeles was like when Walt came here in the late 20’s, the Hollywood section will continue on that by focusing on the glory of Hollywood in the 30’s. The area around the Hyperion Theater will finally become the grand entrance that it was deprived of under Pressler. At least one E-Ticket will be going into the Hollywood section but right now the Bothans don’t have credible evidence as to what direction narratively it will go.
The entrance to the area right past the HBL will lead to the jewel of D(C)A… Carsland. The land which will take up 20 percent of the park will have 3 attractions upon opening four years from now… Radiator Springs Racers, Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree and Luigi’s Roaming Tires. But the new land was designed to hold at least two more attractions. By the Second Phase we should see at least one more D-Ticket or a plussed C-Ticket at the least. The Paradise Pier area will get another E-Ticket during the Second Phase, most likely one of several that have been pitched for the helix next to the entrance of Screamin’ or it will have an entrance there with an attraction behind the stage. Should enough money be available expect Goofy’s Sky School to be taken down and a true E-Ticket put in its place. And the proposals so far include one attraction that is an original thrill ride and another that is based on a classic character.
A few days ago, we broke news on exactly what is coming to the first floor of Disneyland Park’s Innoventions. Well, WTOPnews has recently posted an article with more information on the new “House of the Future”:
Millions of Disneyland visitors lined up a half-century ago to catch a glimpse of the future: a home teeming with mind-blowing gadgets such as handsfree phones, wall-sized televisions, plastic chairs, and electric razors and toothbrushes. The “House of the Future,” a pod-shaped, all-plastic dwelling that quickly seemed quaint closed its doors a decade later. Now Disney is set to open a new abode in Tomorrowland – this time in partnership with 21st century technology giants.
The 5,000-square-foot home scheduled to open in May will look like a normal suburban home outside, but inside it will feature hardware, software and touch-screen systems that could simplify everyday living.
Lights and thermostats will automatically adjust when people walk into a room. Closets will help pick out the right dress for a party. Countertops will be able to identify groceries set on them and make menu suggestions.
The $15 million home is a collaboration of The Walt Disney Co., Microsoft Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., software maker LifeWare and homebuilder Taylor Morrison.
Visitors will experience the look of tomorrow by watching Disney actors playing a family of four preparing for a trip to China.
“It’s much different than a spiel that you would get at a trade show,” said Dave Miller, director of alliance development for Walt Disney Parks & Resorts. “We won’t get into the bits and the bytes. It will be about the digital lifestyle and how that lifestyle can help you.”
The actors will be in a flurry of cooking, packing and picture-taking designed to emphasize cutting-edge features in the home’s two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, dining room, study and back yard.
Much of the project will showcase a network that makes the house “smart” and follows family members from room to room – even adjusting artwork – to preset personal preferences.
When a resident clicks a TV remote, for example, lights will dim, music will shut off and the shades will draw as the network realizes a movie is about to start.
The system will allow residents to transfer digital photos, videos and music among televisions and computers in different rooms at the click of a button. Other applications still in development could include touch-screen technology built into appliances, furniture and countertops, said Joe Belfiore, Microsoft’s vice president for entertainment services.
In the kitchen, for example, touchpad software on the countertop would be able to identify groceries and produce recipes and meal suggestions. Similar programs could turn a desktop into a computer screen, allowing residents to load photos, music or e-mail onto a cell phone by placing it on the desk.
Mirrors and closets could identify clothes and suggest matching outfits, complimentary colors or track what apparel is at the cleaners or in the wash.
The home will also feature new uses for devices that many visitors may already own, as well as technologies that are still five or 10 years down the road, said Mike Seamons, vice president of marketing at LifeWare, which makes home automation software.
“If people walk through there and say, ‘I don’t have anything in this house at all,’ then we’ve totally failed,” Seamons said. “We’re not waiting for robots to happen in order for it to be a reality.”
When it comes to aesthetics, designers decided to stray from the Jetsons-style House of the Future – an all-plastic cross design with four wing-shaped bays that appeared to float. The house was so tough that wrecking balls bounced off it when Disney ripped it down in 1967.
The new home will be made of wood and steel and finished in muted browns and beiges, said Sheryl Palmer, president and chief executive of Taylor Morrison in North America.
“The 1950s home didn’t look like anything, anywhere. It was space-age and kind of cold,” she said. “We didn’t want the (new) home to intimidate the visitors. We want the house to be real accessible to our guests.”
The 3rd Dream Time event for the Disneyland Resort will be happening this Thursday, February 14th at Disneyland Park. For those of you who don’t know what this event is, well… It’s an after hour event that gets awarded to somewhere between 2,000 & 3,000 people. If you win, you’ll get to spend a whole hour in the designated park, after regular closing time, & the goal is to ride as many rides as possible, with little to no wait!
Here are some notable news bites from the annual passholder publication, The Mickey Monitor:
-In Toy Story Mania at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, vehicles will make full stops at various booths, giving guests a little more time to experience each of the attractions various shooting games.
-As stated a few months ago, some of the Toy Story Mania attraction’s show scenes will feature special effects that are activated as you hit various targets, such as blasts of air and water.
-Dates for Annual Passholder previews of Toy Story Mania should be announced soon. Stay tuned to WDW News Today for more information.
-Annual Passholders can purchase discount tickets and get VIP fireworks seating during some upcoming Pirate and Princess Parties at the Magic Kingdom by going to disneyworld.com/passholder
-Using four vouchers in the Mickey Monitor, passholders can pick up a set of four special lithographs made just for them at all four Walt Disney World Resort theme parks.
Here’s an interesting article from the New York Times about Disney’s California Adventure, that proves to you that even non-Disney geeks despise DCA:
Visit Disney’s California Adventure — a 55-acre theme park next door to the fabled progenitor of the modern amusement Mecca, Disneyland — and you will find a noisy reminder of what happens when a company loses its focus and cuts corners.
The Walt Disney Company built the park on the cheap in 2001, and many rides are copies of familiar carnival workhorses like the Ferris wheel. A lack of landscaping can leave guests sweltering. Outdoor shows were borrowed from other Disney properties. And the theme, built around tributes to California, is modest except for an occasionally unintentional ghost-town atmosphere: The park draws about 6 million visitors a year, a trickle compared with the 15 million who swarm Disneyland.
Now, Disney is embarking on a $1.1 billion, five-year effort to get California Adventure on track. The blueprints call for ripping out ho-hum rides and adding elaborate new ones, rebuilding the park’s entrance — a hodgepodge of turnstiles, a miniature Golden Gate Bridge and pastel tile murals — to shift the focus to Disney iconography.
We’re hearing that a couple of days ago, King Arthur’s Carousel in Disneyland Park suddenly shut down for an unannounced refurbishment. As of last night (2/8/08), the attraction is still closed. The only re-opening date we’ve seen is as far off as January 3rd, 2009, although it is definitely not the official re-opening date.
I shall be at Disneyland on this Sunday & Monday, & I will see on the actual status of King Arthur’s Carousel.
