It has been a while since we have seen any major changes in the Hollywood Studios landscape, but now with the expansion of Disney’s Animal Kingdom complete, it’s full speed ahead to Toy Story Land and the much-anticipated Star Wars themed land.
We have a video of all of the construction to share with you below, but we’ll then share pictures and give you a more in-depth description of the work following that.
We start over by MuppetVision 3-D…
The former Writer’s Stop has been stripped down to its bare steel.
A lot of work now happening in the area the was New York Street.
The barrier of Star Wars Land is just steps away, still rising.
A look from the balcony of PizzeRizzo doesn’t reveal much.
Most of the facade of Walt Disney: One Man’s Dream is covered with tarps, with the image of Walt removed from the marquee.
The backside of the marquee is completely gone.
This area will be the entrance to Toy Story Land, but it remains unclear how this transition will work.
For now, it appears that these original structures from 1989 will survive the demolition.
At the end of PIXAR Place, the walls are now appropriately Star Wars-related, as Toy Story Land is not actually located on this side. The walls also extended right up to the exit of the 3rd track at Toy Story Midway Mania.
The walls feature the artwork for Star Wars Land, but it is strangely not-centered and instead located in an alley behind some trees.
A cast member access pathway is all that is down this alleyway.
As always, stay tuned for more updates on the expansion of Disney’s Hollywood Studios as it progresses.
Just recently, the Collector made a little trip to the Disneyland Resort. Here is Benicio Del Toro, the actor who portrays him in the Guardians of the Galaxy Universe as he shares his excitement for the new ride coming to the Disneyland Resort in this video from the Disney Parks Blog:
Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout opens May 27th at the Disneyland Resort in California Adventure.
Disney Music Emporium, a pop-up store that sells collectable Disney music-related products, will be returning to the D23 Expo 2017. During the event, fans will be able to purchase new limited music releases from various Disney artists and composers.
Walt Disney Records The Legacy Collection Robin Hood, a two-disc set, will be released for the first time during the expo. Disc one of the collection includes songs and score from the film. Disc two includes unreleased demos and bonus tracks performed by Louis Prima. The CD collection contains liner notes, as well as a 20-page booklet featuring new artwork inspired by Robin Hood from Lorelay Bove, a visual development artist who’s worked on various Disney films including Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, and more. Those that purchase the collection will receive a special lithograph featuring the back cover artwork, though there will only be a limited quantity available.
The Disney Music Emporium shop will also host a handful of album signings throughout the weekend of the expo including composer Michael Giacchino (Rogue One, Inside Out, Up), composer Tyler Bates (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Vol. 1), Moana voice actress Auli’i Cravalho, Dove Cameron and Sofia Carson (Descendants 2), and Lorelay Love (Visual Development Artist at Walt Disney Animation Studios). Jordan Fisher and Temecula Road (Hollywood Records artists) will also have signings during the expo.
Fans wishing to partake in signings will have to wait in line, although guests that purchase specific music products at the Disney Music Emporium will be issued wristbands that will secure them a space for an album signing. Click here to see a list of the music-related items that will be sold at the Disney Music Emporium, and click here to see a list of album signings that will be held.
A bunch of Pandora merchandise just landed at DisneyStore.com, including the Limited Edition ACE-branded MagicBand 2, three Limited Release T-Shirts, and much more!
First is the ACE-branded Magic Band 2, in a Limited Edition of 2000. Retail is $32.99 and is limited to one per person.
A collection of three Limited Release shirts, one for kids, one for women, and one for adults, is also available. The Disney Parks Limited Release Buy One Get One 40% Off promotion is applicable to these shirts. They are only available for two weeks, through June 7, 2017.
Four open-edition pins, a lanyard, and a lanyard medal are also available for the pin collectors out there. Sadly there is no Vinylmation…
As of the time of writing, these items are not featured on the DisneyStore.com homepage. You actually have to go to the Disney Parks menu item, and under the Collections heading will be the link for Pandora: The World of Avatar.
Amusingly, if you just go to DisneyStore.com and type “Pandora” in the search box, you get no Avatar merchandise, just jewelry and charms.
Even if you type “Pandora The World of Avatar” the first two search results are a charm and a bracelet.
You actually have to type “Pandora World Avatar” to get the parks merchandise without having to wade through expensive beads.
The Windtraders shop in Pandora: The World of AVATAR at Disney’s Animal Kingdom has some rather unique merchandise experiences, one of which is the ability to adopt a “Shoulder Banshee” creature to bring back with you to Earth.
These creatures are available near the front of the shop after you wait in a small queue area for your turn to make an adoption. Interested guests are then brought closer to the perches where dozens of the Ikran sit (Ikran is what the Na’vi call these creatures). Guests are given a few moments to pick out a Banshee that “speaks to them” (you can try a few on and test the controls until you are happy with one), then you can choose to adopt and take a pledge to do so. You can see us go through this entire process in our video below:
Once the oath is taken, guests may purchase (or adopt) the creature, and a display perch at an additional charge. The price to adopt a Banshee is $49.99 and no discounts of any kind are applicable. Perches for the Banshees are $14.95 and can be discounted (annual pass, cast member, etc.). Perches are obviously not a mandatory purchase with any Banshee.
Why are these so cool? As illustrated in the video above, the creatures have three ranges of motion (wing-flap, head turn, and mouth movement) and also have sound effects. On top of that, they are just a really neat thing to wear on your shoulder and certainly garner a lot of attention around the parks (at least during these early days of their existence). Cast Members on Pandora are very receptive to those wearing the creatures, and we saw some really cute interactions during our previews, especially with younger guests.
The Banshee stay attached to you via magnets underneath, with a magnetic pad provided that you can put under the shoulder of your shirt to hold them in place above it. I was worried that they would easily fall off, but they stay on there pretty well. The magnetic pad for under your shirt and a belt clip for the controller are provided upon purchase. The Banshee can also be boxed upon purchase should you decide that you don’t want to wear it just yet (or ever, I suppose).
Magnetic shoulder harness
The motion is all accomplished by a pneumatic control connected via a black wire to the back of the creature. The control is probably my only grievance with the piece, as it can be a bit hard to use at times, especially for children, but it’s not enough to not want to take one of these guys home with you.
I did buy the perch as well (for both of my adoptions), which is really great for home display. The long cord connected to the Banshee is held nicely underneath the stand, and there is even a place to lock in the controller on the back, out of sight. I highly recommend this if you will want to display it at home.
Once Pandora: The World of Pandora opens on May 27th, 2017, don’t be surprised if you start seeing these shoulder Banshees all over the Walt Disney World Resort.
With Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout opening to the public this Saturday, May 27th, Disney is now sharing pictures and more from inside of this new attraction that is controversially replacing the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.
The queue features many of the Collector’s prized possessions, including Cosmo the Space Dog, brought to life by audio-animatronics technology. Other recognizable artifacts are on display as well from the MARVEL Universe, as well as a few fun Disney Parks references.
The main pre-show experience takes place in The Collector’s office with an escaping Rocket Raccoon.
Theme Park Insider has a fantastic tour of the queue with Imagineer Joe Rohde, who is basically the lead on all of the MARVEL theme park projects. The video includes both attraction pre-shows for you to enjoy, including a look at the AWESOME Rocket Raccoon audio-animatronic figure:
No video of the on-ride portion is available yet, but IGN offers a really good review of the on-ride experience and 4 of the 6 ride profiles/soundtracks:
My favorite part of all this news about the attraction today? These somewhat psychotic press photos of “guests” on the ride…
Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission Breakout opens at Disney California Adventure on May 27th, 2017.
Located in the Windtraders shop in Pandora: The World of AVATAR at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, guests have the opportunity to be turned into an action figure in the AVATAR Maker experience.
This large kiosk towards the center of the shop is home to the service, offering two stations back-to-back.
The stations are intriguing and hard to miss, so expect to hear a lot of guests asking what this is every time you visit the store.
Several pre-made figures are on display around the space.
Nearby, accessories are sold for the figures. These items can be discounted (annual pass, cast member, etc.).
So, how does the process work? Well, you begin by going to the podium outside of the ACE AVATAR Maker kiosk inside of Windtraders. Once you make a reservation (provided they are available), you then get an RFID enabled card and proceed to paying for the service. The price point is $79.99 and no discounts are applicable, similar to the shoulder Banshee experience.
After you pay, just return to the podium when your reservation rolls around and the cast members will take it from there. After scanning, it does take some time for your AVATAR figure to be made, so you will have to return to Windtraders once again.
The process of scanning your face is simple, but the cast members make it a show experience, playing up story elements and the process as creating your own real-life AVATAR, rather than just an action figure. The scanning doesn’t take long at all and is over in seconds, but the process can take a few minutes between the cast member hamming it up and the guest choosing the body type, hair style, eye color, and facial stripe pattern for their AVATAR.
We recorded video of myself going through the entire process, from sign-up, to scanning, to receiving the figure with my face on it. You can watch the entire experience below:
As you can see in the video, the pick-up process is pretty neat and completes the process with a simple yet effective finale. Kids will be blown away by the tech involved in my estimation, but maybe quite a few parents as well. Figures are typically completed 45 minutes to an hour after you sit in the chair, but not could be longer depending on how busy it is on a given day.
The retrieval station in Windtraders draws a lot of attention even when it isn’t in use, so expect a lot of guests to be watching you play with this thing when you pick up your AVATAR.
The figure doesn’t really have much of your likeness honestly, just the basic shape of your face essentially. Otherwise, you are customizing the remainder of the figure. Since the AVATAR’s in the film also only have a facial resemblance to their host, I guess this makes sense.
The figures are of a good quality and come in a rather nice display tube.
We did have some issues in that the hair that came out was not what I picked, but I didn’t want to wait any longer to get it fixed so I decided not to complain about it. Otherwise, everything was as ordered.
Overall, the ACE AVATAR Maker isn’t the best souvenir available on Pandora, but it does offer quite the experience. I could see a younger guest finding the process fun and thinking that an action figure with their face on it is just about thew coolest thing ever. If the cast member is half as into it as the one that helped me through the process, then I think kids would have an experience that they would never forget and a nice souvenir to remember their time on Pandora. While I still think that adopting a Banshee is a somewhat cooler offering and toy, the AVATAR Maker is also quite unique and memorable, another positive evolution in Disney theme park merchandise.
Now when do I get to be a Star Wars action figure? I HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL 2019???
You may remember that we were not enamored with our first visit to the Daily Poutine at Disney Springs, finding many of the offerings to be lackluster. While this first experience doesn’t leave us rushing back, we did once we saw a new offering at this outdoor stand.
Cheeseburger Poutine, The Daily Poutine at Disney Springs
So, you know that we had to try this, so let’s see how it was…
Cheeseburger Poutine ($9.39)
Cheeseburger Poutine, The Daily Poutine at Disney Springs
Crisp fries topped with ground beef, beer cheese sauce, lettuce, tomato, onion, house-made pickles, mayo, mustard, and ketchup. Finished with fried cheese curds.
The cheese curds are fried as compared to the usual melted cheese on the other dishes here. There’s a great tasting beer cheese slathered across the fries before any of the other toppings are applied, so it has time to soak up into the fries before you bit into them.
The beef is ground and mixed with onions, giving a nice hamburger meat flavor (which you might expect with something that has cheeseburger in the name). There’s ketchup and mustard and all of the cheeseburger essentials, so it’s kind-of-like Canadian and American foods had a cheesy baby.
They’re able to accommodate and remove toppings if needed or wanted as well, just in case there’s a few things in here that you may not want.
This is the perfect mix of comfort foods and far-and-away the best option at the Daily Poutine. Give it a try the next time you are looking for a snack at Disney Springs!
With the opening of Pandora: The World of AVATAR this Saturday, Disney will release 3 new MagicBand 2 designs.
For Annual Passholders, there will be the first-ever Passholder exclusive limited edition teal graphic band featuring the phrase “I traveled to Pandora on May 27, 2017.” This band, available opening day, retails at $32.99.
The purple limited-edition graphic band with scenes from nighttime in Pandora (pictured above), features the artwork of Dylan Cole, co-production designer for the upcoming “Avatar” motion picture sequels. The band retails for $32.99 and was already made available online and at Riverside Depot at Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park.
And for Avatar fans looking to coordinate their MagicBand with other cool Na’vi merchandise, check out the blue graphic band representing the Na’vi pattern. This band retails for $22.99 and will make any Avatar feel like a Na’vi.
These new bands will be sold in Windtraders on Pandora – The World of Avatar.
