After 4-months of waiting, the pair of Sumatran Tiger Cubs born at Animal Kingdom finally made their public debut this morning.
The cubs and their mom can be seen daily in the Maharajah Jungle Trek exhibit (provided they are well acclimated to their new home).
Enjoy some video we captured today of the pair playing and discovering their new home:
Today, Disney shared an image from inside of the Millenium Falcon attraction coming to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland and Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
The image appears to be the loading area, just before guests enter the cockpit of the Falcon and begin their adventure controlling the classic ship.
Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is set to open in 2019 at both resorts.
Having been on a seasonal operating schedule for quite a while now, Stitch’s Great Escape at the Magic Kingdom will be open again December 23, 2017 through January 6th, 2018. However, it will never open again following that.
Disney is expected to make the announcement shortly, but the final day of operation for the Tomorrowland attraction will be January 6th, 2018. The closure will make way for a new, yet-to-be-announced attraction.
Stitch’s Great Escape replaced the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter in 2004, becoming one of the most poorly received attractions in the park’s history.
Star Wars – Secrets of the Empire opened today at Disney Springs at Walt Disney World, and we of course were there as early as possible to check it out.
In case you aren’t familiar with what this experience is, here’s a recap of what we knew going in:
Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire transports guests deep into the Star Wars universe, walking freely and untethered throughout the multisensory experience with friends and family. In groups of four, teams go undercover as stormtroopers to capture Imperial intelligence vital to the budding rebellion’s survival.
In basic, non-PR language, this is a very advanced virtual realty (VR) experience with characters from Rogue One present.
How was it? In short, amazing. I legitimately experienced that “wow” moment that I had felt visiting some of the most impressive theme park attractions my first time, all throughout the 13 minutes we spent running around this virtual playground. Secrets of the Empire is a reason to visit Disney Springs if you don’t already have one, especially if you are a Star wars fans. Even if you aren’t the biggest Star Wars nerd, the technology and experience is still enough of a novelty that I think just about anyone could have a good time with it. If you didn’t believe VR was the wave of the future before seeing this, you will after.
I have done other VR experiences over the last few years, and this was better in every way. The helmet and the vest were far more comfortable than any other I have ever worn (even over eyeglasses), everything worked fairly well, and the experience was seamless.
After a short preview and set-up following check in, guests are equipped with the VR equipment they will need to wear. The vest and helmet (seen above) weigh somewhere between 10-15 pounds, which could be a lot of some guests with physical restrictions, but most guests will be able to comfortable get through the 13 minutes of the VR portion of the experience without much discomfort. Guests who have done other VR experiences and have been made a little nauseous by those stated that Secrets of the Empire left them with no weird feeling afterwards.
Participants must be 10 years or older and over 48 inches in height to participate. Wheelchair access is available via transfer, and all guests sign a liability waiver as you might have guessed. Photography, videography, and recording of any kind is not allowed inside of the attraction, as you might have guessed since you are strapped to a bunch of VR equipment and wearing a headset. From check-in to exit, it should take you around 30 minutes to complete your time inside of Secrets of the Empire. In order to go through, guests will have to leave some belongings that could be in the way of the experience behind.
Guests are sent through in groups of four, so if you have more than 4 people in your party, you will be broken up, and as you might guess, you will be paired with other guests if you don’t have a full party size. Some may find this challenging as getting through the experience does require a lot of communication between teammates carrying out the mission.
The set-up inside the experience is so that every wall and item you see with the headset on (that is within reach) is really there for you to reach out and touch. Even the droids in the room with you are physically there. This makes the experience feel as real as possible, unlike VR experiences you can have in your own home. The graphics inside the game are stunning, making it feel like you are actually living a Star Wars movie thanks to the work of ILM, and the presence of actual actors from Rogue One makes the experience all the more authentic. Much like Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge promises, you are living your own Star Wars adventure here, with real consequences based on choices you make while playing through the many scenes of Secrets of the Empire.
All of this is complemented by fantastic elemental effects, such as changes in temperature, smells, air blasts, rumbling floors, and more. I hate to use the Disney-PR buzz word, but it is truly immersive. If you love to smell Rome burning in Spaceship Earth at Epcot, you’re going to love a lot of the stuff they have going on in here.
Oh, and you get to pick up blasters and shoot stormtroopers, so who wouldn’t love that? You’ll feel the gun recoil and do other things as well as you go through different portions of the story. It’s fairly cool and will allow many a fan to live out some childhood dreams of being a Rebel hero. Now we just need a chance to play the bad guys…
The story guests are thrown into is fun and easy to understand, and even has a payoff for the more hardcore of Star Wars fans towards the end. It is tremendous fan service, but accessible for everyone. There’s also a reason to come back and do this again since, as we stated above, different actions have different consequences and cause different events to take place in the attraction.
Again, I can not stress how enjoyable our experience was, from myself as a Star Wars fan, to others in my party who I would claim are more casual fans, everyone had a fantastic time and was simply blow away by the technology at play here. Get tickets now to make sure you get to see this the next time you are at Disney Springs.
Star Wars – Secrets of the Empire is now open at Disney Springs, located just behind the Once Upon A Toy store, next door to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique in the Marketplace section. Tickets are $30 per person and appointments are available in 15 minute intervals (and highly recommended since this is sold out for the next few weeks already. You can find ticket information and more on Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire now at www.thevoid.com.
The experience will also open in Downtown Disney at the Disneyland Resort on January 5, 2018.
The LittleMissMatched store at Disney Springs will close at the end of the day on December 31st, 2017.
The store is one of the few in the Marketplace section of Disney Springs that is not owned-and-operated by Disney, so it has always been a bit of a mystery as to why it was placed there. Regardless, it will close at the end of the year to make way for a yet-to-be-named replacement. There has been no word as of yet if the store will relocate to another part of Disney Springs.
In the wake of the immensely popular rose gold mouse ears, Disney announced that rose gold spirit jerseys will be coming later this month to select stores in Disneyland and Walt Disney World, as well as Shop Disney Parks.
Disney has been offering the spirit jersey style in a number of other colors; the new rose gold jerseys will feature a light gold glitter print. The Disney Style video below shows more of the new shirts.
https://www.facebook.com/disneystyle/videos/2005124996376289/
Based on the number of views of Disney’s video – over 1.2 million in the first 6 hours alone – it’s likely that these jerseys will be quite popular.
Will you be picking up one of these to match your rose gold mouse ears?
Following the success of the added guest relations location in Tomorrowland at the exit of Space Mountain, the service has now moved into a permanent home in Liberty Square at the Magic Kingdom.
Located in the space formerly known as the Heritage House, the Ticket Office can help guests with ticketing questions, upgrades, and sales. They also have the ability to offer a number of other guest relations-type services upon request.
Inside is a single help desk to accommodate guests, but otherwise the space is empty.
The Liberty Square Ticket Office is now open at the Magic Kingdom.
Apparently, Disney is very big on baseball caps right now and is continuing to release new park exclusive headwear throughout the month. In the same vein as the recently released Spaceship Earth hat, there is now a FastPass one…
The hat reads “Disney FastPass+ to Friday Please”. It seems merchandising wasn’t simply allowed to put the word FastPass on the hat, so they had to put the full name of the service. Even stranger, this hat was released at Disneyland Resort where FastPass+ doesn’t exist.
The cap retails for $21.99 and can be found on either coast very soon.
Disney shared a number of new details for Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland and Disney’s Hollywood Studios during tonight’s Star Wars: Galactic Nights panel.
We’ve all seen the Millenium Falcon on screen, but until you climb through that hatch, walk through her hallways, sit inside the cockpit, power her up and actually FLY her yourself, it’s not quite the same. Here is a photo of the inside of the ship as Imagineers are getting her ready:
Additionally, Imagineers highlighted some other examples of the team’s progress, including building a fleet of full-size X-wing starfighters. One tap on the metal side of these ships tells you that they are real, and ready for action.
In the marketplace in the Batuu village, guests can explore a rich collection of shops and merchant stalls. Imagineers shared a great example of one overseen by a Toydarian, one of the creatures first encountered on Tatooine in “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.” So what does he sell? Toys, of course! Here is a piece of concept art for what that toy stall will look like.
Inside, you’ll be able to discover all kinds of fun and cool toys straight out of the Star Wars galaxy. Exclusive to this outpost, all these offerings look hand-crafted by local artisans. They’re going to be fun, unique, and completely in-story.
Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge will open in 2019, first at Disneyland Park, and then at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Released at Star Wars: Galactic Nights at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Guests can now find the very first items related to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Walt Disney World.
The items will be available while supplies last (provided they did not already sell out at the event).
