Disney World – Construction Walls Everywhere

Posted on January 26, 2015 by greenlisa9989@yahoo.com

If you’re planning a trip to Walt Disney World in the near future and you’ve been reading blogs, Disney fan sites, or message boards, you’ll have noticed something you may have found alarming – there are construction walls everywhere! And cranes. And closures.

It’s true. I wish I could tell you the place looks picture perfect and is as bright, beautiful, and photogenic as seen on TV, but I’d be lying. The Magic Kingdom’s hub is undergoing a major expansion which involves the use of construction walls seemingly everywhere. Same goes for Animal Kingdom – major changes in progress. Downtown Disney’s transformation into Disney Springs will be wonderful – when it’s finished…right now? Not so much. As welcome and exciting as these changes are, they also result in vast seas of construction walls. Things are going to really get shaken up at Disney’s Hollywood Studios when the addition of Star Wars Land gets underway. If rumors are to be believed, Echo Lake, Dino Gertie, and Min and Bill’s Dockside Diner are all doomed. Cue the walls!

Should this worry you? Should you quickly cancel your plans and wait it out? My advice would be absolutely not! If you plan to vacation at Walt Disney World anytime during the next two to three years (or longer), you may not be seeing the parks at their picture-perfect best, but you’ll be visiting during an important time of major transformation! And, there will still be an enormous number of attractions, shows, shops, restaurants, and resorts for you to enjoy. You will also find plenty of places, construction-wall-free, to capture great vacation photographs.

In case you insist on being worried and you find you’ll be at Disney World in the near future, I’ve compiled a list of tips to help you cope with the current state of upheaval.

1. Be Prepared! What’s that saying, “forewarned is forearmed”? That’s the purpose of this post! If you know you’ll find things a bit unsettled, it’ll make it easier to accept. Resign yourself to the fact that things don’t look like they do in the Disney vacation planning DVD or the commercials or travel shows you may have seen on TV. It’s okay – looks aren’t everything. It’s what’s on the inside that counts, right? Rest assured – the heart of Disney is still beating strong!

2. Focus on What you CAN see and do! I know I’m making it sound like the situation is dire, but I want you to have realistic expectations. You’ll still find plenty of places virtually construction and closure-free! For example: Except for the attraction-formerly-known-as-Maelstrom in the Norway pavilion, Epcot’s World Showcase is not currently undergoing any major construction and is still one of the most gorgeous places at Walt Disney World.

3. Embrace the Walls! If any company can make construction walls look interesting, it’s Disney. Signs, sayings, pictures – cute, clever, and funny surprises can be found along the length of those barriers. Consider turning the walls into one more Disney “thing” to be explored.

4. Get Creative With Your Camera! Don’t fret over Cinderella Castle if there’s a construction crane in use that will appear in every picture. This should not ruin your vacation! There are plenty of other, albeit less famous, beautiful buildings and even other castles you can photograph to your heart’s content. The Tree of Life in Animal Kingdom may be surrounded by walls, but you can still capture some very memorable and scenic park shots.

5. Secure Those Bragging Rights! You will be able to say – I visited way back when. I secured my bragging rights during the Fantasyland expansion when Seven Dwarfs Mine Train was under construction – I remember what the park was like before, during, and now after the awesome addition to Magic Kingdom was made! In 2014, I visited Animal Kingdom amid the vast expanse of construction walls – it’s okay! I was THERE when they were adding the elements for the upcoming nighttime attractions and Pandora addition – and I’ll be excited to visit again both during the construction and when the transformation is complete!

Will you be at Walt Disney World soon? What do you think about the changes?

Disney Attraction Review: Rock’n’ Roller Coaster

Posted on December 27, 2014 by greenlisa9989@yahoo.com

Today’s installment of “Saturday’s With Nick” offers a terrific review of one of my favorite rides. I always loving hearing a different perspective on Disney attractions, don’t you? Enjoy!

Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster at Disney’s Hollywood Studios

by: Nick

I never considered myself a big Aerosmith fan. Sure, I liked some of their early hits, like Sweet Emotion, Walk This Way, Dream On and Back in the Saddle, but never bought one of their albums, tapes, or CDs. And I really wasn’t a fan of their newer stuff.
But all that changed within the last few years.
I blame age.
My musical tastes have evolved, (though I’m still not a ballads guy).
With age has also come motion sickness.
What does any of this have to do with Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, you may ask?
Well, because of my lack of interest in Aerosmith, and because of motion sickness, I avoided riding this roller coaster for years.
What prompted me to get on?
Curiosity. I wanted to see if I could handle it. And you know what? I could!
But enough of all this! Let’s go on the ride!

After walking through the queue, guests enter the offices and recording studios of record label G-Force Records. The lobby is decorated with posters, rock memorabilia, and vintage recording equipment.

You then enter a room looking into the recording studio, where the five members of Aerosmith are shown working on a recording.
The group’s manager then comes in and tells the the band that they’re late for their own concert.

Lead singer Steven Tyler insists that all us fans get backstage passes to the show. The band then departs by limousine, and the manager calls for a “super stretch” to get us to the concert.

We then walk through an alley into a parking garage, owned by “Lock ‘n’ Roll Parking Systems” where we board a waiting 24 seat stretch limo for the trip across town to the event.

After loading passengers, the “limo” stops at the entrance to a tunnel.

Music is playing and an overhead sign displays a series of several different messages before a countdown. After the countdown, the car is then shot into the tunnel at 60 miles per hour.

The roller coaster goes through a series of inversions, passing signs that represent various Los Angeles Area Freeways like Interstate 5 and U.S. Route 101.
Different Aerosmith songs play, depending on which limo you get.

The ride ends when the limo arrives at the backstage of the concert venue.

I really enjoy this ride, it is very smooth, which is why I believe it doesn’t get me motion sick, and I can now enjoy Aerosmith songs in a way I couldn’t before, because they’re songs bring happy thoughts of a thrill ride I can actually go on!
I still haven’t bought any of their recordings, and for that I apologize to the members of the band who are doubtless fans of this blog!

Disney’s Studios – So Long Sorcerer’s Hat

Posted on December 19, 2014 by greenlisa9989@yahoo.com

Every park at Walt Disney World has a major icon. Known affectionately as a “weenie” – a term coined by Walt Disney himself – the icon’s purpose is to draw guests forward. Cinderella Castle in Magic Kingdom is breathtaking! Situated as it is on the hub at the far end of Main Street U.S.A., when you enter the park, you’re drawn immediately by the castle’s splendor. That’s exactly how a well-designed weenie is supposed to work. Spaceship Earth in Epcot? Yep, it’s the real deal. The Tree of Life over at Animal Kingdom? Without a doubt! The Sorcerer’s Hat in Disney’s Hollywood Studios? Well, no! A pretty epic failure as a weenie on all fronts. Plus, it didn’t even arrive until the park had been open more than ten years. Poor Studios! Weenie-less virtually since day one and nope, the Chinese Theater wasn’t a good weenie either. More on that later.

Right now, as the Sorcerer’s Hat is about to be removed (good riddance, I say!), let’s talk about WHY the hat was a horrible failure as a Disney park icon. As usual, here are FIVE good reasons to rejoice as we say, “So Long, Sorcerer’s Hat”! (Feel free to voice your comments and opposing opinions – you know I love a good debate!)

Five ways the Sorcerer’s Hat Failed as a park icon:

1. Thematically Askew – The park’s original design embraced the Golden Age of Hollywood. The streets, buildings, props, and decorations all reflected that theme. Along comes the hat. Plopped down smack dab in front of the Chinese Theater, nothing about its form or fashion embraced the Studio’s personality.

2. Too Short – For a weenie, the hat is just the wrong shape and size. At 122 feet tall, it’s dwarfed by the other parks’ icons. Cinderella Castle: 189′ tall. Spaceship Earth: 180′. The Tree of Life: 145′. Even compared to other Studio’s icons, the hat’s shrimpy. The Tower of Terror is 199′ tall and the Earful Tower is 130′ high. No other icon is pointy-topped, either – they’re all more attractively proportioned.

3. Not Generic Enough – The hat is too specific to ONE character and ONE movie. For me, that makes it a very poor choice as a park icon. Yes, the argument can be made that Cinderella’s Castle is named for a particular movie and character, but the graceful beauty of the structure itself is a basic representation of EVERY fairytale castle. The hat? Not so much.

4. Undignified – You can’t argue that it has a very cartoonish appearance. The while-gloved, oddly attached hand makes it all the more ridiculous. Neither graceful nor majestic, the hat’s clownishness may be cute, but does not have the right stuff to represent Disney’s Hollywood Studios properly now and certainly not into the park’s much anticipated future. It hasn’t aged well, either. Similar in style (and added during the same era) to the hand and wand that marred the perfection of Spaceship Earth, the hat has overstayed its welcome.

5. Not Timeless – Isn’t that what a perfect park icon should be? From inception, a park’s main icon should represent the park’s theme and purpose while remaining classically “Disney” for all time. Will the Tree of Life grow old? NO. It was created to remain a timeless embodiment of Animal Kingdom’s very soul. With 300+ highly detailed animal carvings and more than 100,000 man-made leaves – the tree will be amazing 100 years from now.

Back to the Chinese Theater. The idea of creating an exact replica of the original Hollywood icon made the Chinese Theater was a poor choice as a weenie from the very beginning. One problem is that it had already gone from Grauman’s Chinese Theater (opened in 1927) to Mann’s Chinese Theater (in 1973). Now it’s TCL Chinese Theater (2013) – who knows how long it will last or by what name and ownership it may be known in the future. A better choice would have been a generic timeless representation of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

I can think of several possible replacements for the Sorcerer’s Hat. If the future of Disney’s Hollywood Studios indeed brings changes and additions that would prompt yet another new name for the park (rumored to become Disney’s Hollywood Adventure), I believe an icon representative of Hollywood would be in order. How about something that reflects both stage and screen? Literally – a stage topped by a giant, multi-sided screen would be an awesome icon. Think about it – both the stage and the “frame” for the screen could be fancy and a charmingly old-fashioned tribute to Hollywood glamor, but the screens (3 or 4-sided for optimum viewing) would be the perfect opportunity for Disney World to show off its high-tech capabilities. Like the jumbo-tron-type screens on the decks of Disney’s cruise ships, an enormous stage and screen display in the Studios would offer unlimited entertainment and promotional opportunities!

What would YOU replace the Sorcerer’s Hat with? A giant movie camera/film reel statue? Enormous popcorn box, perhaps? Are you sad to see the hat go? What are your thoughts on the matter?

Disney’s Wandering Oaken’s Trading Post

Posted on December 2, 2014 by greenlisa9989@yahoo.com

I know I’ve complained occasionally about the whole Frozen-ization of Walt Disney World. Not everything is bad, though, or unnecessary. One new Frozen-themed addition in Disney’s Hollywood Studios is nothing short of brilliant. Of course adding a shop based on Wandering Oaken’s Trading Post from the movie was an obvious and easy choice, but even I have to admit…for something that seemingly came together in a hurry, Oaken’s shop is very well done, the details are adorable, and the selection of Frozen merchandise is very welcome indeed.

Back in May, we could barely find anything Frozen to buy! We chased rumors and ran around from shop to shop in every park where we thought we might score pins or a sweatshirt. Finally, we ended up with two Olaf pins (the only Frozen pins we could find) and an extra-large child’s hoodie for Megan. I was excited to wander into Wandering Oaken’s and will freely admit, I was charmed.

Before you enter the store, the exterior details make you feel as if you are definitely in Norway! The snowy trees and landscape are fun! Inside, Oaken’s is much more than a place to shop! A blue-lit winter wonderland, compete with snowy play area (“Frozen Snowground”), take up a great deal of space at one end of the building. There are plenty of excellent photo ops and a Disney photographer is on hand. As you move from the play area to the store, the lighting changes and you’ll begin to notice more great details. There is plenty of Frozen merchandise here! I may or may not have purchased a few early Christmas gifts while I was there. Mostly, we just wandered around and enjoyed the immersion in those amazing Disney details. The sauna absolutely cracked me up!!! Oaken’s is not far from Toy Story Midway Mania, so if you’re headed over to Pixar Place, don’t miss the opportunity to pop in an take a look around. On a hot day, it’s a great place to cool off!