some (more) pics from the trip are up...

[acroyear]

and are thusly starting to inspire me to actually do the write-up (well that and the 3.0 of our product just went into code-freeze "it all seems to be working" mode).

Included (in reverse order of how they'll show on the page) are

• The trek through NYC including dinner at "The View" and a couple of shots of the Lion King's theater (not the internals - that would be telling...)
• Our first glance @ the Pop Century, including our on little private (rabbit) safari outside our door!
• Monday night @ MGM Studios
• Tuesday @ the Magic Kingdom, when we did the backstage tour (our tourguide) and by complete coincidence ran into two friends of faireraven she hadn't seen in years!
• A few shots of tuesday night @ downtown disney.  we didn't have time to disneyquest it that day, so we moved that to wednesday
• Wednesday @ the Animal Kingdom including a very interesting experiment in "Monkey See, Monkey Do" - the gorilla was imitating faireraven , not the other way 'round!
• Thursday's parasailing!
• Thursday's rather horrid (on my part) game of golf @ fantasia gardens - she beat me by, well, nevermind how much...
• Friday's breakfast @ the 1900 with Disney's best English characters - Mary Poppins, Mad Hatter, Alice, Pooh, and Tigger
• The various photopasses from the week.

Still to come

• Thursday morning in the Magic Kingdom, including a great street show by a fantastic Jack Sparrow.
• Friday all day @ epcot, including lots of Disney topiary
• Saturday's mix-n-match day of Studios, the Boardwalk, Epcot (seeing in the day what we saw @ night the night before), and Magic Kingdom's final parade and fireworks

A few notes just 'cause they're fresh in my head...

• When I first saw the brochures for the Swan and Dolphin, many years ago, I was rather psyched about them.  Today, I'm merely depressed.  They *really* do ruin the Epcot world skyline and, as some have noted, serve as nothing but the reminder of just how big Eisner's ego had gotten by the end.  Eisner may have saved Disney from every being bought out, at first, but his later decisions led the core foundation into neglect (lack of maintenance in the existing parks, the glut and then destruction of the animation department that provided the character life-blood, the abusive relationship with Pixar, amicably resolved once he was gone) - like a King aged too long, or a President in his 2nd term, he was there just a bit too long.
• I don't (unlike others) begrudge the resort mgmt the Disney Vacation Club hotels and suites and the amount of Imagineering resources it takes.  You can't build rides 24/7.  And while the Vacation Club may seem an excess, it really is a reasonable product that at the same time brings in a HUGE stockpile of investment capital (and a regular profit) from the people who really care about Disney rather than relying on corporations to kick in what amounts to them as solely advertising dollars.  Yes, the DVC people are "everywhere", but "you gotta do this" sales-scheisters they're not.
• It's an extremely interesting feeling knowing you're the tallest person in the entire "World", even if just for 5 minutes.  We got about 225 feet up or so, higher than anything on site except the Swan hotel itself.
  
• It's incredible just how much I remember from 1984, and was shaking up older castmembers memories as I talked about...
  
• when the Fulton Crab House steamboat (really just a facade on the pier) was actually a Disney theme restaurant with character dining as part of the ancient "Buena Vista Village" on then Lake Buena Vista, now dredged up.  Most of the "lake" is now land, housing the Saratoga Springs Resort (previously, it held the Disney Institute)
• the "just barely on-site" high-rise hotels which can be seen from Downtown Disney, many of which (though *not all*) are still standing.  I remember the HoJos that's now a Holiday Inn (by way of a Courtyard Mariott - go fig.  ironically enough, here in Fair Oaks, the Holiday Inn has just become a Mariott!)
• the old Wilderness Resort area, River Country, and Discovery Island (all if which you can still see from that 200 feet up perspective on life)
  
• the way in which external structures can be preserved while changing utterly their internal facade, sometimes even just partially...
• how *little* I remember about Tomorrowland, with my memories of California's version being FAR stronger, even though I'd been to Florida's far more often.  Yes, going back to California twice in the last 3 years (and getting the Disneyland related Disney Treasures DVDs) might be a factor, but it really did surprise me.
• speaking of external structures - I got to see, quickly through the trees while on the bus, the construction of the next phase of the Pop Century, the "Legacy Years" (1900s-1940s).  And it was fascinating: it was just a 5 story red brick hotel, nothing fancy at ALL about it.  Really let it sink in that the theme is really just a lightweight facade, one that can be swapped out at any time (with *some* expense - removing a 50 foot rubiks cube staircase isn't cheap).
• While Haunted Mansion is closed, they *really* should be doing something about handicap access.  And we told them so...and oddly, though we insisted it was a suggestion and not a "complaint" they gave us free "fast passes" which we used to get onto Space Mountain real quick before the parade.
• This then led into its own irony as while getting through the queue we got abusively passed by a bunch of teenage girls insisting they needed to be together without asking (we'd have let them pass without any complaint at all)...only to find that we, thanks to the walker, bypassed the final section of the line to get onto a car ahead of them anyways.  We didn't ask, we just let karma play itself out.  :)
• Yes, roller-coaster-hating me did Space Mountain twice, the Aerosmith coaster 3 times, did Big Thunder "no hands" (it's actually not nearly as rough as it's Californian counterpart)...of course, none of those have the "drop" I hate so much.   Everest does for a little bit, but in the main drop a certain little...monster...is distraction enough from it.
  
• Raglan Road is INCREDIBLE.  more later.  it may be a huge Irish Pub, but even with the loss of intimacy of, say, Nanny O'Briens, it's a GREAT Irish pub.
• Being Backstage Safari meant we actually got to see the 2 month old baby (baby?  he's 7 feet tall already) giraffe!
  

And finally, I realized, even before our "Keys to the Kingdom" tour guide suggested it...

• There is only one Mickey.

word.

more later as I recap each day...

Comments

[thatwasjen]

I don't (unlike others) begrudge the resort mgmt the Disney Vacation Club hotels and suites and the amount of Imagineering resources it takes. You can't build rides 24/7. And while the Vacation Club may seem an excess, it really is a reasonable product that at the same time brings in a HUGE stockpile of investment capital (and a regular profit) from the people who really care about Disney rather than relying on corporations to kick in what amounts to them as solely advertising dollars. Yes, the DVC people are "everywhere", but "you gotta do this" sales-scheisters they're not.

I recently read the Disney Institute book Be Our Guest: Perfecting the Art of Customer Service. There's some interesting discussion there of DVC, and how they knew full well they had to quickly show people that they weren't like the "tarnished reputation of timeshare sales" or else risk ruining other aspects of the Disney experience for a segment of their guests. If you haven't read the book, and have an interest in how Disney does business in the parks particularly, I recommend it.

Everest does for a little bit, but in the main drop a certain little...monster...is distraction enough from it.

I've suspected from the descriptions that Everest must be a bit like the Matterhorn in Calif, am I right?

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

uh, no. it's bigger. MUCH bigger. Disneyland only comes in at about 80-90 feet up (they didn't want to overshadow the castle). This comes in at the state of florida 200 foot max. in disneyland you circle around the edges. Here, most of the ride takes place inside the mountain.

and the monster is, scale-wise, as much bigger from its californian counterpart as the mountain is. or bigger. it needed it's own superstructure independent of both the tracks AND the mountains. (yes - two separate infrastructures - no part of the track actually touches the real mountain's steel itself.

[thatwasjen]

OK, a very little bit like. :D

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

btw, about the "200 foot limit" - higher than that and the state law requires they put the blinking red light on the tip of the structure. for Everest, the Castle, and the Twilight Zone tower (set in the 1930s), and even the sphere @ epcot, that would break the image. so the only red light is on the Swan hotel.

all of the others tip between 179 and 199 feet.

[thelongshot.livejournal.com]

I'm also not a roller coaster person. I also don't like the big drop. I've always done Big Thunder since it opened at Disneyland. I never had the guts to do the Matterhorn, tho. I'm always a bit nervous about coasters I can't see.

Later, for my second trip to WDW, I got up enough confidence to do Space Mountain and really enjoyed it.

I avoided doing Aerosmith last time because I wasn't sure about it.

spoiler warning from a coaster coward

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

matterhorn in disneyland is "weaker" than space mountain disneyworld (space mountain disneyland got a bit hyped up with a new track in 2005 and is stronger than it used to be). it's impressive, historically, given that it was both one of the first partially indoors coasters and the first metal-frame coaster, but beyond that, it's not much tougher than anything else from that era.

aerosmith is 3 loops and a LOT of speed. no drops. the first two loops are over in the first 10 seconds after the mag launch. the last loop, a minute and a half into it, is at a sharp angle making it last longer, but you don't feel the drop as such. a little "zero-g", but no real drop sink feeling.

everest is tricky to describe (especially as the bulk of it does take place in the dark) - no upsidedown/loops as such but it does go backwards, high-speed, at an angle above the 90 degree horizon. it wasn't scary so much as weird-feeling - i'd really never felt anything like that before. i had to see it in person to realize that the "gap" between the two peaks wasn't nearly as big as it appears to be on television. there's a lot of forced perspective involved that make it seem like it's a huge distance, but really it's crossed (silently!) in 15 seconds.

my hassle has been the opposite - the coasters I *can* see. i won't touch loch ness monster 'cause i know that drop. i was nervous about everest 'cause of that "gap", and had to see it in person to see how much smaller it really is once you see a car and real people on it.