The Magical World of Disney on TV!

I recently rediscovered my family's VHS recording of the Grand Opening of the Disney-MGM Studios television special. This aired on the eve of the official opening of the Disney-MGM Studios on April 30, 1989. Hosted by the late John Ritter, this program showed what this new theme park had to offer.


Many popular celebrities of the time made cameos including; Rue McClanahan, Estelle Getty, John Forsythe, Kate Jackson and even Ronald Reagan. I still enjoy this special just as much as I did 22 years ago. This show may seem like a two-hour advertisement, but for some it is a glimpse at a magical world.



Back in the late 1980's The Magical World of Disney generally showed a Disney movie or some sort of special event on a weekly basis. These shows were something that I would look forward to each week. Generally, these shows would bring cast members from popular NBC shows together in an interesting way. One instance showed us Mickey Mouse leaving his comfortable lifestyle and running away only to befriend young Andy from the hit series Family Ties.

I feel that one of the oddest specials to air was the Walt Disney World Celebrity Circus. This originally aired in 1987 and featured a cast including; Tony Randall, Malcolm-Jamal Waner, Lisa Bonet and Kim Fields. Mixed in with these celebrities were some of the most daring circus acts and performers across the world. A make-shift circus was created on top of the EPCOT Center Fountain of Nations that was able to hold up several elephants.


Through the years, Disney World specials have unfortunately decreased. Now only a yearly Christmas parade is broadcast, with very few additional theme park programming. I hope that when Walt Disney World turns 40 years old in October that we get to see a few new television specials. Do you have any favorite memories of watching Walt Disney World specials?

Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye

This week I am going to talk about a ride that I would love to see built at Disney World, Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye. I first encountered this ride when I visited Disneyland in California and have sung its praise since. This ride incorporates a beloved movie series into a fast-paced, dark ride attraction that causes thrills and chills for all.

Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye premiered in Disneyland on March 3, 1995 to a star-studded celebrity gala and the following day to the general public. This was not Indiana Jones' first attraction at a Disney theme park. The Disney-MGM Studios opened on May 1, 1989 with the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular! as one of the original attractions. Due to the incredible success of Indiana Jones on the East Coast, George Lucas and Disney teamed up again to recreate the popularity on the West Coast in Disneyland.

It was decided that the Disneyland Monorail and "Eeyore" parking lot would be relocated to accommodate the addition of this attraction in Adventureland. Construction began in August of 1993, involving more than 400 Imagineers. The Enhanced Motion Vehicle (EMV) was created for this attraction as a next-generation ride vehicle. These vehicles are able to drive with all wheels on the ground, while simulating movement along various terrains. This ride system was used for the popular attraction DINOSAUR, located in Disney's Animal Kingdom.

AT&T sponsored the attraction from 1995 to 2002. During these years, each guest was presented a Marabic decoder card. The nearly half-mile queue leads guests into the Temple of Mara and its walls are covered in hieroglyphics warning guests. Disney Channel aired a special starring Raiders of the Lost Ark stars Karen Allen and John Rhys-Davies to create interest in this attraction. Disney even commissioned the original Indiana Jones poster artist to create a fitting poster for this attraction.

The ride incorporates fast motion, fire and shocking drops to create an awesome ride that one will not forget quickly. I think that this ride is so good that when I am in Disneyland I ride the attraction at least four times a day. There is so much detail into this ride that it offers new things to see each time you ride it. Have you ever had the chance to enter the world of Indiana Jones?

Voyage Under the Sea

It will soon be a time for celebration at Walt Disney World. October 1, 2011 will be the 40th anniversary of the Walt Disney World Resort. This celebration will mark an exciting year to follow. One of the most exciting things to happen will be the completion of the Fantastyland expansion. This expansion will create new and exciting areas for guests to visit.

The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure will be opening in late 2011 or early 2012. This exciting new dark-ride attraction will be a great addition to The Magic Kingdom. Disneyland's Fantastyland, has more attractions than its East-Coast companion. So this addition is very welcome. No attraction has been added to this area since its opening.

The Little Mermaid ride was originally envisioned for the Disneyland Paris Theme Park. It was supposed to open in the early 1990's following the release of The Little Mermaid film. The ride was scrapped due to low expectations for the theme park in France. Plans and mock-ups were put together, but shelved until a recent release of The Little Mermaid on DVD. A special feature of the DVD was a digital recreation of what this ride would be. Many people liked what they saw and decided that this ride would be created finally.

It was decided that the Little Mermaid would have a home in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World and Disney California Adventure in Disneyland. The interior parts of the attractions are being completed at the same time. This makes sure that the rides are produced similar and saves on costs. Disney California Adventure is going to open its version of this ride on June 3rd, 2011. This will be replacing the Golden Dreams show that starred Whoopi Goldberg.

In Disney World, the attraction will be featured in a recreation of Prince Eric's castle. A meet-and-greet featuring Ariel will be featured next to the castle. This ride will be featuring some of the most complex animatronics to ever be seen on property. We will be able to see Ariel, Flounder, Ursula and all the others come to life, right before our eyes. I think that this ride will be an awesome addition to the park and can't wait for it to open. Are you excited about the ride? What is your favorite Little Mermaid memory?

Back to Disney World

Hopefully you have enjoyed the past two weeks blogs about the Universal Orlando Resort, and are ready to return to talking about a much better place; Walt Disney World. Nothing big has happened lately at Disney World, other than continuing work on the Fantasyland expansion. A lot of rumors have been spreading regarding exactly what this expansion has in store. Some think that the expansion may go exactly as planned, while others feel that something different and exciting may happen. Hopefully as 2011 continues, we will be able to see a better picture of the end product as construction efforts double.

The new interactive queue at the Haunted Mansion attraction has begun public testing. The week following my departure from Florida, some elements were unveiled for the public to see. These things include new mausoleums and tombstones that incorporate well-loved Mansion characters. This queue seems to be moving in the right direction like the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh attraction queue over in nearby Fantasyland. The Haunted Mansion queue is said to be opening in April this year.

Star Tours II is going to be a 3-D, simulator attraction located at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. This ride is replacing the popular the popular Star Tours, 2-D simulator attraction that occupied the same location. Both Disney and Star Wars fans are trying to guess which Star Wars locations will be visited during the ride. I just hope that the pilot of the original ride, Rex, appears in this new incarnation. He brings some fun to the Star Wars universe, for those who are not familiar with the Star Wars saga.

With all these small changes and rumors coming out, I hope that you stay tuned to see what actually happens and what gets forgotten. Again, if you have some questions or something you would like discussed further, don’t hesitate to ask.

Adventure in the Islands of Adventure

In this week’s blog post I am going to discuss the Islands of Adventure theme park. Opening in May of 1998, Islands of Adventure is the second theme park in the Universal Orlando Resort. This park’s theme is quite different from its counterpart Universal Studios, as it relies on the theme of exploration rather than a movie studio. At the time of opening, the park consisted of six lands, adding a seventh in June of 2010.

Islands of Adventure

• Port of Entry
• Marvel Superhero Island
• Toon Lagoon
• Jurassic Park
• The Lost Continent
• Seuss Landing
• The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

At the time of opening this new theme park, Universal Studios Florida’s name was changed to Universal Studios Escape. This confusing name change is said to have attributed to poor attendance numbers the first few years of operation. 2001 brought the name change to Universal Studios Orlando and park attendance began to increase. Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, Universal Studios Orlando was the only resort in the Orlando area to have an increase in attendance.

I have heard so much about this park and its Harry Potter ‘land’ that I was very interested to see what it was all about. Upon entering, I took note that the park is modeled after a typical Disney ‘hub and spoke’ format. The ‘hub and spoke’ format generally consists of a center circle with themed lands spread out in all directions that are joined by a main entrance road. At a Disney park it is Main Street and at Islands of Adventure it is the Port of Entry.

Universal has seemed to do a great job on developing themes for their ‘islands’. Each different ‘island’ has at least one attraction, restaurant and a handful of gift shops. Jurassic Park seems to be the best themed of the original ‘islands’. It hosts a fairly faithful recreation of the original Jurassic Park Visitor’s Center which houses a restaurant, gift shop and discovery center. The Jurassic Park River Adventure is a water-based ride that pits visitors against escaped dinosaurs and an 85-foot droop below a hungry Tyrannosaurs Rex.

The most popular ‘island’ is currently the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which opened on June 18, 2010. The main attraction here is Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, which is located inside Hogwart’s Castle. This ride is a fast-paced blend of state-of-the-art video technology and advanced animatronics. I was not ready for all the action in this ride. There were spiders, dragons and many other creatures found in the storybook world of Harry Potter. I feel that this attraction and the wonderfully themed Hogsmeade village are very entertaining.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter holds two other rides; Dragon Challenge and Flight of the Hippogriff. Dragon Challenge, previously named Dueling Dragons pre-Potter is the world’s first dueling inverted roller coaster. Flight of the Hippogriff, formerly the Flying Unicorn is a smaller roller coaster that is aimed at children. Five shops; Zonko’s, Honeydukes, Dervich and Banges, Filch’s Emporium of Confiscated Goods, and Owl Post are all located within the ‘island’ and sell all the items you would need to become a wizard. The Three Broomsticks Inn and The Hog’s Head Pub allow visitors to enjoy food and drinks taken from the Harry Potter stories.

I hope that you have enjoyed my take on the Universal Orlando Resort and all it has to offer. Next week, we return to talking about what is going on a few miles away at the Walt Disney World Resort. Please post any questions or comments you have about the Universal Orlando Resort, and maybe I will continue to post some news stories about this theme park.

Spring Break! Part 1

I'm sorry for not posting a blog last week, but I was busy doing something more important; visiting Walt Disney World! Last week was my Spring Break and I went to Orlando, Florida with my friends. While we were in Orlando, we were able to visit the Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Universal Studios and the Islands of Adventure. I was very excited to get my feet back on to Disney property and also enjoyed being able to see what Universal Studios theme park had to offer. Over the next few weeks I am going to be highlighting events from this trip in a series of posts.

When we arrived in Orlando we were greeted with warm and sunny weather with only one day in our forecast calling for rain. Since we hadn't visited the Universal theme parks, we decided that we would visit Universal Studios first. We rushed into the theme park quickly to get on as many rides as possible, but also tried to enjoy this new experience as much as possible. Revenge of the Mummy, Jaws, ET Adventure and the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit were among our favorite attractions at Universal Studios. The majority of the rides at this theme park were thrill rides as opposed to the more relaxing rides at Walt Disney World.

As we all know, Walt Disney World is known for the cleanliness of its parks and I was on a mission to see if Universal theme parks were comparable. I took a survey of the entire park and felt that it was pretty comparable and have to give Universal some credit for being able to keep up with Disney World. I did feel that some of the Universal attractions' queuing lines were similar to those in Disney World in the late 70's and 80's that did not offer much to do or look at while in them.

I hope that you enjoyed this look at Universal Studios theme park and please comment or ask any questions that you may have. Tune in next week for another look at an awesome Spring Break!

The waiting game

If you have visited any theme park, you have experienced a line while waiting for an attraction. For years, the folks at Walt Disney Imagineering have been trying to add some fun to waiting in line or a queue in Disney terminology. Sometimes a queue can be the place where people spend the majority of their vacation. Generally, an attraction lasts only a few minutes, while waiting in the queue for it can last double that amount. I can say that it has never really bothered me to wait in line, because that is my time to enjoy and relax with my family and friends.

My vacations to Walt Disney World and Disneyland in California tend to be a rather "rough vacation" according to others. I don't sleep very much, and I am at the parks virtually the entire time they are open during the day. I just enjoy the rides and atmosphere so much. I know that the resorts and other areas of the Resort offer more things to do, but I feel that the main reason I am there is to take in the theme parks.

Well all that waiting in line I have done is about to get a little more exciting. Walt Disney Imagineers have been toying with a new breed of queue; the Next Generational (Next Gen) queue. These queues incorporate interactive elements to keep people of all ages entertained while waiting. This idea has been toyed around with for years, but has never been pushed forward as much as it has been today.

No place at Walt Disney World has needed more inventive queues than Fantasyland in the Magic Kingdom. Fantasyland's original and current theme is that of a Medieval Festival. This fits this area as it is located behind Cinderella Castle. At the time of construction, there was not much time or real estate to put into developing advanced queues for these popular attractions. This ended up giving some of Walt Disney World's most popular attractions a very generic wrap-around queue like many other theme parks across the United States.

This all changed when The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh's queue oddly went under refurbishment in 2010. Many wondered why a queue would close for refurbishment, but everyone was delighted with the outcome. November of 2010 brought a queue that would change the look and feel of Fantasyland for the good. Instead of the old generic queue, a new queue that resembled the 100 Acre Woods of the Winnie the Pooh stories greeted guests.

This fantastic new queue gives children something to play in, and adults to enjoy the detailed artistry. I cannot wait until I make my next trip to Walt Disney World to see this for myself. I feel that this will fit well nicely with the future Fantasyland expansion project. This care and attention to detail in such a trivial place, such as a queue, is what makes me love the Walt Disney Corporation. Currently, the next new queue is being installed at The Haunted Mansion attraction in Liberty Square. I will be excited to see what new ghouls will come alive once that queue is opened. Do you have a favorite queue or memory that you has taken place in one? Feel free to share and discuss.