Just a meaningless coincidence, I am sure.
The parking spaces in Disney's lots are angled so that the driver's door clears the vehicle in the next space.
It works on the passenger side as well. Yes, that is my purple Crown Victoria.
"JS is at work even when he is on vacation!"
It was a foregone conclusion before I left Columbus that I would spend two days at Walt Disney World. Among the various parks, there is enough to keep me busy for two days, even though there is nothing new at any of the parks this year, and very little that is new-to-me. Well, okay, the animation "tour" at Disney/MGM Studios is all new to make up for the closing of the Florida animation studio, but other than that there is really nothing new. So there wasn't anything pressing at any of the parks that I absolutely had to see. So I opted to go to the Disney/MGM Studios first.
I arrived at the park in the usual way, which is to say, by automobile. It's worth noting that Disney has adopted the Six Flags approach to parking toll booth design, where they attempt to collect parking tolls from the wrong side of the vehicle. At least the number of left-hand booths opens equals or exceeds the number of right-hand booths open. That doesn't change the fact that in North America, the driver sits on the left-hand side of the vehicle.
Just a meaningless coincidence, I am sure.
The parking spaces in Disney's lots are angled so that the driver's door clears the vehicle in the next space.
It works on the passenger side as well. Yes, that is my purple Crown Victoria.
For my drive down to Florida, I listened to both of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series. Those proved to be good for travel, and it made for an extraordinary, and somehow appropriate coincidence that when I arrived in the parking lot, I was directed to park in Row #42. What was not so coincidental was the design of Disney's parking lots. The lots are designed with steeply angled parking spaces, and as I exited I realized that as vehicles sit side by side, the angle is so steep that the front door of each car will just clear the end of the adjacent vehicle, so people don't interfere with each other while trying to get out of their vehicles. This is the kind of attention to operational detail that sets Disney apart from every other park operation I have ever seen. I mean, how often does this kind of engineering go into the parking lot? On the other hand, while they got the parking space design right, you'd think they would fix the toll collection situation...
I boarded the waiting tram and rode to the gate. There, I picked up the ticket I had ordered over the Internet without a hitch. A few minutes later I showed the guard my empty camera bag (I was holding the camera at the time!) and entered the park through the large mostly self-service turnstile. Immediately inside the park is an information booth, and a street that looks oddly familiar. Of course! It's the SAME street that is re-created at Universal Studios. It's positioned a little differently in the park, but it's the same street with the same storefronts. No, this park isn't a shameless copy of Universal Studios, not at all! I did notice one interesting difference in the way people interacted with this street, though. While at Universal people tended to walk on the sidewalks, here, most people walked down the middle of the street. Accordingly, Disney/MGM's sidewalks are a bit narrower and more congested than the ones at Universal. Anyway, I walked down the street and took the first right. This leads back to the park's two 'E-ticket' rides, the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror 4, and Rock 'N' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith. As I had a bit more time in the park, I determined to look more closely at how the ride was situated. The infrastructure designs at the Disney parks are somewhat maddening, especially because so much stuff is so cleverly hidden.
At Disney/MGM, this looks familiar...
For reference...this is Universal Studios Florida.
I entered the hotel lobby, duly noting the 1917 construction date. Inside it looks as though the opulent hotel was abruptly abandoned, and left totally undisturbed for years. Next to the elevator, at the bell desk, I waited for a few moments, and was then shown into the library. Later I would take another ride and discover that there are two libraries, and they are not at all identical. One detail in particular...the telephone in the left-hand library is off the hook, while the one in the right-hand library is on-hook. Anyway, when I entered the library, I noted the television set in the corner, and commented on it. After all, television wasn't available in 1917. I was quickly reminded that the incident had occurred in 1939, when television was new. Very new, I might add...the first time the public got to see it was at the New York Worlds Fair and at the San Francisco Golden Gate Exposition in 1939. In fact, I don't think the television set is actually functional...it looks to me like the preshow video image is in fact rear-projected onto the face of the set.
Built in 1917, or so the sign says.
Apparently abandoned quietly in 1939.
I could swear that last year the "B" on this sign looked more like the number "13".
From the library, I follow directions into the hotel's boiler room, which is mysteriously located on the first floor rather than in the basement as normally expected. We are loaded into a group of four elevators. There are in fact five elevators...four special Tower of Terror elevators equipped with seats, and one right in the middle which is a perfectly ordinary modern elevator which serves as the ride's chicken chute. I made note of that one. Having ridden this attraction before, I am aware that the attraction elevators do some driving around, so the chicken chute elevator will be useful in figuring out where the exit sits relative to the boarding area. I boarded one of the elevators, took my seat, and fastened the seat belt. As if seats on an elevator are not unusual enough, these elevators have not only seats, but seat belts. The elevator door closes, and goes up one level. The door opens on a hotel hallway. Ghostly figures appear, then the door closes again and the elevator goes up another level. The door opens again to reveal a starfield which cleverly extends into the cab. The elevator rolls forward and through a curve, into one of the two drop shafts. In two rides, I got two different ride programs. Once I got a simple up and down program, the second time I got more up-and-down action, a blast of air at the bottom of the first drop, and a brief video that played in the basement. That was a neat program! I still think that there isn't enough time from the moment the elevator locks into the drop shaft until the doors open at the top of the shaft for the car to move that far. Well, clearly there is...and I'm sure the fact that it's only 90 feet instead of 130 feet (or whatever) for that first move is probably part of the trick. But it just feels wrong. Which, I suppose, is the whole point of the thing. At the end of the sequence, the elevator rolls straight back out of the drop shaft and rotates 90 degrees. The door opens in the "real" basement of the building [Footnote 1] and I exit. I noticed that the exit door is offset to one side and well behind the 'chicken chute' elevator, the one I assume does not go sideways. Hmmm...I know there are at least six show lifts in the building...the two main drop shafts, and the four boarding points, as the transition from the boarding shaft to the drop shaft is up approximately two levels from the loading area. I wonder if there are two more lifts behind the boarding area to bring the cars back up to the loading area, as the unloading area does not line up with the loading area. The only other option I can think of would be to move the empty car back into the drop shaft, haul it up to the fourth floor, and back it into the loading shaft again...a use of show space that would defeat the purpose of having multiple cars and drop shafts.
Update: I am told by people who know the attraction a lot better than me that the unloading area is not directly below the loading area, and the elevator in the middle of the unload area is not the same one that sits between the loading areas. Apparently, once the elevator is empty, it moves backward and returns to a location directly below the boarding position, in the short shaft. Thanks, Chris, Jeff and Rob for the improved information.
Interesting. Anyway, the ride exit is through the attraction's gift shop and into a plaza directly below the lobby entrance. The interesting bit is that the building and plaza are constructed in such a way that you don't really notice that you are going uphill all the time. The entrance lobby is about half a story above the midway, and the gift shop exit is slightly below, giving enough clearance for everything to fit in the building, but spread out enough that the ramps on the midway are not steep at all.
Don't fret, there is an electric roller coaster past this gate!
Out the door and two rights from the Tower of Terror gift shop is quite possibly one of the coolest looking roller coaster signs around. It's a concrete arch that extends over the midway, with a complete billboard on top (all done in Huxley Vertical) and the neck of an electric guitar mounted on the bottom, with a car riding on the strings down the inverted fretboard. I think I get the point. The park was not terribly busy, and was not expected to be terribly busy, so the evil FastPass system was not in service. Accordingly, I proceeded directly up the ramp and into the offices of G-Force Records. In the lobby, I almost had enough time to look at the museum display showing the history of audio recording and reproduction equipment, with descriptions and terrible puns supplied by G-Force chief recording engineer, Cass Ette. A few moments later I was standing in the recording studio, watching the pointless batch-loading preshow movie intended to set up the usual "chase and escape" plot for the roller coaster. The show ended and we filed into the perpetually dark alley behind the building (funny, it was daytime when I entered the building...) to wait in line for the coaster. It looks kind of like a parking garage in there, with everything done up to an extreme level of detail, right down to the spots on the floor. The one thing that didn't quite fit was the steel coaster track where one would expect to find a street, but hey...this is a roller coaster!
As a single rider, I got shunted into the front seat of the train, which suits me fine. It's more or less a standard Vekoma looping coaster train, although the shoulder bars are only slightly less wretched than normal, and a sound system has been added to the train, with speakers located in the headrest. I noticed that the front seat in the second car is equipped with some extra grab handles; I presume that's supposed to be a more-accessible-than-usual transfer seat. I sat down and pulled down the bar. The train moved quickly to the launch staging area, and I noticed that it moved backward slightly to engage the catchwagon before being launched. The layout has a lot in common with Kings Island's Flight of Fear except that this ride has only three inversions. As nearly as I can tell, it starts with a pair of Sidewinders, and includes a single left-handed Corkscrew. The "show building" is almost entirely dark, and the ride is surprisingly long for a launched coaster. I've said it before with regard to this ride: Inversions in the dark are pointless. If you can't see that you are upside down, and you certainly can't feel that you are upside down (not if the inversion is done right, anyway) then what is the point? Furthermore, the ride loses big points with me for having the damned shoulder bars. I actually argued that point with one of the Kumbak [Footnote 2] engineers at IAAPA last year. He didn't convince me that the shoulder bars are necessary just because the ride goes upside down, and I think I utterly failed to convince him that simply isn't the case. Well,eventually they'll come around. Meanwhile, Rock 'N' Roller Coaster is easily one of the better coasters out there. I don't know if it quite qualifies as Disney's best Florida coaster or not, as it's been more than a decade since I rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
When I exited, I noticed heavy equipment operating on the other side of the fence, between the Rock 'N' Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror show buildings. I tried standing on the wall adjacent to the fence, but the fence is just a little bit too high for me to get a good view of whatever was going on. I know it involves a large crane, but that's about it.
Come get Tigger's autograph!
At this point, I set out to visit the rest of the park. As I approached that center street again, I noticed that while this park caters to an older crowd than the Magic Kingdom, Disney has opted to make it a bit more 'kid friendly' by having almost continuous character greetings and autograph signings at points in the park. At one point I saw no less than four separate, simultaneous stations where kids were getting photos taken and autographs signed by various Disney animated characters. I walked through the studio gate into an area that is crowded with construction walls and the queue for Playhouse Disney - Live on Stage. This took me into the Magic of Disney Animation building.
Some of the longest lines in the park were for character greetings.
The production used to go on behind this gate.
Ummm, yeah, whatever. The real magic of Disney animation is that is happening at all anymore. Recently, Disney's animated features have come from Pixar, the Florida animation studio has been closed for about a year now, and Disney is supposedly opening their own computer animation studio someplace. I figured I could go in and see what they had done with the place now that there are no animators to watch doing their thing. As before, the attraction starts with a theater, but instead of just an introductory film as before, there is now an artist's workspace at the front of the theater, and the introductory presentation combines the introductory film and the artist visit that used to make up the bulk of the animation tour. The presentation does a wonderful job of combining not only animation and live action on film, but of matching both to the live presenter in the room. Of course, there is no more audience interaction, but the show is interesting nonetheless. At the end of the presentation, the attraction becomes a self-guided tour of sorts. The "chat with an animator" workspace is now a gallery where some production artifacts from The Incredibles are on display, and what used to be a 'peanut gallery' looking down on the animators' workspaces now leads to a stairway and ramp down into that abandoned workspace, now occupied by a variety of displays which attempt to explain character design, character personality development, and the use of color, not to mention a meet-and-greet area to meet the characters from The Incredibles. The mysterious second theater, whose location I was never quite able to figure out before, is now in a far more obvious location (somehow I missed that 90-degree bend in the hallway before...) and is used for a post-show in which participants apparently get to try their hand at doing some character drawing.
One interesting thing I noticed with the new animation attraction is that in the old version, there was quite a lot of technical information about drawing backgrounds and characters, scanning that into the computer, using the computer to do the coloration, generating the appropriate effects, building the frames and putting everything on film. Now there is almost no technical information about the process of making a drawing come to life, but rather the whole thing focuses on the way the characters are developed, both in terms of personality and appearance. I suppose that's because that part of the process doesn't change no matter whether you are inking cells or programming computers.
From the animation attraction, I set off across the park and made my way down a desolate New York street. This was a street scene with absolutely nothing real about it apart from the street vendor on the corner at Youse Guys Moichandise. Even that wasn't really a store, just a couple of T-shirt racks set in the street. In the middle of the block a couple of workers were repainting the sidewalk and curb. Apart from that, it was totally desolate. A whole lot of Christmas lights had been strung up on the buildings in preparation for the Christmas lights event scheduled to happen about a week hence. It's going to be pretty spectacular, but I will be back in Ohio by the time they light it all up.
This fountain honors the Muppets...I guess.
I walked right into the theater for MuppetVision 3D, which may be my favorite 3D attraction in Orlando. Sorry, Shrek, I like the Muppets better. Besides, they are supposed to be in 3D, while you are not. I think MuppetVision 3D is also the only "4D" attraction in Orlando where the audience doesn't get sprayed with jets of water. Bubbles, yes, but not jets of water. It does have some neat tricks with the theater as well. It's an old show, but very well done.
Star Tours is just past the AT-AT.
Speaking of old shows, Star Tours was the one attraction in the park where I had to wait. A line extended out to the midway. Inside, I noticed that I had to wait in the first waiting area, where C3PO and R2D2 are working on a couple of shuttle craft, just exactly long enough for the program in that room to loop. The next room featured another repair droid (one of those red ones where the motivators blow up unexpectedly...) who wasn't working as hard as he should, and a bunch of parts baskets on an overhead conveyor. Clearly this was the scene that Cedar Point shamelessly ripped off for the "Repair Bay" room of the Disaster Transport queue.
Once aboard the ancient simulator capsule, the even more ancient film-based presentation began. I don't know if there is any CGI in the Star Tours film or not; it could easily all be miniatures and mattes, much like the classic version of Star Wars IV. Anyway, the motion seems mostly random as usual, but the whole package is better than the other simulators (Back to the Future, Jimmy Neutron) I have ridden on this trip. I suspect that the better picture and the direct connection of the cabin to the screen probably help a lot. Star Tours is ancient, and it again uses the tired "chase and escape" plot, but I think it may easily be the second-best simulator in Central Florida. I'll ride the best simulator in Central Florida later today.
I remembered from my last visit that the backlot tour tram was a less than stellar attraction, and that "catastrophe" was a pretty good term for Catastrophe Canyon. Again, like the Earthquake attraction at Universal, it looks kind of neat, but the existence of the display has absolutely nothing at all to do with filmmaking. I skipped the tram tour, and from the look of the boarding area, that looked like a popular decision on this Monday afternoon.
That was about it for Disney/MGM Studios. I decided to take another ride or two on the coaster and the drop ride, and ended up having a conversation with a local showman I hadn't expected to meet at Disney. I swear, the man is always working, even when he is on vacation. I decided I had seen enough of this park, and it was time to move on. I suppose if you were to see every single one of the shows, you could make a full day of Disney/MGM Studios, but I decided that it was most definitely a half-day park.
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
Footnote 1: I'm guessing it isn't really the basement of the building, but it is level with the lowest point the ride reaches in the drop shaft, and it's one level below the attraction entrance. I'm guessing there is one more level further down that isn't public. [Return to text]
Footnote 2: The ride was built by Vekoma before the ShowQuest consortium went bankrupt, apparently taking all the participating companies (including Vekoma and Caripro to name only two) with it. The important people who used to run Vekoma formed Kumbak Coasters, and what we know now as Vekoma is essentially a totally different company from what it was when they built Rock 'N' Roller Coaster. It would be more accurate to refer to Rock 'N' Roller Coaster as a Kumbak ride than as a Vekoma ride. But you didn't hear any of this from me, as officially that ride was built by Disney Imagineering... 8-) [Return to text]
--DCAjr
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