DOING DISNEY ebook!

Think I'll just put this one up here. 

This is the book I wrote about our family's travels to Walt Disney World in Florida.

It's not supposed to be a comprehensive, tell-all travel guide.  I describe it as a template for a week (give or take a couple days) long visit to that Florida resort.  It discusses the resorts we like the most, the restaurants we like the most, the way we structure our days in the parks, how and why we rent a car, why we recommend Disney's Magical Express for getting to one's on-property hotel, a little bit (actually a very little bit) about the surrounding area, and how and why we decide which options to put on our theme park tickets.  I talk about our experience with Disney Vacation Club, the Disney Dining Plans, and a little about the California resort.  I talk about FastPasses (which are almost obsolete now, I guess) and about the extras at the resort that we've never experienced.  Finally, I provide a bit of a bibliography for books about Disney that I've found either useful, entertaining, or both.

Christmas is coming, so consider purchasing a copy.  It's only $2.99 for 101 pages of reading enjoyment.  I try to write it in an entertaining style, like I do my fiction.  So maybe even if you don't find it useful, you might find my anecdotes entertaining.  Or not.  Sample at will, if you'd like, to get an idea about my style of writing.

Here's the link: DOING DISNEY:  HOW TO SPEND A WEEK AT DISNEY'S FLORIDA RESORT  One caveat: It's only for Kindle and the Kindle app! Hope that will work for you! Thanks for looking at it.

*****

Our Disney-driven life...

Okay, it's not really Disney-driven, not anymore.  There was a time when we loved everything about Disney.  We loved going to their parks.  We loved staying at their hotels.  We loved California and we loved Florida.  We especially loved Epcot, with its World Showcase and its Soarin' ride.  We loved the films.  We liked their restaurants and their shops. 

It's not that we soured on it, exactly.  It's more that we just drifted away.  There are so many things to see in the world, and limiting ourselves to a vacation every year to Florida seems to be less-than-optimal for our family at this point.  So we've used our points (yes, we're DVC members) to go to San Francisco, to Hawaii, and maybe this summer we'll use more points to stay at one of the Disneyland Paris hotels when we visit there. 

We'll likely visit the parks there, at least for one day.  But we're planning a European vacation, not a Disney vacation and if staying at the Disney hotels makes it more affordable, then that is how we'll use our points. 

We still love Disney visits, for the most part.  It's just that there's too much Earth to experience to limit ourselves.  (Besides, it's not like they're free...visiting theme parks for us costs nearly a grand for that week.) 

So we haven't been "Doing Disney" ourselves lately.  Sometimes soon we'll go back and get the scoop on the MyMagic stuff and the new Fantasyland and any other additions, and then I'll be back reporting on that sort of thing.  In the meantime, I'll try to continue to drop tidbits here in the blog about Disney, as well as other endeavors (especially my publishing endeavors). 

*****

If you want to read a book about one family's strategies when vacationing for a week at Disney World, feel free to check out my title , Doing Disney: How To Spend A Week At Disney's Florida Resort   It's available on Amazon for $2.99.  I tried to write it for families who get to spend a week in the World every year or two and want to maximize their time in the parks and in the area.  It doesn't try to be comprehensive, but I think you might find a few helpful tidbits within its electronic pages...

Thanks!

*****

Epcot - The world's best indoor theme park!

As any longtime reader of this blog will know, I'm interested in theme park development in general, and have done some studying of the processes that the Disney Company has gone through to develop their parks in the United States (and a little bit in Europe as well), because they are the gold standard, after all.  Way back when, I did a handful of blog posts about what I saw as the "basics" to developing a theme park resort in the northern Midwest, specifically in the Chicagoland area.  And one of my conclusions was that the park would probably have to be completely indoors.

It was suggested that there are examples of indoor theme parks, including the Mall of America in Minnesota (I've never been to it).  And later, Dreamworks announced that they were going to develop an all-indoor theme park in New Jersey, close to New York City.  But I was thinking about it, and I see Epcot as the first, and best, indoor theme park in the world.

Most theme parks in the northern United States are seasonally open.  They run on weekends in the spring and fall, and run at full schedule, every day, over the summer, when kids are out of school.  Weather is obviously the big reason for this, but I would also guess that the lack of more to do around them is part of it.  They do not depend on "tourists" from other states to come visit them; it's more school kids from the area, and so they are busy when kids aren't in school.

But if an attraction was developed that was completely enclosed (like the Mall of America, for example), does it become a tourist destination?  Especially in an area like Chicago, where there are so many other things to recommend travel to it?  (This goes for the New Jersey project of Dreamworks, assuming that this is still on the table at all, being in pretty close proximity to NYC.)

Anyway, getting back to Epcot:  Every attraction there, with the partial exception of Test Track, is indoors.  You only have to go outside to walk between the various pavilions and to reach the World Showcase.  Now I would agree that it would lose something if those pavilions were themselves enclosed.  Part of their attraction is the fact that they showcase the architecture of the countries they represent, and have sort of a "city" feel - like, if you're going to Paris, or Munich, or Naples, perhaps, and wandering around an actual European (or Mexican, or Canadian or North African) city!

Consider if the walkways were enclosed between the pavilions.  You'd have a place that could easily be visited in the middle of winter, without concerns about how much snow was coming down or how many layers of clothing you needed to wear.  You could set Epcot in its current form in the northern U.S., and you'd have a functional theme park.  Enclose the walkways (arcades, like in Disneyland Paris?) and you have an all-weather park! 

I suppose, thinking about it, that most of the parks have a large element of indoor attractions (all the dark rides, the motion simulators, indoor coasters like Rock'n'Roller Coaster and Space Mountain, and most of the shows are enclosed) but Epcot has the general lack of ties to Disney content to be anyone's park, not only Disney.   That, coupled with the fact that you could enjoy almost everything about it even if it was snowing like crazy outdoors, make it a prototypical indoor theme park!

*****

If you get a chance, please take a look at my latest offering, 14 Dark Windows, on Amazon for Kindle.  It's a collection of short stories, some horror, some milder with supernatural or horrific elements, some just nice stories, available in ebook form for $2.99!  Thank you!

*****

Disney Guidebook coming out...

Yes, I've written a Disney guidebook, which will be released as soon as I finalize the cover.  It will be an e-book, available on Amazon for Kindle, and later hopefully for Nook and through the iBookstore and other outlets.  I'm also hoping to publish a paper version of it, but I think the e-book will be the best way to experience it.

What qualifies me to write a guidebook, you might ask?  Well, we've visited Walt Disney World seven times since our kids were born, each time for 7 or 8 days.  And each time we learned something.  We got our patterns down.  We found places that we return to for dining.  We stayed at resort properties that we really liked, and at least one that we weren't crazy about. 

We visit the resort like a lot of other people in our boat.  We aren't all annual pass holders.  We don't all live close enough to go every week or month, like some folks who write Disney books do.  We get down there every year or every couple of years, spend a week there, and try to make the most of our stay.  When we run into people going to Disney for the first or second time, we seem to usually have some good ideas for them, information that they are happy to have. 

Our experiences are not the be-all-end-all of Disney experiences.  They're OUR experiences.  I thought it would be interesting to put together a "guidebook" from that perspective, not trying to give every last bit of information about every little thing on Disney property.  I didn't do a ton of outside research to write this book.  I mostly relied on my family's experiences and how we've done things over the course of our seven visits.   I talk about how we structure our park visits, how we buy our tickets, how we get the most out of our money when visiting Walt Disney World.  Take all of our advice, some of it, or just a little, but I think if you have young kids and are going to visit Disney every couple of years for a week at a time, you'll find something useful in the book.

Disney's MyMagic+ has come along and perhaps will change a bunch of stuff about how we have to structure our vacations, but for the most part, our observations stand on their own. 

I'll have the cover here and on my Scott Dyson page and on my Scott Dyson Facebook page, and pricing information before it is released.  I hope some of you will download a sample and take a look!  Thanks for reading!

*****

My Magic Plus...

This new program that Disney Florida is rolling out was a mystery to me.  But after reading FutureProbe's article on the subject, now I'm worried.

Go ahead and read the article, titled The Pixie Dust Detoxification Effect. 

Is this going to enhance or ruin the Disney vacation experience?  Sounds like the latter...

*****

Science Centers...

We went to the Museum of Science and Industry yesterday, and it made me think of my last post (which was inspired by the Passport to Dreams blog entry) about Epcot and inspiration. 

I remember a similar discussion, a few years back, on the Reimagineering blog (now gone quiet, unfortunately), where some of the comments got to discussing whether regional science centers like the Museum of Science and Industry did a better job of educating and inspiring people than Epcot could do.  Those centers have the ability to change rapidly.  Exhibits come and go.  For example, yesterday the MSI had a special exhibit for the life of Charles Schultz, the creator of Peanuts.  I learned a ton about the cartoonist.  It isn't really science, perhaps, but it was fun and educational. 

There are larger scale permanent exhibits, too - like Science Storms and YOU! the Experience.  Every so often these exhibits undergo wholesale upgrades or changes - recently YOU! The Experience was closed for renovation and updating, and they made it much more pertinent to today's kids (and adults).  Science Storms is a relatively new exhibit where kids (and adults, again) can control a tornado and can learn about waves and air currents and a lot of other stuff.  Fast Forward also is relatively new and showcases some scientists' and inventors' work on cutting edge technologies and ideas.  Not everything is new every time we visit, but there have been modifications to the content of the exhibit. 

Science centers like MSI  do an excellent job of entertaining, educating, and inspiring visitors.  But the problem is that they can only do so one or two (or at the most a small group) at a time.  You can't have a thousand people working the controls to the tornado exhibit all at once.  And you can't rush a kid who is doing it.  There's a lot to do, and kids generally wait their turns and do things in an orderly fashion.  But can you imagine something similar at Epcot? 

It reminds me of Innoventions (the one on the Land and Seas side - I can never keep it straight if that's East or West).  It's the same sort of stuff.  It's fun if you're the one doing something.  But I for one find Innoventions to be perhaps the most boring part of Epcot.  Not because there isn't anything interesting there...more because you just can't really do too much when it's super crowded, like it always seems to be when we're there.  And then of course, you're always rushing to get in line for Soarin' or make a dinner reservation or whatever. 

I wish I would have gotten a chance to see Horizons.  The way people talk about it, it must have been something special.  It seems to have really inspired a lot of bloggers.  But I wonder if it was as impressive as they make it sound.  Absence makes the heart grow fonder, as they say.  Epcot as a science center plus theme park was a difficult proposition.  It's still pretty unique today.  Just not nearly as inspiring, or so I'm led to believe...

*****

Epcot Angst...

As I surf Disney-themed blogs, I read a lot of angst about that fact that Epcot today is not what it was supposed to be, or what it could be, or what it used to be.  It's probably true:  the Epcot of today doesn't really seem to educate, or inspire, its guests.  I have to take it on faith that it did this in the past, because I've read so many excellent blogs that lament the loss of their favorite park.  The latest entry I've read, An Epcot Generation Manifesto at the always informative Passport to Dreams Old & New, comments on the changes in the park, and in the mission itself for the park, saying that "What's really missing from EPCOT today isn't just Horizons, it's the whole package of information, of inspiration, the message of hope which cumulatively moved us all."

Epcot doesn't inspire anymore.  That seems to be a common lament.  So why doesn't it?

I never visited Epcot before 2006.  My only visit to Walt Disney World was in 1975, as a member of my high school band, and, well, you know how high school kids are.  Especially 15 year old male high school kids, when released in the parks along with other high school band kids (read that as "GIRLS!") from other parts of the country.  I took a few pictures, but basically I have few memories from that visit.

Epcot wasn't an option in 1975.  It wasn't built yet.  I was in college when EPCOT Center opened, and it didn't register on my radar.   Too busy majoring in chemistry and hanging out with my friends and playing rock and roll music and trying to get into dental school.  (I succeeded in all of them...)  Did I need inspiration?

I did not.  I grew up in a time where men were launching rockets to the moon.  Neil Armstrong stepped onto that world when I was 9 years old.  I found the SF of Asimov and Heinlein and Clarke at around 12 years of age, and moved on from there.  Brin, Card, Benford, Sawyer, Bear, and many others made me think a lot about what was possible.  The shuttle program began, and I wrote an op-ed piece for the Chicago Tribune after the Challenger disaster.  (The link brings you to a blog post with the link to the piece, not to the piece itself.)  If you read it, you will read the thoughts of someone who had been inspired by a lot of stuff.  But not by EPCOT.

Foxxfur states in her excellent piece that "We can argue semantics about Walt Disney's original vision for E.P.C.O.T., the political and cultural reasons these were transformed into a theme park, so on and so on but the fact remains that the guiding principle behind E.P.C.O.T. and EPCOT Center remained the same; like Captain EO, it was here to change the world.  And EPCOT did change the world, actually. This is no lie."

It may have.  I think it changed the way that science centers and museums around the world present their information to their visitors.  I remember, as a kid, visiting the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, and being inspired by it back then.  I loved the place.  (So many buttons to push...)  Today, however, it presents its information and its stories in much different fashion.  It's much more interactive, much more entertaining.  I might hazard a guess that a lot of this change in the way that information is presented is due to EPCOT.  I could be wrong; after all, I never went to EPCOT before 2006 so I'm not sure how things were presented back then, but from everything I read, it sounds like EPCOT's presentation of information inspired museums to do a better job of presenting what they were trying to show.

I'm sure it changed the world in other ways as well.  But I can't enumerate those ways.  I'm not sure Foxxfur can, either.  (I looked for some specific examples but didn't find them.) 

Foxxfur makes this statement:

But every child of the eighties or early nineties who passed through those wide turnstiles and squinted up at the glare of the Florida sun off that big geodesic sphere left the park permanently marked with its message. Those catchy theme songs, so easy to dismiss as irritating simplifications, got into our DNA. They became homilies. How many kids eventually discovered the name Buckminster Fuller and connected his writing to the social concerns espoused by the theme park just because Disney name-checked one of his most famous ideas as the title of the park's iconic attractions? How easily we can come up with phrases like "nature's plan will shine above", or "the future world is born today", or "if we can dream it, then we can do it", or "one little spark of inspiration is at the heart of all creation" - all genuinely good advice, and all from EPCOT? These sound like notations not from a theme park, but from something like "Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth".

 I agree.  But these things are still inspiring our kids, I think.  I know that when we walk through the turnstiles today, we are wowed by the view of Spaceship Earth.  We listen to music at home and find ourselves saying, "That sounds like something that we'd hear at Epcot!"  My kids seem interested in all sorts of things because we've encountered them at Epcot.  "Living with the Land", "The Living Seas", "Mission: Space" - the consensus seems to be that these things are sort of lame.  Maybe they are, but they still inspire.  They still can connect to kids of today, a video game generation that, no matter what we might wish, need a lot to "wow" them.  At least if I judge by my own kids, it does inspire.  The video-game-ish "Mission: Space" might be a little basic for their own video game skills, but it got them interested in space travel in a concrete sense.  "Living with the Land"'s greenhouses are still interesting enough that they talk about the methods of growing exotic foods on occasion, and they compare every aquarium exhibit we come across to "The Living Seas".  They may connect in a different way, but they do connect.

It will be interesting when I read a blog (if there is one) by a Disney fan who has grown up with this incarnation of Epcot.  I've only experienced this version, but I'm old.  "Pong" astonished me when it first came out.  Technology today is light years further advanced than what I grew up with, and I got to see it all.  I'm not saying that Epcot can't do a better job of inspiring its guests.  I'm just saying that it still does inspire, by its very existence.  And that's harder than ever to do, with the way things are in our world and nation today.

*****

Compare and Contrast

It's been interesting, having gone to three distinct amusement/theme parks in the span of about 2 weeks, to note the differing approaches these parks take to satisfying their guests.  At the end of May, we went to Michigan's Adventure, an amusement park with classic thrill rides.  In early June, we went to both Walt Disney World and Universal Studios Orlando, two sets of parks that depend on theming to entertain the customers. 

Michigan's Adventure has moderate thrill rides and almost no theming.  Their marquee ride, Shivering Timbers, is a huge wooden rollercoaster that sort of fits in with the way the park sort of just appears in the middle of the forest.  They have another ride, a whitewater raft experience called Grand Rapids, which of course is the name of a city in Michigan (President Gerald Ford was from there).  Their one and only indoor, sit-down restaurant is called Coaster's.  It's sort of themed like a 50's diner.

Then you go to Disney, and you get story and theming around every corner.  I don't have to talk too much about it on this blog; anyone reading probably knows as much or more about what Disney has to offer than I do.  There are thrills to be found here:  Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, Mission: Space, Rock'n'Roller Coaster, Twilight Zone Tower of Terror - all are moderate (at least) thrill rides.  But all depend on theming to make them more than just a rollercoaster with inversions, than a drop-ride, than a log flume, than a dark coaster - to make them memorable and repeatable. 

Going over to Universal Studios, we find a few more thrill rides like Hollywood Rip-Rocket, Revenge of the Mummy, and even The Simpsons Ride.  Again, their rides depend on theming to make them memorable.  Each delivers a fairly unique experience.  Their theming uses a certain edginess, a certain hip-ness, that you don't find at Disney, and that a place like Michigan's Adventure doesn't even try to use. The jokes are different - often aimed at adults and older teens.  There's a blog post in there, somewhere, comparing the "feel" of the Universal Studios Resort parks and the Disney parks.  But I don't know if I'm ready to write it. 

I for one don't connect to either Michigan's Adventure, or Universal Studios in the same way I do to Disney.  I did feel that connection over at Islands of Adventure, but that was a year and a half ago, and I think much of it was due to the current-ness of the Harry Potter movies and the timeless feel of Dr. Seuss and some of the other properties they used there. 

Our next trip will likely feature more visits to Universal and maybe even none to a Disney park.  If it happens that way, it will be because of Disney's all-or-nothing pricing policy, where it doesn't make sense to buy a two or three day ticket instead of a 6 or 7 day pass.  Orlando and central Florida have more to offer than Disney, but we have discovered very little of it.  So I'll see if those parks seem to foster more of a connection in the future. 

*****

The Poly is still my favorite...

We just concluded a stay at Disney's Polynesian Resort. And it recemented its status as my favorite Disney resort. Now admittedly, we haven't stayed at too many different resorts. But we've walked around a few, and the look of the Polynesian, the amenities, the monorail, the restaurants, the pool...well, I haven't seen anything else that makes me want to stay there more than I want to stay at the Polynesian.

 Since we're DVC members, we probably won't stay there again for a while. We did so this time because we had a whole bunch of points that were going to expire on June 1, so we banked them forward and blew them on an exchange so we could stay at a hotel instead of at a DVC Villa resort (usually Animal Kingdom Lodge for us).

We got a nice room, close to the main building. We took advantage of the pool on two days, spending the morning in the water. We ate at 'Ohana and at Kona Cafe, and also at Capt. Cook's for quick breakfasts on several days. We used the monorail to get to Magic Kingdom and to return from Epcot on our last night there.

All in all, it was a good stay. Beds were comfy, accommodations were roomy, and the Poly was everything we remembered it to be. I almost hope it never becomes a DVC resort, because maybe in a couple years we'll do the same thing and stay there again. It just might be worth the extra points to do so...

*****

Samland's book...

I said before that I would post the links to purchase Sam Gennawey's book, Walt and the Promise of Progress City, but I haven't. So here they are now...

The paperback version...

The Kindle version...

Go get it!!!

*****

Disney Books: Forthcoming Sam Gennawey book

Saw a blog post at Imagineering, then at SamLand's Disney Adventures:

Sam Gennawey is publishing a book called Walt and the Promise of Progress City. The book will be published by Ayefour Publishing, who also published Project Future by Chad Emerson and two other books.

The link on the book refers to the blog post announcing the upcoming release, not a link to Amazon or anywhere that you can buy the book. But I'll post such a link when the book is released and avaliable for purchase. And I'll be buying it.

Sam's website SamLand has many interesting articles, often written from the perpsective of an urban planner. If I was designing a theme park complex, I'd hire Sam. (Fat chance of that, though...)

Check it out if you're so inclined...

*****

Frontiers...

It seems when one reads the various blogs about Disney, there is a lot of commentary on two places: EPCOT and Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom or Disneyland. I would say this is probably because these are the areas that inspire - they are perhaps the best examples of the high-level imagineering that goes on when developing a theme park. When you talk to a Disney fan, it seems that often they came by their passion by visiting EPCOT as a child or a teen. Before that, it was probably one of the Tomorrowlands that inspired fans.

I've read a lot of "armchair imagineering" that reimagines the futuristic elements of Disney's park offerings, and it seems a common complaint is that they've become somewhat stale in their treatment of the futuristic themes. Or watered down, often, with attractions that are more for thrills or for character tie-ins than for any link to the future. I've done a bit of armchair imagineering myself back when I started this blog.

Anyway, it got me thinking. The future is about exploring new frontiers. Whether we humans are actually getting anywhere is debatable, but we certainly spend enough imagination thinking about the future. So what are those frontiers now?

Space, of course, remains a major frontier, one we've just barely touched on exploring. EPCOT touches on this frontier with the MISSION: SPACE attraction, and Tomorrowland is supposed to be all about a future where space travel is commonplace. It's a theme that is rich with possibilities. Science fiction writers still use human expansion into space as a major theme for their works.

Less popular, perhaps, but still a mystery to much of humanity, the oceans are another frontier. This environment offers challenges almost as harsh as exploration of space offers, and we know little about some parts of the deep oceans, including what sorts of creatures live there. When I think of the oceans, I always think of James Cameron's movie THE ABYSS. Other movies and books have dealt with the oceans as a frontier for our exploration also, but that's the one that jumps out at me.

A third frontier is the area under our feet. JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH is of course the book and movie that jumps out at me. The world of caves and subterranean environment is a fascinating milieu, and we humans have often looked downward in our expansion efforts. Subways, basements, defensive installations, cave exploration and catacombs and graves are all ways we expand and utilize the underground frontier.

Does anyone have any other frontiers?

Do any of these frontiers excite you more than another?

*****

Disney Books: Building A Better Mouse

I finished my read of Steve Alcorn's and David Green's Building A Better Mouse - The Story of the Electronic Imagineers Who Designed Epcot last night. I've mentioned before that I thought it was a little pricey at $19.95 when it clocks in at 130 pages or so. I suppose you can chalk this up to the fact that it's published in limited numbers by ThemePerks Press - I know that doing these sorts of books in this manner results in a higher-than-it-should-be unit price. (I remember having the opportunity to read Tim Pratt's Bone Shop, an urban fantasy novel that he was self publishing, and balking at the price tag of $19.00. I ended up buying it for the Kindle for $5.00. Well worth it at that price!)

Cost notwithstanding, I enjoyed this book quite a lot. It's a series of anecdotes about the construction process of the unique theme park known as EPCOT or EPCOT Center or simply Epcot, whatever you prefer. It focuses a lot on the processes at The American Adventure, where Alcorn seemed to spend most of his time and energy.

We know something of Steve Alcorn's work through his book Theme Park Design; he is an electrical engineer if I read it right. David Green is less familiar to me - his bio on the back cover states that he is the president of Monteverdi Creative, Inc, a company that provides creative and technical design services. It seems David worked as a "wirelister" at EPCOT, though I am not entirely clear on what that is exactly.

It's amazing that these young engineers put forth the effort and the imagination they needed to put forth, all on short and irregular sleep hours and for not much pay. It seems like the engineers certainly enjoyed the perks of the job provided by Disney - merchandise, access to the parks, free lodging that tourists/guests were paying big bucks for. But they had a lot to contend with - not the least of which was union employees who had an interest in dragging out the job as long as possible instead of finishing on time or (God forbid!) early. Plus, the union rules required that union employees do all the wiring, even of sophisticated electronic circuit boards with which many of them had no experience or training. Mistakes were often made. And some of them were perhaps not mistakes but actual malicious actions in order to keep things from working right for whatever reason.

I didn't mean to recap the work, but it's a lot of fun to read and I'm glad I own it, even at the somewhat higher cost. I'd love to take Alcorn's class on Theme Park Design and learn even more about his experiences.

One somewhat depressing side effect of reading the book: the realization of the actual cost of doing a world class theme park. EPCOT was budgeted at 400 million dollars around 1980. It actually cost 1.2 BILLION to build it. Three times the original estimate. What would it cost today to do something like that? Probably 4 billion or so. Maybe more. That's sort of daunting. (Okay, more than "sort of"...) Who possibly could finance something like that? Anyone who could is going to want total control of such a project. There goes my plans! ;-)

*****

Disney Books - the next title

I placed my order with Amazon yesterday. The main thing I was ordering was the Les Miserables BluRay of the 25th anniversary concert at the O2. But since I was ordering, I also bought Building A Better Mouse by Steve Alcorn. (It's got a much longer title, and you can click the link if you want to see it all.)

It was a little pricey at $19.95, but I've heard such good things about it from several online sources that I decided that it would be worth it to me.

I also ordered KingdomKeepers III - Disney in Shadow in paperback, which is a title both I and my kids want to read.

I also got something by Cory Doctorow, a bargain book. I loved his Down and Out In The Magic Kingdom. (I blogged about it a ways back. Not going to go look for the link right now but if you want to read my entry on it, look under Books or Book Reviews on the key words.) I am looking forward to this book, and if I like it, to more books by him.

Currently reading John Scalzi's Zoe's Tale, the last book of a four book series that starts with Old Man's War. Very good reads, all of them. The best SF I've read in a while...

That's all for today! Happy March!

*****

Disney Parks: Epcot

Saved the best for last, didn't I?

That's because we spent Friday, our last day, at Epcot. Lunch (for the kids) at the Electric Umbrella. (I picked at a couple of fries and grapes from their plates.) Dinner at Le Cellier. In between, we did Spaceship Earth (twice!) Mission Space, Test Track (last ride of the day), Soarin', Living With The Land, and The Seas With Nemo.




It's the first time we did the standby line for Mission: Space, and I thought the queue was pretty interesting. The huge rotating cross section of a space station was cool and so were those two hanging space thingies. (One's some sort of a Mars rover, I think, and one is a smaller mockup of the ship you're supposedly piloting to Mars, or so it appears.)

Soarin' looked to me like the film had been fixed up a bit. Perhaps we were in a different "theater" but I remember sort of a "hole" in the video that was sort of annoying, and I didn't see it this time. (And I looked for it.) As usual this attraction had very long waits. So did Test Track. Nothing else was too bad.

The first part of Living With The Land was pretty boring. It needs an update badly. But the second part, the greenhouse part, was as interesting as usual. Looked like a few different plants growing there, but I can't be sure - it's been almost two years since we saw it.

We didn't ride the Gran Fiesta ride in Mexico but we did visit the pavilion while it was raining, and noticed the little tequila bar on the side to our right as we entered.




As usual I'm sorry about the quality of the photos. They look better on my iPhone screen, but I think you get the drift. La Cava De Tequila a nice little nook where you can get a drink and some food. We got some guacamole, and it was tasty! And we got it as a take-out, but then ended up eating it at a stand-up table in the bar. From the look of it, we got considerably more in our takeout container than others got who were ordering from the waiters.

What else? The boys played the Kim Possible game for two pavilions (Germany and China) and we all made it in to see the Captain EO film.

I was surprised by the EO film. Yes, the 3D effects weren't what we're used to today. Yes, the show itself is sort of dated. But the music was okay (if not my usual cup of tea), and it was fun to see Michael Jackson when he still looked human. We all liked it. It isn't the sort of thing I'd need to see more than once, but it was sort of fun.

Our first day (Saturday) was also spent in Epcot, but mostly what we did was eat at Chefs De France and then watch Illuminations. (The only ride we did that day was Spaceship Earth.)

Epcot could use some TLC from the Imagineers without impediment from the pencil pushers, but it's still my favorite park.

*****

Disney Parks: Holiday Decorations

The parks were festive, decked out in Christmas splendor. It's our first trip to WDW at the Christmas holiday season, so I didn't know what to expect. I wasn't overwhelmed, but I wasn't disappointed. I guess that's another way of saying that most of it was about what I expected, but a few things stood out as "really something special"!




I apologize for the quality of my photos; I took them with my iPhone, and while it's not bad, it's not great, either. Plus, the hand behind it isn't so great. But I think they show that the decorations were not excessive at the Magic Kingdom. Nice, but not overdone, or spectacular, really. Same with the trees. All the parks had them, and they're nice, but they're what I'd expect - not much more.



Now here is something that really IS spectacular. The lighting of Cinderella's Castle is just breathtaking. It rotates through 4 or 5 background colors, and those white icicle-type lighting just make you go, "Wow!" My picture doesn't really do it justice; it is much more beautiful in person.



And something else that is spectacular, and exceeded all my expectations, was the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights. Again, the pictures I took don't really do it justice; it's much more spectacular in person. The colors and the movement of the lights just mesmerized me and my family for quite a while. I was insisting to my wife that we make sure we see this, because I suspected it would be cool, but it was so much cooler than I thought it would be. Everyone should see this spectacle, it's that impressive, in my opinion. (Maybe I'm easily impressed, but...)

The decorations were nice all over, but those two things really stood out, head and shoulders above anything else I saw at the theme parks at Disney or Universal last week.

*****

Disney Parks - EPCOT: Failed Promise or Unique Theme Park?

As you peruse the Disney blogs, one of the topics that elicits the most passion, in both blog entries and in the reply sections to those blogs, is the theme park known as Epcot. Or you can call it EPCOT Center, if you're so inclined.

As we all know, the letters E*P*C*O*T actually stand for something: They are an acronym for "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow". And as we Disney fanatics also know, the original intent of the "Florida Project", at least in Walt Disney's mind, was to create the city of tomorrow, where corporations would save the day along with astute city planning and concepts of development. It didn't happen that way, and without Walt, there was probably never a chance of it happening. Walt was the one who could "sell" the various corporations on his ideas. Whether Roy and the others who succeeded Walt ever fully believed in the concept is open for debate, I suppose. I know that Roy paid lip service to the goal of building such a city, but I wonder if, had he lived longer, he would have continued to push for it as a goal.

So EPCOT became a thing of legend, and in its place came EPCOT Center, a park dedicated to ... to what? The front half, Future World, was obviously themed around the near future, while the back half was themed around presentations of different cultures in the World Showcase. I was never there, but I know from my reading that the pavilions that are there today were mostly there back then, with two notable exceptions: the Horizons pavilion and the Wonders of Life pavilion.

Nothing seems to elicit more passion than the Horizons ride-through attractions, heavy on animatronics and futuristic imagery. It was closed eventually, for whatever reason (a sinkhole?), and later, in its place, the Mission: Space pavilion opened. The World of Motion pavilion gave way to Test Track, but at least it is still more or less dedicated to the topic of transportation. Wonders Of Life simply closed and has not reopened.

Let me state right here that the current theme park known as Epcot is my favorite park at the WDW resort. There are some really fun attractions, there are many, many good dining choices, and the architecture is still incredible. And I never had the chance to visit the old EPCOT Center, so I can't really speak to its brilliance or supremacy. I have to take various bloggers' words for it.

Still, I see what they are saying. This park was supposed to be about an optimistic future, but it's just become about the present. And the present is as non-controversially presented as it possibly can be. What is futuristic about it now? Ellen and the Universe of Energy? Fossil fuels? How retro is that? The Seas With Nemo? Cartoon fish swimming in the ocean? Testing autos for GM? Hang gliding over California? And Journey Into Imagination? The one Epcot attraction that almost never has a wait?

At least Mission: Space takes us somewhere that no one has ever gone - except that we're told as we enter that it is a training exercise - presumably for something that hasn't happened yet. And Spaceship Earth's voyage through our (animatronically portrayed) past in order to presumably learn something about our future ends up forward looking and interesting.

So I think it is a park full of failed promise, at least in Future World. I think World Showcase succeeds beautifully at what it presents. But Future World is not about the Future anymore. I am led to believe by everything I've read that the goal of this park was to showcase the cutting edge of technology.

Maybe this is impossible to do in today's world. After all, we aren't amazed anymore by things like videophones or robots. We've been living with them for a really long time. We also aren't all that amazed by the new technology of energy production, at least not wind farms and nuclear power plants. We aren't amazed when NASA sends a rover to Mars or anywhere else to collect data. Advances in technology and science seem to be smaller and less accessible today. And the ones we are aware of seem to be mostly in the entertainment industry - iPads and iPods, Kindle readers and Droid X phones. Not to mention video gaming.

I'm sure there are things out there to amaze us but Epcot doesn't really show us much about it. I am amazed by my mother's cochlear implant. Imagine that a device can take sound, convert it to electrical impulses and transmit it along 22 or so tiny wires to directly stimulate the cochlear nerve, and the brain can make sense out of this and turn it into what we all take for granted: hearing sounds.

Epcot does have a display on cochlear implants, but there's no depth. It's just an advanced hearing aid to most, I think. There are nods to other technologies there, too, but they seem to me to be of the same depth, which is to say, not much. And they don't generate excitement, they are just displays. High school science projects might be more exciting.

Instead of trying to showcase the future and inspire us today, the management has chosen to simply entertain us. And they do an okay job of that with rides like Soarin', Mission: Space, Test Track and even the Living with the Land and The Seas With Nemo rides. They're fun, exciting, and repeatable. They just don't teach or inspire. Edutainment? Not so much.

That said, Epcot is still an incredibly unique park, and it is still "working" for millions of visitors. What other theme park tries to do what Epcot does? I can't think of one.

Were I going to spend more than 4 days at Disney World (as I am in November, though two days will be spent at the competition, Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure), Epcot would be the park I'd spend more time at than any other. Just walking around there is a worthy experience. The dining choices make it THE place to go for food in WDW, and the attractions are just icing on the cake.

But they could be more. They could BE the cake.

******

Theme Parks - Kinetic Energy

When you are wandering around a Disney theme park, perhaps you notice that things are moving. Or perhaps you don't notice. But it makes an impression, if only subconsciously.

I don't have a great deal of theme park experience. I've been to both Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World Resort, and I've gone to Six Flags Great America, plus the St. Louis version of Six Flags and a couple of smaller parks. But when I think about it, the major difference I see is the quality of motion around the guests at the parks. Yes, at Six Flags, there is plenty of motion with coasters flying around, but they just look intimidating and scary.

At Disney parks, the motion is of a different quality. In Tomorrowland, you have the PeopleMover going past above you, and the Astro Orbiter, also happening above your head. At Splash Mountain you see the logs coming out of the mountain and down the flume before spashing into the water. Even Dumbo and the Magic Carpets of Aladdin provide kinetic energy in their corners of the park. Near the main entrance the Disney Railroad provides the motion.

The motion at the Magic Kingdom is exciting, inviting (perhaps), interesting, but not intimidating or frightening in the least.

Epcot's Dancing Waters Fountain provides kinetic energy in the Communicore, as does the monorail itself as it loops through the park. Test Track, of course, has the motion of its vehicles as they race past its entrance, and the pools of the Imagination! pavilion have their own brand of kinetic attraction with the illusion of water flowing uphill. Even The Seas With Nemo and Friends have motion with those silly animatronic pelicans in front of its entrance.

The other two parks don't have as much kinetic energy available for guests' diversion and for subliminal atmosphere, at least not that I can think of. It's been almost two years since I've been to Disney, so some stuff is a bit hazy in my mind. (I'll be rectifying that next month with my family.)

If any readers come up with any other examples of how Disney uses kinetic energy to set atmosphere and keep things interesting for the guests without hitting them over the head with the motion, please feel free to mention them in the comments section.

Thanks for reading.

******

A Red Letter Day in Disney History

HAPPY 28th BIRTHDAY, EPCOT!

You're still my favorite!

Imagine(er) That!

This is a poster which can be found in the Innoventions pavilion at Epcot.

Don't you sort of wish there really WAS a reality tv show called this?

*****