Rumor has it that the Magic Kingdom’s castle will be getting an enhancement for the 50th anniversary. It is not expected to be quite like the crazy cake castle that the park had for its 25th anniversary, but more like the gold enhancement that Disneyland got for its 50th anniversary.
WDW Cake Castle for its 25th Anniversary
Their castle is rumored to be getting a rose gold enhancement instead fitting in with the current social media trends sweeping the parks. (Rose Gold, Arendelle Aqua, Etc)
So what do you think of this rumor? Should Disney leave the castle alone? Do something crazy like they did with the cake castle? Leave your thoughts in the comments below! If you like this content you can help support it by leaving a small donation below!
A beautiful new Tomorrowland sign has been installed outside Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom. The look of this sign is very clean and modern and points to a futuristic new Tomorrowland that seems to be coming to the Magic Kingdom in small stages leading to the opening of Tron in two years.
I have been following the entrance work at Tomorrowland here at Disneyland as well and our sign and rock work is removed too for the time being. I hope we get an entrance sign as awesome as the new one at Magic Kingdom.
Speaking of Disneyland, here is a construction update from Fresh Baked on how the removal of the rock work is coming along.
Photo courtesy of Fresh Baked Disney on Youtube
This was taken from the Astro Orbitor last Saturday and as you can see the rocks from one side are completely gone and the other side looks like it is about to follow suit. I am really hoping that this means sometime next year Tomorrowland will being its massive refurb and something hopefully will be announced in the coming months. There is other work currently happening in Tomorrowland right now as well such as some work at the Space Mountain exit and the Star Tours facade.
What do you think of the new Tomorrowland sign at the Magic Kingdom? Disneyland’s rocks removed? Tomorrowland enhancements coming to both parks? Comment your thoughts down below!
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Automated camera photo courtesy of Laughingplace.com
So I have noticed at least at Walt Disney World (WDW) that in a cost cutting measure Disney has decided to replace PhotoPass cast members with automated machines. In my opinion I think this is a horrible idea and I am one for usually supporting technology replacing people in certain jobs.
In this case, a machine does not capture the same Disney Magic as a castmember would. A castmember would give people the options to do different angles and poses and have fun interactions. A machine just makes the whole experience feel so sterile and boring in my opinion.
How do you guys feel about the inclusion of automated PhotoPass technology? I think they should remove them ASAP, but comment your thoughts and feelings below on this cost cutting measure!
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Sea World Orlando and actually Sea World Entertainment in general has been on a tear lately with introducing new coasters across all of their parks and Orlando is getting another one with Icebreaker.
Icebreaker will be a Premier Rides coaster and will feature forwards and reverse launches riders 52mph on a 90 second adventure through a course that is 2,750 feet.
Another Sea World owned park in Florida got an announcement as well. The RMC transformed Gwazi will be opening at Busch Gardens Tampa next year (a year after Tigris another coaster opened). The new Gwazi will be 206 feet tall and go 76 mph with inversions and a vertical drop of 91 degrees.
Concept art of Gwazi
So what do you think of these new Florida additions? Comment your thoughts below and if you would like to donate to the blog then that would be much appreciated and thank you very much!
Hello everyone! Sorry it has been awhile, I have been busy this week with work and other things, but I am back now and ready to continue to put out articles every few days. About ten days ago I went to Six Flags Magic Mountain with my family and while at the park I wanted to document everything the park can do to improve and become a quality theme park such as Disney and Universal. I also filmed a West Coast Racers update which can be viewed here.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS ARE EVERYTHING
With anything, a first impression is very important because it sets the tone for the day. At Disney you park and come down the escalators to Disney music playing and a beautifully themed parking area. Here at Six Flags it is very different…
The parking area has no signage whatsoever
When you first enter the Magic Mountain (MM) parking lot it is very wide and open, yet there is no signage to the buses or even where the park is. They just go with the “Look all the roller-coasters are over there so that’s must be where I walk” thought process. Also when MM opens up the extended overflow lot, it is just a dirt lot which is not very attractive to park your car on or look at.
I suggest MM should build a parking structure on the dirt lot to add parking spaces, but also open up space for Hurricane Harbor expansion on the existing surface parking lot. They also need to add signage directing guests to the buses and parks.
Two buses not operational
When I went to the park, it was a very busy day with most people heading to Hurricane Harbor. Unfortunately, as you can see in the picture above, Six Flags decided not to run all the available buses and a huge line formed in the parking lot as a result.
There was no shade by the way in that line and it was at least 95 degrees outside. So my family and I made the roughly 10-15 min walk to the entrance gates (no shade the whole way) and on the way I saw this multiple times throughout the lot.
Open trash cans filled to the brim EWWWWW
This is absolutely shameful and disgusting. Disney nor Universal first off do not have these kinds of trash cans and second they would not leave them so full that trash is spilling on to the floor. This is absolutely disgusting and again ruins that first impression a guest has when they are new to this park.
Luckily, inside the park that trash cans are closed, but just because this is the parking lot does not mean they should treat this area differently. Now it is time to move inside the park.
Cobwebs in the queue
The main gripe I have with inside the park are the operations and maintenance of things. For example in the Viper queue there are tons of cobwebs hanging on the ceiling as if it is Fright Fest 365 days a year in there or something. Most of the older rides queues are in horrible shape and vastly need to be improved.
The newer rides such as Drop of Doom have a nice clean and indoor queue which is shockingly good for Six Flags standards. Then we come to the operations and dispatches which are so incredibly slow it is insane. Six Flags coasters have mostly just two trains on the track but they are so slow in releasing each train it causes the other train to wait on the block brake for a minute or two until the train in the station leaves.
The wait times for rides were not that long, but can be vastly improved by speedier operations. Also signage that indicates the wait time in front of the rides would really help as I only noticed this on two rides the entire time I was there. Another thing Six Flags should add and promote is the Single Rider lines. When we were in line for Scream (which was only running one train) the train came through the station multiple times and left with at least 5-8 single seats open every time. A single rider line could really help to fill those remaining seats and because they were not filled, our wait time was increased by at least 20 min.
We left the park at about 9 pm and I had fun documenting all the things that Six Flags can improve in all of their parks. What do you think Six Flags should improve? Comment below!
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Lots of brand new details of Epcot’s transformation were confirmed today at D23 and I am going to break it all down right here in this article.
New Festival Center
Festival Center Concept Art
Part of the transformation of Epcot includes a brand new three story festival center and nighttime spectacular viewing area. Personally, I think this looks fantastic and will be a great addition to the park and add some lovely greenery and open spaces to the park. This coupled with the addition of the Moana water gardens will be amazing to walk through.
Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind
Guardians of the Galaxy Concept Art
It was revealed that Epcot will be home to a Xandarian Outpost that will home to the Guardians of the Galaxy. In Cosmic Rewind riders will be able to experience the first ever reverse launch in a Disney coaster! This will be a story telling coaster in which each car will rotate to show you all the show scenes as you travel throughout the ride.
World Showcase
A few new things are coming to the World Showcase. A new CircleVision film will be coming to the Canada Pavilion. Ratatouille Remy’s Adventure will be coming to the France Pavilion as well as a new crepery.
Remy’s Concept Art
A new Mary Poppins “Highly Immersive” ride will be coming to the U.K Pavilion in time for Disney World’s 50th Anniversary.
New Epcot Neighborhoods
At the end of the presentation it was announced that Epcot will be rezoned into four distinct neighborhoods that better suit the new theme and direction that the park is going in. Also Spaceship Earth will go through an extensive refurb that will change every single scene except the Industrial Revolution. Lastly, the restaurant next to Mission Space will be called Space 220.
So what do you guys think of all the Epcot announcements? Comment your thoughts below! Also if you would like to subscribe or leave a donation it really helps out this blog so thank you very much!
As part of a slew of announcements last night, Bob Chapek revealed more concept art and an official name for the Star Wars hotel being built next to Galaxy’s Edge at Hollywood Studios. Not much new info is known besides the rumored price of $3,300 for two nights for a single person and $7,000 for multiple people. Stay tuned as this story will be updated on Sunday with more information as soon as it is provided!
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In a bit of unexpected surprising news and the first of many stories about Epcot, a Moana themed attraction is on its way to the park. According to Disney this attraction will, “Let guests interact with magical living water in a beautiful and inspiring setting.”
Above is a model of the attraction which looks very spacious and tropical. Depending on how interactive this is, I think it will be a nice thing for families to do (especially at night) and it will add to a growing list of attractions at Epcot which is a great thing.
What do you think of this new attraction? Comment your thoughts below!
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Full Avengers Campus Concept Art photo courtesy of OC Register
Tonight during the D23 media preview, Bob Iger revealed that the official name of Marvel Land will be Avengers Campus and there was some concept art that finally reveals the entire land in one piece.
The name Avengers Campus is not too much of a surprise because Jim Hill actually leaked that name over a year ago on his podcast. Unfortunately, Disney did not choose one of the cooler names that DSNY Newscast leaked a few weeks ago.
Breaking down this concept art piece by piece, we see that the Spider-man attraction is featured prominently with more detail still including the swinging Spider-man and crane feature that I think will host a stunt show of some sort. In the middle we see the Avengers “A” as a sort of central gathering point in the middle of the land. It is widely assumed that the microbrewery will be located to the left of the plaza and the Avengers gift shop will be located just above the plaza. That means the Doctor Strange show will be located to the bottom right of the plaza and that looks like just the right amount of space for a Jedi Training Academy type show. If we get any more details on Avengers Campus Sunday I will update them here so stay tuned!
UPDATE: NEW SPIDER MAN CONCEPT ART AND AVENGERS E TICKET RIDE ART
So the Parks Panel just finished up and we got some great new concept art and details about the Spider man ride and Avengers ride. Starting off with the Spider man ride it seems like the backstory is that the W.E.B is hosting an open house and we guests get to test out their new vehicles in their facility. Along the way we will be fighting spiderbots they have gotten loose within the facility. Guests will be using webslingers to capture the bots using augmented reality.
Concept art for Spiderman Attraction
Next up we have the Avengers ride coming to the Timon lot at California Adventure,
Concept art for Avengers E Ticket
Very little details were given about this ride so far except that, “Guests will be flying alongside the quinjet to Wakanda to help the Avengers defeat one of their most powerful foes.” To me that sounds like we will be going through the final battle of Wakanda from Infinity War. Disney has stated that Imagineers are coming up with an innovative new ride system for this attraction which is good because at first it seemed like a simulator, but hopefully it will be an innovative new coaster.
What are your thoughts on the name Avengers Campus, Avengers ride, Spiderman ride and the concept art in general? Let’s discuss below!
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Well Disney has finally listened to my suggestion of moving the entrance to the Sunset Showcase theater off of Hollywood Blvd so that it can be easily accessible and visible to guests. When Mickey’s Philharmagic opened a few months ago, not many guests were venturing in to see the new show and that is something that continues to be true to this day. The two times I saw the show the theater had a maximum of fifteen to twenty people inside.
One of the reasons that I was thinking had to do with the very low attendance is that guests simply did not know the show had existed and they could not find the entrance to the Sunset Showcase Theater. The theater is tucked away in the back-lot of Hollywood Land and guests really only see it if they are venturing out to go ride Monsters Inc. As for Philharmagic itself, there was absolutely no advertising by Disney in places such as the Esplanade or even in Hollywood Land itself to let people know that there was a new show back there.
Luckily, this summer Disney has been correcting this problem by re-configuring the Award Wieners seating area and queue for Sunset Showcase to have a direct entrance off of the main thoroughfare in Hollywood Land which is Hollywood Blvd.
New Sunset Showcase entrance, All photos courtesy of WDWNT
So what do you think of the new marquee and entrance? Will you now be going to see Mickey’s Philharmagic? Did you know the show or theater existed before this article? Comment your thoughts below!
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