96 Days: Epcot Rumors

The whole post-a-day thing may not be exactly happening. But I'll try :-)

So Epcot just turned 35 and is in need of some love. The festivals have been great, but Future World is a shadow of its former self and the World Showcase hasn't seen a new pavilion in many moons. The Walt Disney top brass has promised a huge investment in Epcot over the next several years, big to the tune of billions of dollars, but has been pretty vague about the specific plans. As far as World Showcase is concerned we are to get a new Ratatouille attraction in France for sure, but nothing else has been confirmed.

This has left the rumor mills turning at full tilt. Two new national pavilions have been rumored to be pretty safe bets, Spain and Brazil. But Spain was to include a ride based on Gigantic, a planned re-telling of the Jack and the Beanstalk story set in Spain, and Gigantic has been scuttled. Will Spain survive?

An article I read a couple days ago (and I can't for the life of me remember what blog posted it) says no. This is a bit of a bummer from the perspective of wanting more countries represented, but it leaves money in the budget for other things, and those things are interesting.

Brazil is apparently on track, but will not feature an attraction. Its big draw will be a Brazilian Steakhouse, which is fine by me. The problem this leaves, because of the loss of Spain, is one of crowd flow/control. Disney Imagineers want an attraction in the space between Norway's Frozen and France's Ratatouille and that was to be Spain's Gigantic. Now they are looking at existing pavilions in which to build a ride and Japan has risen to the top of the list. One option is a Matterhorn-style coaster based upon Mt. Fuji. This was part of the original plan for the Japan pavilion so it stands to reason it's still on the board. But the other option is the one I'm excited for. Big Hero 6!

Big Hero 6 did well in theatres, the meet and greet with Baymax is popular and the franchise has a new cartoon on the Disney XD channel that is also performing well. The characters tie in well with Japan. I think it's a winner. LEt's see if the Imagineers think the same thing!

16 Days: Rivers of Light News

We have some firm dates for Rivers of Light, but not so much for an actual opening date. What Disney has done, is release the dates when they will begin offering preferred seating dining packages for Rivers of Light. Sadly, it isn't next week, it's May 1, 2017. Uhrg.No Rivers of Light this trip.

But, for future trips, the dining packages look pretty cool. They are offered at Tusker House, which I expected, and Flame Tree Barbecue, which I did not. Having a quick service preferred seating option is really cool, particularly as Flame Tree is one of my favorite places anyhow!

Now, as the Jambo Everyone blog points out, this doesn't mean May 1 is the opening date of Rivers of Light. Disney tends to open shows and let them run for a bit before starting the seating packages, but it seems to me they wouldn't go almost six months. I'm thinking a Rivers of Light open before the end of the year is looking less likely.

20 Days: Star Wars Land Ride Details

Photo Courtesy of slashfilm.com

A long and very detailed article on slashfilm.com is filled to the brim with rumored details of Star Wars Land, especially the Escape the Stormtroopers Battle attraction. Now, this is specific to Disneyland in Anaheim, but I'm thinking the attractions at Disney World will be very similar if not the same.

The entire land will be themed to a degree not seen in Disney or any other theme park. Take that, Universal! The article descibes it as more like a Renaissance Fair than a theme park. I can't wait to just walk around.

But the stormtrooper ride really grabbed my attention. Apparently it will involve moving guests through several stories of the ride building and having them actually leave the trackless ride vehicle to run away from approaching stormtroopers before boarding another later. This has got to be hugely complicated, but I'm believing the story because I think Imagineering simply has no choice than to one-up Potterland.

Rumor has it the attraction will use more than 100 animatronics. For reference, the Disneyland version of Pirates of the Caribbean has about 75. Combine that with recent animatronic advances coming out of WDI and we are looking at a potentially mind-blowing experience.

I can't wait!

27 Days: New Pirates of the Caribbean Trailer

Just a short catch-up post this morning.

The new Pirates of the Caribbean trailer is out as of last night and it's a spooky one! No Captain Jack or confirmation of the rumored return of Will, but we meet our new Pirate Villain, a Captain Salahzar. This dude looks kind of dead-like and mean, but hints at a bit of a sense of humor , I thought, in his delivery. We'll see in May of 2017!

29 Days: Bringing Dead Men To Life

A rumor shared by the WDW News Today suggests the revamped Fantasmic show in Disneyland will replace the Peter Pan segment with Pirates of the Caribbean.

That's cool and all, but get this. They plan to use "projection mapping" technology, the same technique used on Cinderella Castle during Wishes and the Chinese Theatre during the Galactic Spectacular, to transform the sailing ship Columbia on the Rivers of America into the Black Pearl. The projections would be able to follow the ship as she moves during the show. Cool, huh?

Ok, but that's not the coolest part. The same technology is going to be used, according to this rumor, to change actors from living pirates to skeleton pirates and back again. Apparently they can install an RFID chip, like in your MagicBand, in a costume and them program the projector to follow the chip and change the actor's appearance back and forth according to timing and location on the set. He steps into "moonlight" and, BAM, skeleton. He steps out and BAM, back to flesh and blood. Just like in the movie.

This would be incredible, but, given pieces of this technology are already in operation, it is something I think Imagineering can make happen. They would really "just" be stitching together existing tech. But man oh man would I love to see it in action!

30 Days: Avatar Land Lands in the "Official Guide"

Looks like Disney is feeling pretty good about getting Pandora--The World of Avatar open next year. The Birnbaum Official Guide, which is produced with the cooperation and under the guidance of the Walt Disney Company, has included descriptions of Avatarland's two attractions in the 2017 book.The new section of Animal Kingdom, under construction for what seems like forever, is said to be scheduled to open "by mid- to late 2017," though the usual caveats about the unpredictability of construction timelines is also included.

I'll include the photo of the Official Guide's page copied from the Laughing Place blog, because who ever heard of copyright, right? Anyhow, you can read all about the two new attractions there. They sound fun and the entire new "land" sounds like it will be a visual masterpiece, especially at night.

I'm no fan of the Avatar movie, but I'm very much looking forward to this!

33 Days: Disney Eyeing Twitter Acquisition

This just struck me as interesting given how much time I personally spend on DisTwitter now. Wouldn't it be funny if they actually owned Twitter?

The Walt Disney Company is among several looking to acquire Twitter. Microsoft is also apparently interested. Twitter has a market value of $16 billion, so it would be a deal nearly on a scale of the purchase of ABC. That's a lot of dough, even for Disney.

Disney is looking to shore up distribution outlets in a world where more and more people are "cutting the cord" with cable, and Twitter is trying to position itself as a content provider as well as social media outlet, so maybe there are some synergies (OOO, I used a fancy business word).

But I also read that a Twitter bosrd member is also on the Disneyboard, so it's not beyond the realm of possibility that this is a trial balloon meant to increase interest in and inflate the price of Twitter. We'll just have to see, I guess.

38 Days: Stitch's Great Escape Moving To Seasonal Operation

Stitch's Great Escape's days are almost certainly numbered. The attraction will be closing for except for the most busy days in the Magic Kingdom. According to the Orlando Sentinel, you'll be able to visit Stitch in Tomorrowland from November 19-26 and from December 17 - January 2. Beyond that Stitch's future is cloudy at best.

Rumors suggest a Wreck-It Ralph virtual reality attraction taking Stitch's place, and this mostly-closure certainly leads one to believe something new is on the horizon.

I'm not terribly excited one way or another over this whole thing. I rode Stitch once and while I'm not as anti-Stitch's Great Escape as a lot of the Disney community seems to be, it's not something I will really miss. I was hoping for a Big Hero 6 attraction or maybe something Tomorrowland (the film) oriented, but I guess a Wreck-It Ralph presence won't be bad. I'm most looking forward to seeing what WDI does with virtual reality, no matter what franchise it's tied to, so cheers to that.

42 Days: Dr. Strange Coming To Hollywood Studios

One Man's Dream is another, well, maybe THE other, Walt-centric attraction in Walt Disney World. It's in Hollywood Studios between the Little Mermaid show and Toy Story Mania. One Man's Dream is a museum, basically, with memorabilia from Walt's and the Disney company's early years as well as some more modern Imagineering paraphernalia.  The attraction used to culminate with a movie about Walt Disney, and a very good one at that. It brought tears to my eye. That movie has now been replaced with rotating previews for upcoming films.

I'm not happy at all that the Walt movie went away, but if I can't see it, at least I can see a cool preview. As of October 7, a ten minute preview of Dr. Strange, the next Marvel film, will be showing at the end of One Man's Dream.  I'm excited for this movie, so that takes a bit of the sting away. There is even talk of a casting call going out for an actor to portray Dr. Strange in a meet and greet, presumably also at Hollywood Studios. If I could see him AND Chewbacca in one day, that's be pretty alright :-)

48 Days: Disney Dron.......I Mean Flying Robots

According to the DisKingdom blog Walt Disney has applied for a patent on "Air Delivered Special Effects." This would entail using drones, or as Disney calls them in the patent application, Flying Robots, to deliver a variety of special effects such as pyrotechnics, confetti and smoke. Imagineering is clearly trying to  "plus" the fireworks and even evidently daytime shows with drone....oops, I mean Flying Robot, launched effects. How cool would that be?

I can only imagine what they will able to do, but as the blog points out, one goal may be to elevate the performance of fireworks to expand the viewing area. If you launch your fireworks from a few hundred feet, they will explode that much higher and be visible from that much farther away.

51 Days: Rivers of Light Rumors!

Photo By Blog Mickey

There are rumors floating around that Animal Kingdom's Rivers of Light show has been released from Walt Disney Imagineering to the Animal Kingdom park. This would be a step toward actually installing and running the show, hopefully soon. The show presented some problems when it was tested this spring, so let's hope the Imagineering wizards have worked out the kinks and the show can be brought to life (see what I did there?) this fall.

Let's be honest, I just hope it's running by November 2nd, when we'll be in the park. If so, I'm assuming, and hoping, a restaurant or two will offer a dining and seating package as they did for the Jungle Book show this summer. If I'm not mistaken, Tiffins was a part of that. I'd love to have a good excuse for a meal there!

Here's a link to some more really cool photos on Blog Mickey of the Rivers of Light floats during their test earlier this year.

81 Days: Is Stitch Making His Final Great Escape?

I saw a rumor this morning from WDWThemeParks.com suggesting that Stitch's Great Escape will close towards the end of this year and re-open in 2018 as a new attraction. The rumor is classified as "Blue Sky," meaning it's just a rumor at this point, but I doubt anyone would be surprised to see Stitch leave Tomorrowland. It doesn't seem to be a hugely popular attraction, though if Disney fan social media is true to form it will attract a huge following the minute Disney announces its closure. Just watch :-) The fun question to me, though, is assuming a closure, what is the replacement? Let's play armchair Imagineer and put out a couple ideas.

My first thought for this spot was a Big Hero 6-themed attraction. It's right across the walkway from Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor and around the corner from Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, so another animated movie based attraction would provide some sort of flow to the area. It is a way to bring Marvel into the Magic Kingdom, which is a bit of a stick in the eye to Universal and as such much fun. The film is great and fun and colorful and would work great visually as an attraction. The setting is quasi-futuristic so it wouldn't be jarringly out of place, in my opinion. I'm not sure of the mechanics, though. I mean an entire year would be enough time to gut the present ride and create something new, as in not "theater-based," but Disney hasn't seemed to be in a start from scratch mode when updating or switching attractions lately. Which leads me to a second idea.....

What about a Tomorrowland-based attraction in Tomorrowland? I was telling the lovely and talented Lisa about this story and

my wish that somehow the Tomorrowland movie would be incorporated into Tomorrowland the Land, and she thought this would be a great fit. She's right. It would even work in its present configuration. The characters in Tomorrowland are transported to Tomorrowland by strapping into seats and having a shaking, sensory overloaded experience. That would completely work here. As Lisa suggested, you could even work in some sort of live-feed from a camera outside looking down the sidewalk toward Space Mountain as an ending shot. The downside to this idea is that the movie wasn't all that well received, but I loved it, so that should count for something, right?

What do you think? What would you put in Stitch's place? Or would you leave our little blue friend alone?