The pace of change at Walt Disney World continues unabated. They ran Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party until November 1, then one week later started right up again with different private parties in the Magic Kingdom, this time the Holiday party. That’s a quick turnaround, but when there’s money to be made, I guess Disney is motivated.
A free show during the regular day, Cinderella’s Holiday Wish, also started this weekend (more on that in a future update). The other big event in the past week has been the re-opening of One Man’s Dream, the Disney history “museum” at Hollywood Studios.
Reportedly, about 50% was said to be new at One Man’s Dream, but it looks a touch less than that when you walk through it. Certainly fewer than 50% of the exhibits are new, though the walls, decorations, and floorings have all been changed out. Overall, it’s a cosmetic refresh, with a few things cycled out and a few new ones cycled in. On the one hand, it’s a welcome development that Disney feels things should be kept fresh. “Disneyland is not a museum,” Walt Disney believed, so it’s fitting that even a facility that is in form and function *actually* a museum will still, since it’s in a Disney theme park, be subject to freshening every so often.
The entrance room has a cluttered but welcoming feel to it.
On the other hand, though, you could argue that this particular venue didn’t need freshening. Change for its own sake isn’t all that necessary, and I can think of LOADS of things that need freshening more than One Man’s Dream did. The embarrassment that is the Narnia walkthrough lies just around the corner, for instance. The equally wince-inducing Drew Carey Sounds Dangerous “attraction” also screams for refurbishment. So why tackle the museum?
The movie at the supposed heart of the attraction didn’t change. I never found the movie to be the main point, speaking just for myself. It was always a treat to see actual props and artifacts from the history of the Walt Disney company and especially of the parks. I relished Granny’s Cabin, Project Little Man, and Walt’s office. These elements remain (we long ago lost the multiplane camera), and I’m delighted they didn’t go away. Few of the models went away, actually. You’ll still see Sleeping Beauty Castle, Jungle Cruise, Peter Pan’s Flight, DisneySea Fortress Explorations, the Tree of Life, and Spaceship Earth.
The walls are different (I think), but the models remain.
A few things were removed: the Audio-Animatronics corner where you could push buttons to make actions occur is gone, as are the models on one wall near the theater (such models as Castaway Cay and Grizzly River run once stood here). The somewhat lame Hong Kong Disneyland map at the center of the pre-theater is also absent. New stuff has popped up instead. In the center of the room is a model of World of Color and the revised Paradise Pier. Along the wall you’ll find a few paintings and a clamshell vehicle model for Ariel’s Undersea Adventure, and a maquette of Lumiere for the new dining facility, but absolutely no secrets revealed. Those hoping for an east coast version of the Blue Sky Cellar, showing off rides yet to come in vivid detail, will be sorely disappointed.
Not much to salivate over.
The attraction has always looked backwards, not forwards, and it continues to do so. The other huge addition is a corner window containing a Lincoln bust and the nearly-naked Lincoln animatronic from the 1964 World’s Fair. His head and hair are here, but the rest of his body is see-through, a startling effect if you’ve not seen it before. Actually, strike that. I have seen it before, and it’s still startling to me, too.
A programming console is also stuffed in here.
That same display also includes a model of it’s a small world and a photo of Walt with Mary Blair. Drawings are scattered about to imply we’ve caught the artists in the middle of the creative act; nothing is quite finished yet.
Decorations changed throughout the exhibit; the old carpet and the striking wavy floorboards (really just a thin strip) are gone. There’s something like it in the ceiling; a wavy line of material that echoes the design of the previous incarnation. Was this ceiling wave here before?
The separation between the first room and the second room used to be a series of doors papered over with a black and white enlargement of the Disneyland schematic concept art drawn by Herb Ryman. The doors are gone completely now, and in its place is a stone arch, reminiscent of the tunnels under the train station. So there’s still a Disneyland connection. The 50s-era ranch house and family that once graced the wall in the next scene have been replaced, but the focus is still on television’s new role.
They should have put in a plaque saying “here you leave today…”
The least interesting part for me was the corner which previously held the animatronics display. Fairly plain walls here held only a few photos of everything under the sun: theme parks, DCL, ABC, and Disney movies of all stripes. It was disappointing, not only for its blandness but also for its breadth. The old exhibit was pretty theme-park heavy, which made it mecca for me. The new exhibit includes models for the Dipmobile and the Rocketeer pack—movie stuff rather than park stuff.
Somewhat boring blue walls.
Good news, though. It seems the exhibit isn’t finished, and in about a month Disney will unveil more. The area will focus on the 1970s through today, which means its logical placement would be right there where I found those boring blue walls. They are therefore temporary, one assumes. I hope so, because the refreshed exhibit is a bit of a letdown as it stands. Lincoln is fantastic, but we lost more than we gained, and this in an attraction that didn’t necessarily need upgrading to begin with. And I may yet be underwhelmed if the new sections veer away from the theme parks substantially.
Busch Gardens Williamsburg Halloween Party
A reader had sent me a note earlier, concerned about cutbacks at Williamsburg possibly mirroring Disney’s. But he then contacted me again with this letter:
They put more workers in the haunted mazes, added some effects to the mazes and developed different scare areas all throughout the park. I liked it so much I went back the next weekend with a friend.
They did not decorate the train ride (which had been for kids) and they had the skyride going (in years past it was shut down). In one area behind the Ireland village, they had a couple of large automated spiders that would drop down toward the guests. I do not know if they were on a sensor or just had one worker running them. It got some great reactions out of those people who are petrified of spiders.
One thing that amazed me. The park had to shut down both days at about 3pm or so due to the parking lots hitting capacity. With that you would think the traffic flow would’ve been one big bottleneck of bodies trying to get around the park. (In years past I remember it was so crowded at Halloween—you could barely move in some areas. It was terrible.)
But both days, the park seemed full but not overly so. It was easy to get around. Maybe it is because of the skyride and the train both being used to get guests around the park. And since the train route was not decorated with Halloween scenes as in years past—there were no lines to get on the train. Kudos to the managers that decided not to make the train an attraction so it could help with the high capacity traffic flow.
There were new decorations in key areas that were extremely well done. In Germany, the three story town clock had been overlaid with intricate Halloween decorations that were brilliant. There was a theme for each village. England had crows everywhere. France had rats. Ireland had pumpkins. Italy had bottles hanging from the trees (a friend said it was some kind of spell that gypsy’s use to catch bad spirits). New France (Canada) had men with chain saws (which matches the lumberjack, wilderness theme of that area). In Germany, they had a giant light show going on in front of the Festhause to promote the “FrakenRock” show inside.
One of the best “new items” in the park was a Fast Pass for ten dollars!!! It was only for the 3 haunted mazes in Germany but if you waited in the line—it was a solid 2 hour wait. It was the best 10 dollars I have ever spent at Busch!!! I couldn’t believe they did that. They had an all park Fast Pass (which they call a Quick Queue Pass) that sold for about 30 I think. But to save that amount of time for the 3 best haunted mazes—it was a blast!!!
Lastly, I noticed they had just tried new and different things. There was a woman dressed as a manager. She had that manager look and wore her name tag and had a walkie talkie. She was with a younger guy who was pushing a giant trash wagon which was filled with black garbage bags. It looked as if they were on a mission and with the park being so full—it looked as if the manager was handling a bit of a trash crisis. The duo were walking briskly but would target groups of teens or those who seemed rather frightened. When they pulled up a long side—A LARGE GUY IN A COSTUME would pop up out of the trash and scare the mess out of the unsuspecting crowd. I LOVED IT!!!
Glad to hear that the reputation for this event (Williamsburg’s is always nationally known as one of the very best) remains intact. |
