Day 4: When real life intrudes, escape to Disney
September 25, 2008
For as long as we’ve been coming to Orlando, back in the days of our 5-day commando park touring, by mid-week we always crash. The alarm clock gets ignored, that itinerary slaved over and posted on the fridge gets rewritten, and we find some excuse to just not do what we’re told. Call it a bit of vacation rebellion.So when the sun rose this morning, Grandpa Mohawk ignored our breakfast plans at Boma’s and just sat out on his balcony to watch the sun glinting over the resort lake. I blissfully slept the morning away until GM decided he was going to the pool. It was a pleasant mid-80’s today. Perfect for just lazing by the pool. A pool, which GM was happy to discover, is a zero entry… just the kind I like and can use.
Now I admit I had a harder time than usual breaking back into a routine. My mistake? Waking up and turning on the news, which let’s face it, was confusing and a tad grim. Suddenly instead of just letting go and immersing myself in fairytales, I found myself worried about retirement accounts and wondering where our country would be in a year. It’s enough to give you a major headache.
So what do you do when life gives you a problem that seems insurmountable? You look for inspiration. And it was with that sentiment that GM and I set out for our Disney destination of the day — Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Our goal was simply to try that new Toy Story ride but we found ourselves starting out at One Man’s Dream. This is a museum dedicated entirely to the life, dreams, innovations and failures of Walt Disney. If you’ve never taken the time to go through this exhibit, I highly recommend it.
It begins with Walt’s humble birth in the early 1900’s. You see his mom & dad, his big brother Roy and a pictures of the small town they lived for the few years the family owned a farm. Marceline, Missouri is the foundation for so much of what made the man and his dream so special. There’s a diorama of Disneyland’s Main Street next to a picture of Marceline’s Main Street, circa 1906 when Walt lived there.
From there, you go on a journey through his young adulthood and his growth as an artist and entrepeneur. We see Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, lost overnight in a contract dispute with Universal. There’s Steamboat Willie (which we saw the night before) and the story of how Mickey Mouse got his name.
We see the multi-plane camera used to film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. We even learn about Walt’s first groundbreaking features in Kansas City… the Alice Adventure shorts.
Grandpa Mohawk loves all the vintage toys of yesteryear. He pulls me over to a display case to see the little big books. Many he proudly tells me his brother (my uncle) still owns. I’m just amazed at how early Disney capitalized his market by marketing toys and other memorabilia to go with his cartoons. (And you thought those gift shops at the end of each attraction was a relatively modern invention. Ha!)
There’s even a little story about how Walt stumbled upon a drugstore selling his memorabilia. He noticed it was on the bottom shelf, so promptly cleared the top shelf to relocate the merchandise in a better (more sellable) location. When the saleslady came over to see what he was up to, he told her he was just fine and “would have this taken care of in a moment”.
As a small-time novelist I know the world of trying to sell a product in a cramped store. So I have to love the moxy of this guy. Another sign tells us that Disney’s merchandising line, negotiated by brother Roy and begun in earnest during the 1930’s, provided a lot of new manufacturing jobs during the Great Depression.
The museum continues on to the story of Disneyland and Disney World.
We get to play with an animatronic robot to see how that innovative
technology works. There’s even the first animatronic dancer in a
1:12th scale model of a Vaudeville dancer of the day.
We see a mockup of the 1971 dedication of Magic Kingdom and hear the words to commemorate the man who dreamt of it but never lived to see it. And we see mock-ups of the Disney castles around the world as well as Tokyo’s Disney Sea park which looks oddly Arabian to me and very intriguing.
There’s even a little story about how Walt stumbled upon a drugstore selling his memorabilia. He noticed it was on the bottom shelf, so promptly cleared the top shelf to relocate the merchandise in a better (more sellable) location. When the saleslady came over to see what he was up to, he told her he was just fine and “would have this taken care of in a moment”.
As a small-time novelist I know the world of trying to sell a product in a cramped store. So I have to love the moxy of this guy. Another sign tells us that Disney’s merchandising line, negotiated by brother Roy and begun in earnest during the 1930’s, provided a lot of new manufacturing jobs during the Great Depression.
The museum continues on to the story of Disneyland and Disney World.
We get to play with an animatronic robot to see how that innovative
technology works. There’s even the first animatronic dancer in a
1:12th scale model of a Vaudeville dancer of the day.
We see a mockup of the 1971 dedication of Magic Kingdom and hear the words to commemorate the man who dreamt of it but never lived to see it. And we see mock-ups of the Disney castles around the world as well as Tokyo’s Disney Sea park which looks oddly Arabian to me and very intriguing.
It all culminates in a 15 minute movie narrated by Walt himself. Clips from his various cartoons, the movie premiers, the building of his Disneyland park, even his television productions. And we learn a bit about why Walt wanted to build a theme park in the first place. It all came from a desire to take his daughters out on their birthday. He’d take them out to carnivals and put them on the carousel while he sat on the bench just watching. Now I’ve done that. Every summer in Ocean City when we take my nieces and nephews to the Boardwalk. It’s a place where the adults buy the tickets, then wait and watch as it’s the kids who get to have fun. It gets a little boring for us adults, as I expect it was to Walt long ago. So he envisioned a park where kids and their parents could come together and have fun. I guess that’s why as an adult, with or without kids, I love coming to Disney World so much. You can be 6 or 60 and still enjoy yourself.
By the time we leave One Man’s Dream we realize we’ve spent a whopping 90 minutes inside. it’s still daylight so we head over to see the new Narnia attraction. Now we’d seen the original and it’s faux snowy scenic backdrop. We’ve also seen the new Prince Caspian and wanted to know what they’d done with the place.
This attraction is small and yet worth a little bit of your time. Groups are ushered into an antechamber where we see the initial scene from the movie. The evil Miral claims the throne and good Prince Caspian escapes to Narnia. Then the inner doors open wide and you find yourself in Aslan’s altar chamber.
It’s dark, moody, and lit with an eerie red mist. In the center of the room is the cracked stone altar and on all 3 sides are stone etchings that come to life. Aslan tells us the story of Narnia’s next time of crisis and the triumph of Prince Caspian. From there we study some of the props of the movie, a signature of the Studios park.
At last it’s time for Toy Story Mania down Pixar Place. The entire street has been rethemed in spectacular detail. Monkeys spill out of their barrel to create a chain across the street. Giant cards and crayons are stacked up in front of the entrance. A huge scrabble board hangs on the wall spelling out “You’ve got a friend in me — the toys.”
We wind our way inside the queue and are finally directed toward the wheelchair queue. It’s loaded with a few families before us which means we end up with another 20 minute wait at the end. While we wait we watch the loading queue. It’s a bright, airy room designed somewhat like the loading dock of Kali River Rapids. The regular queue goes up over a bridge and then down to a central platform as the ride vehicle snake under the bridge and around.
The wheelchair vehicles are pulled off to the side for
loading/unloading.
Seems simple enough. There’s only one complaint I have with the process. They have only one wheelchair car in service and it is not left wheelchair-ready. In fact, the cast members have to break it down, pulling out one of the chairs, retooling the gun turret and putting stoppers on the floor to catch the wheels. Tha’s all before wheelchairs are loaded and the seatbelt is attached to secure the passenger in place. It seems like a lot of unnecessary work. I wonder why don’t they just keep a wheelchair-ready car in service all the time like the do Buzz Lightyear.
Loaded up and ready to go, we put on our 3D glasses and then take a quick trip on “whiplash” as our vehicle rounds the corners back into the ride sequence. Seriously those twists out of the wheelchair loading bay are a bit too fast. I wonder how people with spinal issues fare. For me it’s kinda fun though.
Toy Story Mania is a series of 5 shooting games. You gun is operated like the airguns at Disney Quest’s Pirates of the Caribbean adventure. The wheelchair gun has an extra little feature… a very easy button that can be used instead of the string pull. I learn to LOVE that button.
We get to test out our weapons in a practice shoot. GM’s gun is yellow and mine is green, our amunition (balls, darts, bullets) reflect our gun color. A few yellow darts fly in the practice ring while there’s a machine gun barrage of green darts. (Yes, I really love my extra little button.)
Time for the first game: duck shoot. Grandpa Mohawk loves this game. I spend my time looking for the 100 and 500 pointers. Second game is balloon darts. Watch out for the ballons that burst and fire blasts of air at you. Then ring toss around the LGM’s (Little Green Men). The army soldiers bring out the plate smashing and urge you on saying “This is not your mother’s kitchen, smash those plates.” Moving targets are more so I aim for the 2000 and 5000 pointers. The last game is Woody’s Shootin’ Gallery with an extra bonus round. We taly up our scores at the end.
Grandpa Mohawk is certain he beat me. After all, he always manages the feat on Buzz Lightyear. The tally: Grandpa Mohawk 40,000 points. Me, 90,000 points. Grandpa Mohawk in true sportsmanship promptly says, “I was just getting my bearings so it doesn’t count. I demand a rematch.” I’m too busy enjoying my victory to care.
By the time we finish, night has fallen. We head home for dinner and a night watching TV news. It’s still just as confusing as before but at least we feel refreshed enough with a dose of Disney magic to bear it all.