Destination-D, WDW May 12-17 OKW/BLT – Final Trip Wrap Up

[franandaj]

Looking so forward to my next trip..Star Tour, Mermaid, the Expo and hopefully several drinks at the new bar at DLH

Where is the new bar? Where Hook's Pointe used to be?

 

[DisneyFirefly]

That looks awesome!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! And have I said Awesome?


Now...how to scam my way back and spend 6 hours riding StarTours!

 

[nunzia]

Where is the new bar? Where Hook's Pointe used to be?

I think so..there is a new restaurant..Tiki Terrace??the name escapes me..and the bar area is, I believe, called Trader Sam's.

 

[franandaj]

Day Four, Part 5

Art of Animation Resort

The first slide is a sketch of the outside and check in building of the resort. Overall there will be 10 guest room buildings. 3 Pools and some number of Commercial buildings, but I didn’t get that one in my notes. Welcoming you into the resort will be Lightning McQueen, Ariel from the Little Mermaid, Nemo and Simba.

In the check in area/lobby there will be a color palette and rough sketches on the walls.

The resort is laid out in 4 different guest building areas. There will be 864 Standard rooms and 100+ family suites that will sleep six people. After you leave the Commercial building you will step into the story of each of the individual movies. As you can see from the slide below, the accommodations are divided into four different resort areas based on each of the movies/characters.

Each building is set in a different scale where you are the size of the main character. In each of the areas, the buildings will frame the courtyard. The backs of all the buildings will have original artwork featured on the back of the buildings.

The Nemo courtyard area will feature a pool, units will have a hallway entrance.

From this artist rendering, in this courtyard, you are the size of the main character, Nemo.

The rooms will be themed as well. The Adult bed will have themed headboards, nightstands, even light fixtures. There will be a dining table in each room that pulls down into a Murphy Bed. Each Murphy bed will let the kid sleep next to the host character of the resort.

Next up is the Cars Courtyard and buildings.

These are the sketches for the buildings

Evidently the buildings and courtyard will somehow have a new road paved to the Cozy cone Motel There will be 11 characters pictured in the Courtyard. The Ratio will be one to one in the size of the cars. There will be 11 photo ops in the courtyard. The Backdrops will all be stage sets.

The guest rooms will be themed after a room at the Cozy Cone motel. Again the kitchen table will double as a Murphy bed for the kiddo(s).

The Lion King Courtyard will be a quiet area with no pool.

In this building the icons will be in the courtyard and not pictured on the buildings.

You will be the size of Simba and again there will be numerous photo opportunities.

The room will be themed to the jungle, and the Murphy bed allows you to sleep next to Simba.

The last section of the Art of Animation resort is the Little Mermaid In this resort you will be the size of Sebastian. This part of the resort will be the only section that will have entrances from the exterior of the building.

Triton and Ursula will be larger than life and dominate much of the area, but because of the balconies, there will not be murals on the walls.

Again the rooms will be themed, but it looks as though this part of the resort will not have the Murphy beds.

After this presentation, I couldn’t wait to stay at this resort even with owning DVC and even though it is a value resort! I will definitely want to check it out once it is open!

Up Next – Fantasyland update!

 

[DisneyFirefly]

Those look awesome! Did they give any sort of expected completion date? I think my family would love staying there, especially my niece

 

[PrincessInOz]

I wonder how popular those family rooms are going to be in the new resort...

Thanks for sharing! Fascinating to see the concepts.

 

[Wonder2008]

You covered that part of the presentation really well! I was impressed by how detailed the rooms will be - other Disney value resorts do not have that level of theming. I liked the room number signs and how the bedspread and headboard sort of morphed into each other.

From your slide showing the whole resort from above, it looks like there will be just one commercial building for check-in, food court, bus stops, etc.

Robert

 

[CaliforniaDreaming]

Wow, I am impressed! This is a great review! I think its interesting that the one section at the Art of Animation will have exterior corridors while the others won't, I'm guessing because this section was already completed for the phase 2 of Pop Century?

 

[franandaj]

Those look awesome! Did they give any sort of expected completion date? I think my family would love staying there, especially my niece

I don't remember what the time frame was but I think it was 2012

I wonder how popular those family rooms are going to be in the new resort...

Thanks for sharing! Fascinating to see the concepts.

They said that the family suites were more and more requested. I know we would want one of the rooms with the table even with two of us. We like the DVC villas and like extra space. I would definitely like to try out this resort!

You covered that part of the presentation really well! I was impressed by how detailed the rooms will be - other Disney value resorts do not have that level of theming. I liked the room number signs and how the bedspread and headboard sort of morphed into each other.

From your slide showing the whole resort from above, it looks like there will be just one commercial building for check-in, food court, bus stops, etc.

Robert

After looking at the photos, I figured that out too, it would probably be pretty big since the resort can accomodate a lot of guests. I love the detail of the rooms, that's one of the reasons I'd want to stay here even if I had to pay money, (being a DVC member).

Wow, I am impressed! This is a great review! I think its interesting that the one section at the Art of Animation will have exterior corridors while the others won't, I'm guessing because this section was already completed for the phase 2 of Pop Century?

You could be right, I never thought about who only one building would have exterior corridors....

 

[franandaj]

Day Four, Part 6

Fantasyland Update

So the Fantasyland update will double the size of Fantasyland. They will be adding a new Castle wall on the Fantasyland side of the Castle and it will be the portal that will take you to the new world.

Here is an overview of the property at the time of the convention. I know they told us where all the attractions were located, but now it escapes me.

Under the Sea – Journey of the Little Mermaid

You will actually go into Ariel’s Grotto to enter the ride. There will be lots of waterfalls and forests will welcome you into Prince Eric’s Castle.

Sorry about the blurriness of this photo. On the left is Sebastian leading his band. On the top right we visit Ursula’s lair. I assume the bottom one is Ariel’s Grotto, but it’s pretty fuzzy.

This ride will be pretty similar to the one opening up next week at DCA, but there will be subltle differences

Next they talked about the Be Our guest Restaurant There will be three different dining areas seating a total of 350 people, the one pictured here is the Ballroom from the Beast’s Castle.

The second dining room will be The Beast’s Gallery and the smallest dining room will be The Beast’s West Wing. This will be the Beast’s Castle, not Belle’s so it will have an aire of Foreboding. There will be gargoyles out front, there will be a large waterfall at an entry bridge. Lions and gargoyles will guard the gate.

Gaston’s Tavern will be in the Village from Beauty and the Beast. Gaston is very full of himself and it will be all about Gaston for Gaston from Gaston. The statue standing in front of the Tavern is presented to the city for Gaston by Gaston. There will be a lot things around the restaurant made out of antlers. There will also be a gift store next door to the restaurant.

Enchanted Tales with Belle is the character greet, however, they have turned this into a more immersive experience. Guests will enter through Maurice’s Cottage, see his workshop and “magically” whisked to the Beast’s Castle. Guests will meet the wardrobe and go inside to meet Belle. Rather than just a character meet, it will be a 40 minute walk up “storybook adventure” culminating with your meet with Belle. According to the imagineers, it will be much longer and more immersive and not just a princess meet.

The Seven Dwarves Mine Train

This was an attraction that was included in the original plan, taken out, and then added back in. This ride will be much more about the dwarves and not Snow White. Guests will pass their cottage, go to the mine and meet the dwarves. This will be a middle type coaster, somewhere in between Big Thunder and Goofy’s Barnstormer. It will not be a huge thrill ride, but more about the storytelling. The first part of the ride will take guests through the woods, the second part will be a dark ride. The dwarves will be working in the mine and guests will pass by them. Snow White will also make a cameo somewhere.

The Princess Farytale Hall will be a permanent meet and greet for the Princesses.

The Storybook Circus will house two Dumbo rides. The wait for the rides will be in bleachers for the parents while the kids run around in a play area. When it’s your turn to ride you will be called to the ride. They were not very specific about how this would work, pagers? Who knows. They are going to change the color scheme they redesigned the ride based on the ride in the movie. The bottom part of each ride will tell the story of Dumbo in eight panels.

Goofy’s Barnstormer will stay, but will receive a new overlay and more theming. The imagineers recognize that this coaster is like a “rite of passage” for young kids who want to ride their first coaster.

The final announcement for this session was that the Enchanted Tiki Room would return in it’s original format.

After this we had a 2 hour lunch break, I ran back to the room made us meatloaf sandwiches that we ate in line along with chips and brownies. In the morning session we didn’t have our same seats as before we were about 6 feet to the right a little farther away from the stage. After lunch we got our same spots again which made us happy.

The next session was really not conducive to photography, there were six people on the panel who were all involved in the opening of WDW.

Evidently while Disney was buying up all the land, there was much speculation as to who was actually buying the land. People thought it could be Ford, a Nuclear Fusion company, McDonnell/Douglas and Disney.

Bob Price talked first. What they did was found an attorney in Miami and a Real Estate Agent who were both known throughout the state. They also used a NY attorney and this guy had negotiated with Ho Chi Min in the past so they knew he was tough. In 1962 they identified Central Florida as the location where they would like to have the property. In 1963 they traveled to Florida, and while on that trip in Ocala Walt was recognized in a coffee shop, but he denied his identity.

This panel was very tangented, possibly from the age of the panelists and because things just took unexpected turns, but all of a sudden we were on a new topic. With WDW they knew that they did not need to reinvent the wheel, all they needed to do was make it bigger and better than Disneyland. There was something called PICO implemented for WDW “Project Implementation Coordination Operation.”

One of the biggest challenges was acquiring the land. Evidently they were looking at 25 different parcels in 4 different counties. The principal parcel was under contract to be sold (it was called the Dimitri Property), once they acquired that the next one that Walt insisted upon was the Bay Lake Property. There were title issues and Mineral issues with much of the land, however they were able to get both of those two major parcels.

The next area that he focused upon was the land all around the 535/4 intersection. That area was called the “Nunger subdivision” and somewhere in the previous century or early 20th century it had been broken into five acre parcels and was sold by mail order to people all over the country. There were some people who owned parcels and didn’t even know it!

It was right around this time that the news broke that Disney was buying up all the land. Once this fact was disclosed they had a more difficult time getting the smaller parcels of land. One incident that (I believe it was Bob Price) was remembered was about two ladies in their late sixties who had a parcel of land. They seemed ashamed that they owned the land and Disney employees could not figure out how these two women had such a parcel of land that they had never seen in such a remote area. It turns out that their father had won it in a poker game and willed it to them.

Another funny story that they related was that WDW was being built in the middle of nowhere. Also back in this time, Florida did not sell liquor on Sundays and places to buy it were hard to find in such a remote location. Evidently the workers really enjoyed Coors beer. When everyone got paid on Friday there was a HUGE demand for Coors beer, and there was one guy who operated a small convenience store in that part of the state. His business evidently went through the roof ordering truckloads of Coors beer for the WDW workers who would come by after receiving their paychecks.

Another one of the guys on the panel talked about how difficult it was to find talent to perform at the parks. LA was a hotbed for talent. Luring people to Anaheim wasn’t difficult, but there just wasn’t the talent pool outside Orlando like there was in LA. Originally they booked Military bands and any other trained talent that they could. In the beginning it was quite a challenge to find good musicians, dancers, etc.

Somewhere in here my pen actually ran out! I started to take notes in my cell phone and email them to myself!

The next program featured a different six guys who were there for the beginning of WDW

I wasn’t able to get shots of the guys who were on the panel

Let's just say the first 15 minutes had nothing to do with the program. They gossiped and shared some interesting stuff, but nothing that was really worth writing down and reporting, mostly ribbing and other funny stuff.

They talked about the First family chosen M,F& 2 sons but never really said what was wrong with them…

MK had a month of soft openings for the construction workers and their families plus Kiwanis clubs. Evidently they did this as a means to inspire the workers to finish on time. They spent Monday through Saturday working hard at the park and would show up with the families in their Sunday best to show off the hard work they had put into the job.

Because of these soft openings that were used to train the employees, by the time Magic Kingdom opened, most of Orlando had already been to the park. Several newspapers held contests for local residents to guess the crowd figures. On the day of park opening local media reported a high volume of traffic on the highway at 6AM. It was actually the employees reporting for work.

The opening for the press went smoothly because they let them in every three days in shifts. They did six different “press days” at the end of each day they held a luau at the Poly. One of the features of a luau is that the pig that has been cooked in the ground is paraded past the guests. For whatever reason they did not actually cook a pig in the ground. Instead for the ceremony they used a fake pig, evidently by the sixth night it didn't look good. When opening day finally arrived, only the large TV outlets were allowed in the park. They weren't allowed to take any pictures because they were filming a TV show to be broadcast 4-5 days later..

Everything went smoothly for the first couple weeks, crowds were manageable and everything ran smoothly. It wasn’t until the day after Thanksgiving that problems occurred. The park reached capacity early on, the parking lot filled up soon afterwards. By afternoon, all the roads were backed up for miles, people were stopped on the parkway having picnics. There was nothing else that they could do.

The transportation system was not what it is today either. There were only 4 monorails and they did not run with the consistency we have come to expect today. They were constantly breaking down and people would be stuck in the train stations. The tractors that pulled the trams were not nearly strong enough to pull the weight load of the guests. They kept breaking down going up the hill from the Ticket and Transportation Center to the MK when they were full to capacity. Imagine 275 people walking to MK from in front of the Contemporary. The gentleman who talked about this also mentioned the boats. He said that if he had even one of the boats like they have today things would have been fine, but they were small boats and did not have near the capacity they needed. For all these transportation issues, it took about a year to get that under control.

In Florida, evidently there are lots of hunters and fishermen , so when those seasons opened there was lots of absenteeism. These guys also stressed the importance of the guy named Johnny who owned a liquor and bait store and found out that he would have 7000 construction workers come to buy beer on a Thursday.

During the building of Epcot, the workers objected to the portapotties. Since many of them smoked and had lighters on hand, they would soak rolls of toilet paper in lighter fluid, light them on fire and lob them in the toilets and they would blow up. Sometimes 2-3 would go up a day. I’m not sure what the significance of this story was, but it was amusing.

At the opening of EPCOT they paid $18,000 to get satellite service so that reporters could come down from their local stations and broadcast live from WDW. As I mentioned earlier in the TR, this was groundbreaking for the time, but it bought Disney some unbelievable Media coverage that money really could not have bought. Having the home town reporters standing in EPCOT reporting back to their viewers was media coverage that Disney could not buy for any amount of money. The genius of making that satellite feed available was priceless.

For Donald Duck’s 50th birthday, they wanted to have him stroll down Main Street with a flock of ducks following him. For ducks to actually follow him, he had to bond with all the ducks from birth. He got real good with the ducks, as they grew up.

At some point, they decided that the ducks needed hats. However they found out that if they put a hat on one of the ducks the others attacked it, perhaps out of some jealous rage for the hat. The solution that they came up with was to keep the ducks in a divided pen. They would take a duck from the half of the pen without hats and put a hat on it and then put it in half with the ducks who had hats. If they all had hats they were OK. As the presenter noted it was sort of like the people at this convention behave regarding pins!

The last part of this report was difficult for me to take notes because my pen ran out of ink during the last fifteen minutes of the first afternoon presentation. I had my vacation purse so I didn’t have an extra pen available. I had to take notes on the cell phone email and send it to myself to cover the last session and a half!

Thanks for reading, and I’ll wrap up with the evening concert and our visits to DHS and Epcot, even though the Flower and Garden Festival ended on the day I’m reporting, they still had quite a bit of the topiaries on display so I’ll have a few of those in addition to some food porn of our last couple meals out.

 

[PrincessInOz]

That update was rivetting. I went back to read it twice and could have easily sat here with reading it over and over and over again.

Thank you so much for being so generous with your time and sharing all the individual snippets that had this disney tragic hanging by the edge of her seat.

 

[nunzia]

OK..I think the price of admission would be covered with that duck story.. I love that...

 

[PoohNFriends]

OK..I think the price of admission would be covered with that duck story.. I love that...

Agree, too cute! I'm amazed they got them to wear hats in the end!

 

[franandaj]

Day Four, Part 7

After the final session, there was an autograph signing session. We aren’t big into autographs so we took this opportunity to visit the archives exhibit that they had open during all the other times that we were waiting in line.

These were some of the items from opening day at WDW.

And some of the brochures advertising the features of WDW

One of the animatronic figures from It’s a Small World

Donald, Jose and Panchito

Figment

Some of the items from Kitchen Cabaret

Tom Morrow

We had a little bit longer on this break than any of the others since we did not opt for the Autograph session. I had the spaghetti sauce already made and just had to cook the pasta and green beans. Dinner was ready within about 15 minutes. Sorry I was hungry and took a bite before remembering to take a picture!

We headed back down for the concert to close the event.

They opened the evening with the Magic Kingdom Marching Band

Richard Sherman took the stage and began to sing lots of his hit songs.

Continued in next Post

 

[franandaj]

Continued from Previous Post


He sang a number of selections from The Parent Trap, and I’m not sure which of these he mentioned it during, but he seemed to think that Walt was auditioning him for bigger and better things.

And Summer Magic

My Favorite, “Winnie the Pooh”, he sang Pooh’s theme song and then my favorite song also. He might have even sang, “Hip, hip hooray for the Pooh…”

From the Jungle Book, I wanna be like you.

There was a number or two from Bedknobs and Broomsticks

He even performed some of his non Disney hits like Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang

Something else that hits me now that the imagineers said in the afternoon session was that when Walt came to you, and asked you to do something, it didn’t matter if you knew how to do it or not. You never said “no” to Walt or you wouldn’t get asked to do something again. Robert Sherman also mentioned that about the songs he wrote. Walt would tell him that we wanted something “snappy”, “upbeat” maybe give him. It was particularly challenging on the time that he mentioned during the show. Walt was making a film about a Nanny, and he wanted this upbeat tune about taking medicine. I don’t remember the exact progression, but right there on the stage he gave a quick recap of his thought process to create that iconic and legendary song, “A spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicine Go Down.” Which he then performed for us, followed by other favorites from Mary Poppins like Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious and Chim, Chim Cherr-ee.

After a few more numbers from Mary Poppins including Tuppence, he moved on to music from the parks.

I forgot to mention that one of the final announcements of the “Upcoming Attractions” segment was that the Enchanted Tiki Room would be restored to it’s original, and not the “Under New Management”. In honor of that reopening, he sang the Tiki Room song.

Evidently early on the Orange Bird was a spokesanimal for Dole and had a theme song, he sang that for us as well.

You couldn’t have a Richard Sherman Concert without him singing it’s a Small World.

And that great big beautiful tomorrow! I think he gave us a little insight into how this one was written as well.

He also played some music from America on Parade

I think there was actually an Epcot song too, but I was really tired at this point.

One thing, is that they REALLY know their D23 audience. How they knew that this should be the one to close down the house, but they hit it right on the head because the crowd went wild with this one.

Everyone was singing “I-ma-gin-a-tion, I-ma-gin-a-tion!”

They rounded out the program with the WDW Cast Members choir and WDW Cast Members Orchestra, but I think everyone was really just holding out to see if Richard Sherman would come back and sing any more songs. While these groups were very accomplished, to follow a great like him is just daunting. The Marching Band was lucky, open the show with a bang and get out early!

It was such a great two days totally packed full of information, and great entertainment experiences. While it is a completely different experience from the Expo, these informative seminars are just fantastic and full of information you’ll never hear anywhere else! If you have the time, patience and opportunity to attend I highly recommend it!

However, it’s not over yet! I still have another day and half at WDW and exploring the parks so stay tuned!

 

[PrincessInOz]

If I had seemed a tad green and jealous before...let me just say it is NOTHING compared to seeing those pictures and reading about you listening to Richard Sherman!

I really wish I were there....but your TR is a very (not so close) good second best.

I'm so pleased you got to enjoy so much history and memories about The Way Disney Were.

 

[nunzia]

Wonderful..so glad they did the concert on the alst evening in WDW as having it on the first night in DLR made the 2nd night end 'flat'.
After Destination D-Disneyland, I got the DVD about the Sherman Brothers, "The Boys" ,and would recommend it to any fan. Just a wonderful story..very moving .

 

[Hawleys]

Loving this trip report! StarTours, Little Mermaid and D23 coverage all rolled into one.

 

[disney ny]

What an amazing trip report! Thanks so much for sharing. I have enjoyed this so much on my "bonus" day off today from an unused snow day. Makes me wish so much I was in Florida today.