Recent content by Virtual Toad

Also a collector! Lots of old EPCOT of course and a ton of stuff folks recorded in-park. Also the curate-your own CDs from WDW and DL. My favorite find was this import from Japan, with music from WDW and DL (!) including Space Mountain, Indy, Cartoon Spin, Alien Encounter, Spectromagic, the...

Yeah, the digitally printed stuff takes the guest right out of the intended time period into the present day. Digital design can work as long as someone takes the design and recreates it by hand. Not that hard to do and the results look a lot more authentic that way. It's puzzling to me why they...

Well said. I think a constructive discussion of the design decisions and materials used is fair game for any themed space. As a hobbyist I find this stuff fascinating. The bar definitely has atmosphere, but many of the details feel too cartoonish and digital for me. The digitally designed...

Right now an entire wing of the new tower will enjoy majestic views of the Pioneer Hall service area. Which makes absolutely no sense. Between this, the new cabins, and the giant new pool area next to the existing Meadows pool, there's no way Ft. Wilderness continues to exist in any...

Have you done early entry to Epic yet from Helios? Curious to know how it works and where you end up in the park. We did Stella Nova and it put us right outside the Super Nintendo World portal for rope drop.

Monsters was the one ride we heard a lot of hype about before our visit. The first ride-through perhaps didn't live up to the hype for us, though there was a ton of talking during the preshow that made it difficult to follow. But by the end of Day 2 it was one of my favorite rides in the park. I...

Spent two days at Epic last weekend. Thoughts: -- Incredibly detailed, stunning, elaborate placemaking. Reminded us a lot of Disneyland Paris when it first opened and others have compared it to Tokyo DisneySea. -- Best theme park food we've had in a long time. Mobile ordering allows guests to...

I love the PacNW, even lived there for a couple of years in my youth. Recreating it in the middle of the Florida swamp will result in something that might look like the Pacific Northwest, but in the heat and humidity of Central Florida, it will still feel like... a Florida swamp. That's one of...

Sigh.

AKL's arcade has one I believe. Not a ton of pinball on property AFAIK and sadly the resort has a reputation for not keeping the pins they do have in working order. For those willing to venture over to the Tampa Bay area, the Replay Museum in Tarpon Springs and Reboot Arcade Bar in downtown...

At least Future World embodied and reflected Walt's forward thinking and optimistic spirit. The current mess does absolutely nothing of the sort.

Subjective and agree to disagree. The fusion of Marc Davis' brilliant character design with the song make it more than the sum of its parts, and as timeless and "Disney" as the pirate skeletons playing chess or the dog with the keys. But tastes vary and at the end of the day it's all a matter of...

But what makes one experience timeless (Small World? Pirates?) and another stale? Simply by the fact that the music for those attractions was written by Disney composers/artists and did not come from somewhere else? Sure, "Blood on the Saddle" is no more original than Snow White or Sleeping...

Also, for those not already familiar with the material, it was fun as kids to see older relatives relate to the songs. Later as adults, it was just as much fun to decipher the lyrics and their meanings. "Did he really just sing 'Every time I looked cross-eyed, she'd hit me with a shovel?!'" I...