After 3 weeks, 16 time zones, 16500+ miles, 9 flights and 4 rental cars I`m home with jet lag from hell and so many great memories (and video and photos!) from my 2 WDW and first DL trip ![Big Grin :D :D](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
I`ll try not to dwell too much on Disneyland where I can help it, and won`t go into Vegas since it`s OT suffice to say it is one crazy, amazing place. I`ll also steer clear of Universal Hollywood apart from saying the tour is stunning, Kong 3D is great, the theme park was mainly a disappointment and Mummy LA is very poor compared to USF.
Also, some of this will be old news since I havn`t ploughed through 3 weeks of news and rumours yet.
Soooo.... back to August 28th, and in some sort of order of things, Orlando.
Magic Kingdom
Tarps on Main St were noticable. Same elsewhere. Nice to see a lot of TLC and money still being invested. MISICI is still popular. During last week the crane was up on the castle - first time I have seen it myself ever - and no pyro was used during Dream Along with Mickey since work was being done during the day. Bad show or a nessecity? Wishes was as good as ever, and still popular, though one windy night the last 2/3 of all rooftop launches were scrubbed offering a very strange and patchy show. This show will be around for a good while yet. And will get even better with time.
Hall of Presidents and Haunted Mansion still look fresh and very good
Splash Mountain looked great with its new(ish) lighting and the only effect I didn`t see was the hilltop projection. Even Rabbit was jumping! Last week I saw an evac each day 3 days running. On Saturday one of the added water jets for the splash was falling onto the walkway. Not blowing in the wind, actually landing on the footpath. Caught a lot of guests by surprise. Misaligned maybe?
BTM was running okay, but Tumbleweeds bathtub wasn`t spinning and the earthquake lift (B) had no moving rocks and no projection. Would it really be hard to get the physical falling rocks working again?
Fantasyland..... wow. Work is going on 24/7. Wall land it maybe, but things are happening. Crane on site lifting concrete pannels onto Mermaid. Only rode Pooh, and despite the line work it looked great. Even the smoke ring effect worked!
Tomorrowland... the speedway is a smelly ugly mess. You can tell I`ve ridden DLs Autopia recently. Had no desire for SGE, TLF or Buzz. I had bigger things to try. But first, COP - looked good, half full theatres, but on Saturday Johns mouth in Act one was static the whole show. Very bad. I reported to the greeting CM who did seem concerned.
And now... Space Mountain. Probably already discussed over and over. The offboard audio that had been installed slowly since December was turned on and I was lucky to ride the first day. I also recorded it thankfully, since on Day one it worked very well. Some music leaks into the load areas, the comm chat is still very audiable though. All airgates stilll lit and both sides used duel load when needed. Some UV overhead lighting at load not working. Still no safety video audio. But moving on....
My first ride when the audio was turned on had fx from the SSE 1982 ascent tunnel playing on the lift hill. I think. I`m beginning to think I imagined this, I really hope I got it on tape. It wasn`t playing this past weekend. Omegas lift signs are already failing - one was flickering, one was broke. Riding Alpha on the day the music was turned on was great. There were no real patchy areas of audio, I heard the music the whole ride. Accoustics wern`t too bad, and despite the music not being (or able to be) timed to the ride it worked quite well after a fashion. The topmost part of track, where the ride passes above the load lifts, there is clearly a platform of speakers now built above the track. Spot fx work well, and again on my first ride the flat loop at the end of the ride before the brake zone had a great whoop whoop sound, getting faster and higher in pitch as the car span round - something missing when I rode multiple times last week. Ahh, last week - the whole audio was a bit of a mess. Both sides had patches of no music. I really hope it`s still a work in progress. It was an addition to the ride that worked when I first rode. The cheap way of doing it maybe, but a clear plus. Now I`m not sure. Both re entry tunnels are way out of sync audio wise as well.
TTA Peoplemover.... is it me or is it busier after a simple name change? The first welcome spiel is far too quiet, the second sentance is almost a surprise since it is at normal level. The zig zag tunnel music variation that played briefly in Space Mountain has gone, replaced with the new Morrow/Johnson spiel (nice) and SMs music can be heard. Visuals in the mountain were also nice to begin with - lots of stars all over, a new galaxy on the side wall, and lots of meteors and comets (!) flying around on both the coaster and TTA. Last week the new galaxy was gone, stars were dark at lower levels and one star projector was clearly stuck. Again, hopefully a work in progress since the additions if they work are a definate plus.
More parks next....
I`ll try not to dwell too much on Disneyland where I can help it, and won`t go into Vegas since it`s OT suffice to say it is one crazy, amazing place. I`ll also steer clear of Universal Hollywood apart from saying the tour is stunning, Kong 3D is great, the theme park was mainly a disappointment and Mummy LA is very poor compared to USF.
Also, some of this will be old news since I havn`t ploughed through 3 weeks of news and rumours yet.
Soooo.... back to August 28th, and in some sort of order of things, Orlando.
Magic Kingdom
Tarps on Main St were noticable. Same elsewhere. Nice to see a lot of TLC and money still being invested. MISICI is still popular. During last week the crane was up on the castle - first time I have seen it myself ever - and no pyro was used during Dream Along with Mickey since work was being done during the day. Bad show or a nessecity? Wishes was as good as ever, and still popular, though one windy night the last 2/3 of all rooftop launches were scrubbed offering a very strange and patchy show. This show will be around for a good while yet. And will get even better with time.
Hall of Presidents and Haunted Mansion still look fresh and very good
Splash Mountain looked great with its new(ish) lighting and the only effect I didn`t see was the hilltop projection. Even Rabbit was jumping! Last week I saw an evac each day 3 days running. On Saturday one of the added water jets for the splash was falling onto the walkway. Not blowing in the wind, actually landing on the footpath. Caught a lot of guests by surprise. Misaligned maybe?
BTM was running okay, but Tumbleweeds bathtub wasn`t spinning and the earthquake lift (B) had no moving rocks and no projection. Would it really be hard to get the physical falling rocks working again?
Fantasyland..... wow. Work is going on 24/7. Wall land it maybe, but things are happening. Crane on site lifting concrete pannels onto Mermaid. Only rode Pooh, and despite the line work it looked great. Even the smoke ring effect worked!
Tomorrowland... the speedway is a smelly ugly mess. You can tell I`ve ridden DLs Autopia recently. Had no desire for SGE, TLF or Buzz. I had bigger things to try. But first, COP - looked good, half full theatres, but on Saturday Johns mouth in Act one was static the whole show. Very bad. I reported to the greeting CM who did seem concerned.
And now... Space Mountain. Probably already discussed over and over. The offboard audio that had been installed slowly since December was turned on and I was lucky to ride the first day. I also recorded it thankfully, since on Day one it worked very well. Some music leaks into the load areas, the comm chat is still very audiable though. All airgates stilll lit and both sides used duel load when needed. Some UV overhead lighting at load not working. Still no safety video audio. But moving on....
My first ride when the audio was turned on had fx from the SSE 1982 ascent tunnel playing on the lift hill. I think. I`m beginning to think I imagined this, I really hope I got it on tape. It wasn`t playing this past weekend. Omegas lift signs are already failing - one was flickering, one was broke. Riding Alpha on the day the music was turned on was great. There were no real patchy areas of audio, I heard the music the whole ride. Accoustics wern`t too bad, and despite the music not being (or able to be) timed to the ride it worked quite well after a fashion. The topmost part of track, where the ride passes above the load lifts, there is clearly a platform of speakers now built above the track. Spot fx work well, and again on my first ride the flat loop at the end of the ride before the brake zone had a great whoop whoop sound, getting faster and higher in pitch as the car span round - something missing when I rode multiple times last week. Ahh, last week - the whole audio was a bit of a mess. Both sides had patches of no music. I really hope it`s still a work in progress. It was an addition to the ride that worked when I first rode. The cheap way of doing it maybe, but a clear plus. Now I`m not sure. Both re entry tunnels are way out of sync audio wise as well.
TTA Peoplemover.... is it me or is it busier after a simple name change? The first welcome spiel is far too quiet, the second sentance is almost a surprise since it is at normal level. The zig zag tunnel music variation that played briefly in Space Mountain has gone, replaced with the new Morrow/Johnson spiel (nice) and SMs music can be heard. Visuals in the mountain were also nice to begin with - lots of stars all over, a new galaxy on the side wall, and lots of meteors and comets (!) flying around on both the coaster and TTA. Last week the new galaxy was gone, stars were dark at lower levels and one star projector was clearly stuck. Again, hopefully a work in progress since the additions if they work are a definate plus.
More parks next....