a critical review of the magic kingdom

[dag...@mediaone.net]

The first comments about the magic kingdom are the magic kingdom
resorts. The Polynesian is a well-built and artfully decorated resort
that when it was constructed was one of the best hotel ideas on Disney
property but its style has become dated. When the Polynesian was
originally built Hawaii was still very much a novelty for the U.S.
people but has since lost most of its aura of mystery and exotic
flavor.
The contemporary hotel itself is another well-constructed hotel; it is
very open with a lot of natural light that filters in through its
glass walls at each end of the building. The train moving through the
center of the building promotes its idea of being futuristic. I feel
sometimes when I am in that building like I am in the movie Logan's
run and am waiting for a sandman to show up. The building in my
opinion has only made one mistake since its inception and that was its
reduction of its arcade to ź of its original size. I remember when I
was very young and the arcade in the building was huge. One side had
video games and the other had pool tables and air hockey (I got
trashed at air hockey by Pluto, don't let that stupid look of a tongue
hanging out of his mouth fool you, he is devastating).
The Disney Inn AKA the Shades of Green, I have never been to so can
not comment.
The Grand Floridian is a wonderfully designed hotel that relies on the
past of the early 1900 for its themeing. The atmosphere there is
extremely friendly; they have their own greeter. The rooms are quite
large with most having a good view towards the magic kingdom or the
lagoon or pool. Service is truly excellent, I have never had so many
clean towels before and the bed is turned down every night and
chocolates are placed on the bed.
The wilderness lodge is the last of the magic kingdom resorts to be
built and it is truly majestic. The lobby area is truly massive.
There is a fireplace that must be 10 feet across in the corner. The
pillars that hold up the ceiling appear to be trees that are bound
together with animal heads carved into them. A spring bubbles up from
the center of the lobby and then goes through the wall where it gets
bigger and goes down some waterfalls to finally end up in the pool
area, A truly wonderful bit of design and appearance.
Now on to the magic kingdom itself, Main Street itself has lost a lot
of its Disney magic because it has turned into an almost exclusive
commercial zone. Gone is the old time arcade where you could spend a
few pennies and experience what an old time arcade felt like with the
hand cranked movies and the old fashioned pinball machines. As you
got deeper into the arcade though the machines got more advanced, I
remember fondly playing with the old time baseball arcade machines
that you actually had to hit a metal ball to make it work. The only
attractions left to main street are the old fashioned transportation
rides on main street (which are fun to ride when convenient to do so
but I would not wait specifically to do so) and the Disney railroad
which is a great way to get to Frontierland or get an overview of the
park in general.
On to the attractions in Adventure land. The first attraction that we
encounter is the Swiss family tree house. When Disney built this
attraction it was very soon after there story of the Swiss family
Robinson adventure and so there was a strong tie in at the time but as
time progresses their story loses its draw. The only saving grace of
this attraction is the truly ingenious design of the treehouse itself
including the plumbing. The treehouse is incredible when you look at
all the details that the Disney imagineers went through to make the
running water feasible in the house and also to design a livable space
that one would envy on a tropical vacation.
The Jungle Cruise is an example of Disney's early attempts of making
rides detailed and trying to cash in on exotic motifs. The ride has
lost a lot of its appeal as time has continued but the true draw of
this ride is the performance of the skipper's. They can make this a
truly enjoyable ride or make it a boring waste of time. Most of the
skipper's I have seen there are very animated and are capable of
making up some of there own clever puns.
The Tiki Birds now is a great example of Disney's old time attention
to detail and themeing. The birds and tiki columns are artfully
crafted in great detail. The show that originally was in the tiki
room was entertaining but had become dated as the tempo of modern life
and its tastes have changed. The new and improved tiki room has used
the old constructions but have added a new and entertaining storyline
to the ride. Iago has infused the more serious songs of the original
tiki show with a more comical story. This is one of the few times
that I have actually gone back to the tiki room for a second show
during a trip.
Pirates of the Caribbean in my opinion is one of its best dark rides.
The Que. line is well decorated making you believe that you might be
in an old fort on the Spanish Main complete with cannons. The
displays are very detailed yet done in a humorous way that removes
their scary and cruel depictions. One of the best scenes in the whole
ride is when the pirate ship is attacking the city and the cannonballs
are flying between the two and landing near you. The pirate's detail
is very good when you can see a pirate's hairy leg when you go under
the bridge. The only negatives that I can say about the pirates are
their current political correctness of a few scenes. They used to
have pirates chasing 2 beautiful women and on heavy set women chasing
a pirate this contrast made for a very funny scene but know the women
are chasing the pirates with brooms and it loses a lot of its humor.
How does one create a splash mountain? Well the basic ingredients are
to take a usually boring log flume ride that is only popular in the
hot summer and mix it with eight parts Disney magic and story and then
ice it a sense of humor. Splash mountain sense of humor starts in the
Que. line with the sign of a rabbit with a few wet hairs saying you
might get wet. This continues right up to the last sign where you see
this same rabbit drenched to the bone with the same word you might get
wet, what an understatement. The sign should say you will get
drenched and look like a drowned sewer rat. The detail of the
themeing of Splash Mountain is quite extraordinary. I have been on
this ride several times and each time I notice something new and
different about the background and characters. The animatronics and
there careful construction and detail contributes greatly to how
enjoyable this ride really is. This is my laughing place until I
scream going down the slide at the end.
It's truly amazing how they got a little bit of Utah into the magic
kingdom. Big thunder mountain railroad is covered with genuine mining
equipment. The roller coaster is very tame by roller coaster
standards. It feels like a kiddy style coaster but with the Disney
themeing twist and sense of humor. The flooded ghost town with the man
riding the floodwaters in a bathtub is one of the funniest sets in the
whole ride.
Tom sawyer's raft ride is the only transportation to tom Sawyer Island
in which you can explore man made caves or a fort that has air guns
and a real secret escape tunnel. Other attractions are a barrel
bridge that you can jump up and down on as you go across it to Aunt
Polly's. This is always one of my stops due to the fact that it is a
great place to enjoy lemonade while watching the riverboat.
The country bears is a good place to sit down and relax and watch a
very entertaining show. The heads on the wall are great examples of
the animatronic art and are quite enjoyable. The country bear show is
very funny and entertaining but in the middle of the show it gets a
little slow with the three female bears and the swinging bear. The
clever imagination of the designers has one bear drinking out of a
beehive with bees swarming around and a little bear with a Cub Scout
hat and a teddy bear with him. The funniest and most entertaining
part of the show is when the try to get the big bear who is singing
blood on the saddle to get off the stage and then all the bears start
singing in a rousing manner.
The diamond horseshoe has lost some of its original appeal that it had
when it was a reservation only establishment. The show now is less
coherent then it used to be because of the crowd's constant entering
and exiting. IT has become a series of one-act shows that is not as
entertaining as the whole show used to be.
The hall of presidents when I was a kid was only marginally
entertaining to me when I was a kid but now as I enter the building I
am impressed by the art and the official seal of the president of the
united states on the floor, (it took an act of congress for the
official seal to be placed in there) which is roped off as an act of
respect for the office of president. The show that occurs within
tries to describe the turbulent past of this country and the problems
that these men have had to endure to preserve this nations growing
pains and turbulent events which threatened to tear this nation apart.
The animatronics at the conclusion of the film are magnificent in
there recreation. The clothes are reproduced in the exact fashion of
the time that each president represents with later president supply
some of their own wardrobe for the show. The characters are not stiff
mannequins but they appear to be listening intently until something is
said that strikes them as meaningful then you see them looking around
to see the same understanding in the faces of the other animatronics.
All in all the detail to their movements is excellent!
The riverboat ride is a very nice ride. It is almost never too
crowded and wait time is very minimal. The announcements that they
play over the pa are well thought out and have a great entertainment
value. This ride is not of the exciting variety but of the interesting
and relaxing variety. The images that you see and hear about are
enough to keep you from getting bored with the ride while you unwind
from some of the hectic experiences of waiting in line in the magic
kingdom. The keel boat ride is almost identical too the riverboat
except that you have longer waits in the hot sun and are allowed to
sit down in the keel boats.
The haunted mansion is another very entertaining ride at the magic
kingdom. It starts by taking you past a small graveyard that has some
very funny saying engraved on the tombstones. The stretching room has
some very entertaining pictures in it as the room grows larger that
have taken me several visits to fully take in since the time that you
are in there is so short after they are fully exposed. The ride
itself is very entertaining with some superb special effects like the
head in the crystal ball. This ride in my opinion is one of the best
in the magic kingdom for all ages.
And now for the review of the ride you have all been dreading is "It's
a Small World". This ride is a lighthearted trip around the world
using crude dolls that crudely animated. The colors and the
decorations and architecture of the ride are nicely done and the
thought of what you were going to see is well planned out and executed
but here is the part of the ride that I do not like and that is the
song it's a small world after all. This song starts as a cute little
song for the first minute or so but as the ride goes on it can become
quite annoying and if you ever get stuck there it can become torture.
I always wondered to myself if this song could be made more
interesting if you could here it in the different languages and
accents of the countries you were passing through?
Peter pan is another of Disney's extraordinary details and art in
making an attraction. The pirate ships cars that you board allow you
a view that few other spook house attraction allow and that is to be
able to see the landscape below you when you are flying high over a
Victorian rendition of London. The sets are painted with fluorescent
paint and are in 3d as you fly around them. This is one of my must
see attractions on my list.
The carousel is an example of a well-maintained hand carved carousel.
The horses upon the platform have been loving restored to their
original glory as when they were first crafted. This attraction is
nothing but an old time midway carnival ride that has been decorated
to go with the Disney motif.
The legend of the lion king is a live stage show using very
sophisticated puppets and special effects. The performance is funny
thrilling happy and sad at times but always the performance is first
rate.
Dumbo the flying elephant and the mad hatter tea party are another
example of standard midway rides that have been cosmetically altered
to be Disney attraction.
20,000 leagues beneath the sea was a great ride in fantasyland. This
ride was probably the most exciting and fun ride in fantasyland. The
submarine transports actually never floated in the water but drove
along the bottom of the tank. The submarines were styled to look like
the nautilus and were well air-conditioned, the seats though could
have used some improvement by allowing them to be adjusted for taller
riders so that they could see out the portholes better without the
extra convolutions. The effects in the tank were very hokey due to
the fact that the state of the art in underwater live special effects
was in its infancy. The tour beneath the sea was one of my favorite
night time attractions, I would gladly wait an hour in line just to
see the mermaids and the undersea world of Atlantis before it is
destroyed by more volcanoes. IT is too bad that the refurbishment of
this ride had cost so much and the constant leaking problem into the
locker room caused this ride to be shut down and be replaced by a
character greeting area. This is one of the few times that Disney has
destroyed one of the things that made it great without even trying to
replace it with anything worthwhile.
Snow white and the seven dwarfs is a dark spook house ride that tells
the story about snow whites life with the seven dwarfs after she
leaves the custody of her evil step mother the queen who is trying to
kill her. The current ride is very upbeat and happy where as the
older ride that it used to be was considered to be too scary for
little children with the evil old hag popping out around every corner.
Winnie The Pooh is a replacement ride for the venerable toad ride.
Both rides are of the dark spook house variety. Winnie the pooh is a
lighter story than the Mr. toad ride who buys a stolen car and
proceeds to crash and destroy the town around him until he finally
gets blown up and goes to hell. Personally I preferred the toad ride
to the Winnie the pooh because the scenery was more vivid under the
black light and it seemed more exciting then the Winnie the pooh
honeypot ride. The Winnie the pooh ride was very tame and the
construction of the scenery was consistent with most standard spook
house design. (Nothing special here).
Now on to tommorowland. The first ride that we encounter is the
speedway. This ride barely travels faster than I can jog. The
steering is barely existent so that the guiderail in the track can
easily override the driver. The first time that I ever rode it was at
age 12. This was one of the most boring rides that I had ever
experienced, with me being used to much faster and more controllable
go carts I was used too. The go-carts that I used to be able to ride
could go at least 25 mph and you could race over the entire track not
just your own lane. Well anyway I got stuck behind a young mother and
her small son of about 6. They were so slow that if I waited for
about 2 minutes for them to get ahead I could catch up too them in
under 20 seconds. With this insurmountable obstruction all I could do
was wait for this ride to end so I could get off it.
Space Mountain is one of the best rides in all of tommorowland. The
Que. inside the building is quite long but design with a lot of
imagination and special effects that get you to anticipate the ride.
With the edition of the TV monitors and the preshow in the loading
area the wait has become more bearable as you shuffle back and forth
getting closer to the loading platform. The latest version of train
is much preferable then the earlier version I remember. The earlier
version had two seats, a large person sat in the back and a smaller
person sat almost in the larger person's lap and a single belt held in
both. Space Mountain is a mild roller coaster that owes it
entertainment value in the fact that it is dark inside and you are
unable to see the turns ahead. The post show has actually changed
very little since it was created. The original theme was setting up a
colony on a distant planet and the new theme is delivering packages to
the distant planet.
The skyway was not a fantastic high tech conveyance system but a
convenient way to travel from one side of the park to the other with a
scenic and restful ride. The truly amazing part of the trip is being
able to see behind the façade that Disney is showing you at street
level and to be able to see what things really look like from a higher
perspective.
The carousel of progress is a great example of Disney imagination. No
where else would anyone conceive of a multiple stage set up in which
the audience rotates around each stage set. The animatronics are
truly magnificent as they act upon stage. The storyline describes
what life was like in each of the periods of time you are viewing and
how progress has changed the lives of the family and how much better
life has become. This ride is well worth waiting for which you
probably won't have long to wait considering the size crowd it devours
every 20 minutes.
Buzz lightyear is an excellent retreading of a venerable old
attraction. Buzz lightyear is a colorful and entertaining shoot em up
ride which is fun for the kids an entertaining for teens also due to
the competitive nature of who can get the highest score and whose the
best shot. The theme though is fairly lacking, all it this attraction
really is a shooting gallery from a moving ride. The earlier
attraction that this replaced was delta dream flight and if you had
wings by eastern. The original ride was more into the whimsical and
funny and entertaining early days of barnstorming that was displayed
both on film and depicted in it sets. As the ride went along though
it progressed into the more modern and commercial uses of airplanes
for delivering both mail and passengers to different destinations.
The orient and France were used as examples and how the traveling
accommodations had changed. My question is that even though the
earlier accommodations looked more spacious and civilized, how did one
eat in any turbulence or keep ones place settings from falling off the
table.
Timekeeper is a much more entertaining attraction then America the
beautiful attraction that it replaced. Timekeeper is a much updated
and entertaining way to use a 360-movie theatre. The concept of
bringing Jules Verne from the Victorian age and putting him through
experiences that we can experience in 360 is one of the best ideas
Disney has had in a long time for updating a very used concept. The
animatronics of the timekeeper and nine eyes and their voices with
personalities has also greatly increased my enjoyment of this
attraction. The old America the beautiful ride was okay to originally
demonstrate the 360 projection technology when it was new but has
since become very dated. I remember when I first was in this ride
that you had to hold onto the railings to keep from falling but that
as Disney added better films to its other 360 theatres America the
beautiful started losing its appeal.
The rocket rods are a common midway ride that has been updated to look
more futuristic and the also are placed on the top of a building which
gives them a higher perspective and contributes to there appeal.
Alien Encounter is a much-needed update to the original mission to
mars attraction. Alien encounter uses the same rooms as the mission
to mars but the interior designs have been highly changed. The
mission control room for mission to mars has been changed into a
salesman demo booth. The straight laced doctor Tom Morrow who
explained how you were going to travel to mars has been replaced by a
slick talking robot and a cute adorable little alien named fuzzy.
Personally I think they sent the wrong being through the teleport
tube. The pre shows for both attractions were enjoyable with fuzzy
being the subject for the encounter and a crazy albatross landing on
the secure base and setting off all the security in the mission. The
sonic visual and tactile effects that occur in the Alien Encounter are
some of the most realistic feeling effects in the Disney parks.
Background crowd noises are added into the sound track to make you
believe that someone in the seating area is screaming hot breath and
blood splatters make you feel as if the alien is right behind you.
This is a much more realistic and entertaining show then the original
trip to mars which just showed pictures above and below of the planet
mars and had the seat move up and down to simulate gravity.
The wedway people mover AKA the tommorowland express is one of the
truly relaxing rides in tommorowland. It is almost never crowded and
it provides an over view of what is in tommorowland while allowing you
to rest your feet. The people mover provides some great views of
Space Mountain inside along with its scenic sight seeing tour of all
of tommorrowland.