Subscribe for FREE!
Receive our Daily Disney Newsletter.
Have the best in Disney News & Views Delivered to you!
Author Archives:
Do You Speak the Disney’s Language?
The world of Walt Disney entertainment is so unique it requires its own language. Some words originated directly from Walt and his Imagineers. Others, it seems, have grown into their own Disneyness and have acquired new meanings along the way.
Attraction = a theme park ride or show
Audio animatronics = realistic robotics that bring 3-D effect to an Attraction
Automagic = play on automatic; the Disney way of making things magically happen
Backstage = a park area not accessible to guests
Cast Member = a Disney theme park or resort employee
Casting center = theme park or resort employment office
Costume = the uniform worn by a Cast Member
Crew Member = Disney Cruise Line employee
Disney point = to point with index and middle finger together; in some cultures it is rude to point with only one finger
Earffel Tower = water tower at DHS; example of wienie
Epcot = from EPCOT, Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow
E-Ticket = the newest, best, most popular attraction; stems from former system of ride coupons ranking rides A-E (A were least popular, E most popular)
Fantasmic = lights, lasers, fireworks, and waterworks show at DHS
FastPass = ticket generated to assign Guest a time to return to a busy Attraction without waiting in long line
Guest = visitor to Disney theme park or resort
Hallowishes = special Magic Kingdom fireworks during MNSSHP Halloween celebrations
IllumiNations = fireworks at Epcot
Imagineer = employee of Walt Disney Imagineering (formerly Walter Elias Disney, WED Enterprises); combination of imagine+engineer; scientists and artists who design the Attractions
Innovention = innovation+invention
Mousekeeping = resort housekeeping/maid service
Mouseketeer = play on musketeer; cast members of the TV show The Mickey Mouse Club
On stage = any area where a Cast Member might be seen by Guests
Philharmagic = philharmonic+magic 3-D film at MK
PhotoPass = barcoded card/web access to photos taken by Cast Member photographers
Plussing = constantly striving to improve a project even when it is considered complete
Pooh-sized = big, like Pooh Bear
Protein spill = term used by Cast Members to indicate someone has vomited
Show = everything that encompasses an Attraction or park feature; all the effects & mood setters that combine to make it feel like you’re walking into that world
Utilidors = utility+corridors The underground tunnels at Magic Kingdom that provide access for maintenance, Cast Members, readying, etc.
VoluntEARS = The Disney VoluntEARS program provides opportunities for Cast Members to contribute their time and expertise to charitable causes.
Wienie = a visual Attraction or landmark that can be seen by Guests from far away; it is used to guide visitors through park, i.e. Cinderella Castle
Wishes = Magic Kingdom fireworks
Review of Disneyland: Sunrise to Sunrise, by Tom Bricker
If you subscribe to TouringPlans.com, you are probably familiar with the photographic genius of Tom Bricker. Tom is the Chief Photographer for TouringPlans, and as such is responsible for the photos at the top of each page of the website as well as the attraction photo galleries and other assignments. You may also recognize Tom’s photography from the Unofficial Guide: Color Companion to Walt Disney World, Popular Photography Magazine, or his daily Disney photos featured on the blog he and his wife Sarah operate.
Launching the new line of eBooks produced by the TouringPlans team, Tom recently published a beautiful new eBook, Disneyland: Sunrise to Sunrise. As Tom explains, the project was born of two “crazy ideas.” One, the Walt Disney Company’s One More Disney Day promotion, which kept Disneyland Park open an entire 24 hours to celebrate Leap Day on February 29, 2012, and two, Tom’s plan to be there for it!
In Disneyland: Sunrise to Sunrise, Tom Bricker highlights some 200 stunning photographs that capture two sunrises, one sunset and all the magic of that historic Disney day. The pictures indeed are worth a thousand words, but Tom complements them nicely with tidbits of Disney trivia interspersed throughout the book. I especially appreciate the many views of the Walt and Mickey “Partners” statue. It’s as if they kept watch that day, smiling along with hitchhiking ghosts, Captain Jack Sparrow, Cast Members, Guests, and dozens of delightful details that keep one man’s dream alive.
Disneyland: Sunrise to Sunrise has been released as a high-quality full-color PDF that can be downloaded instantly and read on your computer or the go on your iPhone, iPad, or other eReader. It is available at a very reasonable $8.00 (USDollars). For a limited time readers of TouringPlans Blog can use discount code SUNRISE2012 at checkout to receive 25% off the purchase of Disneyland: Sunrise to Sunrise.
You can purchase Disneyland: Sunrise to Sunrise directly by clicking here.
Related articles
- Disneyland: Sunrise to Sunrise by TouringPlans author and photographer Tom Bricker (chipandco.com)
- Summer Version of “The Magic, The Memories, and You!” Coming to Walt Disney World Resort (chipandco.com)
Disney Water Parks—Are They Worth It?
Looking for a thrill at Walt Disney World? The Resort’s four theme parks aren’t the only places to satisfy that urge.
Typhoon Lagoon, as legend holds, resulted when disaster struck Placid Palms Resort in the tropical paradise of Safen Sound. Ships were tossed upon mountains, surfboards flung through trees and sharks deposited into the harbor. Left in the wake were an inland sea with breaking waves, a watershed mountain, caves, waterfalls, rivers and slides—a vacationer’s dream adventure.
- Surf Typhoon Lagoon in one of the world’s largest wave-motion pools. For $150 per person, strong swimmers ages 8 and up can learn surfing basics in a 2-1/2 hour session taught by professional instructors from Craig Carroll’s Cocoa Beach Surf.
- For nothing more than Park admission, snorkel the 362,000-gallon saltwater Shark Reef and swim with tropical marine life in a natural aquarium. Swimmers longing for more may rent SAS (Supplied Air Snorkeling) tank systems at an additional charge.
- If you’re just looking for some awesome aqua time, chute down Crush ‘n’ Gusher, the only water coaster in North America with three separate rides off a single tower.
How in the world did a ski resort end up in Florida? Well, they say a freak snow storm blanketed the area awhile back. Alas, just as quickly as the resort sprang up the heat returned, and it all began to melt. But a fun-loving alligator had a solution. He slid down the snowless ski jump, shouting “Yahoooo!” all the way they say, and landed in a pool of runoff. Everyone around followed his lead and so transformed the snowy slopes into the ski-themed Blizzard Beach.
- Plummet from the Summit, an 8-second drop down a 12-story, slightly over vertical flume at 50-60 miles per hour. Instead of catching a wave like at Typhoon Lagoon, here Guests catch some air.
- Scale back up Mount Gushmore or enjoy a leisurely ride on the Chair Lift to access the tamer “green slopes” like Slush Gusher, Snow Stormers, and the racetrack Downhill Double Dipper and Taboggan Racers.
- And when you need a break, catch your breath with a relaxing float along Castaway Creek.
Typhoon Lagoon also offers a lazy river (Castaway Creek), and both water parks feature separate water play areas for the Resort’s littlest Guests as well as lounge areas, snack shacks and, of course, gift shops for whatever else you need.
Are the water parks worth your time and money? I’d say absolutely! If the length of your stay allows, I’d suggest adding the Water Park Fun and More Option to your vacation package. For each day of your ticket, you’ll have access to one of the following:
- Disney’s Blizzard Beach water park
- Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon water park
- DisneyQuest Indoor Interactive Theme Park
- ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex
- a round of golf at Disney’s Oak Trail Golf Course
One-day water park admission is approximately $53 per adult. At $55 for the Water Park & More option, you’re getting a whole lot of bang for the buck.
So go on and have a splashin’ good time!
CHIMPANZEE Crafts and Activities
DisneyNature, the first new Disney-branded film label from the Walt Disney Studios in more than 60 years, will be adding a new reel to their portfolio this Friday. Their first three releases, earth, oceans and African Cats, are among the top four highest-grossing feature-length nature films of all time, and we should expect no less quality production with Chimpanzee. Filmed in the lush forests of Africa, Chimpanzee follows the touching story of an orphaned three-year-old chimp named Oscar and the surprise ally who changes his life forever.
The film swings into theaters on Earth Day, April 20th. See Chimpanzee, save chimpanzees! In effort to protect chimpanzees and their habitats, for every moviegoer who sees Chimpanzee during its opening week (April 20-26, 2012), DisneyNature will make a donatation to the Jane Goodall Institute through the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund. The film’s official website offers several other ways you can get involved and learn more about chimpanzees in the wild.
Free educational resources are available for download. The Chimpanzee Educator’s Guide includes 100 pages of lessons and activities for grades 2 through 6 and is aligned to National Science Education Standards. Topics include animal adaptations, habitats and ecosystems, animal behavior and tool use, animal communication, and ways to make a difference for wildlife worldwide.
Disney Family Fun also offers several crafts and activities kids can make to coincide with the primate theme. Why not get some monkey bread in the oven and make pipe cleaner monkeys while you wait for it to bake?
You will need:
- bumpy pipe cleaner
- regular pipe cleaner
- pom-poms
- hot glue or tacky glue
- googly eyes
What you’ll do:
- To make each one, cut a length of bumpy pipe cleaner (make sure your piece has two bumps) and bend it in half to form the monkey’s legs. Use hot glue or tacky glue to secure two 1-inch pom-poms together, sandwiching the legs and a 9-inch length of regular pipe cleaner (for the arms) between them.
- Glue a third pom-pom in place for a head. Attach googly eyes, small pom-poms for ears, and a tiny pom-pom nose. Add glue to one end of a 6-inch length of regular pipe cleaner and stick it to the back of the monkey for a tail.
- When the glue has dried, bend the arms and the tail into shape.
When you’ve made several, link their arms together to form a chain and dangle them from a shelf or door frame. It’s more fun than a barrel of monkeys!
Related articles
- Disney’s Animal Kingdom “Party for the Planet” Events Celebrates Release of Disneynature’s “Chimpanzee” (jedimouseketeer.blogspot.com)
- Disneynature – See Chimpanzee, Save Chimpanzees (video) (jedimouseketeer.blogspot.com)
Tom Sawyer: the Man, the Myth, the Island
Tom Sawyer: the man, the myth, the island…or the boy, the novel, the attraction.
Samuel Langhorn Clemens, aka Mark Twain, is one of America’s best-known humorists, lecturers and novelists. His The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) launched him to celebrity status, with his subsequent The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) being considered “the Great American Novel.” Mark Twain’s masterfully written colloquial speech and dialect created lively, authentic characters who, it seemed, lived out the action in front of the reader’s own eyes and helped develop and popularize a distinctive American literary genre.
Twain’s Sawyer/Finn books appealed to Walt Disney as they were set in his familiar boyhood home state of Missouri and they spoke of true adventure, something Walt could never resist. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer chronicled the escapades of a kid who was prone to mischief, loved to explore and often found himself in a heap of trouble.
Of Tom Sawyer, Twain wrote, “MOST of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred; one or two were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were schoolmates of mine…Although my book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account, for part of my plan has been to try to pleasantly remind adults of what they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in” (Mark Twain, Hartford, 1876, emphasis mine). I think Tom Sawyer, the book and the character, certainly reminded Walt Disney of what he once was, and it’s no surprise he added an entire island dedicated to those “queer enterprises” of youth to his beloved Disneyland Park in 1956. The attraction was also added to the Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom Frontierland in 1973.
At Tom Sawyer Island, kids can relive the adventures of Tom Sawyer and his pal Huck Finn. Located in the middle of Rivers of America, this lush playground is accessible only by rafts that periodically launch from Tom’s Landing near the entrance to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Here the deepwoods mischief Mark Twain’s characters got into along the banks of the mighty Mississippi River springs to life.
Once ashore, kids can scramble up the hill and explore the old windmill. They can hide from “Injuns” and discover treasure in cool, dark caves. They can man the guns at Fort Langhorn, watch out for river pirates and escape down the tunnel and across the “barrelly” bridge if the enemy gets too close! And if they trek to Tom Sawyer Island first thing in the morning and discover one of the paintbrushes Tom has cleverly hidden in the scrub, they can return it to a Cast Member and receive a special prize. Tom Sawyer Island is a great place for kids to release some energy (and for their parents to reclaim a bit of their youth).
Related articles
- Tips: Tom Sawyer Island (aglassslippervacation.com)
- Wordless Wednesday – Tom Sawyer Island (mydreamsofdisney.com)
Join my Circle on Google+
Plugin by Social Author Bio
