The World Report - Jan 4, 2002

The World Report
Page 4 of 4

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Share a Dream Parade

4. I Would Have Preferred a E Ticket Ride But…Share a Dream Parade and Mickey’s Jammin’ Jungle Parades: Any parade that begins with Julie Andrews welcoming us is ok by me. Despite the obvious synergy with merchandise, the Share a Dream Parade is a nice parade that replaced a rather blah parade. I still think that it would play well at night with fiber optics and special lighting that twinkles when the Pixie Dust is sprinkled. Mickey’s Jammin’ Jungle Parade showed that you could in fact do a good parade at the Animal Kingdom. Great costumes and puppet type floats fit in well with the Animal Kingdoms theme.

3. A Beautiful View With None of the Smell - Animal Kingdom Lodge Opens: One thing Disney continues to do well is hotels (except # 3 under Worst in 2001) and the Animal Kingdom Lodge is a wonderful addition to the resort. Not only do you get to overlook animals from your balcony, but the pool looks like a watering hole out on the savannah. Add to this a beautiful lobby and some great restaurants and the Animal Kingdom Lodge is one of the nicest out of the way resorts on property. In fact, my wife just recommended it to some friends from NYC.

2. We’re Very Sorry, We’ll Try Again - Journey Into Your Imagination Closes: Lets take one of the few classic attractions at EPCOT and gut the building, remove the mascot and put in a show that was incoherent when it opened. Kodak hated it, Eisner hated it, but most importantly the public hated it. Disney quickly conceded the obvious and is now working on a rehab that is supposed to return Figment to the attraction. Let’s pray that this time around that Tony Baxter (one of the Imagineers of the original show) and his team returns the attraction to some of its former glory.

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One Man's Dream

1. The Disney Story 2001 -One Man’s Dream: At last WDW has an attraction that celebrates the creative genius of Walt Disney again. With a wonderful walk through area that looks at the many areas of entertainment that Walt worked on, fantastic models and a great movie that celebrates the life of Walt Disney, Imagineering showed once again that it can create a great attraction without a lot of high tech thrills. A great attraction celebrating a great man.

Honorable Mention

  • Mission:Space is underway: 8 vehicles holding 4 people each is what I am hearing. Anyone else hear anything?
  • Test Track Queue: Finally after standing outside while waiting, Test Track’s queue can now handle FastPass, Standby and Single Riders.
  • Main Street Emporium Expands: While it ruins the side street feel to Main Street, you can now walk straight through on rainy days and it looks nice too.
  • Christmas: Disney always does Christmas well. Nice Decorations and Great Shows.
  • Liquid Soap: Liquid Soap finally appears in all theme park restrooms. It was such a big deal the Orlando Sentinel ran an article about it. (What can I say this is Orlando)

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-- Stephen Halpin

The World Report reports on all aspects of Walt Disney World.

The World Report is not posted on a regular schedule

The opinions expressed by our Stephen Halpin, and all of our columnists, do not necessarily represent the feelings of LaughingPlace.com or any of its employees or advertisers. All speculation and rumors about the future plans of the Walt Disney Company are just that - speculation and rumors - and should be treated as such.

-- Posted January 4, 2002

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