Member Vault Archives - Page 2 of 19

May 21, 2024June 18, 2024

Secrets of the Swan and Dolphin: Surprising Stories from Walt Disney World’s Most Mythologized Hotels

Some Walt Disney World hotels make you feel like you’re down in ole’ New Orleans strolling through bayous and mansions. Some take you to the grand seaside Victorian hotels of yesteryear. Some place you in the Caribbean for a sun-drenched vacation in a colorful village. But only one of Walt Disney World’s hotels is a post-modern abstraction; a geometric icon of architecture and a divisive remnant of ’90s design somehow elevated to timelessness.

Say what you will about The Walt Disney World Swan & Dolphin, but these two unusual sister resorts set around Crescent Lake near EPCOT are captivating; interesting; different. Today, we’re taking a look at the Origin, Architecture, Legends, and Story behind the Swan and Dolphin. Hopefully by the end, whether you love or hate these two-of-a-kind resorts, you’ll appreciate that Walt Disney World could use a little more of their kind of boldness today…

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May 15, 2024March 6, 2025

Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary Forgot to Celebrate Disney World. Here’s Why… And What To Do Next Time.

NOTE: This feature is intended as a bit of a time capsule, written during and about Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary celebration from the perspective of the time when it occurred (in 2020 and 2021). Rather than updating it to change verb tenses and remove assumptions, it’s being preserved in its original state.

Walt Disney World has history. A lot of it. Of course, that’s what living fifty years will do for you!

Walt Disney World started big, and it’s gotten bigger. Over the course of its first five decades, the “Vacation Kingdom of the World” has grown from a ‘70s leisure resort anchored by a “Disneyland East” into a pop culture icon surpassing its older sister. Walt Disney World is practically ingrained in the DNA of the Western World. It’s as American as apple pie; as “middle class” as home ownership; as much a rite of passage as a driver’s license.

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May 13, 2024May 7, 2024

Battle of the Beverages: A Taste Test of Theme Parks’ Must-Sip Signature Specialty Drinks from Butterbeer to Blue Milk

You’ve stumbled on some “magic in the making!” This story is still under development. For now, only Gold and Platinum Members can preview the story while it’s “under construction”…

If you can comfortably do so, consider supporting ad-free, in-depth, clickbait-free theme park storytelling by joining the story at Park Lore! Otherwise, check back soon to read this brand new feature!

If you said two decades ago that the next arms race between Disney and Universal wouldn’t be around new rides, but new drinks, people would’ve called you crazy.

Yet here we are, more than a decade into the era of the “Living Land,” when immersive, cinematic theme park expansions plucked from blockbuster intellectual properties are all the rage. And from Hogsmeade to Avengers Campus; Cars Land to Arendelle; Springfield to New Fantasyland, the race is on to develop new signature retail and dining experiences that’ll convince guests to spend big bucks to “live” in their favorite worlds.

Countless custom-designed specialty drinks have popped up at parks around the globe, each vying to be that must-try $8 impulse buy and selfie star. But which reign supreme? Today, we’ll consider how these “in-universe” beverages fit into the parks – and of course, how they taste – in the ultimate beverage battle. Which drinks will earn our medals? We’ll find out… But let’s start with some honorable mentions.

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.

This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.

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May 8, 2024May 14, 2024

Infinity War or Multiverse? Which of the Floated Avengers E-Tickets for California Adventure Would YOU Greenlight?

It probably won’t surprise you that with over $40 billion in revenue, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is the eighth highest grossing media franchise of all time. Across more than two dozen films, the ever-expanding (though decidedly slowing) pop culture juggernaut of Marvel super heroes is defined by its interconnectedness… and specifically, the landmark, anchor, nexus event crossover films of the Avengers, which have netted nearly $8 billion alone… with at least one more entry (Secret Wars) due for a 2026 release.

That makes it seem strange that when Disney California Adventure’s Avengers Campus opened in 2021, it was without an equally ambitious, epic, culminating, crossover ride themed to the larger Avengers and their franchise-defining fights against apocalyptic threats, instead containing just a Guardians of the Galaxy thrill ride and a Spider-Man family ride. Of course, two distinctly unique Avengers E-Tickets have been announced for this land, though no more than one of them is still in production. Which would you like to ride?

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May 7, 2024July 9, 2024

Galaxy’s Edge Is Getting a Tune-Up… Here’s How Disney is Slowly Transforming Its Billion Dollar Star Wars Land

When Disney officially announced that it was moving forward with the long-anticipated creation of a fully immersive Star Wars land in 2015, it felt like the company might’ve finally found its “Potter Swatter.”

Though Disney had certainly played around with the “Living Land” formula invented by Universal’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter in 2010, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge would be the genre’s height: a land so immersive, so authentic, and so committed to thrusting guests into the Star Wars universe that it would make Hogsmeade look like a county fair.

At a reported cost of around a billion dollars each, the two copies of Galaxy’s Edge (at Disneyland and Disney’s Hollywood Studios) were indeed on a scale never seen before. All-encompassing. “In-universe.” No music. No meet-and-greets. Literally part of the heavily-studied, academic, official Star Wars canon, with its events tethered to a single day on the centuries-spanning timeline. The problem is… well… it didn’t necessarily land.

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May 4, 2024May 8, 2024

From “Netflixland” to “Max World,” Imagined Lineups for Streaming Giants’ Could-Be, Imaginary Theme Parks

When it comes to intellectual property (IP), it’s tough to beat The Walt Disney Company. Not only does Disney have over a century of its own, homemade IPs and definitive fairytale adaptations to tout (everything from Mickey Mouse to Maleficent; The Little Mermaid to Mirabel) but decades of high profile, high-cost acquisitions have armed Disney with priceless character portfolios from ABC, The Muppets, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and 20th Century. It all adds up to a roster of stories, characters, and brands that make Disney the one to beat in the “IP Wars” that power merchandising, streaming, and the box office.

But in the last few decades, Disney’s meteoric acquisitions have been seen and felt in their theme parks, too. Don’t misunderstand. We’re not huge fans of how Disney Parks have gone decades without original rides, or how the Parks seem to be “buckets” meant to collect from Disney + Pixar + Marvel + Star Wars instead of creating new stories all their own… but there’s no question that as a battlefront in the IP Wars, theme parks have become the newest places to see beloved, blockbuster stories come to life…

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March 31, 2024April 10, 2025

The Kong Effect: 11 “New” Disney & Universal Rides That Have Actually Outlived Their “Classic” Predecessors

For almost as long as designers have been adding things to Disney Parks, they’ve been taking things away. In the name of progress, expansion, modernization, changing trends, or funding, sometimes beloved attractions are simply lost to time. As readers of our Lost Legends or our THEN & NOW layout series know, even Walt Disney World’s “blessing of size” doesn’t guarantee that classics are spared from the wrecking ball.

Given that fan-favorites are talked about like the timeless, definitive highlights of Disney Parks, sometimes it can be shocking to discover that… well… time moves on! Here, we’ve collected 9 rides Imagineering fans still tend to think of as mere “replacements” that actually lasted longer than the “classics” they took the place of! Prepare to have your mind blown.

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March 25, 2024May 8, 2024

Lost Animatronics: A Collection of 10 Disney Parks Figures That Were Removed, Retired, or Replaced… and Why

Let’s face it – the overlap of theme park fans and animatronic fans is practically two circles, perfectly overlapped. And why not? For nearly as long as Disney Parks have existed, so have Audio Animatronics – Disney’s patented name for programmable figures whose motion is synchronized to audio (versus simpler, mechanical figures that merely go through mechanical, repeating motion).

Here at Park Lore, we dove deep into our much-shared list of the 25 Best Audio-Animatronics on Earth (as well as Member-exclusive Extra Feature side quests into animatronics that have broken right in front of guests, animatronics you can only find in ride queues, and animatronics that aren’t inside rides at all). We’ve also chronicled the in-depth stories of Lost Legends – industry-shaking attractions that are no longer around. So it simply made sense to find the overlap. Today, we’ll highlight just a few key figures of the countless animatronics that have been lost to time… and why some were for good reason.

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February 4, 2024June 14, 2024

Park Paths: The Histories and Personalities of Disney & Universal Theme Parks As Seen from a New Perspective

“Here you leave today and enter the worlds of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy.” Since 1955, those words have welcomed guests into Disneyland, and their spirit pervades Disney theme parks across the globe. Filled with artistry, history, and memories, each of them is, in some ways, alive, with its own unique personality.

At Park Lore, I’ve been working on a very, very niche personal art project that I’m excited to finally share: a look at the histories and personalities of the theme parks we love… as told by their pathways. Made possible by the support of Park Lore members, each of the hand-drawn illustrations you’ll find below is part mathematical model, part artistic abstraction; colorful lines that would be meaningless to most, but that can be mapped with memories for some! I sure hope they connect with you and inspire you to see each park’s story in a new light…

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January 29, 2024January 29, 2024

Comparing Kingdoms: Diagramming Disney’s Six “Castle Park” Ride Lineups, Exclusives, & Overlaps

There’s nothing quite as distinctly Disney as the “Disneyland-style” theme park. Since Walt’s original magic kingdom opened in 1955, the tenets of a “Castle Park” have been written and rewritten, from Anaheim to Orlando; Tokyo to Paris; Hong Kong to Shanghai.

Here at Park Lore, we explored that evolution in our must-read Park Paths Special Feature, seeing how the histories and personalities of each park can be read in its pathways. That’s probably as close as we can get to comparing the more qualitative aspects of each “Castle Park” – their malleability and rigidity; their revelatory spaces and discovered ones; their naivete and certainty.

So today, we wanted to compare those six sister parks more quantitatively. Luckily, our By-The-Numbers miniseries in Park Lore’s Extras Collection gives us a perfect place to start: their rides (note that as in that feature, we mean ride – not attractions, shows, walkthroughs, etc. which would be far too subjective and cumbersome to include as you’ll see below…).

After many, many, many drafts and attempts to get it just right, we’ve assembled a one-of-a-kind, six-way Venn diagram to see both the shared rides and – just as interestingly – the rides exclusive to one “Castle Park” versus its sisters. We’ll reveal each park’s exclusives one by one below, but if you’re as fascinated by this “Comparing Kingdoms” graphic as we are, you can purchase poster and canvas prints (or tees to give people behind you in line something to study) at Park Lore’s Shop.

This in-depth article is just one entry in Park Lore’s one-of-a-kind Special Features collection, where we explore the threads that connect between rides, parks, and pop culture! From Imagineering’s secret Society of Explorers and Adventurers, to the history of Chuck E. Cheese; from Disney and Universal’s AVENGERS: “Custody War” to the two-part tale of animation’s rebirth in the generation-defining ’90s Disney Renaissance!

Special Features are typically available exclusively for those who support this evolving theme park history project with a monthly Membership. It’s been unlocked for a limited time, but if you enjoy what you read, consider becoming a Park Lore Member for as little as $2 / month!

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