Walt Disney World Archives - Page 5 of 10

July 4, 2020July 5, 2020

8-Bit Magic: Throwback Video Games That Bring Disney Parks into Your Living Room

Whether we like it or not, there are simply times when going to Walt Disney World or Disneyland is downright impossible. As finances, jobs, and families shift, sometimes things just come up! Sure, we might not have expected a global pandemic to be the cause, but the point remains: when you can’t go to Disney Parks, why not bring Disney Parks to you?

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.

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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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June 26, 2020June 26, 2020

Disney Don’ts: 8 Things We BEG You Not to Do at Disney Parks

Think back to when you were in Kindergarten and first grade… In those early, early years, your “grades” for math and reading and science were just “checks” and “check-plusses,” and the real things that mattered on your report card were things like “citizenship,” “character,” and “attitude.” But all that sharing, turn-taking, and emotional growth you were supposed to practice in Kindergarten is put to the test the moment you step into a Disney Park.

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June 22, 2020February 21, 2021

Stitch’s Great Escape!: The Animation Invasion That Made Disney World’s “Worst Attraction Ever”

Disney and disaster. Two words that don’t often go together… and yet, our Declassified Disasters collection has traced the surprising stories of several of Disney’s pitifully-bad overlays, reimaginings, and replacements whose stories are too surprising to be forgotten…

But when you ask Imagineering fans, there’s one single attraction that most agree stands the test of time as the worst that Walt Disney World has ever hosted… Avoided by guests, skipped by fans, and mercilessly mocked by all, this can only be the story of the Magic Kingdom menace that is Stitch’s Great Escape!

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June 21, 2020May 24, 2022

Journey Into YOUR Imagination: Imagineering’s Unimaginative Reimagining of “Imagination!”

One little spark of inspiration is at the heart of all creation. A dream can be a dream-come-true with just that spark from me and you! Alight with wonder, these words were a celebration of optimism, creativity, and joy when they were sung by heroes of EPCOT Center’s early years – the enigmatic Dreamfinder and his imaginative companion, Figment. But when the very creativity this EPCOT classic set out to inspire fell by the wayside, something truly disastrous emerged…

Today, we want to dive deep into the story of a ride that was already loved by a generation and celebrated as a living example of Imagineering’s best… until Disney (literally) tore out its character resulting in one of the most despised and (thankfully) short-lived Disney attractions ever.

It can only be the story behind Epcot’s depressingly unimaginitive Journey into Your Imagination. Although it was only open for two years, the infamy of this debilitating disaster has made it a laughing stock, even for those who never had the chance to see it in person. Short-lived, short-sighted, and plain-old shortened, this dark ride proved to be more of a death than a rebirth.

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June 20, 2020July 13, 2020

“Under New Management”: How Imagineers Temporarily Plucked Over a Walt Disney Original

But if you ask many Imagineering insiders, one attraction stands among the pantheon of tone-deaf “upgrades.” An attraction with crude jokes, regrettable humor, and dated 90s style already spells disaster.

Now imagine that these unfortunate ingredients were forced into a beloved classic dating back to Walt himself – one of the few Walt Disney World attractions to bear his direct influence. It may sound unlikely, but just ask those who experienced The Enchanted Tiki Room: Under New Management, the too-long-lived overlay of a timeless classic. Why did this happen? How? Today, we’ll find out. But of course, there’s just one place to start.

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June 18, 2020December 18, 2021

GAME OVER: Disney’s Failed Downtown Domination and the Death of DisneyQuest

Wouldn’t it be nice to take a break from the everyday and escape to the magic of Disney? To sail the high seas with pirates, encounter extraterrorestrial creatures, and blast baddies with Buzz Lightyear? Millions of visitors flock to Disneyland and Walt Disney World every year, but the flight! The rental car! The hotel room! Those priceless experiences sure do come at a steep price…

But what if instead of needing to move heaven and earth to bring your family and friends to Disney’s theme parks, Disney brought its theme parks to you? What if every metropolitan area across the country could host its own Disney theme park…? One that would redefine Disney’s role in regional entertainment, connect millions of guests to its brand, and serve as an evolving testing grounds for the technologies of a new millennium?

DisneyQuest started its life as a radical new concept in what “Disney” could mean – a 21st century experiment in mass-producing modular, urban theme park experiences that made their cutting edge technologies the starring act. Two decades later, it ended its life as an abandoned arcade, left to rot in plain sight. The story of Disney’s too-long-lived “indoor, interactive theme park” is as weird as the concept itself: a ’90s time capsule of a “so-bad-it’s-good” experiment gone awry.

DisneyQuest was – by most accounts – a failure. Worse, its decaying corpse remained, looming over Downtown Disney (and criminally, still charging admission) for decades. Yet somehow, this strange sanctum of digital experiences had a hypnotic hold on ’90s kids, who hold the mystery of DisneyQuest as a formative memory. What awaited within the big blue box rising over Downtown Disney’s electric West Side? Plug in and let’s explore…

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June 17, 2020February 3, 2021

The DINO-RAMA Dilemma: A Dig Into (and Defense of) Animal Kingdom’s Dinoland Fair

“Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better, but the frog dies in the process.” – E.B. White

If you ask Imagineers or executives, story is what’s at the heart of Disney today, best embodied by its theme parks. And it’s true that the scale and scope of Imagineering in the 21st century – largely bolstered by story – had grown beyond imagination, yielding an era of “Living Lands” supported by massive mythologies and built-out worlds. Story directs the food, characters, and even souvenirs of Hogsmeade, Batuu, Pandora, and beyond…

Yet for all the deeply-rooted environmental-and-atmospheric stories unfolding in the “Living Lands” admired today, story is also the foundation of – and possibly, the fault in – a project often ranked among “the worst Disney Parks land ever“: Chester & Hester’s Dino-Rama. Today, we’ll dig deep into this cringe-worthy carnival to prove once and for all that there’s more than meets the eye to this primeval parking lot fair…

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June 17, 2020May 23, 2023

The Backstage Studio Tour: Behind the Screens of the Death of the Disney-MGM Studios

Not every attraction is destined for greatness. Not every attraction stands the test of time. We’ve seen tone-deaf “upgrades,” character overlays, fried technologies, and outright embarassments turn fan-favorites into Declassified Disasters.

But even standing aside unfortunate disasters like Stitch’s Great Escape, DisneyQuest, and the Rocket Rods, there may be no attraction on Earth that serves as a bigger symbol of an entire park’s gradual decline in concept and quality than the Backstage Studio Tour – the multi-hour mega-attraction meant to headline the Disney-MGM Studios that signalled its downfall instead.

In fact, the 25-year life of this doomed attraction mirrors the unthinkable reality faced by Disney’s designers: their studio park was not going to survive. Today, we’ll go backstage on the Backstage Studio Tour to see its lofty ambitions… and to see how its decline mirrors the abandonment of the park’s purpose. Even Disney’s most eager fans may be surprised at the tumultuous history of this disastrous ride…

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June 17, 2020August 16, 2021

Inside the Grid: Programming TRON Lightcycle Power Run and its Upload to Magic Kingdom

It’s not every day that a ride revolutionizes an entire resort… but that just may be on the horizon at Walt Disney World thanks to a controversial new ride that’s already thrilling guests on the other side of the planet… Technologically cutting-edge, this 21st century coaster finally brings to life a fan-favorite, cult classic intellectual property, and in the form of its own Tomorrowland E-Ticket. The question is, will it be worth the wait?

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June 15, 2020August 4, 2021

The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror: Beyond the Fifth Dimension in the Hollywood Tower Hotel

You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound; a dimension of sight; a dimension of mind. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas; you’ve just crossed over into… The Twilight Zone.

Looming over the movie palaces and marketplaces of Sunset Blvd. stands a lost icon; the lightning-scarred shell of the once-glamorous Hollywood Tower Hotel. Its neon sign sparking, this decripid, imposing tower may not look like a beacon for the showbusiness elite, but something is indeed about to happen that will change all that.

Though guests may have quickly abandoned this supernaturally haunted hotel on Halloween Night, 1939, a new generation of visitors flock to its misty grounds today, eager to take on one of the most spectacular Modern Marvels in all of Disney Parks history.

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