WDW New Rollercoaster: Seven Dwarfs Mine Train Opens May 28, 2014

Heigh-ho! Heigh-ho! Disney’s off to work they go… With the completion of The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train at Disney World’s new Fantasyland, Disney works hard to make sure that the official opening for the new ride will be scheduled as said on May 28, 2014.

Photo by Disney

The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train take guest on a journey into Snow White’s world, it’s a family friendly roller coaster through story and diamonds!

Chris Beatty, the executive director at Walt Disney Imagineering, says “What’s great about working at Imagineering is having some of the Walt Disney DNA instilled in us,” he goes on to show that Walt Disney’s vision has not been lost, “Walt was great with technology and using it in new ways to tell stories, going back and building adventures in brand-new ways”.

Guests will experience a mine train and what it’s like working in the mine with the seven dwarfs.

If you’re going to Walt Disney World any time soon, the ride is located roughly on the spot where 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea once sat, and more recently, Pooh’s Playful Spot.

From the Disney World Parks website, there is an interactive activity while you wait, so don’t forget to experience this too! One of the seven dwarfs, Doc, has set up mining stations and you can do three of the following tasks:

• Jewel Sorting – Follow Doc’s instructions, etched into a nearby plank, and help match jewels by color and shape as they flow down a wooden trough—a.k.a. dozens of touch-screen video displays.
• Jewel Washing – After the jewels are sorted, grab ahold of a musical water spigot and start cleaning. Each spigot plays its own melody—heed Doc’s tips and you may hear a collection of familiar tunes!
• The Vault – Inside the door of the mountain, enter the center of the vault to find a collection of wooden barrels overflowing with glowing stones. Turn each barrel to see the ceiling above you transformed!

Once you’re on board the mine train characters from Snow White will come to life. Have fun! Check out the vid that Disney released:

Comment below your thoughts…

 

“Disney Festival of Fantasy Parade” Debuts at Magic Kingdom Park

Walt Disney World debuted Festival of Fantasy Parade at the Magic Kingdom on Sunday and from what I see.. It looks spectacular and I can only hope it comes to Disneyland in Anaheim.

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“Main Street’s so much bigger here than California too, so when we start designing things it’s really about how do we get the biggest impact, how do we get in a sense the biggest smiles and the biggest crowd reactions,” said Imagineer Steve Davison.

The parade’s development started three years ago with the creation of the concepts and then the planning as well as building.

The score for the Festival of Fantasy Parade is none other than the composer of the score for Mickey’s Soundsational Parade, Mark Hammond (smart move Disney!). I found out that the Magic Kingdom’s sound system is upgraded with better equipment and more zones which means better sound quality.

From what I see, the visuals are so attractive that with the score.. I wish I could experience it.The Imagineers make it so that the parade conveys small stories that are 2 minutes long. The famous characters of many favorites are apparent and you can tell that the Imagineers tried there best to make not one favorite stand out more than the other.

“Alice in Wonderland” nearly became a main feature in the parade. Aurora was also at one time considered to be included in the “Sleeping Beauty” unit, fast asleep, but cut as well. And the “Frozen” characters that do appear in the parade were among the last to be added following due to the success of the film

Guests are encouraged to come back to see the many details that are included within the parade, and who knows, you might find something that you didn’t see before.

And finally here’s the famous Maleficent fire-breathing dragon in the parade…

This Friday: Happy Lunar New Year 2014, Year of the Horse!

Happy Lunar New Year!

I want to wish everyone a Happy Lunar New Year, coming from an Asian background, I wish to accept my culture and enjoy the weekend celebration.

Every year of the Chinese lunar calendar, one of 12 animal symbols of the Chinese zodiac: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Boar are represented. This year is the year of the Horse (馬 午), if you’re born on these years: 2014, 2002, 1990, 1978, 1966, 1954, 1942, 1930, 1918, 1906— it’s your year. I’m told that the horse year is a year of improving oneself, those who are the year of the horse are bright, warm-hearted, intelligent, and energetic.

At Disneyland, the Happy Lunar New Year Celebration begins January 31 – February 2, at Disney California Adventure park from 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. There will be a Chinese dragon dance troupe, lion dancers and Vietnamese and Korean dance groups will join Disney characters like Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Chip ‘n’ Dale, Mulan and Mushu in Paradise Garden for the celebration.

Chinese Mandarin: 新年快乐 (xin nian kuai le) / 新年好 (xin nian hao)

Chinese Cantonese: sun lin fi lok / kung hé fat tsoi

Indonesian: selamat tahun baru

Korean: 새해 복 많이 받으세요 (seh heh bok mani bat uh seyo)

Vietnamese: Chúc Mừng Nǎm Mới / Cung Chúc Tân Niên / Cung Chúc Tân Xuân

Japanese: あけまして　おめでとう　ございます (akemashite omedetô gozaimasu)

This Could Affect You– Disney Creates New Disability Program!!

Beginning next month, Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort no longer allows visitors with disabilities instant access to rides, why? It is all thanks to those who have abused the policy— Disney visitors were able to get guest assistance card to get quicker access to rides, either by entering through exit doors or by bypassing the main lines.

While researching a book, a social researcher, found out that some wealthy park visitors were hiring disabled people to pretend to be family members so they could skip lines.

Why can’t disabled guests show proof of disability and just keep doing what they are doing? Well, confidentiality laws prohibit pertinent questions to be asked, Disney has worked with disability groups, such as Autism Speaks, to develop this new process.

It has been rumored that starting October 9th, guests with a new disability access card will be issued a ticket with a time to enter an attraction, so they don’t have to stay in line– much like a fastpass… but not.

How is it different? Well, FastPasses are issues a limited number per hour for certain attractions, but guests using the new disability card would get a return time based on the actual wait time for the ride.

Disney will release more details of the program as soon as we get closer to October 9th.

UPDATE: Info on the new program can be found on the Disney Parks site at http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/disney-parks-disability-access-service-card-fact-sheet/

 

What do you think of Disney’s new program? Will this affect you? Comment below.

 

Last Lunar New Year Day 2013

On February 11th, 2013 my boyfriend, his sister, her husband, with their baby, and I went to Disney California Adventure (DCA) and Disneyland, I had work so we didn’t reach Disneyland till 3:30pm. I dragged them over to DCA because I knew they had the Lunar New Year celebration going on and that’s my culture! So we were able to catch a bit of the Disney “Limited Time Magic” experience for the Lunar New Year celebration.

Lunar New Year 2013 at DCA next to the Little Mermaid ride.

In the Lunar New Year section there were vendors selling specialty Asian foods, and free Chinese calligraphy.

Free Chinese Calligraphy

I shared my love for these Chinese pork buns and almond cookies with them, they were a lot more open-minded to try it and experience them, which just made me very happy.

Pork Bao (steamed bun with pork meat inside) with some homemade almond cookies.

These are steamed buns with an inside of pork meat sometimes BBQ pork, wrapped in a layer of a white soft bread, there is a bit of a thin layer of glossiness to it.

This just takes me back to my Grandma peeling off the outside layer before eating the bun, because back in Indonesia, the steamed buns were sold in vendor carts and they weren’t always the most sanitary of places to make food, so peeling off the outside layer ensured that all the germs and the handling of food on the outside part was thrown away.

Thanks for celebrating Lunar New Year 2013 with me!!

Gong Xi Fa Cai.

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Gong Xi Fa Cai or Happy Lunar New Year 2013: Year of the Snake!

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

MyDisneyCloud.com is celebrating the Lunar New Year with a giveaway along with several other websites and travel agents on Disney Seasonal Celebrations.

The giveaway prizes range from a Disney gift card, to a beautiful Mulan necklace, and to Mickey Mouse car air fresheners. This is a small giveaway compared to the other ones, but that just means you have a higher chance of winning! Don’t you agree?

The Lunar New Year is an Asian celebration that is a week long, this year it starts on the 10th and ends on the 16th. This is the year of the snake, so if you were born on these years: 1917, 1929, 1941, 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989, 2001, 2013. It’s your year!

Disney World’s New Fantasyland

This Thursday, a new Fantasyland addition will open, where Belle’s Beast and Ariel’s Eric will get their own place to call home. The new Fantasyland is considered the largest expansion in Magic Kingdom history and will include the Dumbo attraction (super-sized), a Little Mermaid ride, the “Beauty and the Beast Restaurant” and a Snow White adventure.

Phil Holmes, vice president of the Magic Kingdom Park says

“We’re blessed in Florida, that Walt’s original vision was to have all the land these dreams can hold.”

Thank you Disney and their engineers who have created a way to make Cinderella’s castle to look like another home in Fantasyland. Guests will be able to experience the life within the films of Little Mermaid, and Beauty and the Beast with the ability to walk on the short of Prince Erik’s world and enter Beast’s castle.

New Fantasyland already had a soft opening and the employees and special guests were stunned at the attention to detail each location held.

At Gaston’s tavern from Beauty and the Beast guests were able to take in the antler chandelier and taste LeFou’s Brew, an apple-based drink that boasts a light coconut foam head, in a stein cup (non-alcoholic). Inside Beast’s castle, guests could dine where Belle and Beast danced.

The soft opening for guests were charted, so they can share their experience to the Disney employees, Holmes explains the reason,

“We invited our cast to experience it, they’re our best advocates and best critics”

To Holmes, surprise, it was amazing— the cast and guests were very pleased at the extravagant similarities that Disney has created from the animated world to the physical world.

Disney addressed the long wait lines by creating interactive areas to give guests something to do while waiting. In the Dumbo’s ride, Disney created a Storybook Circus where kids are welcomed to play while their parents wait with a beeper to alert them when it’s time to go on the ride.

There’s also the Fast Pass that guests are most familiar with, where they have certain times to come back to the ride and decreases the wait time.

On the outskirts of the “Be Our Guest Restaurant,” Maurice’s cottage and “Enchanted Tales with Belle,” a storytelling experience where guests go to the Beast’s library and help with some great tales.

In Fantasyland there is also the “Under the Sea- Journey of the Little Mermaid,” guests ride in shells and experience Ariel’s adventures, much like the attraction that opened earlier at California Adventure in Anaheim. What are the differences between the two? Well adjustments that were made in the Disney California Adventure (DCA) park’s “Under the Sea– Journey of the Little Mermaid” ride, Disney World was able to built those adjustments in and also incorporate the characters’ seaside home whereas DCA is inside a building.

It won’t be too soon as the vice president says that the new Fantasyland will include a Princess Fairytale Hall where fans can meet all of the princesses and will also have the long awaited “The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train” where guests will be on a roller coaster ride through Snow White’s friends mining train.

Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho it’s off to Disney World we go!