Tuesday night was our whirlwind experience of Disney World, to which neither Jon nor I had been to before. It was an evening-only invite for the "Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party". Our pastor Jeff is a very enthusiastic fan of "the mouse" ha. He was like a kid clapping and doing the Mickey ears with his hands during our bus ride to the park. The real reason Jon wanted to go was to see how crazy Jeff would get about it, ha.. since apparently he talks about it ALL the time.The park is so huge it takes a bus ride, a mono rail and some walking to get up to the front gates. But once there.. Jeff took off with us all keeping up behind him for the rides he thought we should experience:
Haunted Mansion: This ride was a really impressive intro to the detail that Disney's rides really have to them. First of all, the exterior of the place is super cool looking. You walk in and everyone get's "sealed" into this room with the neat ceiling (below) the floor slowly drops you to the bottom level where the actual ride is (a simple coaster where the seats rotate around depending on how you go over each hill). The rest of the ride is a series of technically impressive rooms within this haunted mansion. Jon and I were trying to figure out the tricks of each of them. "I can see the hydraulic actuator!" Jon says about some trick.
I was really impressed with how they did the ghosting effect.. either through a projection onto a "blank" model so that it looks 3 dimensional, or like with the ghost playing the piano and the one where they make it look like there's one sitting with you in the ride - they use actual dummies where you can't see them and have the lighting reflect their images onto glass.. genius! Great ride.Pirates of the Caribbean: Disney World has a lot of those boat ride-through type rides, but they do them really well, with lots of details like movie sets themselves. This one was really impressive.
I liked how they did the animated projection of Davy Jones on a wall of steam that looked like a waterfall (top right) so you're like ahh! don't want to get wet! ...but you don't. The Jack Sparrow character was done pretty well, and relatively realistic.Splash Mountain: This one is the classic boat ride (around the scenes of the Brer Rabbit story) with hills, splashes and the final huge hill, huge drop, huge splash at the end ha.
Jeff told us we'd just get "a little spray in the face" - yeah right Jeff! We got soaked! .. Jon is planning his revenge ha.Buzz Lightyear: This ride is absolutely awesome. It's like combination roller coaster and shooter video came.. with spacey atmosphere and black lights and such.
You have 2 guns per car with score boards and little "Zurg" targets (the yellow circles with the Z in it) are all over the scenes you pass through. You use the laser guns to hit the targets and get as many points as possible. It's pretty challenging...and there's one room with a full ceiling/dome projection of traveling through a galaxy.. whoa!!! very fun. (Yes these images are not ones I took.. it's nearly impossible to be doing this stuff and trying to take non flash photography).Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor: This one was basically just an impressive way for animated characters to interact live with the audience. It was funny, but not super hilarious, ha. Ohh, Jon just told me Jeff wanted us to go through so that Jon could figure out how they did it to tell him about it.
It's basically a means of animating the character with simple motions to match the live audio it's connected with.. there are people walking around with mics to involve the audience with jokes, etc. It was impressive though how smoothly the whole experience worked. That has to be a lot of configuration.Winnie the Pooh: This ride was one of many under our category of "will give you crazy nightmares". The ride itself was pretty simple.. you go around in a honey pot shaped car that smells like crayons, for some reason.
The funnest part of this one was the Tigger room where the car "bounces" on the track (it's a bunch of small hills).Teacups: Also an awesome ride ha.. and I actually have a photo of us on this one:
Click to enlarge.. Jon's making a funny face. We kept trying to change rotational direction on it.. it's quite challenging.. and dizzying.It's A Small World: Okay this boat ride was another creepy, nightmare-inducing experience.. it's basically just the different areas of the world represented with these tiny Precious Moment like characters, ha.
The bottom row shoes a close up of the characters.. and Jon getting his nightmares induced.Thunder Mountain: This is the best ride ever!! Or at least.. the best one during this trip. The coaster looks like a little kiddy train, but goes super fast over hills and around turns and down in dark tunnels and such. The scenery makes you feel like you're in Indiana Jones! We actually rode this one at night (although I have no photos of it).
We were both laughing and going "whoa!!!" uncontrollably.. and decided that when a ride makes you do that, it's gotta be the best.More to come about our trip to Kennedy Space Center...
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