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Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom Discussion Thread

p. 148 - Magic Kingdom Destination D23 news roundup!

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I'm curious to see what they do for rides like the Haunted Mansion and Tower of Terror that have those smaller show rooms before the rides. More so the tower of terror which has that really small pre-show room. Is it possible to just have the lines go straight to the rides? I know it's not ideal for either but I'd rather be able to ride a partial ride than no ride at all.

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Well, not quite. In the original Disneyland version, the stretching room is an elevator, due to lack of space within the railroad track boundaries for the show building. By moving guests down and underneath the railroad tracks, this allows the main part of the ride to occur beyond the railroad tracks, free from space constraints. This same system of moving guests outside the railroad tracks for the main attraction was used two years prior at Disneyland for Pirates of the Caribbean (utilizing 2 drops and a lift hill at the end), was used later on for Indiana Jones Adventure (with its lengthy indoor queue), and was even used for WDW's Space Mountain (with its own lengthy indoor queue). However, returning to the Haunted Mansion, as the WDW version was an opening day attraction, space for the show building was not a problem, so instead the stretching room is a normal room, with the effect achieved by lifting the ceiling and the wall paneling upwards, and not moving the floor downwards. The dark room coupled with the visual cues from the lifting ceiling create the effect that you are moving downwards, when in actuality you aren't moving at all. With that in mind, it's entirely feasible for both doors to the stretching rooms to stay open at WDW, though it would completely ruin the effect. With the Disneyland version, this would be impossible.

 

Source

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Isn’t the stretching room some sort of elevator? I could be wrong but I remember hearing that somewhere.

It isn't a lift in Walt Disney World, but the one in California is as the show building is behind the berm/railroad (ditto Paris)

 

Yes

No

 

(Sorry bootymix96, I somehow missed your post where you had already answered. Nice first post!)

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Well, not quite. In the original Disneyland version, the stretching room is an elevator, due to lack of space within the railroad track boundaries for the show building. By moving guests down and underneath the railroad tracks, this allows the main part of the ride to occur beyond the railroad tracks, free from space constraints. This same system of moving guests outside the railroad tracks for the main attraction was used two years prior at Disneyland for Pirates of the Caribbean (utilizing 2 drops and a lift hill at the end), was used later on for Indiana Jones Adventure (with its lengthy indoor queue), and was even used for WDW's Space Mountain (with its own lengthy indoor queue). However, returning to the Haunted Mansion, as the WDW version was an opening day attraction, space for the show building was not a problem, so instead the stretching room is a normal room, with the effect achieved by lifting the ceiling and the wall paneling upwards, and not moving the floor downwards. The dark room coupled with the visual cues from the lifting ceiling create the effect that you are moving downwards, when in actuality you aren't moving at all. With that in mind, it's entirely feasible for both doors to the stretching rooms to stay open at WDW, though it would completely ruin the effect. With the Disneyland version, this would be impossible.

 

Source

 

Ah, thanks for clearing that up. So it shouldn’t be a problem at Magic Kingdom, but it does make me wonder how they’re going to do it at Disneyland.

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^/^^ As an 'elder DisneyParks geek' of sorts, I remember all of this, and how these attractions came to be.

Learned it through paper magazines, television, and all the "old stuff" that communicated information.

 

But it's so lovely to see it explained by others, who love it just as much as I do.

 

And yours bootymix96, was a very nice and thorough one!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Presented without comment.

 

https://www.cnn.com/travel/amp/disney-splash-mountain-theme-racist-trnd/index.html

 

Disney fans say Splash Mountain, a ride inspired by 'Song of the South,' should be re-themed

 

(CNN) — One of Disney's best-loved rides is based on a film widely considered the studio's most racist.

 

Splash Mountain, a mainstay at both Walt Disney World in Florida and Disneyland in California, stars the animated characters from "Song of the South," the 1946 film long criticized for stereotypes of "spiritual" black men and its seemingly nostalgic view of the antebellum South.

 

Fans want to keep the ride. But they're asking Disney to scrap all mention of the movie.

 

A number of suggestions have cropped up urging Disney to retheme the popular ride. The most widely shared one proposes retooling it for "The Princess and the Frog," the first Disney film to introduce a black princess. Some of them have turned into Change.org petitions.

 

The petitions come at a time when companies -- and the country -- are reckoning with their own biases and, on occasion, racist histories.

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I’ve been saying for a decade now that it’s only a matter of time before this happens. With today’s climate, I think it’s more likely an ever. Even Disney likes to pretend the movie Splash Mountain is based off of doesn’t exist.

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We live in a world where an online petition with very few signatures gets picked up by a major news network because “Hey, this will make people fight in the comments” and now it’s news.

 

Not to mention the short sightedness of the petition to begin with. WDW has the utilidors to maintain thematic integrity. New Orleans/Tiana dont fit into Frontierland. Could move the Country Bears from the Jamboree to re-theme it with if anything.

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The specific re-theme I saw laid out by a cast member suggests just re-theming SM at Disneyland and leaving the original at WDW. The reasoning is that at Disneyland, it would be very easy to expand a PatF theme of the bayou/New Orleans because it can connect to the already-existing New Orleans Square. Whereas MK doesn't have that, so just keep the original. Plus, it seems WDW has become the "keep the original" when it comes to re-themes over the years; Tom Sawyer Island, Swiss Family Treehouse, and Tower of Terror have all kept their original overlays at WDW, while they've received new ones at DLR.

 

And the re-theme idea I read/saw for re-doing Splash Mountain was AMAZING. It would fit in PERFECTLY and not take too much money/effort to transition into.

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Not to mention the short sightedness of the petition to begin with. WDW has the utilidors to maintain thematic integrity. New Orleans/Tiana dont fit into Frontierland.

 

I mean with that argument neither does Song Of The South. Frontierland is themed to be the wild west. Song Of The South is, you know...the south.

 

And the re-theme idea I read/saw for re-doing Splash Mountain was AMAZING. It would fit in PERFECTLY and not take too much money/effort to transition into.

 

I'm sure it's an easy transition as all they'd have to worry about it changing out the animatronics or even just the outward appearance of most of the animatronics. I sure do hope we get a million-dollar Frog to replace the million-dollar Brer Rabbit, though.

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The whole point of calling it and theming it "Splash Mountain" was to incorporate the animated characters on their own without the baggage of the film. If I'm reading correctly, a big sticking point with supporters of the petition is the dialect used by the character voices during the ride, which I don't disagree with.

 

While I adore The Princess and the Frog, that theme doesn't make sense in Magic Kingdom's Frontierland. But, to be fair, neither does Splash Mountain's current theme, so...

 

Like others have said, Disneyland can get away with it because New Orleans Square is in very close proximity to Critter Country. Though, it would require a pretty big reconstruction of the entrance, exit, and queue to align with New Orleans Square. Or, perhaps they could use it as an excuse for just a blanket re-do of Critter Country into something else.

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Not to mention the short sightedness of the petition to begin with. WDW has the utilidors to maintain thematic integrity. New Orleans/Tiana dont fit into Frontierland.

 

I mean with that argument neither does Song Of The South. Frontierland is themed to be the wild west. Song Of The South is, you know...the south.

 

True, didnt think of that lol. But it does fit a little more closely than N.O. That said they are putting a Tiana restaurant at the new DVC lodge instead of French Quarter or Riverside, which would make more sense.

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Uh... this is kind of silly. I mean, there isn't a single human in the ride, so what do they think a new theme would do? I understand that some of a dialect could be considered offensive (though I've not once thought about that), but that should be a simple fix. A comprehensive re-theme with Princess and the Frog animatronics would cost lots of $$$.

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