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 Park News - (6/22/10) MouseSteps takes a peek into the Studios this week to see what’s new… along with looking over all the new Marvel based merchandise.
(6/9/10) Want to know what it’s like to be a participant in the American Idol Experience show? Check out this multi-part report on what it’s like from someone who did it, posted to Coaster Radio.
(6/1/10) A new photo update from the Studios can be seen this week at Orlando Parks News. You can also see more pictures of C3P0 at MouseSteps, where I’m told that the figure is actually not a Disney owned creation, but an outside creation that has the blessings of George Lucas to represent C3P0 at official Star Wars events, much like all the Storm/Clone Troopers in the 501st.
(5/31/10) Disney’s Hollywood Studios had a new surprise for guests this past weekend… the latest Living Character creation appeared at Star Wars Weekends as a fully interactive C3P0. You can find photos as well as a link to a video of him in action at MouseSteps.
(5/26/10) It’s been confirmed to us that the new Dinosaur themed game has been added to Toy Story Mania, replacing the Bo-Peep Dart Game near the start of the ride. Apparently new characters and items have been added here and there to most of the other games as well, so I imagine there are new little Easter eggs here and there to find now. Also a new photo update from the Star Wars Weekends festivities can be found over at MouseSteps.
(5/24/10) Star Wars Weekends are in full “force” at the Studios right now and we’ve got a link to pictures from the event posted to Orlando United. Time to get your inner-geek on and check out all the cool costumed characters. The popular Dance-Off with the Star Wars Stars was back with a new edition… and so far I’ve found videos on YouTube showing off Darth Vader getting his groove on at the end as usual as well as Boba Fett dancing to Lady Gaga and Michael Jackson and many more. Great fun and laughs to be had.
(5/11/10) Stitch Kingdom has posted several new pictures of the new Lotso character from Toy Story 3 added to both a meet & greet area as well as in the Block Party Bash parade.
(5/10/10) If you’ve looking for the characters from UP, they are going to be harder to find now since their official Meet & Greet area in the Animation Tour building has now been removed to make way for a new Toy Story 3 character area.
(5/7/10) Disney will be throwing a little going away party for Star Tours on August 14th called Last Tour to Endor. In addition to last rides all night on Star Tours, you can check out special Star Wars themed shows, the “Death Star Disco” and more. It will cost you though… tickets are $75.
(5/5/10) A jury has ruled that Disney’s Tower of Terror ride can not be held as the cause of a stroke suffered by an 80 year old man 3 weeks after riding it.
(4/29/10) Disney has confirmed that a new themed game featuring Toy Story 3 characters will be added into the Toy Story Mania ride this summer. The new game will be called Rex & Trixie’s Dino Darts and it will replace Bo Peeps Baaa-loon Pop game in May. Also new in the parks on May 9th will be a chance to meet Lotso from Toy Story 3 as a new in park character at Disney’s California Adventure and WDW’s Hollywood Studios.
(4/26/10) A general photo update from Disney’s Hollywood Studios has been posted to Orlando Theme Park News this week. It’s also worth mentioned that currently MuppetVision 3D is closed until mid-May for a major theater renovation and technical upgrade. I can only assume this will include the Digital 3D upgrade that was announced during the D23 Expo last fall. At the time they also mentioned a new pre-show experience as well. Once it reopens, Rock ‘n Roller Coaster will also go down for a short rehab as well. You can see the currently posted schedules below.
(4/15/10) Disney’s Tower of Terror attraction is currently defending itself in a lawsuit claiming that the typical thrills one experiences on the ride could cause harm to normally healthy riders. It seems an 80 year old man suffered a stoke a few weeks after riding the Tower… and is blaming it on the ride. Of course this all happened 12 years ago… and it’s taken this long to come to trial it seems.
Ride Rehabs - The following information is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate.
Toy Story Mania – 8/16/10 through 8/28/10
One Man’s Dream – 8/16/10 through 11/2/10
Star Tours - 9/8/10 through May 2011
2010 - Twilight Zone: Tower of Terror Update - (6/8/10) I’ve got a bit of a **SPOILER ALERT** about the new Tower of Terror drop sequence running through August 14th. From what I’m told the new changes really kick off in the 5th Dimension room, which has been altered to have a new star field effect on either side of the ride, along with a new projection effect on the “door” to the drop shaft.
From here the darkness will “split” and you’ll slowly enter the drop shaft as normal where you will be greeted by the return of the “dead end wall” effect… not seen since the Tower of Terror 2 I believe. This was a momentary section of the ride where dim lights would come up and you would be staring at the barren brick wall of the shaft for a split second before taking a partial plunge. The shaft is now said to feature some new audio tracks, several full length tower drops, and a new “green glow” effect at the top when the doors open to look outside.
(6/5/10) Remember that new drop profile that was promised to open this year at the Studios? Apparently they began testing it on guests yesterday, thought not all of the new effects were up and running just yet. CM Previews are said to be taking place on Monday.
So what can you expect from the newest drop program on the Tower of Terror? Well it seems that for the summer the ride will return to only run this one new drop profile program… instead of the previously used random selection of four possible programs. After the summer… it isn’t quite clear if the new program will vanish and the four will come back, or if they can add the new program into the mix and have 5 possible programs instead. Otherwise, I don’t have too many details other than that some little things and some very obvious things will be changing at the Tower to go along with the new program. One possible rumor involved something to do with having green smoke billowing out from the tower’s elevator shafts… leaking out into the sky whenever the doors at the top would open.
(2/24/10) I’m told that the new drop program and effects going into the Tower of Terror are likely to be in place in time to open around Memorial Day weekend if all goes well. Think of it as Disney’s little “Welcome to Orlando” gift to Harry Potter.
(2/11/10) During an announcement late yesterday, Walt Disney World announced that the popular Tower of Terror would finally get another upgrade this summer. In addition to having some new special effects added to the experience, it seems at least one new drop profile will be added to the mix as well.
2011 - Star Tours 2 - Confirmed - (6/23/10) According to Stitch Kingdom the dates posted by MousePlanet for the opening of Star Tours 2 are all off by one day and should be May 10th at Disneyland and May 17th at WDW.
(6/22/10) According to Mouse Planet, May 16th has been set as the opening day for Star Tours 2 at Walt Disney World. Star Tours will open about a week earlier in Disneyland first however on May 9th. These are tentative date placeholders however, don’t plan any trips by them as they probably wont even be close to knowing the exact opening dates until we get closer to Spring Break 2011.
(6/14/10) Disney issued some new details about Star Tours 2 on Friday, revealing that the new version of the ride will stop into many famous Star Wars galaxy locations. New artwork showing off a StarSpeeder 1000 flying over the Coruscant cityscape (below) was shown as just one of the new locations.
(5/14/10) Disney confirmed the official closing dates for Star Tours at Disneyland and  Walt Disney World. The original Star Tours at Disneyland will indeed close earlier than expected on July 27th. Meanwhile the Florida version at Disney’s Hollywood Studios theme park will close forever on September 8th.
(4/2/10) Screamscape sources tell us that Star Tours is now slated to close for good by September 8th… and it will remain closed until May 20th, 2011 when it reopens as Star Tours 2.
(12/7/09) The official Star Wars Celebration V convention has made the announcement that they will hold the event in Orlando from August 12-15th, 2010. The timing is very interesting, as this seems to be just before Disney’s closes down Star Tours forever, to begin the transformation until Star Tours II. While no solid details have been announced yet, I would think it safe to assume some kind of special event at the ride would likely take place for them. While it was announced that the Disneyland version of Star Tours would close in October 2010, I wouldn’t put it past Disney to let the Star Wars Celebration V event group possibly be the “last riders” on their version of Star Tours... if they opted to close it a bit earlier than the Disneyland version.
(9/14/09) Disney confirms lots of goodies for a theme parks over the weekend. For starters Star Tours 2 is now OFFICIAL and will be departing from Disneyland and Disney’s Hollywood Studios in 2011. The all new version of Star Tours will be in 3D this time and include a very upgraded projection system as well as all new in-cabin special effects. They also hinted at the ability to alter the ride film as well, which has long been rumored that many alternate beginning, middle and end action sequences may be created which can be mixed together in new ways to create a wide assortment of ride possibilities, allowing Star Tours II to possibly be different every time you ride it. Star Tours as we know it will close in October 2010 so the transformation can begin. In the meantime, checkout the announce ment video below which is quite funny and has some interaction between Darth Vader and Jay Rasulo. So far all the preview footage shown only shows Pod Racing on Tattooine, but the ride may involve much more than that. A better video clip of the Pod Racing segment is in the second video, along with concept artwork that confirms that you will indeed still be taking a ride in an official Star Tours Starspeeder.
(3/21/09) What a difference six months makes as it looks like the Star Tours 2 project has been delayed until 2011 according to an update at MiceAge from a few weeks ago. However, shortly after that article was posted, I was contacted by one of my sources who reported that the story about the delay was old news leftover from last summer. With everyone in fear of losing their jobs these days, I’m told that the Star Tours 2 project was brought back out of the closet and is being worked on once again to prove that the department staff is needed because they are still in the middle of a major project.
While there is no solid timeline set for it yet, there are some issues going on between Disneyland and Disney World management over this new attraction. Disneyland wants the full fledged, crank the knob up to 11, full of new in-cabin special effects version of Star Tours 2. Orlando on the other hand, always ready to snip away at attraction budgets, is asking for a more bare-bones, no-frills version, and to reuse as much of what’s already installed as possible version. The funny part is that in an effort to push this thing along, both may get their wish, with Orlando being willing to put in the low-budget version while Disneyland installs a version of many cool new effects. What could help or hurt the scheduling here however is just how willing the Oriental Land Company is to get involved in the project as well, providing additional cost-sharing capital to the project which would help them all move into production more quickly.
2012/2013- Monsters Inc. Coaster - Rumor - (11/23/09) While we don’t have too much to share on the subject right now, I’m told that a Monsters Inc. themed dark coaster ride is still in the long term planning for the Disney Studios park. However, I’ve been told not to expect to hear about any real progress being made on the project until Star Tours 2 is close to being finished. At that point they will likely make the call on if they will give the green light to Monsters or come up with another project instead.
(7/10/09) Honestly I’m not sure what to believe anymore, because the Monster’s Inc. themed coaster project proposed for the Studios park seems to get approved and then put on hold again more times that I can count. Numerous coaster companies and different styles were apparently looked at for proposed ride but the last known coaster style to be locked in was to be a Vekoma Family Inverted style coaster… but with an entirely new restraint system similar to what was installed on the Carolina Cobra at Carowinds this year.
(1/5/09) According to a Screamscape source the big push to get started on the Monsters Inc. coaster was suddenly put on hold for the time being, even though they were previously so hot to get it started. According to today’s update over at Jim Hill Media, they claim that Disney has put the project on hold until they can find a sponsor for the attraction to help fund part of it, rather that just fund the entire thing by themselves.
(11/24/08) Sources tell us that the remaining empty soundstage next to Midway Mania has been “cleaned out” recently to make way for the pending new thrill ride. While Monsters Inc. is still the popular choice in the rumor mill for this rumored indoor coaster ride, we’ve rumors that an Incredibles themed concept has also made the rounds. More on this when I find out.
(9/11/08) According to one of our readers, that rumored new Monsters themed coaster is still in development and may end up with name along the lines of, “Monsters Inc. Door Vaulter”. I’m going to hope they put some polish on that name and work on it a bit more before they make any kind of announcement. The site is still the same, with the suspended coaster project going into the soundstage area to the left of Toy Story Mania building, which means that they may have to take the roof off that building to accommodate the height of the coaster system most likely. Of course until Disney is ready to pull the trigger and drop the budget payload into the right accounts, nothing is going to happen just yet.
(7/22/08) According to the latest report from Jim Hill Media the Pixar themed coaster project is back on again for 2011 now. The good news this time is that it may be a much bigger and better ride than the old idea of cloning Crush’s Coaster with a new theme. According to the article, the winning concept is actually a new inverted coaster concept that will recreate the “hanging doors” theme from Monsters Inc. The idea is that the coaster will run through the huge door storage area as seen in the film, which has been installed with numerous large yellow scream/laugh energy storage canisters. Other fun ideas also mentioned include retheming the Honey I Shrunk The Kids play area to have a new A Bugs Life theme in the near future as well.
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard about a Monsters Inc inverted or suspended coaster idea, but the last time around it seemed like management was more interested in the more family friendly spinning coaster design used for Crush’s Coaster in Paris. Of course it was also a cheaper and smaller alterative to what was pitched for the Monster’s Inc themed coaster which was aimed at being quite a bit more thrilling. Of course the idea of a Monsters Inc ride to capture coaster ride’s screams also goes back to a proposed dark ride concept that I believe was first pitched for Disney’s California Adventure in Paradise Pier. The idea was to place an inverted dark ride system (similar to Peter Pan) in a building under and behind the park’s California Screamin’ coaster (right where Toy Story Mania is now) that would serve as a giant energy collector for the Monster world by harvesting all those screams from the coaster above. Right now I’m just going to cross my fingers and hope that this latest Monsters Inc. ride concept gets the green light.
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