BEYOND THE THEME PARKS

ANITA ANSWER
Archives

8/24/09
--Anita's Mini Blog for 8/24/09
--Space Mountain's Seating Configuration: Has It changed?
--Which Direction Was the Wand Set?
--Booking Accommodations for Six Online?

8/17/09
--A Brief History of Castaway Cay
--Name That Restaurant!
--The Morse Code Message in Spaceship Earth
--Answer to the 8/10 Trivia Question

8/10/09
--What Castle Served as the Inspiration for Cinderella Castle?
--The "Hotel" in the Canada Pavilion
--What About the Original Back Lot Tour?
--Anita's Mini Blog for 8/10/09

8/3/09
-- Anita's 8/3/09 Mini Blog
--What Was This Old Ride?
--Backlot Tour Bet
--Base Tickets and Extra Magic Hours
--Answers to Trivia Questions and Doctor Who Challenge

7/27/09
--Anita's 7/27/09 Mini Blog
--What Was the Name of This Ice Cream Shop?
--Square Footage of the New Treehouses
--When Do the Holiday Decorations Come Down?

7/13/09
--2009 Dates for Epcot's Candlelight Processional
--Using Music's Bus Stops When Staying at Movies?
--How Old Is Too Old for the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique?
--Answer to the June 29 Trivia Question

7/6/09
--A European Trip Blog
--The Difference Between B and C Tickets?
--A Lounge with Live Music?
--No Car, No Grocery Stop. Where to Get Alcohol?

6/1/09
--Where is the Randy Pausch Plaque Located?
--What Was This Old Store in the Studios?
--Rod Serling and the Tower of Terror Pre-Show
--Answer to the May 25 Trivia Question

5/25/09
--Is Christmas Really That Crowded?
--Adult or Child Ticket When Child Turns 10 in the Middle of the Trip?
--Which Was the First Disney Vacation Club Resort to Open?
--Answer to the May 18 Trivia Question

5/18/09
--Will Pirates and the Haunted Mansion Be Closed In June?
--Where Would Anita Stay and Dine?
--What Are Those Stone Things at Epcot's Entrance?
--Answer to the May 4 Trivia Question

5/11/09
5/4/09
--The Mural in the Contemporary
--Showers at Old Key West's Pool
--A Flashing Light above the Blue Bayou Restaurant
--The Wasps' "Sting" in Tough to Be a Bug
--Answer to the April 27 Trivia Question

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Anita Answers

Hi! I'm Anita!

Got a question about Walt Disney World? I probably have the answer! Deb's Unofficial Walt Disney World Information Guide is the most comprehensive guide to the World on the Web, but if you still can't find the information you're looking for by using the Site Map, the Search Function, or the Anita Answer Archives, drop me a line and I'll do my best to find the answer for you. Since there are only 24 hours in a day, I can't answer every email I receive - however, I do read every one and try to answer as many as possible.

Check back weekly and see if your answer is waiting! Meanwhile, I'm All Ears!

Karen writes:

Is it true that the parks that have Extra Magic Hours for Disney Resort guests are actually the more crowded that day? Does it matter if it's the park that opens early vs. the one that stays open late?

Hi Karen!

Yes it is true. If a park has Extra Magic Hour (EMH) in the morning, by the time offsite guests arrive, Disney Resort guests have already been in the parks and on the rides for an hour. Since EMH is only available as a perk to Disney Resort guests and provides a relatively quiet time with short lines, it makes that hour a very attractive time for onsite guests, and many of them make use of the perk. This is particularly true during very busy times like Christmas week. After the EMH morning hour is up, many resort guests tend to stay in the parks, at least for a few hours, causing that park to be busier than the others. Also, if guests have entered using one day/one park tickets, they are committed to staying in that park for the entire day, which also adds to the crowds.

Evening Extra Magic Hours are a bit different. Usually, the park will have normal to slightly higher crowds during the day, but as it approaches dinner time, there is a distinct upturn in the number of guests in the park. Onsite guests begin to arrive at that time in anticipation of the EMH to be held later in the evening, causing the EMH park to be more crowded than the others in the hours before it closes to day guests. Also note that evening EMH are usually more crowded than morning EMH, because they're longer (3 hours vs. 1 hour) and people tend to stay up later rather than rise earlier to get to EMH.

If you wish to avoid these EMH crowd "bulges" try going to a park that had EMH the previous day, since the EMH participants are less likely to return to the same park the next day.

A.A.

Angie writes:

I love reading your column. I have booked a vacation for Summer 2008. I am taking my nephew on his third trip to Disney. He is in a wheelchair and I was curious about something I read.

On AllEars.net it states that Peter Pan's Flight is wheelchair accessible. I was looking on the Disney website travel pages and it states you must be ambulatory to ride that particular ride. He really wants to ride and I was curious which is correct, so I can tell him beforehand if he can ride or not. Thanks for the help and keep up the good work.

Hi Angie!

"Wheelchair Accessible" does not necessarily mean that the attraction has vehicles modified to allow wheelchairs on board. What it means is that guests can get to the loading area via the regular queue or an alternate entrance without leaving their wheelchair.

On certain attractions, usually the older ones such as Peter Pan's Flight, the guest in the wheelchair must be ambulatory enough to get from the load area into the ride vehicle. You didn't mention how old your nephew is, but if he is small enough, you may be able to assist him onto the vehicle. Please do so with great caution, however, as the moving belt may not stop for you. Be sure to speak with a cast member for advice on how to proceed before attempting to board.

Before you go on vacation, it would be a good idea to acquaint yourself with which rides and attractions are wheelchair accessible, have special accommodations for wheelchairs, or require special assistance. AllEars.net's own Deb Wills and Debra Martin Koma have written a fantastic guidebook for travelers with special needs and challenges called "PassPorter's Open Mouse." You can find the book both online at sites such as Amazon.com or in bookstores. Also, be sure to go to the Disneyworld.com website and click on the Guests with Disabilities link at the bottom of the page for more information directly from Disney on how to obtain their free guides for touring the parks with a guest in a wheelchair.

Have a wonderful time planning your trip!

A.A.

Matt writes:

My question is a two-parter. I was doing some research into the history of Pirates of the Caribbean (the ride, not the movie). I found that it was never originally intended to be a part of Walt Disney World, and was put there in place of an attraction the Imagineers had been working on called "Western River Expedition." I tried doing some research on what exactly this attraction was set to contain, but couldn't really find that much on it outside of the fact that it was slated to be an attraction in Frontierland. I would just like some info on it, and would like to know if there is any chance of it ever becoming a future attraction. Thanks!

Hi Matt!

The story of the Western River Expedition attraction is a really interesting piece of Disney theme park history. In order to understand what it was and why it was never built, there's a lot more to explain than one might think. Everybody get a cup of coffee and settle in, because this is going to be a long one. (Yeah, yeah, Ditto and Flo... I know... Ask her what time it is..., etc. etc.)

In the early 1960s, Walt Disney was working on an idea for an indoor theme park outside of St. Louis, and Imagineer Marc Davis' Western River Expedition (WRE) was part of that project. The St. Louis theme park deal fell through, but a short time later, the Walt Disney World Resort was put on the drawing boards. Davis pitched the WRE idea to Roy O. Disney and Dick Irvine for the Florida park, and they gave it the go-ahead for development.

The attraction, as designed by Davis, would have been the largest show building ever built by Imagineering. This huge building would have been located approximately where Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain now sit, and would have defined the western border of Frontierland. The show building would have been cleverly hidden behind a realistic rock facade called Thunder Mesa.

The Western River Expedition ride was to have been located inside the show building and was planned to include over 100 Audio Animatronics, both human and animal. Guests would board boats and float up (!) a waterfall, and then take a trip via the "river" through several scenes of the old west, including desert scenes and a wild time in a frontier town, complete with a shootout and bank robbery. At the end, the boats dropped over another waterfall outside of the building, and then would float back inside to the unload area. The top of the "mesa" would have also been used for attractions such as a runaway mine train ride, trails, and a Native American Indian village. Does any of this sound a little familiar? The entire area was to be the greatest, most ambitious project ever undertaken for a theme park.

So, if it was so great, why wasn't it ever built? Well, that's pretty complicated, but I'll try to explain. The WRE attraction was intended to "out-Pirate" Disneyland's wildly popular Pirates of the Caribbean ride, by including spectacular effects and sophisticated Audio Animatronics. The reasoning went that, since pirates were pretty much already part of the Florida culture, they wouldn't be as popular in a Florida park as something more exotic like cowboys. (One has to wonder why this kind of attitude didn't come into play when they decided to build Disney's California Adventure in California, but I digress.) WRE was green-lighted for Florida, but due to the fact there wasn't a way to get the ambitious project built before WDW's opening day, as well as its large price tag, it was put on the Phase One completion list,. On this list were the attractions under development that would be built in the park's first five years of operation. The land on the western border of Frontierland was actually cleared for the eventual construction of WRE.

Meanwhile, the Florida resort opened, and visitors to the Magic Kingdom began complaining about the lack of a Pirates of the Caribbean attraction in Florida. (Go figure...) They wanted to know why Disneyland had one but Walt Disney World did not, and they were apparently quite cranky about it. Around that time, there was a regime change at the top of the company and Card Walker was now in charge. He heard about the numerous complaints about the missing Pirates, and took action. He told Imagineering to immediately start building a duplicate of the California attraction, but due to lack of funds and a short deadline, the Florida ride became an abbreviated version of the Disneyland original. That, however, is another story for another time.

Back to WRE. With Pirates opening in Florida and becoming a hit, abbreviated or not, coupled with a sudden downturn in tourism due to the oil embargoes and shortages of the mid-1970s, plus other financial and political factors within the Walt Disney Co., the 60 million dollar project was again put on the back burner.

Later on, when the climate improved, Walker and Imagineering were looking for new attractions for the parks. The WRE project was dusted off and revisited. This time (and I am very much over-simplifying what actually happened, due to time and space limits) it was decided to only build the runaway mine train ride, but in Disneyland instead of Florida, and as redesigned by Imagineer Tony Baxter. It eventually came to life as Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and a short time later, a slightly different version of Big Thunder arose in the Magic Kingdom in Florida. This effectively moved the WRE project from the back burner to the bottom shelf of the refrigerator, and is said to be the key factor in Marc Davis' final parting with Disney.

As the WDI legend goes, Tony Baxter had an epiphany while stuck in L.A. traffic one morning and got the idea for Splash Mountain. The attraction would not only use many of the ideas from WRE (Iike dropping over a waterfall), but would also save Marc Davis' brilliant America Sings Audio Animatronics from extinction once they retired the Disneyland show. Splash was then built, first in Disneyland, then in the Magic Kingdom, and this killed WRE once and for all, since many of the individual elements were already in use in the parks.

If you are as big a Disney Geek as I am, you can find pieces, scenes, ideas and the occasional homage to Marc Davis and WRE spread around the parks, sometimes in unlikely places. The buffalo and prairie dog scene in Living with the Land in Epcot's Land Pavilion? That was first envisioned as part of WRE. Some say that the Audio Animatronic figures were built for WRE and used here instead, but others say they are only based on designs from WRE. Either way, they both can trace their roots back to Marc Davis and WRE. Then there's the bank robbery scene in the Great Movie Ride at the Studios. Could Imagineers have gotten inspiration from WRE's bank robbery scene? Next time you're in the parks, look around and see if you can spot some of WRE's other elements.

And now for the coolest piece of WRE history: Back in the early days of the Magic Kingdom, there was a wonderful scale model of WRE on display in the Town Square Exposition Hall. During a redesign of the area in the late 1970s for the Epcot preview center, instead of removing the piece, the model was walled off and eventually forgotten about. When workers were doing another redesign for WDW's 25th birthday celebration in the mid-'90s, the wall was taken down and, lo and behold, there was the forgotten model, with its tiny lights still burning! It is now on permanent display in Walt Disney Imagineering offices in California, still being used as inspiration for new attractions. As Marty Sklar likes to say, a good idea never really disappears at Disney.

OK, everybody wake up! Time for the next question.

A.A.

Suzanne writes:

Hey Anita! I look forward to your column every week!

A recent question about the Buena Vista Palace reminded me of two unanswered "history" questions I had (my favorite kind of questions!).

We made several trips to WDW when I was a small child in the early '80s, and twice stayed at the Dutch Inn. My Dad is sure it was located on what is now Hotel Plaza Boulevard based on its proximity to what is now the Marketplace. Do you know which of the current hotels is on the location of the former Dutch Inn?

Second, I learned that the Downtown Disney area wasn't as new as I thought it was when I found a picture of me as a little girl in what I know as the Marketplace with what I know as Fulton's in the background behind me. I believe at the time the boat was called the Empress Lilly, and we know we ate there, but we weren't sure what kind of place it was. Can you tell me anything about that? And what about the overall area? I know it has had several names -- Lake Buena Vista Marketplace, Disney Village Marketplace -- but I'm not quite sure what it was called when I was there. What kind of shops did it have and was it a popular place to visit?

Thanks for any help. I love learning new things about my favorite place in the world!

Hi Suzanne!

Actually, that's three history questions, but luckily for you, history questions happen to be my favorite subject, and math is not my strong suit, anyway!

Your dad is correct about the former Dutch Inn's location on Hotel Plaza Boulevard. It has gone through a couple of owners and name changes, but it's still there. The Dutch Inn opened in late 1972, and was renamed the Americana Dutch Inn sometime in 1984. In 1989, it became the Grosvenor Resort (sometimes known as the Best Western Grosvenor Resort), and just recently, in September 2007, it underwent a refurbishment and is now called the Regal Sun Resort.

The Empress Lilly Riverboat, named for Lillian Bounds Disney, was considered to be the World's most upscale eatery when it opened in May 1977. There were actually three restaurants: The Empress Room, the Fisherman's Deck and the Steerman's Quarters, each sporting a unique decor and serving a different menu.

The Empress Room was located on the Promenade deck, and was elegantly decorated in the style of Louis XV. The menu was very sophisticated compared to other WDW eateries, and men were required to wear jackets to dine there.

The Steerman's Quarters was located on the Main deck, and was decorated with red upholstery and mahogany. Although named for the crew members who steered the riverboats, a "steerman" can also be someone who works with cattle, so of course this place served steak and prime rib. Very punny?

The Fisherman's Deck shared the Promenade deck with the Empress Room, and was decorated in cream and blue. This is the dining room with the large arched window at the forward of the boat, and served seafood of course.

The Empress Lilly also served a character breakfast (Breakfast a' la Disney), which happened to be the Answer Family's very first character meal, back in 1993. In early 1995, the Empress Lilly ceased operation as a Disney-run restaurant, and reopened in 1996 as Fulton's Crab House, operated by Levy's Restaurants.

The shopping area at what is now Downtown Disney began life in 1975 as the Lake Buena Vista Village. In 1976, it was renamed to Walt Disney World Village, and in 1989 it became the Disney Village Marketplace. With the addition of West Side in 1997, the entire area, including Pleasure Island, was renamed Downtown Disney. At that time, the shopping area became the Downtown Disney Marketplace.

Over the years, the Marketplace has been home to many shops and restaurants, including the original location of Chef Mickey's. Some of the stores included the Character Shop (forerunner of World of Disney) and the Christmas Shop; a photo studio, and a gourmet and wine store.

OK, that's enough for today. This will be on your final exam. (Just kidding!)

A.A.

Taylor writes:

My friend and I were having a friendly argument the other day about the "Center of the World" in Epcot. He says that the center of WDW is in Future World West just outside of The Land in the "bullseye" area of pavement that pays tribute to the great discoveries made over time. I say that it is between Future World and World Showcase, where the original Epcot symbol is inlaid into the ground. Can you help us find out who is correct? Thanks!

Hi Taylor!

If you're speaking of the actual geographic center of Walt Disney World property, neither of these locations is correct. The geographic center is in an undeveloped area of property which is off-limits to guests.

Once upon a time, the Epcot symbol inlaid in the concrete south of the Fountain of Nations was considered to be the ceremonial center of WDW, because Epcot Center was intended to be the "center" of WDW activity. On Epcot's 25th birthday on October 1, 2007, we were lucky enough to get a small taste of what Epcot Center was like back then. These days, the "Center" has been dropped from the park's name and with it went the "Center of the World" designation.

Inventors' Circle, in Future World West, did not exist until the 1999 refurbishment of Epcot in preparation for the Millennium Celebration. As far as I know, it's not the center of anything in particular, it just happens to be concentric circles.

A.A

Ian writes:

I read all your answers to everybody's questions and learn a lot, thanks. We are going to Walt Disney World this winter and heard that Port Orleans French Quarter is closed during that time. Is this true? Thanks!

Hi Ian!

The French Quarter Resort will not be closed; however the themed pool, Doubloon Lagoon, is scheduled to close for maintenance between January 28, 2008, and mid-March, 2008. French Quarter guests may use any of the pools at Port Orleans Riverside during the closure.

Have a great vacation!

A.A.

That's it for this edition!

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