Mouse Extra

Tom from WDW News Today, a great Disney World news site, has asked me to write the occassional comment for the articles section of his site.  I figured I have enough opinions to spread around, so I accepted.  Today is the debut of my column.  Click here to read it.  If you’d like to discuss it a bit, try the Disney News Network Forums.

The column discusses the recent and future changes coming to the Magic Kingdom.  When all is said and done, the person who has not visited the Kingdom since the 1970’s will barely recognize the place.  Change is coming to this magical place, whether we like it or not.  Can you handle the change?

The Haunted Mansion has reopened, and to very good reviews.  Improvements have been made across the board and the Mansion restored to the type of overwhelming and immersive experience Walt Disney Imagineering has made their name on.

I have not yet been to the Mansion, and won’t until late October.  But perhaps the most fair and respected opinion on the internet is that of John Frost from the Disney Blog.  Take a look at his review.  Here is how he sums it up…

So here we are. The purse strings have been loosened just a bit at the Magic Kingdom. They didn’t have to do this upgrade, but they did and they have done some marvelous work. I think the new Haunted Mansion will be very warmly received by nearly everyone who rides it. If just for the wow factor.

Now I can’t say for certain until I see it myself, but if the new version of the Haunted Mansion is as good as being reported, this just continues a terrific Imagineering hot streak we are smack dab in the middle of, a streak that contains refurbs, new shows, and blockbuster e-tickets.

We urge you to discuss this more and leave your comment below, or feel free to come over to the Disney News Network Forums where we discuss this and many other topics in the Mouse Extra Forums.

Perhaps it is that Americans are perceived as not having their own cuisine.  I mean we are guilty of it ourselves.  We flock to the Chinese place down the street for take-out, the Italian joint in the city for dinner, the Mexican place for lunch, or even the Irish pub for a drink.  But the United States does have a rich history of great food, and that is why it stuns me that among the gastronomical delight called the World Showcase Imagineers never bothered to create a headliner American restaurant.

Instead what we got is nothing but a glorified fast-food joint boringly named the Liberty Inn.  Yes, we do have a great legacy of cuisine in this country, whether it escaped Imagineers in the early 1980’s or not.  But the one culinary legacy of this culture that makes American chefs wear paper bags on their heads when among their international peers is fast-food. 

We could have had a premier New England seafood house, serving Maine lobster, scallops or haddock along with maple syrup desserts among other delicacies.  Imagineers could have chosen to offer guests a butt-kicking Southern barbecue, or even an adventurous Louisiana Creole establishment.  Sure all of these things have their roots in European creations, but that in itself if essentially American.  Instead, Disney gave us the same chicken strips and hamburgers one can get all over Walt Disney World packaged in a dull, cavernous building that calls to mind a gymnasium before any traditional American cultural reflection.

So since this is a review of the Liberty Inn, let me put it this way.  Among all the international delights and amazing tastes that surround the World Showcase and fill you with temptations from all over the world, the American pavilion offers nothing to even consider.  Many Epcot purists have a hard time finding even the smallest mistake in the original incarnation of this park, but I think we can all admit a mistake was made here.  The Liberty Inn is total disappointment in every regard, and in its own unintended way it slaps the American culinary world right in the face.

We urge you to discuss this more and leave your comment below, or feel free to come over to the Disney News Network Forums where we discuss this and many other topics in the Mouse Extra Forums.

Not much is happening today in the Disney universe, so I thought I would take the time to talk about a website you may or may not be aware of.  It’s MouseGuest.com and it is now much, much more than the landing site for a great podcast.

Yes, Mouse Guest Weekly is one of my favorite podcasts.  I’ve appeared on it once before, but I was a regular listener long before they let me shamelessly plug Mouse Extra.  They also have without doubt my favorite t-shirt of any podcast out there.  But what makes this site truly stand head and shoulders above the crowd is that it is now easily the best interactive Walt Disney World explorer on the internet.  By joining up, and there is a fee of a whole two bucks a month, you walk your way through the Magic Kingdom using a beautifully animated map.  You’ll find wonderful ride-thrus of all the major attractions, as well as gorgeous photo galleries.  If you are a Disney World addict, believe me when I tell you this is a one-stop fix.

The only drawback is that there is only the Magic Kingdom available to explore so far.  Every other theme park in the world, and not just Florida, as well as the Disney Cruise Line all have the incredibly teasing “coming soon” label.  Let me just be the first to public scold the folks at Mouse Guest for not getting the other parks up sooner.  I mean honestly, you give us something this good and tease us with the rest??  Are you trying to kill us?

Also on its way is Mouse Guest Travel.  You can book vacation through them already, but it appears a full-service travel website is coming soon.  Where do these guys get the time for all this?

As strange is it may seem, the holiday season is not that far away, and the Mouse is planning on lighting up Cinderella’s Castle for the first time.  We reported back in July of this possibility, but now Disney has a “Backstage Pass” video on their website that shows just how amazing this is going to be.  (Here is the link, though you do have to register to watch.  The second icon on the bottom gets you to the one about the castle, but they are all worth watching.)

I liked the idea from the minute I heard it, but the short glimpse you get in the video of the concept drawing looks even better that I imagined.  I envy those of you lucky enough to get to Disney World this holiday season.  Hopefully these lights will be a yearly event.

Monday September 10 will be “NASA Space Day” at Epcot, as Disney honors the crew of the space shuttle mission STS-118 aboard Endeavor.  There is a great schedule of events throughout the day, including having the astronauts as grand marshals of the Magic Kingdom parade.  Most of the day’s events, however, will be focused around Epcot and Mission: Space.

If you can’t get there, Disney is offering a live webcast.  You can find it here.  This is how the program is described…

The webcast presents highlights of Barbara Morgan’s recognition ceremony and plaque dedication at the Mission: SPACE attraction; an engaging NASA education session focusing on STS-118 crew experiments; and a Q&A session with the entire Endeavour shuttle crew and local school children

Maybe I am making too much of this, but this seems to me like exactly the kind of thing Disney should be doing at Mission: Space and Epcot.  This is exactly the kind of thing Walt Disney would have wanted, and that is something a rarely ever say.  I can’t wait to watch.

We urge you to discuss this more and leave your comment below, or feel free to come over to the Disney News Network Forums where we discuss this and many other topics in the Mouse Extra Forums.