Mouse Extra

This morning’s Orlando Sentinel has a terrific report on the soon to be opened and remade Spaceship Earth.  They also have a nice two minute video of some behind-the-scenes- construction, but don’t get too excited.  The video is very careful not to show anything new.

The report, however, does offer just a bit more details of the upcoming changes and some of the new things that have been added…

Fresh content is most apparent as riders near the top of the sphere. New sets representing the invention of the computer mainframe and the garage where the personal computer was developed lead to the darkened, downward second half of the experience.

As the cars coast down the rail, passengers answer seven questions about their future on a touch screen. (Do you prefer the journey or the destination? While away, do you worry more about your home or your pet?)

Answers are melded into a customized piece of retro-yet-futuristic cartoon for each row.

Other changes blend old and new. The revised living room steers attention to the 1969 moon landing on television — featuring reports from Walter Cronkite, a former narrator of Spaceship Earth.

Some of the recent refurbishment projects, such as the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Carribean, were mostly upgrades and only a very few additions.  But this seems to be more along the lines of the Gran Fiesta Tour, without the name change.  At first I thought this was going to be a new corporate message at the end and perhaps some interactive features on the ride vehicles.  But this information certainly leads us to believe it will be much, much more involved than that.  Especially since the entire decent sequence is now different.  That is a good chunk of the ride.