Mouse Extra

As I crossed over a bridge and back down a set of stairs onto the loading platform of the brand new Toy Story Midway Mania at Disney’s Hollywood Studios I was immediately struck by how slow the loading process was.  The comparison has often been made between this attraction and the Buzz Lightyear attraction at the Magic Kingdom.  In most respects Toy Story Midway Mania is far superior, but in this aspect it falls way short.    However, as you go through the game itself it is easy to understand why this process is slow.

The vehicle looks like a very traditional Disney dark ride vehicle, only it has two riders facing one way and two facing the opposite way.  There is an inexplicable lap bar along with a shooter which has a ball on a string as the trigger and a video screen between the two riders.  My wife and I both agree the string-thing is prime to be a maintenance headache for many years to come and will most likely be replaced eventually.

As your car takes you inside what the sign above calls the “Midway Games Playset”, the games begin.  Unlike Buzz Lightyear, there are multiple games and they all take place on a video screen.  Basically it is a series of 3-D video games, all of which involve shooting something at a target and are not very different from each other.  There are no audio-animatronics or anything not on the screens of any significance or even noticeable as you pass through.  But the games themselves are high energy, fast paced and pretty fun.  There is also some of the same Disney 3-D tricks employed here that you find in most of the parks’ films.  For instance, when you are shooting bottles you may get a spray of water, or you might feel a blast of air when you hit a balloon.  But believe it or not, the game is some quick and intense that you hardly even notice these things.

Each game is timed, and after it finishes your score is tallied on the screen in front of you.  One nice touch is that you also get to see your accuracy percentage.  This gives an added element to the competition.    Simply firing off your shooter as fast as possible might mean you score terribly on the accuracy scale.  This actually makes you slow down and aim more carefully thus paying more attention to what is going on and not just peppering the screen with as much shot as you can.  Imagineers also threw in a great little “practice round” if your vehicle is delayed.  Rather than staring a blank screen while sitting in a holding pattern, the game continues to play, only without counting points.

After the games are completed you pass a screen that shows the month’s best scores as well as the top three scores of the day.  Getting on this screen is certainly going to be a goal of many who come to experience this attraction.  It is a great way to up the interactive and competitive angles of the ride.

My overall impression of Toy Story Midway Mania is a positive one.  The queue is terrific.  The games are fun and exciting while being simple enough for even the most video game illiterate to be competitive.  The 3-D effects are fine enough, but they certainly do not wow you.  However this attraction is about the competition and not the effects so that doesn’t really matter much.  They do the job just fine.

I do not think this going to be a long term gate-busting attraction.  It simply is not a super “e-ticket” like Expedition Everest or Soarin’.  It is, however, a great addition to Disney’s Hollywood Studios and is hopefully just the beginning of more exciting things to come at the Pixar Studios section of the park.

Saturday morning my wife and I stood outside Disney’s Hollywood Studios waiting for the rope to drop on what was a mad dash to the new Pixar Studios section of Disney’s Hollywood Studios.   It turned out to be a really good idea to get there early, because only 1 hour into the Annual Passholder and DVC member preview of the new Toy Story Midway Mania the wait time was reported by cast members to be around two hours.  But from my experience on this new attraction, which was certainly a positive one, I don’t expect two hours to be the norm in the future.

First, notice that I called it “Toy Story Midway Mania” and not “Toy Story Mania”.  This is because of some very bizarre confusion going on at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.  All of the marketing Disney is doing calls it Toy Story Mania.  Even the guide map uses that title, but from the picture above you can clearly see it is actually called “Toy Story Midway Mania”?  What is the purpose of the peculiarity?  Your guess is as good as mine.

The exterior of the building is themed to look like a real working, and also aesthetically boring, studio.  The theme is also somewhat jumbled, because this rather dull looking studio building is also littered with toys, like monkeys and green army men.   These same items are used in the queue area, so is this a studio or a toy chest?  One or the other would be much better than what appears now to be a thrown together mess.

The queue itself is really well done, and fits in nicely with the recent Disney World tradition of fun and immersive queues.  I was told that this was supposed to be like you were under the bed of Andy, the boy who owned all our favorite characters from the Toy Story films.  But it really feels more like being inside a toy chest.  Either way, it features brand name nostalgic games and toys, as well as Andy’s own drawings that make great conversations pieces.  It is also so packed full of so much eye candy that you can’t possibly see it all.

But the star of this area is Mr. Potato head.  He is a large and beautifully fluid audio-animatronics character that entertains the waiting crowd with jokes and songs.  Of all the audio-animatronics used in queues, he is the best.  It was reported that he would be interactive and even talk directly to guests like Crush does at Turtle Talk or the Monsters over at the Laugh Floor.  Perhaps that will some day be the case, but it was clear while I was there that this was just a very well orchestrated trick.  Mr. Potato Head would ask questions and point to people on the line, but it was clearly pre-recorded.  However, this is something you would only notice if, like me, you get stuck in front of him for 15 minutes waiting for the ride to start working.  But don’t think I am trying to be negative about this.  He works very, very well and did a great job at entertaining the waiting masses.

After you pass Mr. Potato Head you go up a flight of stairs, through a circus like corridor, and out into the loading area.  You actually walk through an overpass that goes over the ride track itself and onto the loading area. 

Check back later for a spoiler filled review of the game itself…

WDW News Today, a terrific website for truly in-depth coverage of Walt Disney World happenings, has some tantalizingly cool information about Toy Story Mania, soon to open at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.  This apparently e-ticket caliber ride is nearly ready to launch and the details continue to trickle out. 

Last week, WDI canceled the cast member previews it had planned leading some to believe the ride was seriously behind schedule.  Annual Passholders began to worry if their May 10-12 previews were still going to happen.  But according to the report, cast members will have their look next weekend and so we can assume the AP previews are still a go.

But it was tantalizing details that I promised you, and WDW News Today provides just that…

It seems the original plans for a separate special track in the ride were right, as we are now being told that if you hit a certain special target, your Toy Story Tram will be sent down a secret bonus track of some kind.

The loading area for the attraction is themed to the underneath of Andy’s bed, a much more detailed experience then you will find at the Disney’s California Adventure version of Toy Story Mania. The attraction’s queue is going to take place on two levels of the show building.

The queue area sounds a little like that of The Sea with Nemo and Friends over at Epcot.  If that is true then I approve.  I know people think interactive is the way to go with queue areas, but I love the visually appealing and immersive queues like Pirates of the Caribbean, the Great Movie Ride or Expedition Everest.  They set the mood perfectly and by the time you board the ride vehicle you’ve already been reeled in.

And as far as the “secret track” goes, how long do you think it will be before detailed instructions on how to find this secret track hit the internet?  Days?  Hours?  Minutes?  It won’t be much longer than that.

I do apologize for the lack of anything…real for the past few days.  I was away for a few days and then we needed to allow Mike to show off his peculiar sense of humor for April Fool’s Day.  But there was certainly not a lack of rumors and news while we were gone, so let’s get right into it.

For those of you who are Annual Passholders or Disney Vacation Club members, there is some good news that has yet to be confirmed.  According to DVCNews.com, we may be close to an announcement regarding special previews of Toy Story Mania, a new attraction coming to Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

According to a source, Disney will soon announce Toy Story Mania preview dates for Annual Passholders and Disney Vacation Club members.  The current dates being targeted are May 10th, 11th and 12th.

Let me just say that this would be terrifically good news if it pans out this way.  I plan on being at Walt Disney World during this time, and you can be certain that I will have my camera and pen in hand to give you the most in-depth, spoiler filled report possible.

It certainly seems as though the hype for this attraction is no where near the fever pitch of past projects, such as Expedition Everest or even the Pirates remake.  Can we conclude from this that Disney doesn’t think this will be as big a hit as those?

Kevin Yee of MiceAge.com had a rundown yesterday of the all the projects and rumors going on at Walt Disney World.  Some are confirmed, some are close to confirmation, and others seem a bit wild.  But if you are like me, reading about any such rumors is something we scour the internet for everyday.  And when we find a good one, we just can’t stop talking about it. 

There are a few goodies in Mr. Yee’s report, but the one I like the most is this one…

Ratatouille-themed clone of DSP’s Crush Coaster. The mostly-indoor Crush coaster at Disney Studios-Paris enjoys a great reputation and will be cloned at Pixar Place, likely with a Ratatouille theme. Earlier ideas included Monsters Inc. (specifically, the doors factory), but that appears shelved for now.

As I am sure many of you know, Ratatouille was a big favorite of mine.  I thought it was an absolutely brilliant film.  Having it represented in a big way at Disney World is exciting to me.  And what I like about this idea is that the film didn’t appeal as much to little kids as it did to slightly older ones and adults.  Those people over five are the ones who would truly love a new thrill ride. 

But I also like that Disney does not seem to be ready to just transplant a ride from one park to the next lock, stock and barrel.  We have seen a lot of that.  Some of it works and some of it doesn’t.  But getting a bit creative about the concepts and trying some new things with a working formula is more of what we should expect out of Imagineering. 

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Our friend Tom over at the always readable WDW News Today has found a terrific video from MSNBC that offers us the best preview yet of the Toy Story Mania attraction coming to Disney’s Hollywood Studios.  Click here for Tom’s posting.

While the video is the typical kind of cagey pre-release video Imagineering produces when it wants to promote a new attraction without really showing it, it does give us a look at some concrete details.  For one thing, we get to see the ride vehicle in its entirety and in action and it look pretty good to me.  It has a classic dark-ride vehicle feel and seems to blend the concepts of the new attraction well.

We also get a look at the shooting mechanism, and that is a slightly less exciting.  Just from this quick view, it seems a bit cumbersome and very prone to breaking.  But I will admit this is the type of thing that really needs to be experience within the context of the games to know for certain if it does or does not work.  Perhaps it is just silly enough to fit right in.

It does seem that we are inching closer and closer to the opening of this ride.  While it certainly won’t create the type of explosive hype the surrounded Expedition Everest, it should be very exciting to see Toy Story Mania in action.  My next trip to Walt Disney World is coming in the first week of May, and I must admit that I am rooting hard for previews to be happening by then so I can see this.