Tom Corless’ 11/19-11/23/09 WDW Photo Report | WDW News Today

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Tom Corless’ 11/19-11/23/09 WDW Photo Report

November 26, 2009 3:47 pm

I have returned from five wonderful days at the Walt Disney World Resort and I have a plethora of newsworthy photos to share with you from my trip:

This year’s holiday display at Disney’s Contemporary Resort is themed to “it’s a small world”

I attended a Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas party during my trip

I think Celebrate the Season is my favorite stage show at WDW

Here are some photos of the very long Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmastime Parade

Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen from Disney’s Princess and the Frog have been added for this year

Horace’s house has some new LED light touches

I had never seen such an empty showing of Mickey’s Philharmagic

Spectromagic has been quietly getting some upgrades, including new LED-illuminated character suits for the Spectromen

Most of the other character costumes in the parade have also been updated and are looking brand new

New multicolored fireworks have been installed on the finale units

The holiday spirit is in the air at Epcot

The new Smarter Planet exhibit from IBM has opened inside Innoventions

The area features a small lounge

With a larger interactive area

The screens are basically a fun way to poll guests about innovating environmental technologies

You can simply vote or play a matching game

Here is a look at some of the poll questions and answers

The answers are tabulated and added to other guest responses to form a word cloud

Then there is the matching game

You can reveal a hidden picture and facts about environmentally friendly technologies

The globe-screen above the exhibit is probably the highlight of the addition

Holiday decorations are up at Port of Entry and Disney Traders

A new retro WDW T-shirt

The Food and Wine Festival booth for Mexico has become a permanent vending location with a new menu

Holiday decorations outside Mexico

The Mickey Monsters now have their own keychains for sale at MouseGear

A new WDW sweatshirt available

Plenty of Vinylmation pictures and news updates can be found at our newest website: The Vinylmation Station

Brandon Struve and I are not looking forward to the future ;)

Little Miss Matched has replaced Starabillias at Downtown Disney West Side

The children’s store also opened at Disneyland’s Downtown Disney this year

Hard to see here, but walls are up around the former location of Pleasure Island Live and it is being dismantled

A Walt Disney quote on the walls at Pleasure Island

Stitch is holding some holiday lights above World of Disney

The villains room inside World of Disney has re-opened with a new look

These eye-level collages of the villains can now be found through-out the room

There are also some changing portraits behind the registers

The crocodile from Peter Pan has managed to remain in the room

The Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights is back at Disney’s Hollywood Studios

I found the black cat :)

Found a cool hidden gem at Disney’s Animal Kingdom over in Dino-rama

I’ll be sure to visit Epcot next time I’m in Florida

The Goofy and Pluto meet and greet in Dino-rama is decked for the season

Pluto and Goofy are wearing holiday costumes as well

Dinosaur lights are up along the roadway

Expedition: Everest looking great at night, as always

Back to the Magic Kingdom, where we decided to take a ride on the Liberty Bell to take a closer look at the decorations for Tiana’s Showboat Jubilee

Want to buy your own Showboat Jubilee banners?

Looks like the gospel gowns for the show just came back from the laundry

Here are a few pictures taken from the Liberty Bell

1971 reference on the dock

The old Mike Fink Keelboat dock is being worked on

He’s been out of business for years ;)

I had no idea that’s inside rocks

The parks were very crowded on Monday

More pictures of Tiana’s Showboat Jubilee

A 70 minute wait for Space Ranger Spin

The smoking section next to Space Mountain has emerged from construction unchanged

Due to high crowd levels, an extended queue for Space Mountain was set up outside the building

The “active earth stations” are references to the other Space Mountains around the world

Paint already being peeled off the walls by guests

It was looking pretty bad

The loading area is known as a lounge, much like the waiting area at an airport

A temporary carpet was taped to the wall for some reason

So that’s why our rocket isn’t sealed!!!

The post-show still has not been completed

Over at Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress, new HD LCD screens have been installed in the queue

The TV in the final scene is also a new HD LCD screen

I decided to take some photos around Mickey’s Toontown Fair since it won’t be with us much longer

The character meet and greet cast members have new costumes

We’ll end the report with this cool new Pixar character snow-globe shaped like the Luxo lamp

Topics: Disney's Animal Kingdom, Disney's Hollywood Studios, Epcot, General Resort News, Photo Reports, Resorts, Shopping, The Magic Kingdom |


Latest Forum Replies:

  1. IBM's Smarter Planet looks phenomenal. Disney's finally fixing Epcot. There's not a single CG clownfish in sight! lol It's nice to see some futuristic optimism after the park has been dumbed-down in so many areas. Maybe Epcot will get people thinking again like it used to. Thank you IBM! :)      by Experimental_Prototype82
  2. Smarter Planet is kind of dumb and pointless in my opinion. There is no education or entertainment, it's just "touch this screen, and then touch another one." That's it. Comparing it to the other recent additions to Innoventions, it's pretty lame. It is, however, better than empty space.      by TheBullseye
  3. Quote:
    Originally Posted by TheBullseye View Post
    Smarter Planet is kind of dumb and pointless in my opinion. There is no education or entertainment, it's just "touch this screen, and then touch another one." That's it.
    I wouldn't say there's no education or entertainment. Of what I've seen, guests learn about how computers are used in new ways all around the world. It looks like a simple interactive way to express opinions and share ideas by voting on a computer. The lounge looks like a simple area to engage in relevant discussion. The matching game looks kinda fun. I've heard there's other games you can play as well. I think it's a great idea. I'll admit it's simple but it's sleek and interactive and relevent to what EPCOT is about. It reminds me of CommuniCore.      by Experimental_Prototype82
  4. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Experimental_Prototype82 View Post
    The lounge looks like a simple area to engage in relevant discussion.
    Who really is going to do that though?      by dlnewstoday
  5. I haven't tried out Smarter Planet yet so I really can't comment on it, but as for the lounge area, not loving it at all. Do we really need more wasted space/lounge area inside of innoventions?      by Next Big Thing
  6. Even back to when my son was younger, we never spent a lot of time in Innoventions. It never has been able to really catch his interest. Of course, Sum of all Thrills has his attention. We'll see for next trip, I guess.      by BSikon
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Experimental_Prototype82 View Post
    Of what I've seen, guests learn about how computers are used in new ways all around the world.
    Except that's not what it is. All it does is show how many industries IBM has their hand in, (ie Agriculture, Medicine, City Planning.) It's nothing more than a commercial for IBM, and it's not even disguised like most other Epcot corporate sponsors.      by TheBullseye
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by TheBullseye View Post
    All it does is show how many industries IBM has their hand in, (ie Agriculture, Medicine, City Planning.) It's nothing more than a commercial for IBM, and it's not even disguised like most other Epcot corporate sponsors.
    Wasn't Walt's Experimental Prototype Community of Tommorow going to built around trade and commerce? Promoting a company through a technological showcase seems to work for EPCOT. But that's just my opinion. I really don't see how it's a waste of space. CommuniCore used to have an exhibit where you could take polls about global problems. And as for the comment about "who's actually going to engage in relevent discussion?", I know if I went with my Dad or my sister's boyfriend, we'd talk up a storm about the things we just voted on. Or just talking about the park as a whole. You see so many things at EPCOT, it get the wheels in one's head turning. I look forward to checking it out in December. Maybe I'll create a report or review.      by Experimental_Prototype82
  9. Quote:
    Originally Posted by TheBullseye View Post
    Except that's not what it is. All it does is show how many industries IBM has their hand in, (ie Agriculture, Medicine, City Planning.) It's nothing more than a commercial for IBM, and it's not even disguised like most other Epcot corporate sponsors.
    Everyone knows computers run the world (and Disney parks). Maybe if IBM wanted to impress someone, insead of a lounge area, take some space and show off some of their hardware - a z/OS mainframe or a couple of Blade Center server racks. These are the machines that few people get to see as they normally live in locked down sterile rooms. This may add a little more to those of the inquisitive sort rather than touch screen displays (where nothing is more impressive than what can be done on a iPhone)      by dbanderson3
  10. Quote:
    Originally Posted by dbanderson3 View Post
    Maybe if IBM wanted to impress someone, insead of a lounge area, take some space and show off some of their hardware - a z/OS mainframe or a couple of Blade Center server racks.
    That's a pretty epic idea there.      by Experimental_Prototype82
  11. Quote:
    Originally Posted by dbanderson3 View Post
    Maybe if IBM wanted to impress someone, insead of a lounge area, take some space and show off some of their hardware - a z/OS mainframe or a couple of Blade Center server racks. These are the machines that few people get to see as they normally live in locked down sterile rooms.
    Now this would be cool. They had a very similar thing in Communicore, Backstage Magic. This would be worth seeing.      by TheBullseye
  12. Well, back from my trip. I actualy got to preform in Tiana's Showboat Jubilee. rather fun.
    As of Nov. 25, the cameras in Space Mt. are still not up.
    I'll have pics soon.      by Imagineer2017
  13. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Imagineer2017 View Post
    Well, back from my trip. I actualy got to preform in Tiana's Showboat Jubilee. rather fun.
    As of Nov. 25, the cameras in Space Mt. are still not up.
    I'll have pics soon.
    What cameras? On-ride photo has been working fine.      by WDW News Today
  14. Quote:
    Originally Posted by WDW News Today View Post
    What cameras? On-ride photo has been working fine.
    The post show ones, as covered in Jose's report.      by Imagineer2017
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