I Almost Forgot! Spider Man and Boo Preview

I almost forgot to mention two things today. (Yes, this is the second post for today.)

First, there is a sneak preview of Mickey's Boo-To-You Halloween Parade on Wednesday night at 11:00. I'm off Thursday, so I'll be there. (If I can). Two things are hendering me. First is the parking is in this lot that I have unsuccessfully tried to find on three seperate occassions. Second is it's only open to Magic Kingdom Cast Members. I think I qualify, but I'm not positive.

Second bit of news.



The Walt Disney Company Acquired Marvel Entertainment.

This includes over 5000 characters, including the X-Men, Iron Man, and Spider Man.

Read the press release here.





I like the idea. It increases the Disney brand by expanding the universe with already established characters. These characters also tend to attract a more mature crowd than some of the Disney ones, so that can help grab some of the less tapped markets for Disney.

I don't know what will happen with "our friends down the street" (Universal Studios). They already use many of the Marvel characters, including some attractions. It will be interesting to see how this develops.

Monorail Operations

Well, I know it's been a while since I last posted anything. Sorry about that. And I must start with some bad news for my friend Jesse.

Jesse: This is a photo of the menu at the frozen treat stands found throughout the four parks:



I did some investigating and your vanilla / chocolate ice cream Mickey's have been discontinued. At least for now; however, there is no update on a return.

Sadness in all the Kingdom.

On to a different topic. Loosetoon [Hi! Love the new Ghostbusters outfits by the way!] asked me a question that I am happy to respond to. "What are all the monorail colors and where do they go?"

There are currently ten cars in the fleet. It was 12 but, well, two are out of service and their colors will be retired. Those two were Pink and Purple. (Purple contained the pilot that was killed in the accident.)

The 10 colors are: Lime, Red, Yellow, Orange, Coral, Gold, Silver, Black, Green, and Blue.

They do not have specific routes. In fact, they change their routes almost daily. There are three different monorail lines: Resort, Express and Epcot. All meet at the Ticket and Transportation Center. Epcot goes to Epcot. Express goes to the Magic Kingdom. Resort goes to the Polynesian, Grand Floridian, Magic Kingdom, and Contemporary (Bay Lake Tower). Because cars are brought in, taken out, or changed during the day; there are times when there are 10-15 minute delays on some of the monorail lines. No one can move while the track is switching.

The resort line is the highest priority because the Disney Vacation Club just opened up a resort that connects to the Contemporary. Because of this, there is a lot of traffic on this monorail line. A whole lot more than their used to be, so take note.

Generally, they will run a 3-3-2. This means three on Resort Beam, three on Express Beam, and two on Epcot. Epcot has the least amount of traffic because it serves no resorts and there is parking at the park itself. All Magic Kingdom guests have to arrive by monorail, ferry boat, or possibly bus (if they are at a Disney resort not on the monorail line).

There is a way to tell which train is running which route if you pass it by and don't happen to know what beam you're looking at. At the front and back of each car are two flashing lights, one on top and one on the bottom. The bottom is just a safety beacon. The top is the line indicator: red for Epcot, amber for resort and green for express.

Each car has it's own personality. Black is by far the best. Quick getting up to speed, smooth speeding up and slowing down. Perfect. Coral is horrible. Constant problems and it's bumpy no matter what. Lime is also pretty rough while Red is generally good.

They are replacing the two monorails to bring the total back to 12. Currently, they are taking suggestions on what colors to have. Any ideas?

Personally, I like white and bronze. We don't have either and since we have red and blue, white is a natural. Same with gold and silver. Plus, there's nothing brownish in the fleet.

Helpful hint when identifying green from lime: the sides have little diamonds cut it it.

So, what is it I exactly do?

Well, my main goal is to keep the trains moving to get guests where they need to be and to prevent the trains from having to stop out on the beams waiting for further traffic clearance. This is timely and annoying to guests on those trains just waiting out there.

Plus, I look after the safety of each guest. Should they do something stupid or potentially dangerous, the power to the beam can be shut off in less than a second. Each beam is 600 DC Volts of power. (I don't know what that exactly means, but it can certainly be fatal.) Each platform has one master control panel with a kill switch. There is also at least one "kill pack" worn by someone that loads guests that also kills the power. So if a kid or someone wanders over the six-foot safety line, the power can be killed quickly. It's not all that difficult to bring it back up so we are encouraged to cut the power when necessary. There are always gates and such to stop people, but they can be climbed over if someone really wants to.

Each method of cutting power is tested daily. We also test all of the intercom phones in each part of the cars daily along with ensuring the fire extinguishers are properly charged. Each car also has an anti-collision system built in which is also tested each time a car is brought into operation.

A car will stop at a station and basically be in neutral. This way it is set to take off quickly. The following train will then be instructed to proceed at a slow pace towards the other car. If everything is working properly, an amber alarm will sound in the forward moving car. This indicates for the driver to stop. If they proceed (like they do in the checks), the car will have a red warning alert and automatically stop.

Should the system fail, both a person on the platform and the driver of the resting train are watching the trailing train's position. If it becomes apparent the system has failed, the immediate depart signal is given and the train goes forward to prevent an accident.

A reverse check is done in the same manner.

By the way, I can't comment on what happened regarding the accident with guests. NTSB is still investigating. But I can say that at the moment, no persons other than the pilot can ride in the front cab. Frankly, they don't talk about it for that very reason: I can't accidently slip up and say something I shouldn't. Of course, people still ask to sit up front and some ask about the accident. Mum's the word.

Okay, WAKE UP NOW! That was probably pretty boring. So, here's some fun pictures from the Magic Kingdom including the Dapper Dans Barber Shop Quartet, the Main Street U.S.A. Philharmonic performing in the Flag Lowering Ceremony, some Halloween Decorations, and the Jungle Cruise (possibly my new favorite ride).



And some photos from Disney's Hollywood Studios including Star Tours, Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc., and the Public Works Department.



Plus the very creepy Hollywood Tower Hotel.



This attraction is better known as the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. It's actually starting to grow on me and I do like to just drop in every now and then.

Casual Thursday

Back to the Magic Kingdom today after a stop at Epcot.

Should I bore you with the details or just get straight to some photos?

I thought so.



It was actually a pretty casual day. I took my time getting from place to place and didn't really take all that many pictures. Right now I'm just trying to take it all in and later I'll do some photo shoots and stuff.

I did run into a few great characters. Rafiki, Captain Hook and Smee.



Too bad the lighting was from the back with the primate. I did sent Stephanie a card when I learned of my new position on the "highway in the sky". I was pretty proud of it. Here it is.



Don't worry. She's already received it so she was still surprised.

Well, I've got to be up at and at work at 5:30 tomorrow, so I'm fixin' to turn in.

Walruses, Dogs, and Bears (oh my!)

Well, it may not be in that order. In fact this entire blog entry is going to be a little bit out of order from what actually happened today. The timeline is this:

Woke up. Animal Kingdom. Drove to Epcot. Monorailed to the Polynesian, Grand Floridian, Contemporary and Magic Kingdom before monorailing back to Epcot.

Let me just say that I really started missing some of my friends today. It started when I saw Baloo at Disney's Animal Kingdom. He was a very friendly bear. It reminded of my buddy Darrell. Big, hairy, cuddly...



...then Baloo got uncomfortably close.



This too is sort of a Darrell trait. At this point in our friendship, I'm comfortable with Darrell being uncomfortably close. So in a very weird way, I felt very much at home.

Second, I looked at an email I got from Liz. She send a post she made on her Puppatoons blog. She, along with many of my Black Bunny (geek) friends are so talented. At Gina's birthday (my last event with the group before coming to Disney), we basically dared Liz into making a Jamie Hyneman puppet for when she visits Adam Savage at Dragon*con. In case you don't know who that is, they are the stars of Mythbusters. This show basically asks a myth question and answers it. Like can a human be carried away by holding too many balloons or is the Lone Ranger's silver bullets more effective than regular lead bullets. They use scientific processes and prove or bust the myths. Here's Jamie.



And here is the puppet (sans glasses).



Amazing. Simply amazing. You should check out that earlier link for more puppet fun.

Back to Disney now, even though we never left. Discovery Channel broadcasts the Mythbusters show and Disney owns Discovery. But back to the World.

I did visit the Magic Kingdom again. I saw Pluto and had to stop for a photo.



And I saw the "Celebrate a Dream Come True!" parade. Pretty exciting actually. It's interactive and takes place on the circle just beyond Main Street U.S.A. and in front of Cinderella's Castle.

A lot of character are involved with the parade as you can see by the photos below.



As mentioned, I visited the resorts on the Monorail line. Here's a few shots starting with the Contemporary.



And the Polynesian.



The Grand Floridian.



Plus the Disney Wedding Pavillon.



And a few extra photos just for fun. Why not?



All right. Some hockeycop house cleaning: Let me just explain a few things real fast. First of all, I post a lot of pictures and not slideshows because the computer I use is pretty slow. It takes a while to load the pictures from camera to computer, then computer to internet photo program, then into a slideshow, then arrange the show, then post said show. It's faster to post pictures individually. I am cutting the number of entries down that are displayed at one time to conserve space and increase load times. Click on the "Older Posts" link down there if you missed something.

More importantly, I love getting comments. I really do. Most of you that don't have a blogger account have caught on and leave a name. That's perfect and preferred. I'll try to respond to them, particularly if there's a question or suggestion. I haven't really yet but that's just me having poor manners!

The pictures are also kinda small. But if you click on one it should enlarge.

Another thing: If you want to see something, let me know. If it's not a secret thing I'm not suppose to take pictures of, I'll do my best to fulfill the request.

Speaking of seeing things, I did get into the tunnels last night at work. In case you didn't know, the area Walt Disney World is built on is essentially marshland. It's too soggy to really have basements. When Walt Disney was in Disneyland (California), he saw a cowboy cast member in Tomorrowland. When he approached the cast member and asked why he would basically ruin the show by being in Tomorrowland as a cowboy, he realized that there was no way for cast members to get from place to place without being seen.

Partly due to this experience, he decided to create not just a land of fantasy, but an entire world. So, in the 1960's Walt started buying up lots of property under false names. The project was simply called "The Florida Project". Word eventually got out, but not before 47 sq. miles were owned by Disney.

Walt decided he wanted a tunnel system to allow cast member to move from place to place without being seen by guests. Remember that basement problem due to wet earth? The tunnels were thusly created as the ground floor on the existing land. Dirt was scooped up and place on top of the tunnel structure and the vacated hole was filled with water. This is the Seven Seas Lagoon.

The Magic Kingdom park where you walk around on is actually the second story and about 10-12 feet above the real ground level. And that lake that was created? Well, there had to be a way to get people to the park so enter the ferry boats and Monorail. The Monorail had been used in the Disneyland park before the opening of Disney World, but it was more of an attraction than needed transportation. The whole idea was that once guests park their cars (either in the day parking lot or at a resort), they wouldn't have to worry about anything, including transportation.

A whole world unto itself.

That's a very brief history of Disney World and the Monorail. Hope you enjoyed that, class.

Another little note. I will post an entry then re-read and tweek it, sometimes for a good two hours. That being said: it's probably a good idea to check the time of the entry and check back at least a few hours after that for any additions or changes.

One last picture. This is me right after I got lei-ed at the Polynesian.