From: curt@foundation.wpd.sgi.com (Curt Schimmel)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.disney
Subject: New Attractions
Date: 1 Oct 1992 23:34:29 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Distribution: all
NNTP-Posting-Host: foundation.wpd.sgi.com

Here are some tidbits of information about new park attractions gleamed
from talks at the Disneyana Convention in WDW last week.  I'll try to
limit this to new information that I haven't seen posted here before.

Dick Nunis, Chairman of Walt Disney Attractions, spoke the first
morning.  He talked about a lot of things including the following
attraction info:

	- Due to the overwhelming popularity of Fantasmic! at
	  Disneyland, a copy of the show will be installed at WDW.  No
	  date was given.  It will be located in the Disney-MGM Studios
	  theme park and *not* around Tom Sawyer island.  He didn't say
	  why, but I hope this means that they'll set it up with better
	  viewing arrangements (seating perhaps?) and crowd control.

	- The current construction and plans for The Studios will
	  cause it to "double" in size.  I assume this includes
	  the previously announced Twilight Zone attraction and
	  Fantasmic!

	- He said that there "will be" a fourth "gated attraction"
	  (i.e. theme park) at WDW.  He declined to say when or what it
	  would be.  He made it sound as though they already had what
	  they wanted all planned out and it was just a matter of when
	  they'd make the official announcement and start
	  construction.  He followed this up by adding that they have
	  plans underway for a fifth gated attraction as well.


Tony Baxter spoke the following morning about EuroDisney complete with
an interesting slide show.  Among other interesting things, he said:

	- Discovery Land will get "Discovery Mountain" in the '94-95
	  timeframe.  This will be an indoor roller coaster attraction
	  a la Space Mountain with a few new twists (literally).  The
	  theme of the ride is a little different in that riders will
	  be "shot" out of a canon into "space".  Hopefully this will
	  mean an exciting replacement for the usual boring chain lift
	  at the beginning of a roller coaster (e.g. high acceleration
	  up to the top of the first hill).  Other new features include
	  the first use of "inversion elements" (loops and corkscrews)
	  on a Disney roller coaster (yeah!!).  News of this attraction
	  brought on much applause from the crowd.

	- They will be adding several attractions in the short term
	  to increase overall park capacity (can't remember what in
	  detail though).

	- EuroDisney will get a Disney-MGM Studios theme park.

	- He talked about the lack of a "Jungle Cruise" attraction
	  at EuroDisney.  He said it's not there because two European
	  theme parks had "ripped-off" the attraction from Disneyland
	  long ago almost detail for detail.  He said there were no
	  plans to ever add this attraction to the park since they
	  didn't want to repeat something already done at other
	  (non-Disney) parks.

	- During the break following his talk, someone asked him about
	  Westcot to which he said that he recently attended a meeting
	  where things were looking "very favorable" including the dealings
	  with the State of California.

Other info:

	- The cast member leading the Innovation in Action seminar I went
	  on said that SpectroMagic will continue at WDW into the
	  indefinite future.  It was originally slated as just a 20th
	  anniversary special parade, but it's too popular to
	  discontinue (plus they've sent their Main Street Electrical
	  Parade floats over to EuroDisney, so there's nothing to
	  replace it with).

	- On the Central Shops tour, you could see them building three parade
	  floats to go with the release of Aladin.  Also a new Christmas 
	  parade will debut this year at WDW (and probably DL as well).

	- Having now ridden Splash Mountain at both Disneyland and WDW, my
	  opinion is that the one in WDW is much better.  The basic
	  layout and final drop are the same, but the interior show is a
	  bit different and much better done.  The logs go slower
	  inside and dialogue is synchronized to when your log passes
	  by so you can actually hear the lines.  In addition, each
	  scene has three separate sets of dialogue that play in
	  sequence.  So if you ride more than once, you're likely to
	  hear a different version of the script.  A very nice touch.
	  Several additional scenes with the principal characters were
	  added giving the whole ride a cohesive storyline.


Lots of other things happened at the convention, as I'm sure other
people will be posting.  Overall I had a great time there and can't
wait for next year's at Disneyland.

Curt