Continuing on with my recent trip to Walt Disney World... Despite liking the attraction overall, I was disappointed that Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway didn't take full advantage of their trackless cars.

But Remy's Ratatouille Adventure does, and it's a pretty brilliant ride. Finally giving the France Pavilion the great attraction it deserves, it's located in back of the original pavilion structures...

The story of the ride is that you're shrunk down to the size of a rat (while riding in rat vehicles, natch) and get dropped down a skylight into Gusteau's restaurant where evil Chef Skinner chases you and Remy around trying to catch you. Your end goal is to escape and make it back up to Remy's rooftop restaurant, Bistrot Chez Rémy.

Not much else to say except I love the attraction. So let's recap!

The Bad...

• Missing! I rode this four times trying to see everything (thank you Lightning Lane Multipass!). It wasn't until the last time that I realized I had missed part of the ride the previous three times not because there was so much going on (except there is), but because the rat car I happened to be in was at an earlier position. In rides 1-3 I was late to all the scenes. It's not critical stuff, so no big loss, but it was fun to see things I didn't previously (but wish I had).

The Good...

• The Story! While the how of you shrinking to rat-size isn't clear, it really doesn't matter. Once you're dropped into the restaurant you're trying to escape... and characters from the movie are there. Alfredo, Colette, Emilie, Pompidou, and of course Remy and Skinner. The ride makes sense within the framework of the ride and the movie. Refreshing.
• The Cars! Trackless vehicles and the ride actually relies on them being trackless. You regularly peel off from the other rat cars in interesting and seemingly random ways where more of the attraction is revealed to you. It's absolutely brilliant, and feels more frantic and chaotic to match the energy of the ride. They're also shaped like adorable rats, so... bonus!
• 4D! You wear 3D glasses because there's screens where part of the story plays out in very good 3D. But there are times you end up in 4D as well. You drive through a kitchen storage pantry where giant food ingredients are there. You run under a gas oven when the flame turns on and get blasted with heat. You drop into the kitchen and the scent of cheese and bread (I think?) are blown at you. You hide under a cart and and the giant wheels on either side start turning when you move. A mop gets flung your way and water sprays at you. It's all just so wonderfully well done.
• Delay! Now, as I mentioned in my only "bad" bullet above, the last time through I saw some things I didn't see because I was previously late to the scene. On that run, it felt a couple times that our vehicle was delayed. Maybe it was because I was there longer since my rat was first to arrive, but I don't think so. But here's the thing... if there was a delay... the ride didn't freeze up. Instead it seemed as though the scene I was in got extended. There's rats opening a bottle of champagne in your direction. On my 4th time through, the rat opening the bottle stopped and took some deep breaths several times before the cork popped. That didn't happen other times. Which makes me think there was a delay unloading vehicles or something, so things got backed up and our scene was extended on the fly. This is incredibly cool. And should be the future of attractions like this.
• The Queue. You're on the rooftops of Paris at night with a big Gusteau's billboards in the background. And you get to look in windows and such as you make your way to the load platform. It's beautiful. And sets up the ride in a really good way.

Continuing on with my recent trip to Walt Disney World... The last time I was in Orlando was September, 2019. The month prior to that, Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge opened at Disney's Hollywood Studios. It was wildly popular. I figured that I would avoid the park entirely and just wait a few months because I was returning in April of 2020. Surely the crowds would die down by then! But then the pandemic happened, and it would be five years before I returned to see it.

The land is still wildly popular and crowded. Existing on the planet "Batuu," the location is called "Black Spire Outpost" and takes place during the sequel trilogy timeframe. Its story says that it was once a vibrant, thriving place but eventually became a kind of backwater trading port that's home to smugglers and sketchy outlaws. AND KYLO REN?? Who is out recruiting visitors to become First Order operatives and trying to root out Resistance spies...

There's also places to shop and eat. My favorites being the Batuu Outdoor Market with little stalls that have souvenirs, and Oga's Cantina, a very cool bar where I got my Smiling Loth Cat Tiki Mug. The entire land is very well themed, and it feels like a physical place. Which is about all you could want as a Star Wars fan.

There are two major attractions in the land...

Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run...

The story of the ride is explained in the queue and goes something like this... The Falcon is on loan to Hondo Ohnaka by Chewbacca so that he can steal some energy cells from The First Order to help The Resistance. Hondo (which is a fantastic animatronic) is accompanied by the droid R5-P8 (both characters are from The Clone Wars animated series)...

You are recruited to pilot The Falcon to do the job. As you work your way through the queue, you get to look down at The Falcon, which is awesome because it means Disney actually built the entire exterior instead of what you can only see from the ground...

And it's not just the outside, when you finally make it to the actual ride, you're literally inside The Millennium Falcon!

Once you're in the cockpit with five other people, you're divided up into six versions of three jobs... Pilot, Gunner, or Engineer. The pilots are easily the best job. If you're seated on the left you move the ship left and right, if you're seated on the right you move the ship up and down. Gunners and Engineers just press buttons that light up. You're trying to hunt down a flying transport train to blow it open so you can steal the goods. Let's recap, shall we?

The Bad...

• Pilot Error. You all have to work together to get the best score. And some people aren't suited for flying a ship at all. Or, if you're me, you've never done it before. I've played video games, which helped, but it would take 3 or 4 runs as pilot before I'd be any good.
• Mash Them Buttons. It gets worse... the Gunners and Engineers have their control buttons to their sides, but all the cool stuff is happening out the cockpit window to the front. You kinda have to use your peripheral vision to watch for buttons to light up so you can press them. If you don't and just look at your buttons, you'll miss absolutely everything happening on the ride. If you just look out the window, you'll not know when to press stuff. Because of that, I liked pilot best, but it's a high-pressure job because so much is riding on your skill to drive the mission, which cuts the fun a bit unless you've got five other understanding people flying with you.

The Good...

• The Story. Everything going on is nicely planned. It feels plausible within the framework of the Star Wars Universe.
• The Characters. The animatronics for Hondo Ohnaka and R5-P8 are fantastic.
• The Ship. Imagineers did a phenomenal job making you think that you're actually in the original Millennium Falcon. So very, very cool. Every Star Wars fan's dream.

   
And then...

The other ride is Rise of the Resistance. And it's stunning. The first time around, anyway. Basically the idea is that you're recruited by Rey and BB-88 to rendezvous with General Leia Organa. You'll get there by boarding a shuttle with a bunch of other recruits. In a very cool sequence, because the shuttle then blasts off the planet (you see yourself leaving Batuu when you look out the windows). Alas, you're captured by Kylo Ren. You then get forced off your ship to be herded into prison cells to await interrogation. But then... rescue! You're put into droid-driven cars to get you to the escape pods. A wild adventure ensues.

The Bad...

• Reliability. I rode this, then went to ride it again thanks to my having got Extended Hours at Disney Studios. It broke down before we ever made it to the shuttle. Time waiting in the queue utterly wasted, with no Lightning Lane ticket for your trouble. And the ride goes down all the time. They need to drastically look into fixing these constant breakdowns.
• Busted. There are parts of the ride that broke early on and have never been fixed. At one point you're in your car riding past a big space battle as blaster canons fire above you. Except the motion of the cannons is broke. So your car is stopping, reversing, and starting to avoid cannons that aren't even doing anything. It's pretty shitty. The parks are making millions. Fix the damn ride.
• Viewpoints. If you get a good spot, you actually see things that you won't if you don't get a good spot. On the shuttle it's entirely possible to be shoved against the wall where you can't see the ship taking off... or see Mon Calamari in the command center. You may not even know what's going on. Once you're captured and inside the ship, there's a big battle in an AT-AT bay. Where Finn(!) is there to help rescue you. Except if you're in the wrong car or in the wrong spot of the car, you might not even see him.
• The Minor Animatronics. When you are in a room with an entire legion of stormtroopers, you're shocked at first. But then you see that only a couple of them are moving, and the movements are minor. They rotate their head a little bit or whatever. It's kinda silly. More movement would have really sold it, because you spend too much time staring at frozen figures and it doesn't work.
• Re-Ridability. The only reason to re-ride this thing is because you got bad spots and didn't see stuff. Otherwise it's not such a thrilling experience that you'll want to spend 60-90 minutes waiting to ride it again. The best thing about the ride are the massive sets that are shocking to behold when you are first exposed to them. The scale of it all is mind-blowing. But once you know what to expect? There's just not much else there. I did end up riding it twice (on another day since it was busted during my extra hours event), but the second time was kinda meh.

The Good...

• The Shuttle Takeoff. It's simple, but effective. The only thing that could have made it better would have been to have a rumble floor or something to sell the illusion harder.
• The Concept. The idea of you being captured by The First Order, and how they build the story around that is pretty cool.
• The Scale. When I say that the massive scale of some of the sets are mind-blowing, I really mean it. You get deposited into a room that's so huge you have a tough time wrapping your head around it. That's an amazing achievement.
• The Main Animatronics. The Admiral Calamari and Kylo Ren animatronics are stunning. Sure the Kylo figure has a derpy moment when a hole is blasted in the room (he looks like his feet have been nailed to the floor and it looks crazy-stupid) but they're great. Other figures like Finn don't have great movement, but at least they are always moving.
• The Effects. The effects that are working are pretty good. Some of them look expensive (like Kylo Ren coming at you as his lightsaber ignites, which is some kind of screen/practical lightsaber hybrid) and some of them look simple and inexpensive (like Kylo Ren's lightsaber plunging through the ceiling to cut a hole for him to get you). But none of them look cheap (except the ones that are broken, of course).

   
Overall, I'm quite happy with the job they did on Galaxy's Edge. If you're a Star Wars fan, it's an experience to savor. There are things which could have been done better, sure. But for what it is I'm impressed. I actually wish I would have had more time there so I could have eaten at Oga's Cantina. And maybe Docking Bay 7 and Ronto Roasters too. And I am still hoping for another attraction to draw me back so I can eat there one day.

UPDATE: I was curious to know how they managed to get so many people through the queue on Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, because the ride only hold six people at a time. I ended up on a Reddit page which had a map that explains it, and I am completely blown away. Turns out there are not six people riding at a time, there's ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY! (plus there looks to be two ADA-compliant cockpits, so I guess it's actually a max of 132 riders possible?). There are four turntables with seven cockpits each. At any given time, one of the cockpits per turntable is loading while one is unloading while five are riding the ride. GENIUS! Just look at this...

While in the ride I guess I remember that there were people standing in different parts of the holo-chess room, I just didn't think about it much because we were waiting there to get in the line at the cockpit door. Even if I did realize it, I would have sworn there was just one cockpit behind each door! This actually explains a lot, because they have groups of riders stacked up at each door at all times. Not because they're just being "ready to go," but because they are constantly loading new groups as the turntable rotates into position. I don't have the words for how smart this is. They can keep a steady stream of guests riding and yet the guests really have no idea what's happening unless they Google it like I did! Kudos to Disney Imagineering!

>Continuing on with my recent trip to Walt Disney World... "Nothing can stop us now! I'll tell ya how, we're gonna make it happen! Let's take a ride. And spend a day in the countryside!"

Continuing on with my recent trip to Walt Disney World... Over at Disney's Hollywood Studios, they have opened Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway in the old Grauman's Chinese Theater replica. It opened in 2020, replacing the boring The Great Movie Ride (in Disneyland they built a new building in ToonTown)...

The concept of the ride is that you are going to the theater to watch the latest Mickey & Minnie cartoon... Perfect Picnic. There's not much to the queue, but you do occasionally get rotating digital posters for other Mickey & Minnie cartoons...

As you are watching the Perfect Picnic cartoon, an accident in the cartoon causes the screen to explode, allowing you to step inside the cartoon and board the train that Goofy was driving in it. But, uh-oh, the train comes un-hitched from Goofy's engine car, and away you go. From there you go through various scenes as Mickey and Minnie try to get your train car under control so they can continue on to their perfect picnic. Overall, it's a very well-done attraction that's pretty entertaining. So much to look at as you ride through, which makes it good for repeat viewings. A far, far better use of space than The Great Movie Ride it replaced. Let's sum it up, shall we?

The Bad...

• Reliability. The thing is always breaking down. I think it was down every day I was at Walt Disney World. Once it broke down while I was in the queue, for which I received a Lightning Lane good for everything except what you'd want it to be (Slinky Dog Dash and Rise of the Resistance). When I returned, the part of the ride where you watch the start of the cartoon and the screen explodes wasn't operational, and you just walk through the exploded screen (robbing you of the entire premise, which they are announcing over the speaker system).
• Unnecessarily Trackless? The ride cars are trackless, meaning that they can move entirely independently of each other and the ride itself. But there's only two times that this really comes into play. The first is when Goofy's engine car drives off without you. The second is when you somehow end up in Daisy Duck's dance studio and your car starts dancing with her instruction. Everything else feels very much like it could have been on a track. That's a bit of a bummer, and I really wish they had more space to take advantage of it.

The Good...

• The Style. I love, love, love the 2-D style of the new Mickey & Minnie shorts. It fits the characters flawlessly and is so much fun. Plus they're original white again instead of Caucasian, which means they're more relatable to more people. And the other characters look incredible too... Daffy, Pluto, Goofy... it's all amazing. And the way that they turned the 2-D animated characters into 3-D animatronics is darn good too. The whole ride is beautifully appointed 2-D turned into 3-D and I love it.
• The Music. I swear, I have not stopped hearing "Nothing can stop us now! I'll tell ya how, we're gonna make it happen! Let's take a ride. And spend a day in the countryside!" in my head since the first time I rode it. The tune they sing is a total bop, and it's so great that they put some thought into it to make it so memorable.
• The Location. Putting a movie ride in a movie park (and a cartoon ride in a cartoon land for Disneyland) means that the ride actually makes sense for where it sits. This is something obvious that's very quickly disappearing as Disney craps out intellectual property anywhere they can cram it in.

Continuing on with my recent trip to Walt Disney World... I'm back to Real Life and am too busy getting caught up with life to blog... but never you fear, because an all new VERY SPECIAL WALT DISNEY WORLD EDITION of Bullet Sunday starts... now (and next Sunday, since there's too much stuff for just one!)...

   
• Hot Ones! Before we get down to it, I just have to share this amazing appearance by Donald Duck on Hot Ones. I love it when cool things like this happen...

   
• My Disney Experience App! One key piece of the Walt Disney Parks puzzle is their app. You use this app for absolutely everything from viewing all the plans you've made and managing restaurant reservations to ordering quick-serve meals and viewing attraction wait times...

It also tells you what's going on at the park... with things like parades, character meet-and-greets, and hotel activities at your fingertips. If you have a PhotoPass you can even view and download your photos. It sounds awful to be chained to an app all day long, but I love the thing. It's so remarkably handy. Especially for restaurant reservations. You get a push notification when your reservation is ready. You check in to confirm you got the notification. Then you let the app know when you're at the restaurant so somebody can take you to your table. It's just such a good experience. It's also cool how if you have a Lightning Lane MultiPass you can book another Lightning Lane after you scan in for the one you're at while standing in line. And of course you can use the app to gain access to the park and your hotel room. But there's something else that does this without having to take your phone out of your pocket.

   
• MagicBand+! A "MagicBand" is an RFID device that you wear on your wrist which allows you access to a number of things throughout your Disney experience. They used to be something you got free when you stay at a Disney resort, because it acted as a room key, park pass, and even a method of payment when your credit card is on file. But now you have to pay serious money to get one. Eventually "MagicBand 2" came out which looked more like a watch. Then, in 2022, Disney released "MagicBand+" which added interactivity with various statues throughout the parks and also had colored lights which would glow and change when you're near various attractions. Available in a slew of different designs, the new version is rechargeable so you can use it over and over. My Orange Bird band looks like this...

Full disclosure, this is not my first Orange Bird MagicBand+. These things are notorious for falling off your wrist, and that's what happened on Day One of my vacation. This is despite having a "BitBelt" on it to help it stay on (this is the third one I've lost). This is a common complaint, and it's more of an issue for some people than others. I honestly don't understand why Disney doesn't put a better clasp on them, because it's crazy stupid that my Apple Watch has never fallen off once, but the MagicBand+ falls off me with almost no effort. Fortunately, if you have an Apple Watch, you don't really need a MagicBand+. I was able to do everything except interact with the statues (which is kinda dumb) and look at the lights that flash during fireworks shows or in certain attractions. If you have a compatible Smart Watch, I'd take a pass.

   
• Resort Early Access! There are many benefits to staying at a Disney resort hotel that's on-property. It's so amazingly beneficial that I have long suggested to people that it's better to save money for an extra year to stay with Disney as opposed to saving money and staying at someplace cheaper outside the park. Though that's not as true now as it used to be because free airport transportation is no longer included. It used to be that you also got extra hours at night for a couple parks each week, but that perk is only available if you stay at one of the "Deluxe" properties now. What all Disney resort guests do get is 30 minutes early entry to all the Disney World parks. But the attraction you want to ride before everybody else may not be running until the park opens for everybody. Take for example the wildly popular "Slinky Dog Dash" roller coaster in Disney's Hollywood Studios. The line is open a half-hour early, sure. But it doesn't start operating until the park opens! So all you really get is to stand in line before everybody else and only have to wait 30-45 minutes instead of the usual 90 minutes. Still useful, but not as much as it could be.

   
• Worthless Events! I attended two of these. The first was Extended Hours at Disney's Hollywood Studios. Instead of having to leave when the park closes at 9:00, you get to stay until after midnight. It used to be that this was an incredible opportunity to ride attractions with very short waits. Ride "Tower of Terror" in ten minutes! But that's absolutely not true any more because Disney over-sells the event. Slinky Dog Dash was minimum 40-45 minutes for the entire event. Which is really shitty after paying a bunch of extra money. Half as long as during park hours, but not short enough to be worth the cost. The second event I got was the "Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party," which was also a bust. The intent was to go on rides while everybody else was watching the "Boo To You" parade. But the parade was canceled due to rain and, since this event was also oversold, ride lines weren't any shorter. You also have the opportunity to trick-or-treat for candy, but it's the same fun-size candy you get at a store, so it's definitely not worth the money. Kinda sad that Disney is overselling these things, because they used to be something worth paying for. Now they're just not.

   
• Keys to the Kingdom! I hadn't been on the "Keys to the Kingdom" tour in a while so I decided to do it again. This tour takes you behind the scenes of Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom. You get stories about how the park was designed and made. Trivia about various Easter eggs around the park. And an exclusive look at the "Utilidors" (service corridors) that are beneath the park...

The Utilidors are incredible. They allow garbage to be pulled out, stores and restaurants to be replenished, and employees to get to their posts... all without being seen by guests in the park. If you've been on all the rides and are looking for something new and different to do, I recommend the 5-hour tour. The price is very reasonable for the amount of time you get, and you also get to skip the line on a couple of rides! It's my second favorite non-attraction thing at WDW (after the "Wild Africa Trek" in Animal Kingdom).

   
• Character Moment! The character meet-and-greets are really well done. Most times they find people who are really into playing the character they're representing, and they're great with the guests. Sometimes the actors are better than others, but at no point do they outright fail. At least not that I've seen. Where the failure came to me was when I saw Ariel (The Little Mermaid) appearing in the app, and Disney felt the need to qualify it with "Ariel (From the Live-Action Story)...

And it's like, come on. When Belle from Beauty and The Beast appears, they don't tell you that it's "Belle (In Her Peasant Dress)" instead of Belle in her more famous princess dress... or tell you whether it's Belle from the animated or live-action movie... so why is it necessary to qualify Animated (AKA WHITE) Ariel from Live-Action (AKA BLACK) Ariel? They are both equally valid Ariel characters! I can only guess that they wanted to head off complaints from parents who would be all "THAT'S NOT ARIEL! MY CHILD WANTS TO SEE WHITE ARIEL!" or whatever. Disappointing.

   
And tomorrow we'll resume with even more Walt Disney World commentary.

>Continuing on with my recent trip to Walt Disney World... I usually buy something for my cats to play with when I go on vacation.

After I got back from my trip to Disney World, I had to order a replacement Orange Bird MagicBand+, so I ordered a small plush for my cats so they had a souvenir as well. Except when I got it, the thing wasn't "small" at all. Orange Bird was as tall as my cats and maybe even a little taller! So there goes my plan where they (but mostly Jake) would be dragging him all over the house as they do with their other plushie toys.

Jenny ran back upstairs the minute she saw it. Jake, on the other hand, was curious...

He gave Orange Bird a couple sniffs. Batted at it once or twice. Then walked away...

Jake and Jenny both has been ignoring Orange Bird ever since.

Oh well. I tried.

As for myself? The souvenir I bought for me was a Grinning Loth Cat collectible tiki mug from Oga's Cantina at Galaxy's Edge...

The matte grey one from Walt Disney World Florida is not as cool as the glossy shaded brown one from Disneyland California, but I still love it.

And, as much as I'd love to set it out, I worry that it would then become another souvenir for my cats once one of them knocks it off a table or something. So it gets to be put in my glassware cabinet.

Continuing on with my recent trip to Walt Disney World... Let's get on the gaming grid, because Shanghai Disneyland's TRON Lightcycle/Run has come to the USA, y'all! Well, technically in China it's "TRON Lightcycle Power Run," but I think it's the same ride. And, spoiler alert, I love the attraction despite the fact it's really short (I think the ride time is under two minutes!).

The story of the ride is that you are getting digitized to ride for the Blue Users to battle the evil Yellow Programs on the lightcycle grid (which will make sense to you if you've ever seen the film TRON... and if you haven't, why not?).

There's three things about the experience which make this such a good ride...

1) Most of the ride is in a building where there's screens that show you your opponents whizzing along with you as you race to block them with your lightcycle hard light trail. But after launch you exit the building for a nice loop under a canopy that lights up at night... and has hex grids which follows the cycles as they pass. It's wildly cool and you can see the canopy at night from various places in the park. A beautiful addition to Tomorrowland...

2) You're not sitting in a roller coaster car, you're sitting on a roller coaster lightcycle (kinda a futuristic motorcycle). It's not incredibly comfortable, but it's for two minutes and you just don't care because you're on a lightcycle...

3) The track is fast. 60 miles per hour fast. Launch coasters are my favorite and, while this isn't my favorite, it's nice to have another one added to the growing list of Walt Disney World coasters.

And my recap? Glad you asked!

The Bad...

• Length. This ride needed to be longer. Yeah, I know that two minutes is not really that short when it comes to launch coasters (Aerosmith Rock 'n' Roller Coaster is a minute-twenty... and my favorite, The Incredible Hulk Coaster is two minutes-fifteen), but the amount of time (or money) it takes to ride this thing demands that it be a longer experience.
• Cost. Whether you are able to snag a Virtual Queue spot for the privilege of standing in line to wait to ride it... or you spend the cash to skip the line by buying an Individual Lightning Lane (either because you don't like lines or you couldn't get in the Virtual Queue) there's a cost involved. I really hate that.
• Risk. It is entirely possible that you could go to Walt Disney World specifically to ride this coaster only to not be able to. You couldn't get a Virtual Queue. You couldn't afford the Individual Lightning Lane. You couldn't get an Individual Lightning Lane because they sold out. It could happen. The days of going to a park and just standing in line to ride do not apply to TRON: Lightcycle/Run.

The Good...

• Everything Else. But Mostly The Design. Everything about it is cool. The canopy. The lightcycles you sit on. The story. The queue. The way you "race" against your competitors. Even the pass-though lockers to store your stuff. It's all so good. Worth the effort to ride even though it doesn't last that long (THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!).

And now? Time to watch Tron for the hundredth time.

Continuing on with my recent trip to Walt Disney World... I'm just going to put this out there, Tiana's Bayou Adventure was a hugely missed opportunity.

The re-theming of Splash Moutain was a long time coming. There was only so long that Disney could pretend that a ride based on Song of the South didn't have ties to a film filled with racist stereotypes. That they decided to use The Princess and The Frog to do this was pretty exciting. It's a great movie that's filled with awesome things to build a ride around, not the least of which was the city of New Orleans (my favorite American city). Plus the main characters are frogs! You can do some cool stuff with frogs! Plus there were other sweet characters like Louis and Ray and Mama Odie and the incredible Dr. Facilier to put in it! After the announcement, I remember thinking "Holy cow... the Disney imagineers must be going nuts designing everything!"

But Disney inexplicably threw out all of the things I was dying to see.

And I am still trying to understand why.

Instead of telling the story of The Princess and The Frog, the attraction is a sequel to the movie and continues the story. And since Dr. Facilier died in the movie, they didn't put him in the attraction. And that is categorically stupid as fuck. He is a fantastic villain that made the movie so cool. He's got magical abilities that would be visually stunning to experience. But even worse? Tiana and Naveen turned back into humans at the end of the movie, so they don't get to be frogs in the ride.

What the fuck?!?

But anyway...

The exterior of the attraction is mostly nice. I don't think it's as cool as the orange rocky mountain that tied into Frontierland and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad so well, but the greenery is pleasant, and I think that it would be particularly pretty at night (which I didn't get to experience... see yesterday's entry on why). But otherwise? Not what I was hoping to see.

In the concept art that Disney gave us, there was a big tree with a crashed boat in it that made the mountain look incredible...

The story of the ride (if you can call it that) is that Tiana is enlisting Louis's help to find musicians for a big New Orleans party that she's throwing. This is okay, in concept, but not great, in practice.

The ride queue is good. You're walking through Tiana's store, and they packed it to the gills with nifty stuff to look at. If there's a single part of the ride that's improved, this would be it.

Then the story falls apart as you board your log vehicle because you're in the bayou. So... was Tiana's store in the bayou too? I thought her restaurant was in New Orleans, so shouldn't that be where her store is? Who knows? It's sloppy shit like this that is very telling. Splash Mounain had a highly cohesive story that made sense. The new ride really doesn't.

Putting that aside, you leave the bayou and climb up to the main ride building where Tiana explains her plight to find musicians (which, in itself is crazy... YOU LIVE IN NEW ORLEANS, HOME OF SOME OF THE MOST AMAZING MUSICIANS ON THE PLANET, BUT YOU'RE GOING INTO THE SWAMP?!?). This section of the ride is really clunky because the amazing Tiana animatronic is completely frozen until your log approaches it. Very creepy. How hard would it have been to have her make movements in-between logs?

Even though you just climbed up a mountain, you're suddenly back in the bayou where Louis joins you to look for musicians. Just like Tiana, the animatronic for Louis is incredible. The other animal characters are well done as well. But here's the thing... because it's just Tiana and Louis in this story, there are long stretches of nothing in the ride because you can't be seeing two Tianas and two Louises at the same time. There has to be big breaks to keep the illusion working. And this right here is where the idea of a sequel should have been jettisoned. Because if they had followed the movie, you could have had moments with Ray and moments with Dr. Facilier filling in that space. But instead? Swamp. Wheee.

Eventually you get to Mama Odie, who shrinks you down to the size of a frog, though I don't quite understand why. But what's worse? YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT HAPPENED WHEN IT HAPPENS! I didn't understand because while, yes, the props are bigger in scale, that happens all the time in Disney rides to draw your attention to them! The second time I rode it, I heard Mama Odie say something about shrinking you down... but it's still ridiculously and needlessly confusing. You then float through the bayou at a small size for no reason until Mama Odie decides to embiggen you again.

The original Splash Mountain had a lot of fun things going on throughout, but the entire point of the ride... that massive drop... was treated with a sense of danger and foreboding. Splash Mountain didn't set out to scare you, but it did want to play a psychological game as you were climbing up to that drop. There was a frightened Br'er Rabbit and vultures lamenting your fate and harrowing music. And now that's just... gone. All the tension has vanished. And the ride suffers because of it. Mama Odie makes you big again (if you manage to understand that's what's happening), you plunge down the mountain, and there's nothing more to it. What a shame.

But anyway...

You end up back in the bayou yet again as you roll up on Tiana's big party (back in New Orleans?). Whereas Splash Mountain overwhelmed you with tons of moving parts that weren't terribly detailed as you reach the Zipadee Doo Dah riverboat, Tiana's Bayou Adventure does the same with quality animatronics that are incredibly well-done. It's quite a sight to see, and a marked improvement over the original attraction.

The end.

And that's it. That's what it took Disney four years to figure out. It may sound like I'm disappointed with the attraction. That's not really true. It's an enjoyable distraction from life that's fairly well done. What I'm disappointed in is what a huge missed opportunity this was. I expected so much more, and was ultimately let down. Tiana's Bayou Adventure isn't bad... it's just not great.

So let's recap, shall we?

The Bad...

• Story. As I hope I made clear, the story doesn't make sense. Partly because they were re-theming an old ride that had a specific story, but mostly because they made this a sequel to the movie, which was just dumb.
• Video Screens. There's some pretty important parts of the ride where they cheaped out and used big screens instead of animatronics. It's bad. Especially the big screen where Tiana and Louis are looking in at you when you're tiny, because it's so glaringly obvious. No attempt at all was made to integrate the screen into the "world" you're inhabiting. There's a migration of fireflies where they at least tried, and it makes all the difference. As background elements, screens are okay. But as a major section of the ride? No.
• Blank Space. With only two characters carrying the story (three if you toss in Mama Odie, which I do not because her segment is nonsensical and irrelevant), there has to be long stretches of nothing. That's a huge problem. The ride feels empty in spots, even though it really isn't, because you can't see the same character in two places at once.
• Stalls. Having your animatronics freeze up and wait for you to arrive looks incredibly tacky and bad. Maybe they move too little to notice, but Tiana and Mama Odie both have weird pauses where they should be moving more.
• Lip Sync Weirdness Tiana and Louis have really good mouth movements, but the final Mama Odie animatronic must have been broken, because the sync looked terrible.

The Good...

• Animatronics. These are next level animatronics at every turn outside of the Mama Odie problem. Tiana and Louis are stunning. Even minor animatronics are beautifully done. The costumes and theming are all beautiful.
• Ceilings. Some actual effort was made to conceal the ceilings so you're not looking up at big stretches of paint. But heeeeere's the thing... if ever there was a place that I would advocate for the use of video screens, it would be on the ceiling! That's a way to make the height of the space appear far more vast. Show the stars twinkling in the sky. SHOW RAY NOW THAT HE'S A STAR! This is a no brainer, and yet it was completely overlooked. But still... at least some effort was made.
• Queue. As I mentioned, they did a very good job trying to make standing in line be a bit more interesting than it used to be. Always appreciated.

And now? Time for some beignets.

I've been to Walt Disney World many, many times because I used to have work there. Eventually I would only go into the parks to eat or get a haircut because I had rode all the attractions multiple times and don't really like standing in line. But Disney has added a bunch of stuff since I was there in September, 2019, so when I went to Orlando this time, I made a vacation out of it.

And I have some thoughts about what it takes to ride the attractions now-a-days...

Virtual Queue!
There are three rides at Walt Disney World that you can't just walk up and stand in line to ride... Tiana's Bayou Adventure, Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, and TRON: Lightcycle Run. The only way to ride them is to wake up at 7am and join a "Virtual Queue" so you can earn the right to then go stand in line. Can't get a spot? Then you have to wait until 1pm to see if you can grab one then. Can't get one of those spots? Then you're out of luck. At least that's the way it is for Tiana's Bayou Adventure. For the other two rides, there's another way which I'll get to below... all it takes is money, of course. On one level, I get it. Disney really doesn't want lines so long that they don't have space to fit them. But what a bummer to go all the way to Disney World and not be able to ride something you had your heart set on. That's a huge problem, but as long as Disney continues over-sells tickets, it's an unavoidable one.

A NECESSARY ASIDE: Remember FastPass?
Back in 1999, Disney introduced the FastPass. The goal was to reduce the time you spend in line waiting to ride the most popular attractions... which, as you can imagine, is a common complaint of guests. It's essentially a "virtual queue" where you go to the ride, get a ticket with a time on it, then return at that time. In the meanwhile you can go do something else. It was a thoughtful addition. And it was FREE. And if you stayed at certain Disney hotels, they gave you a couple "universal" FastPasses that would allow you to go on any FastPass attraction without having to get a ticket. After that was FastPass+ which allowed advanced reservations. That was eventually replaced with Genie+, where you could PAY to skip the lines. Needless to say, it sucked to have to pay money to have something that used to be free.

Leeloo Dallas Lightning Lane Multi-Pass!
Fast-forward to today, and Walt Disney World has unleashed an all new version of Lightning Lane Multi-Pass, which allow you to pay in advance to reserve attractions and experiences. You pay a daily fee, then get to reserve three Lightning Lanes for attractions that have them. After you use a Lightning Lane, you then immediately get to reserve another one for later in the day. It actually works very well... assuming you're willing to pay minimum $30 a day to use the feature. Not exactly cheap, and the price can go up depending on how busy the resort is and which park you visit. Alas, this means you really have to plan out your vacation in advance, because you want to reserve those Lightning Lanes as soon as you can because popular rides will lose all available windows quickly. You can reserve seven days in advance if you're staying at a Disney resort... three days in advance if you're not. Just another way that Disney can squeeze money out of you and make their parks a perk only rich people can enjoy to the fullest.

Individual Lightning Lane!
The most popular rides in all of Walt Disney World... Seven Dwarf's Mine Train, TRON Lightcycle Run, Avatar Flight of Passage, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind do not qualify for regular Multi-Pass Lightning Lanes. Oh no. You have to pay per ride to jump those lines. And it's ridiculously expensive... currently $12 to $25 per person, per ride. Don't want to spend 90 minutes waiting to ride Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance? Pay to skip the line. All the Virtual Queue slots taken for the day but you want to ride Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind? Pay to ride it. This is abhorrent. Disney is happy to take money from people who might have been saving their pennies for years in order to be able to afford to go... but if they can't chip in even more money to have access to certain rides, then it's entirely possible they are beyond their reach. Given the way this works, why the fuck doesn't Disney just go back to pay-per-ride with A-to-E tickets instead of promoting the pretense that you can pay one price and ride everything? Or, ha ha ha, start capping the number of tickets they sell so their parks aren't overflowing with so many people that you don't have a hope to ride stuff unless you've got additional money to do so.

And so...

I think the way that Disney pretends to be a vacation destination for families everywhere, but is actually a vacation destination that only the wealthy can truly enjoy to the fullest, is incredibly dishonest. Instead of thinking that you can buy a ticket, take your own food, stay at a cheap resort outside of the park, avoid souvenirs, and somehow afford to "do Disney World"... Disney should just be honest and charge higher prices up-front that allow people to realistically budget how much their trip will cost.

Because the nickel-and-diming... excuse me... the hundreds-and-hundreds-of-dollaring... Disney is doing right now is absolutely awful. Rich people will always have a better experience because money doesn't matter to them. I accept that. But people who are not rich shouldn't be made poorer because Disney is misrepresenting how much it costs to have the vacation they sell you in their brochures and ads.

That's anything but magical for the "most magical place on earth."

Since I've just returned from Walt Disney World, I think I'll come up with some Disney-related posts for a while.

And I'm going to start with my favorite Disney characters.

Favorite Disney Original Characters

1. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
   
2. Orange Bird
   
3. Mickey Mouse
   
4. Donald Duck
   
5. Pluto
   

Best Disney Modern Characters

1. Stitch from Lilo and Stitch
   I have never been so immediately captivated by a character as I was with Stitch. The minute he appeared on screen, I knew that I would be obsessed with him. And I have been ever since.
2. Sulley from Monsters, Inc.
   Not only did John Goodman bring him to life with a beautiful subtlety that somehow topped his great performance just two years earlier in The Emperor's New Groove, the character is one of the best-animated CGI characters ever made.
3. Genie from Aladdin
   Robin Williams owned the film. And that character was all him. His incredible improvisational skills and energy pushed Genie to the front of every scene he appeared in... but not to the detriment of the film.
4. Maui from Moana
   Based on the song You're Welcome! alone, you can't help but love Maui. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson threw himself 100% into the role and made Maui far more interesting than he might have been otherwise.
5. Luca from Luca
   It will forever be sad to me that Luca was kinda lost in the shuffle of the pandemic. Not only was it gorgeous in every way, it also had a compelling story that was wonderfully served by the main character.

Favorite Disney Princesses

1. Rapunzel from Tangled
   What makes Rapunzel my favorite? I don't know whether it's that her movie is one of my favorites... or whether it's Mandy Moore's ability to match the multi-dimensional aspect of her character both emotionally and lyrically... but probably both. When it comes to Disney princesses, it's tough to do much better than this.
2. Tiana from The Princess and The Frog
   That Disney made a love letter to my favorite American city, New Orleans, wouldn't have meant much if not for the fact that they crafted a terrific story to go with it. Tiana is smart, driven, capable and a huge part of what makes everything work so well. Even when she turns into a frog. Especially when she turns into a frog.
3. Moana from Moana
   I tend to like princesses that are more take-charge and proactive in the story, and that's definitely true for Moana. She had an interesting challenge, she met it head-on, and she was changed because of it.
4. Merida from Brave
   Another character that took charge and wasn't content to sit around and wait for some dippy prince to show up and fulfill her life's ambitin. Plus she was a lot of fun to watch in action.
5. Mulan from Mulan
   You probably guessed she would be here already. The ultimate kick-ass princess, Mulan also had one of my all-time favorite voice performances in Ming-Na Wen.

Favorite Disney Princes

1. Kristoff from Frozen
   It was refreshing to finally have a (future) prince who acted like a... well... actual guy. But the thing that makes Kristoff appealing is that he so effortlessly subverts toxic masculinity tropes to be a positive example of what an actual guy should be.
2. Aladdin from Aladdin. I love that Aladdin only became a prince because he married a princess. Before that he was a "street rat" who had a life that was anything but royal. That guy worked hard to woo a princess who wasn't going to put up with his crap if he wasn't the genuine article and somebody worthy of her time.
   
3. Naveen from The Princess and the Frog
   Okay, just like I preferred Beast over Prince Adam, I preferred Naveen when he was a frog... and he was such a fun character as a frog. But Naveen has some nuance to him that at least made him interesting in human form too. So much better than Prince Adam, who might as well have been a doorknob. How Belle didn't immediately lose interest when Beast went away and Adam appeared I don't know.
4. Flynn Rider from Tangled
   Though sometimes annoying, Flynn would likely be a contender for the top spot because he's just so fully-realized and funny... and is actually a huge part of the story for once. If not for the fact that he's voiced by Zachary Levi, whom just seems to be getting worse and worse, he would likely rank higher. From being anti-vax during a fucking pandemic to his stupid-ass comments about the actors strike (actors, mind you, who were fighting for him to not be exploited by AI and be paid fairly too), he kinda ruins the character. And this is despite the fact that he did an amazing job voicing Flynn. I'm just happy that I had some years with the movie before he went all problematic.
5. Eric from The Little Mermaid
   Up until Eric happened, there weren't many prince characters who had much to do in the film. They just kinda showed up to kiss the princess and wake her up (Sleeping Beauty) or kiss the princess and wake her up (Snow White) or whatever. Eric actually had stuff to do that meant something.

Best Disney Villains

1. Yzma from The Emperor's New Groove
   Eartha. Kitt. Despite being a more comedic villain than anything truly scary, she was a great villain through and through. She made that movie. The Emperor's New Groove would have still been entertaining, but not the level of greatness it reached.
2. Ursula from The Little Mermaid
   Pat. Carroll. That woman was such a treasure, and the way she brought Ursula to life was no easy feat. The character was just so bad-ass and over-the top evil, you would have rooted for Ariel even if Ariel was not entirely good. That's the mark of a real Disney villain!
3. Scar from The Lion King
   Jeremy. Irons. I swear, the more times I watch The Lion King the more I'm convinced that Scar steals the entire movie. Which is a tall order given that James Earl Jones is in it!
4. Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty
   Eleanor Audley, whose voice was so wonderfully distinct that she actually voiced two Disney villains (she was also Lady Tremaine in Cinderella), brought a menace to the screen that you could actually feel.
5. Jafar from Aladdin
   The character was just so deliciously evil. So much so that Aladdin would have been a very different movie if his parrot Iago wasn't there to temper his menace with some humor.

Best Disney Sidekicks

1. Hei Hei from Moana
   The only thing more hilarious than the hapless, disturbed chicken himself is the fact that they got Alan Tudyk to voice his clucking. There's no scene he appears in that Hei Hei isn't stealing the show.
2. Dug from Up
   Dug was hilarious when he appeared in Up, but where he really shines is his spin-off cartoons that appeared on Disney+. Talking animals in Disney features are normalized, but here they actually gave him a reason to be talking (science!) which was a nice change of pace.
3. Sven from Frozen
   It's entirely possible that I'm projecting my love for Kristoff onto his faithful reindeer, but I honestly don't think that Kristoff's appeal would have been as great if not for what the other half of this comedy duo brought to the team.
4. Ray from The Princess and the Frog
   Jim Cummings, who has voiced such iconic characters as Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, Monterey Jack, Darkwing Duck, and the singing voice of Scar(!), plus the Tasmanian Devil(!!) took a huge left turn to voice a Cajun accent for Ray. And though the character has been criticized as being a negative Cajun stereotype, I'd argue that he's one of the wisest, bravest Disney characters yet created. And if you've seen the film, then you'd know that his loyalty is second to none. Easily one of the most positive sidekicks we've seen.
5. Pascal from Tangled
   Had I the room, I would have added both Maximus and Pascal to the list, but if forced to choose I'd give the edge to Pascal just because I love how he was animated. His range of emotions was surprisingly deep for such a little guy, and he added to the story in meaningful ways rather than being a distraction from it. But the real kicker? He is responsible for killing the villain at the end! Crazy! But so very un-Disney and cool. I just wish they had given him more to do.
6. Dory from Finding Nemo
   What's odd is that I preferred Dory to Marlin or Nemo. Ellen gave her a personality that made her more interesting, and her faulty memory made her far more interesting.
7. Iago from Aladdin
   They wanted a grating, annoying sidekick for Jafar, and it's impossible to get more annoying and grating than Gilbert Gottfried. As I mentioned above, Iago taking the edge off of Jafar made Jafar be able to be much more evil.
8. Mushu from Mulan
   Oh come on. It's Eddie Murphy. He was perfectly cast for the part and made it fairly easy to ignore that the character was woefully out of place in the actual story. Plus he miraculously managed to not let Cri-Kee (the cricket) upstage him.
9. Abu from Aladdin
   Who doesn't love a monkey? But better than that, he wasn't just a sidekick, he was an important part of the story, and his moments with Magic Carpet are some of my favorite in the film.
10. Dante from Coco
    The derpy puppy from Coco was loyal to an extreme degree and played so well against the main character with his flappy tongue and mindlessly happy attitude. There was a Dante plastic statue I saw that I would have bought if I could have found one. That's not something I say about a lot of Disney characters!