To S.I.R. With Love

The show building now known as Stitch’s Great Escape has seen a lot of changes over the years, but through it all, one thing has remained constant:  Stinky chili dogs.  Or maybe that’s just the Stitch version.  At any rate, I hate that part. But really, there is something else.  Every incarnation of the attraction […]

Monsters Before Monsters

Yesterday Universal finally announced an opening date for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  Judging by the carefully retouched hi-res publicity photos and the always-accurate concept art, they have obviously knocked it out of the park. Oh, stop being so sarcastic, you say.  It’ll be good.  And I have to admit, I’m looking forward to […]

Guard Duty

Back when Disney’s Hollywood Studios first opened, there wasn’t much to it.  Sure, the park was only slightly smaller than the Magic Kingdom, but if you looked at the map, you’d see that it fully half of the real estate was taken up by something called a “Backstage Tour.” Yes, this was a hearkening back […]

Where great rides go to die PART 2.

In our last installment we took a look at the bizarre journey parts of the Horizon’s show scenes took as they traveled from Orlando to Paris only to become in essence garbage. I had mentioned that in the video we could see another piece of Disney history rotting away in the “bone-yard” of Disney Studios […]

Tronorails

A few monorails around the resort are starting to take on a new look.  They will stay this way at least for the next nine months or so, until Walt Disney Pictures gives birth to the sequel to a certain breakthrough film from 1982. No, Condorman was 1981. There’s a lot of internet buzz for […]

A view forever lost… times two.

As construction on the massive Fantasyland expansion gets underway it got me thinking of simpler times.  I realized that in fact sometimes it is the simple things you miss the most.   One day not too long ago there were mighty submarines plying the waters of a crystalline lagoon smack in the middle of Fantasyland. […]

A Great Place To Meet Models

As a Disney World fanatic growing up, I would always end each trip with a collection of park guide maps, so that I could pour over them later back home in Indiana.  Sometimes I couldn’t wait until I got back home, so I would pour over them in the hotel room.  Remember back when it […]

Where great rides go to die.

No matter how you look at it Horizons was an attraction that closed too soon. Even those who felt it was dated before it even opened at Epcot Center in 1983 would have to admit that being operational for a scant 16 years was a disservice to the enormous effort that went into creating it. […]