Kenversations™
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Disneyland
Let me ramble on long enough, and I’ll always bring up Disneyland. It is something you can count on, like taxes, death, and the use of an accordion on a "Weird Al" Yankovic album.

I’ve watched the progression of the admission policies for Disney’s California Adventure (DCA). At first, park-hopping (visiting both Disneyland Park and DCA) was going to be restricted to people staying at a Disney hotel with a multiday package. Then it was extended to the Good Neighbor hotels, and then finally to anyone who bought a ticket for three days or more. There have been various other deals, including the lifting of restrictions on Main Gate privileges for Cast Members. Finally, a special Southern California resident discount was announced.

In the Summer, no less… a time when beautiful women in their best Summer outfits… uh, I mean, a time when theme parks are usually packed with people paying full rates. It isn’t just Disney, either - other parks are offering special deals. Looks like someone’s worried about a soft season.

One thing new at Disneyland Park, which isn’t offering the resident discounts, will be a renovated…

Walt Disney Story Featuring Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln
Now set to open (last I heard) on the ever-popular date of July 17, the Opera House will have some changes to the exhibit area as well as the theatre show itself.

It’s a whole new Lincoln, folks. No, not the car - the President. The audio-animatronic figure is new, the set has been changed, the speech has been changed, and there will be a new sound system involved. I watched Abe do his thing with no chair in sight, so I figured he was no longer going to stand up before our eyes. I have since seen him sitting in a chair, so I guess that part of his routine will be there.

I’m surprised that Disney was willing to put any money into this attraction at all. Disneyland Park is still lucky to have a Walt Disney and Lincoln attraction. For quite a while now, there hasn’t been a Walt Disney Story in the Magic Kingdom at…

Walt Disney World
My latest trip was about a month ago. There were things I no longer needed to see out there thanks to the same things being at DCA. That freed up time to do what’s left of the things I really like out there. Unfortunately, some of my favorites are gone. Horizons, for instance.

I enjoyed Rock’n Rollercoaster, or whatever the spelling of the name is, but was expecting it to be longer or at least have something else "happen" after the corkscrew. The latest programming on the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror is great. That big sorcerer’s hat in front of the Chinese Theater brought back bad memories of other things that blocked the view of a park icon, like, oh… a giant slot machine.

Like the last time, we spent only a few hours in Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and most of our time at EPCOT Center, or whatever it is being called this year.

Test Track was a lot of fun. Reminds me of the driving of certain family members. I miss the old World of Motion attraction, which was truer to the spirit of Future World. Journey Into Your Animation is obviously a lot shorter than the original attraction. There was no wait for it. There were some cute effects, but it is a shame that one of the park’s most unique attractions was sacrificed for it.

Akershus, the restaurant in the Norway pavilion, still has beautiful women and tasty food. I ate there twice on this trip. I consider this restaurant and O’hanas (I’ll hear from Fab if I didn’t spell that right), which I hit once this time around, to be reasons to visit. I was really impressed though, with the restaurants at…

Universal Florida Islands of Adventure
Wow! Talk about a well-themed, beautiful place! The restaurants are nice to just walk through. The park was just getting ready to open the last time I was in Florida, and I’d seen an extensive walk-through video of the site during construction, but this was my first time actually being inside the place. Nice… very nice.

It sure didn’t look like they were suffering low attendance.

We hit the Spiderman attraction twice (thank you, single rider line). The first time, at least two of the projectors were not working… I knew enough about the attraction to figure this out. The second time through, everything was working. This attraction is not to be missed.

The Cat in the Hat dark ride was as good as I expected it to be.

One thing that is easily passed by is the Triceratops attraction in the Jurassic Park section of the park. Seek it out and see it. You can pet a "live" triceratops, and the presentation is quite impressive.

Well, there you have it… just a few things that were on my mind.

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Related Links

• May 15th Kenversations
  Ken argues for a reorganization of The Walt Disney Company
• January 8th and February 12th Kenversations
  Ken's two-part series on animation.
  

-- Ken Pellman

-- Posted June 27, 2001