Friday, May 27, 2011

New Stuff! - Little Mermaid Sneak Preview

Sorry, this post might seem a little "thrown together", but it's late and I'm tired....and it's my second post in one day! I don't think I've ever done THAT before! To see my post from earlier today about the opening of Space Mountain, the New Matterhorn and Montezooma's Revenge, keep scrolling down at the end of this post or click on "Older Post" at the bottom of the page.

After several attempts this past week to get on The Little Mermaid attraction and the new Star Tours, I was finally able to experience both of them today! (Both were having Sneak Previews/Soft Openings for the general public today.) This first photo was taken in the morning, before The Little Mermaid opened. It did not open until early afternoon.



This tile is located on the ground just inside the entrance. Note the pieces of shell embedded into the concrete just below the tile.



The clam shell-shaped vehicles enter the attraction through the hull of a wrecked ship.




Panning from left to right, here are sections of the attraction mural located behind the loading area.







***Spoiler Alert!*** Since the wait time was never more than 30 minutes, I was able to ride the attraction several times. I filmed it twice and I've posted both complete ride-thru videos below. To view each video in full widescreen format, click on the word "YouTube" in the bottom right corner of the frame.








I'll post a few Star Tours pics within the next day or two, plus some other surprise pics!

4 comments:

  1. Great videos---looks like fun! Nice that the ride stopped so you could get a better look at some of the details and hear the Sebastian safety spiel.

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  2. Thanks for posting the pics of the mural. I's seen a photo of one section of it already but not in its entirety. Reminiscent of the classic dark ride murals of the past. I love it!

    The little details of the shells in the wall and the tile art...looks like the imagineers are back on track fro DCA!

    I haven't watched your videos yet Tokyo. I'm not sure I want to see the ride before actually riding it myself. But since that could be a long time from now, I'll probably break down and sneak a peek.

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  3. Chris, you didn't say what you thought of the ride! Daveland was not especially impressed, were you of the same opinion? I think it looks fun! It's interesting that when the ride stops, the Sebastian animatronic actually "talks" to you!

    I think the main thing I'm disappointed about is that they made no attempt to do the giant Ursula scene at the end, which would have been awesome!

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  4. Dan, you probably couldn't tell, but in the first video, the ride was actually going slower through almost all of the scenes. We would get going at a normal speed for a moment and then they would slow us way down....again, it happened in almost every scene. Then of course we finally came to a full stop in the Kiss The Girl scene.

    SWS, I really like the mural too and yes, it also reminds me of the original Fantasyland dark ride murals....except they didn't include Ursula in the mural! I don't blame you for not watching the videos. I don't watch videos of attractions I haven't been on yet....unless they're extinct attractions!

    Dave, I guess I always do that, don't I? I guess I'm worried sometimes that I'm too negative about stuff (DCA and Brown Tomorrowland!), so I didn't want to say what I didn't like about it because overall....I really did like it!

    One of the times I was exiting, they even asked me to do a survey about the ride and I said all positive things, but they did ask "What one thing did you not like about it?" I said it would have been nice if it was just a little bit longer...one or two more scenes would have done it for me. And yes, I agree with you.....there should have been a confrontation scene with GIANT URSULA! I think it really needed that, but I kind of knew in advance that it wasn't going to have that from looking at the model over at the Blue Sky Cellar. I also have to agree with Daveland about the under water effect, but with me it wasn't so much the descending part that I had a problem with, as it was the ascending part. It happened too quickly...something was missing there.

    I think if it was just a little longer, it could have been an "E" Ticket attraction, but I know everyone kept saying it wasn't going to be an "E" Ticket, so I didn't have my hopes set that high. I would call this one a very strong "D" Ticket!.

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