The Gray Tray Lottery at Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe

One of the things I really like about WDW is the way they can take the simplest thing and make it great.  This past October we discovered how they can make a mistake magical by doing a thing that we did not have a clue to.  Totally random.
We were eating at Cosmic Rays Starlight Café, this is the place with Sonny Eclipse and his great show.  I ordered my food, don't forget to go on either side of the register, and went up to the counter to wait for it.  Today it was this crazy new creation, pulled-pork on a cheeseburger.  Yeah, that was on the menu and it was great.
So as I'm waiting I can see the tray getting loaded up and then brought over to me.  And at this point it's just a normal everyday tray in my eyes.  I'd have to say I did not even notice it other than to register that I was not carrying the food and drink in my hands.  As I was turning, the Cast Member was holding out a Mickey straw.  You know the type, the plastic straw in the shape of a Mickey head.  Like when you add 70 cents to your drink price at most counter services, you get it.

Well, as it turns out, I had won the Gray Tray Lottery.  Out of the hundreds of brown or blue trays it seems that there is only 1 gray tray.  The customer that gets that tray also gets the lottery prize of one Mickey straw.  Very cool!  It's a small thing but on a hot, long day, it's nice to get that kind of surprise.  I'm thinking probably one of 3 things happened to start this fun play with guests. 

• Just a mistake in the delivery of new trays when they unpacked them. One the wrong color.
• Or, a guest just walked one over from another restaurant.  Maybe from the Lunching pad? 
• Or, the marketing machine is a lot bigger and smarter than we think and this was a directive from upper mgmt. that was determined for $0.00, you have a chance to make a guest smile.

Whichever way it is

May you someday, get the Gray Tray.

WDW Interactive Queue Entertainment; What's next?

As I've mentioned in previous posts, YouTube is your friend.  I was watching a recent video that showed the new Interactive Queue Entertainment updates that were made to the Peter Pan attraction at WDW.

 

 

The things they come up with are great and always an improvement on the past.  The shadows are sooooo sharp and you can't really tell the difference of the animation and the guest.  Tinkerbelle in the bedroom is very cool as is the clap, Pixie Dust room.  I can't wait to try those things out.

 

The Disney Imagineers have been busy with these great side projects that has been going on for a decade or more.  There had to be someone, somewhere in Disney Mgmt. who asked, "How can we improve the Guest's experience in the parks?"  Or better yet, "How to make the guy that just spent a lot of $$$ forget that he is on a long line?"  Either way, the ideas they've come up with have been really good.

 

To explain further, I'm not talking about pre-show movies like they have in Muppets or Monster Inc., but the activities or entertainment to help you enjoy your Stand-By Line experience.  And, as far as I've determined, there are three main type of these Interactive Queue Experiences(IQE).  The first is the large animatronic kind of distraction.  Buzz Lightyear and Mr. Potato Head are two great examples.  As well as Stitch. 

 

 

The second type of IQE's are the physical kinds of activities like the games and the touch-me or better yet, waving activities.  The new things on Peter Pan are a great example of this.  I think the Soarin' Queue might have been the first kind and wow have they come a long way since.  The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train has some great ones.

 

 

 

The third kind of IQE is the general overall look of the attraction kind of queue.  Almost every ride queue at a Disney park has a great overall look.  There is so much detail packed into a regular line area that for 30 years nothing was really needed to be done to improve the line standing situation.  Think of walking through Pirates or Splash Mountain or even the Jungle Cruise's queue.  Those queue's with no electronic help at all are pretty awesome.  Take a look below at us walking through the Splash Mountain line once we go inside.  You totally believe that your moving from our world and going underground and getting ready to enter the world of Briar Fox and all his friends and enemies. 

  

 

Same with Pirates.  That fort is one of the most realistic areas on property.  Another thing to note is the music.  Every attraction queue has it's own music.  On second thought, every pathway and restaurant has their own theme music, that's how immersive Disney Imagineers make it.  In my opinion, audio is just as important as visuals in almost every form of entertainment.

The Magic Kingdom in particular is being taken over by these Queue upgrades.  There are now IQE's on Pooh, Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder, Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear, Peter Pan, Seven Dwarfs, Little Mermaid and Dumbo.

The question now, is what's next?  Of the remaining attractions that have extensive lines in the Magic Kingdom, there are 3 really good candidates.  My thinking is that these 3 attractions, Pirates, Splash Mountain, and the Jungle Cruise are the next to get an IQE.  All 3 of them are kind of already set up for it in that they have inside controlled areas. 

 

 

 Pirates could be as easy as including some animatronic characters on the Queue.  How about a pirate in a cell?  It would react to people passing by and talk.   Or perhaps windows out to the harbor from the fort as we walk through it showing the approaching pirates.  If the guys playing chess where not on the Fastpass line I'd say animate them.  Seems like a waste if people are speeding by it on fastpass.

 

 

The Jungle Cruise has a lot of great things to look at and read while your on line.  But on crowded days when they open up that back area of the line, it can get boring.  The extra line is so long, there's a water fountain at the other end of it before your turn and come back.  Maybe a bank of two way radios where you can listen into conversations between "imagineered" skippers?  Or some of the Under the Sea crab like technology in a form suitable for the Jungle Cruise.  I could also see holographic maps of the Jungle and a electronic version of the deceased remote control boats.  Same kind of screens and controls like Space Mountain, but a jungle course where you can drive boats.  Or imagine the car driving game from Post-show at Test Track but mounted on the wall.

 

 

 Splash Mountain is another attraction that has a substantial line that sometimes backs up.  With two distinct areas in this queue, there are a lot of things that can be added to take the guest's mind off the wait.  The outdoor section as you go around the switch backs could have some interactive activities but they must somehow match the really nice landscaping they have back there.  As much as I don't want people to just look down out there, a similar game like the iPad like gem game as they have on the Seven dwarfs queue would work well.  Maybe something like catch the Briar Fox.  Another idea would be to use the trees involving the birds of the story to get people to look around. As you go inside and down into the tunnel to where the logs are docked, the entire left wall can be utilized in an number of different ways.  Touch screens and various other 3D holographic games themed to Splash.  It'll be fun.

 

So what do you think?  What is the next attraction to get one of these Interactive Queue Entertainment makeovers?  I only discussed the Magic Kingdom in this post and plan on talking about others down the road.   Thanks to WDWNews Today and Ricky at Inside the Magic for some of the YouTube help.

Staying On-Site or Off-Site, That is the Question...

One of the biggest questions I'm asked about going to Walt Disney World is where do I stay, on or off property.  Well this trip I did both and I thought it would be a perfect time to do the comparison.  I stayed three nights at the Disney Value resort All-Star Movie resort.  The last two nights I stayed at the Gateway Ramada located on 192.
Let's start with location, check out this map.  Note how you can see both hotels in the same shot.  At the bottom left of the picture is the Ramada and it is about 1/4 mile down from the exit onto World drive from 192.  The   All-Star Resort is the hotel at the top right of this picture.  So as the crow fly's very close location wise. If you have a car it's a wash.  If not, then you are kind of limited if your staying off-site.  They do have a shuttle, but it only goes to the Magic Kingdom and Epcot.  The thinking there is that you can take bus to other parks from those two parks.  At the resort you have the buses.  However, at the All-Star movies, you are at the end of the stops for the busses from all parks except for the Magic Kingdom.  So they do get crowded and sometimes take a little while.
Next category is room size and accessories.  I'll let the pictures do the job here.  The first two are, of course the All-Star Movies.  The room was nice and well decorated.  There was a slight smell, but eh. I

did not get a picture of the bathroom, but it is past the TV, through the curtain.  This was my first night so the room is still in good shape.  Fridge is under the TV.  The rooms at the AS Movies are all outside entry.  The food options are pretty large.  From a full service food court that has cooked to packaged food options.  Also a selection of snacks in the gift store.
Before I go any further I have one note to make about the Ramada Gateway hotel.  There are really two hotels in one on this property.  There is the tower and the motel.  The motel itself is a little run down and truly shows the age of the place.  The tower was renovated about 8 years ago and is great.  Where the motel has your door opening to the outside, the tower has hallways.  The room itself is really nice.  Here are a couple pictures.  The TV here had 3 HBO's and Comedy central and of course both had Stacey.  There was also a ton of outlets in the Ramada.  They have a Restaurant in the lobby, a BBQ place.  And they had a snack bar/Ice Cream counter where you could get cereal, chips, and other snacks.  The other big difference was the kitchen area that had a small sink and fridge and a microwave.

There is always something about taking leftovers back to the room but not being able to heat them up.  Very conducive to only taking desserts back and that does not bode well for the diet.  And to keep the comparisons going the towels were much bigger and softer at the Ramada.  The same goes for the soap and shampoo at least in my opinion.  The Front Desk staff is somewhat limited at the Ramada as opposed to the AS Movies, so you need to be a lot more self-sufficient.  There are a lot of fast food and mini super markets right nearby and getting on and off 192 is no issue.  

So I've left the biggest difference for last.  The price per night.  The AS Movie was, for me this trip, due to Jimmy working his magic, $119 a night.  The Ramada was $58 a night.  The determining factor for me is how long will I be in the hotel.  A trip like this one where I was meeting up with different people throughout the trip meant  I would be spending very little time at the hotel.  Although, it made it much easier to coordinate meets we were running by being on site.  So it was worth the extra price.  If I had no events like that I would have stayed the whole time off-site.  True, I do not get to take advantage of EMH, but I can work around that easy enough.

It all comes down to doing your research and reading all the reviews you can about the off-site hotels.  I like the Disboards and forum boards like the most, but Tripadvisor is not bad.

  

Adventures in Podcasting

 What is a podcast?  If I had a nickel for every time...  I never knew what a podcast was until around 2005.  A podcast is an audio recording that is made public for all to listen to. Most shows are not that basic and they vary from very plain to  the well produced podcasts.  I mainly have always listened to Disney Themed podcasts, but you can find a show on almost any topic now a days.
 I found both the WDW Today guys and Ricky from the Inside the Magic Show at about the same time.  I've listened to hundreds of shows and still do.  Mostly all Disney themed.  Many of the shows over the years have stopped recording, but those that continue are great.  Along with the above, I spend my time listening to the Be Our Guest Podcast crew, Lou Mongello and his WDW Radio show and the group over at the DisUnplugged.
In the past year and a half I have found my way on to the other side of the microphone as a Podcaster.  The kids of course, by contact, also listened to a lot of Disney themed

podcasts and about 2 years ago we were talking about what we would say if we had our own podcast.  Well we talked about it over and over and decided to give it a try and the "We're Going to Walt Disney World" Podcast was born.  We're getting ready to record our 38th show and have had a blast recording.  We've been lucky enough to have had a friend of ours from England join us.  George adds a great perspective to the show.  We do a lot of different segments led by our Wheel of Attraction.  This is a great segment where we spin a great big carnival wheel with Disney Attractions on it.  We talk about whatever it lands on.  This show is fun because Quinn, Hope and George run and think up the segments and give their great teenage perspective to the show.  I'm the Tech Guy, a true up and coming Mike Newell and try to keep the show on track. 
More recently, in the last 3 months, I have become involved with a second podcast, The Disney Nerds Podcast.  This show came about with 4 people on a Facebook group called of all things the Disney Nerd Group.  We were amazed at the amount of info being posted in the group that were great history and park tips.  A couple of the groups members approached me as a "Tech guy" and I got involved.  We're a show of 4 and have guest hosts take turns joining us. We discuss all things Disney in a conversation format with a lot of honest opinions.  This show is 10 shows old but is more consistent and comes out, usually on Wednesday.  Jimmy, Farrah, Tom and I and our guests really have a good time discussing anything Disney.
I really enjoy podcasting.  The ability to be able to help out other people with information that we have learned through experience is great.  So let me know what you think in the comments below.  Is there a Podcast that you listen to?  Have you heard one of our shows?  What do you think?  We really want to know.

Maz Disney Book Review:Attention to Detail, a Look at Walt Disney World Parks

One of the things I love the most about the WDW parks is the amount of detail that is designed into almost everything.  Of course great details are expected on the large attractions, but at WDW the details are everywhere.  From a period phone that talks to you in the Hat Shop at the Magic Kingdom to the Upside down game of Battleship at Disney Hollywood Studios.  One of the best books around that shows us a lot of those details is Attraction to Details: A Look at Walt Disney World Attractions.  This is a book compiled by Keith Black and Jackie Damon and has some of the coolest and most unique details found in the WDW parks, all with photos.  The pictures are really bright and clear and show so much great detail.  In their words:

"Through the use of photographs taken at the parks, we hope to bring awareness to the incredible work of Walt Disney and his Imagineers found throughout the parks at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida.  We seek to test your memory of the location of these details as well as give a little insight to their purpose and placement from our perspective and information we have gained over time. Our hope is to encourage others to pay attention to detail and in so doing gain further enjoyment of the parks."

The other great part of this book is that it provides photo scavenger hunts for the parks.  Click Here for an example from their website. I was lucky enough to be part of one of these scavenger hunts with some friends of mine in Oct. 2012.  It was a actually run by both Keith and Jackie during the Be Our Guest Podcast's Epic October 2.0.  It was a blast.  Below is a pic of all of us that participated:

The scavenger hunt was restricted to the MK Monorail loop which meant it included the three hotels, the Ticket and Transportation Center and the Magic Kingdom stop, up to the Bag Search Tables.  I can't find a picture of the cards we were given but each card had 5-6 numbered pictures per side.  You were to find where the picture was and have all but one of the team photographed with it.  We had a blast passing the other teams and looking for the clues.  We had a two hour time limit.  the Contemporary was the base. When we got back totals were tallied and we lost by one point.  Go Figure.

The Detail orientated Duo of Keith and Jackie are getting ready to release Volume 2 and I can't wait.  Check out the Attraction to Details: A Look at Walt Disney World Attractions book and hunts either at that link on amazon or at their Home Site and tell them I sent you. 

 

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The Maz Endless Summer Vacation Part 1(WGTWDW Podcast #35)

Here is some more commentary and pics from Show # 35.  You can listen here or read.  Thanks again for stopping by.  Feel free to leave comments or questions

Show # 35

I want to start off by saying that we are really thankful we've been so lucky to travel as much this summer as we've done.  We've had slim years and it's great to take advantage of this time now.  Quinn will be starting college in a couple of years, so we decided to take advantage of the summer time to travel.
The Mazzilli Endless Summer officially started the weekend after the 4th of July.  Lesley's company has a great company picnic at Hershey Park that weekend.  We've been doing this for at least 10 years.  We go with friends from college and make it a reunion weekend also.  This year was the extra bonus for the Girls, One Direction was playing at Hershey stadium and they all had tickets.
We drove out on Friday and went to Hershey park that night.  That's our ride night.  We've conceded long ago that the rides on Saturday are not worth the lines about 1/2 hour after the park opens.  We usually pick two of the rides we could not get on the night before.  For me it's Fahrenheit and StormRunner. We spend most of Saturday at the water park part of Hershey.  A nice feature of the lunch is that you can go at 12:00 thru 6:00 as many times as you want.  Great deal!

  We had a great couple days at the parks.  The Girls all saw 1D and said the concert was great.  The guys stayed at the park and then did the required tour through the chocolate factory before heading back to the hotel and then to home on Sunday.  The plan is to get packed and then back on the road to Florida on Monday morning.  We re-packed the van and got everything ready and set out the next morning at 4:00 am.  One of the rules about driving down without my wife Lesley is that I cannot drive straight through.  We need to stop, which we did in Brunswick Ga.  The next morning we slept all the way to 7am to make up for the day before and got back on the road.

The plan for today was to stop in St. Augustine at the Disney Character outlet and then on to DTD.  We would then get in the room until 4:00pm.  The Outlet store was good but we made no big purchases this year.  We did get a new Antenna Topper,  Luigi's Tires. The key-chain remote for the car was not working so no beeps to guide us back to the car in the parking lots.   The antenna topper was key a couple times in finding the van. We always try to stop here or at the outlet store neat WDW each trip.  We usually find a really great deal.  They usually have the previous holidays stuff along with any movies that might have been big maybe a year earlier.

 We got back on the road and our next stop was Downtown Disney.  We did the regular walk-around the Marketplace and then took a walk to the West Side, something we have not done in a long time. It is so sad to walk through Pleasure Island and think of what it was at one time.  I tried to explain to the kids how it was and how fun it was to celebrate New Years Eve every night.  We walked all the way down to the new bowling alley, Splittsville.  the place is incredible.  We had plans to meet the BOGP guys later that week. 

On the walk back to the Marketplace we stopped at the D Street store.  This is a great place with a lot of cool things to buy.  On top of that were the really cool decorations in there.  I am convinced they inherited a lot of stuff from the since closed Adventurers Club (AC).  And speaking of the AC we passed it twice and even though they've done their best to hide it, it is still there and very much missed.  Before leaving DTD we stopped at Earl of Sandwich.  This is still the best/cheapest sandwich on property, but alas, the restaurant has lost a little of it's sparkle.  On the ride up from Palm Beach towards the end of our trip, we saw that they have Earls on the Fla Turnpike.

Our next stop was to check-in to our hotel.  We stayed at the Ramada Gateway and got such a great deal.  We got a tower room with 2 queen beds, a kitchen area with fridge, microwave and sink separate from the bathroom.   The tower rooms are about 5 years old and look great still.  We were on the second floor.  These were inside hallway hotel rooms while the other half of the hotel was the outside two floor motel type rooms.  I've stayed in both types.  I only recommend the tower rooms.  We paid $63 total a night.  We had a really great stay.  Parked right outside from the elevators, very close each night. Hotel had two pools, a Barbecue themed restaurant and a Ice Cream Counter outside the pool table and Ping Pong covered courtyard.

They had a lot of Disney decorations around property.  This place is 5 minutes, from the parking lot at DHS, no exaggeration. It is the first set of buildings you hit after getting off of World Drive going west.  Plenty of fast-food places and other types of stores.  CVS has everything and the fast-food is a change from the park food.  I think we did KFC for one dinner. 

                                          Hope and I went to DHS that night.  With Quinn coming back to the parks after the cruise and Palm Beach, he would be outside his 14 day ticket window if he went with us that night.  So Hope got her time with Dad. 

Our main goal was the American Idol Finale show.  That's where all of the days winners compete for an over-all winner.  We were lucky to catch a great one.  There were 5 people in the show, but we decided it was between two, and they were sisters.  How about that.  After a great show that was a lot more of a party than the day time shows, it came down to the two sisters.  The younger one won.  I really hope she takes advantage of that super audition pass that gets her to the front of the line the next time American Idol the TV show comes around.  Getting to DHS late we kind of just bummed around.  Fastpass for Tower and we went to the last show of Indiana Jones for the day.  One of our new finds was the addition of the Walter crate and mirror to the pre-show of Muppets.  Very cool seeing stuff like that.  Now get rid of that 3D guy and put Walter on the stage.

We also spent some time in the Animation Courtyard.  Inside the area where you can line up for autographs there are a lot of computer station that let you play with color, audio and other aspects of animation.  Hope and I spent some time on the console that once you answer some questions, determines what Disney character you are most like.  For Hope it was Ariel.  We looked back in pictures and I was Tarzan. We spent some more time walking around and shopping, but that was it for the night.  The next morning we got up early and headed out to DHS again to get on the big rides we missed the night before...and we had Quinn with us.  Quick note on Tickets.  I had an AP card with RFID and the kids had paper tickets we had gotten from Undercover Tourist which were the old type.  We needed to go to two different lines to get in the park.  We took care of this at

Guest Services and got them the newer cards.  If your staying on property this can be done at your hotel.  Our main DHS goal of the day was the Extreme stunt show.  We feel that if you have at least one major goal, you don't tend to wander around as much.  The oddest thing of the day was the line we saw early on.  We did the dash to Toy Story Mania fastpass and then had time to ride it.  This was about 8:45.  

 Our next stop would then be Rock n Roller coaster before the crowd gets heavy.  There was a big line down Sunset that split at the two rides.  The park was not officially open and this was the  line waiting for 9:00.  We did a quick 180 and headed to the GMR. We had a nice relaxing day at DHS.  Went on everything we wanted to.  Ate at the ABC Commissary.  A big treat was a preview of, at the time, the new Lone Ranger movie.  It was at the Sounds Dangerous theater and was about 15 minutes of clips from the movie.  It played a big part in me wasting a couple hours to see it on the cruise.  Very fun and we also got a souvenir button/pin.  We stayed until closing and due to not going to Fantasmic, we were able to get on Muppets and Star Tours a couple of times.  Back to the hotel for a swim and late dinner.
The next day was our Magic Kingdom day.  The goal of today was two-fold.  First, we had BOG Rest. dinner ressies.  Second, the kids wanted to try the new pirate game in Adventureland.    We  

 started the day and met a very special person on the way down Main Street.  The M.S. Fire Chief.  Quinn had taken off with our tickets for fastpasses, but Hope took a picture with him.  This was our first time in the MK with the new fantasyland open.  So after we met up with Quinn, we rode Space Mtn. and ran over to Fantasyland.  It was great.  We went right over to the Little Mermaid ride and rode it twice.  The queue activity was awesome in it's simpleness fueled by high tech. 

Every so often in the cave part of the queue, you pass all manners of ways at looking at a small crab on a pile of something specific.  Through a porthole in the wall, through a picture frame, in a big glass jug and more.  The game was simple, the animated crab would come out with an item.  If it matched the items around him I think you did nothing.  If he carries in something that does not belong, you'd wave your hand in front of the water and he'd take it off the screen.  I've got some
 
video I'll post after this.  We again had a great day at the park with a Crowd Calendar number of 9.  We used the fastpasses and and did a lot of non-ride things as we counted down to dinner.  The kids and I did the new Pirate's Adventure: Treasures of the Seven Seas.  This game is located in a little shack right past Pirates on the way to Frontierland.  You scan your RFID Band or card and begin the game.  There are five adventures and because the game keeps track of the ones you've done, you don't repeat them.  We were lucky enough to do all 5 maps and had a great time.  Perfect mix of Agent P at Epcot, the Sorcerer's game in MK and Pirates of course.  Good mix.  There were some very surprising effects, get ready to have a good time.rs
We were then ready for dinner and made our way over to the Be Our Guest rest.  We had such a good time here. 

I am looking above and seeing how much I am typing.  Listen to the show and I'll just post some more pictures here to cover the last two days of the Turf part of the trip.

 

 

Epcot and Animal kingdom to follow!