Day 1308: Frozen Ever After

I don't know about you, but I definitely remember the day all hell broke loose when Disney announced that our beloved Maelstrom would be replaced with "Frozen Ever After," yet another piece of the hit film Frozen in a world where many could do without it. At the time, I was just as angry as the next person. Why in the world would they think this would be a good idea? It's not as though Maelstrom was a popular ride, because in every aspect, it wasn't, but replacing it with Anna and Elsa to bring in yet more money seemed like a sellout. And to make matters worse, we've all complained about how franchise films don't belong in Epcot. That, however, is a different discussion. 

After months and months of construction walls and wondering about what was really happening behind them, Norway is open, and quite frankly, it's looking good. Norway, like Canada, needed a bit of work. A good portion of the guest population had no idea Maelstrom was there, and while it was great to never have a line for School Bread, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't nice to see a pavilion come back to life...even if it took Frozen to get it there. 

Perhaps the best parts about the refurbishment are the addition of the Anna and Elsa Meet and Greet and the adorable vikings that now call the pavilion home. The Meet and Greet actually fits in rather well, and the entire structure is stunningly beautiful. It's obvious they put a lot of time and thought into the creation of the area, and while it's certainly brighter than the rest of the pavilion, it fits. It didn't feel too much as though a franchise took everything over, and if we're talking about the characters themselves, I don't see a problem with them being there now that they have a proper area to meet guests. After all, Aladdin, Jasmine, Mulan, Belle, and Snow White, among others, also call Epcot home. 

The attraction itself, which I have very few pictures of since I was filming (so you'll see it in a future vlog), was much, much better than I expected. What they did with the original Maelstrom track is clever, and even if you've had enough of "Let It Go," that scene alone is sort of worth the entire attraction. The audio-anamatronics weren't as impressive to me in person, but I think it's because I'm just not a huge fan of the digitally animated faces. I prefer the real faces of those such as Lincoln in Hall of Presidents. That's my personal preference though, and I must say that otherwise, everything is amazing. Olaf seems completely real, as does Sven, and while the entire thing could be longer, you also really can't compare Maelstrom and Frozen Ever After at this point. They're completely different attractions and they're both great in their own unique way. 

So I guess what I'm saying is give Frozen Ever After a chance. It's one of the few attractions that didn't disappoint me in any way, and that's saying something. I literally couldn't find anything I disliked about this attraction, aside from my personal preferences about the anamatroncis and the fact that it replaced Maelstrom. And if for nothing else, it gave Epcot another much-needed E-Ticket attraction and brought life back to the Norway Pavilion. 

Now...if someone could just ship me some school bread? 

Have a magical day!

Day 631: 1450

I literally blog about this all the time, but I really feel it's important to mention it just one more time (although knowing me, this will probably come up again). If you don't know yet that the printing press was invented in 1450, then you obviously haven't been reading my blog for very long, nor have you been on Spaceship Earth. I talked almost a month ago about "Spaceship Timeline," which was basically a blog post on how when I'm sitting in classes I have to think about the year and whether or not the printing press had been invented yet. But this is getting kind of crazy, and this goes perfectly with the hot topic of #SaveMalestrom.

When I first began Everyday Disney 630 some days ago (gosh), I was grateful for the schedule I had at the time. Because I had two study halls each morning (senior release technically, but I spent them in the Business lab with the wonderful Mrs. Grassel), I had plenty of time on my hands to go through Disney news in addition to catching up on any homework or doing work for FBLA or band. I loved those two hours, and honestly I think it was a combination of that time and this blog that really refueled my love for Disney. That being said, I can't be more thankful for that time.

But at SNC, time is a little off. Classes don't meet everyday, meaning my schedule for every day of the week is completely different from the one before it, and while I have general routines (like eating lunch with Jessica and/or Allie at 11 everyday except Wednesday, or watching OUAT on Sunday nights in our dorm room), it's difficult to find a solid time to sit and go through blogs as I used to. Honestly, it's difficult to find a concrete time to sit down and write blog posts much less do anything else. Of course, I manage somehow, mostly with a perpetual post-it note on my to-do list that says "5 Blog Posts: - Today's - 4 Others (makeups)," constantly reminding me that I have a blog to work on.

Anyway, back to the point. This morning I had the chance to go through some of those blogs, heading all the way back into last week to try and catch up on some of the things I missed, and you can bet that since the announcement about Malestrom, it's a hot topic among the Disney bloggers. Of course, I've talked about it myself, but I want to address one issue I didn't really discuss previous to this post concerning the Frozen take-over.

There's a lot of reasons as to why Malestrom is leaving, making for the perfect combination of "Attraction-Closing-Ability." Disney is constantly changing, so after a period of time you really begin to understand why things come and go. For Malestrom, it's a popularity contest. Norway has gone without funding for a while, Malestrom needed upkeep, Frozen is insanely popular right now, everyone loves the music and the location will bring more people to Epcot.

I still fully stand by my comment I've made previously, that Frozen does NOT belong in Epcot. A popular "reason" as to why Frozen is COMING to Epcot, however, is the idea that a Princess attraction will increase the interest for children. Sure, Epcot isn't necessarily the most interesting for kids, I'll give it that, but that doesn't mean it isn't for kids. Over the past few years Disney has been, and to use a Disnerd term here, dumbing down the various attractions. Kitchen Kabaret/Food Rocks was replaced by Soarin'; Test Track was replaced with a different version of Test Track that is honestly great, but doesn't really teach you much about test vehicles as the previous version did; The Living Seas got some new life with Nemo and it's getting better, it really is, but the original Living Seas was still more informative; One word: Dreamfinder; The Wonders of Life pavilion closed completely; Ellen's Energy Adventure...I'll be surprised to see if that lives to see the new Frozen attraction. In general, this trend continues, and that's not even all the attractions in the park.

But obviously Disney has been doing something right all these years without Dumbing things down, right? If I can sit in my classes and use Spaceship Earth as a reference point for history, specifically within my music and English classes, then why in the world do we need Frozen in Malestrom? I would bet you a million dollars I learned more about Norway from the current pavilion that kids will from "Frozen."

We don't need things to be all about the characters and movies and songs. We need Epcot to be the Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow that it once was. That's what we want.

Have a magical day!

Day 621: The Cold Always Bothered Me Anyway

I love Frozen...I do. I really, really do. It's a great film and I know every word to every song and watch it probably at least once every other month. Plus it's coming to OUAT, which is reason enough for me to be a bit obsessed with it at the moment. But if there's one thing I want, it's for FROZEN TO GET OUT OF EPCOT.

Malestrom hasn't been super popular in years, and I fear it's gotten even less popular since Fastpass Plus appeared. That doesn't mean that I don't love the attraction though. No, it's not my favorite by any means, but it's as much a part of Epcot as anything else and I just need it to stay the way it is. 

Maybe this means I'm not good with change, and to be 100% honest that's probably pretty darn true, but can't Frozen just stay somewhere else? Like Hollywood Studios or Magic Kingdom. It doesn't belong in Epcot. I mean, remember back when Anna and Elsa were meeting in Norway and things were crazy? It was absolutely awful and there was a huge line and it just took away from the entire pavilion. 

Or possibly this is stemming off the fact that they're getting rid of the various music groups around World Showcase and replacing them with who knows what. Maybe it's because Magic Kingdom has gone through how many years of renovations and it's always something new and nothing is ever completely done. It could be the extremely short notice of closing, meaning that most of us will never ever ride Malestrom one more time, and I can't be more thankful that I videoed it on a recent trip so I at least have something. 

And maybe, just maybe, it's because Frozen is taking over the world. 

As I said not even a couple of minutes ago, I love Frozen, but I just don't feel like Epcot is the place for it. I'm all for celebrating the places that inspired these films, I really am, and I think it will bring a lot of new interest to Norway, but won't it cause a bottleneck around World Showcase? It's going to bring Epcot attendance up and offer a brand new popular attraction, which is also great, but is also a bit of an issue because there AREN'T a lot of attractions and what happens when the line for a new Frozen attraction has a four hour line and people are disappointed about that? Bad things. That's what. 

In general though, I think it's because Disney really has to step it up for me this time. I was severely disappointed with Ariel when it opened first in Disneyland and then was brought to WDW. It was missing something and focused just a little too much on the songs. I'm terrified the same thing is going to happen to Frozen. Are they going to focus too much on Let It Go and not enough on the relationship between the sisters? That's what this is going to boil down to, if they can pull a new Princess ride off, especially someplace where a Princess Attraction has no place being. 

Are you happy about Malestrom? Ready for more Frozen? Or should they just "Let it go?" 

Have a magical day!

(Note: This blog post was written on September 14).

Day 610: The Viking Lady

It's not just Disney Deja Vu that brings complete Disney randomness to mind. As you already well know, often times little hints of Disney just sort of pop up in my classes here at SNC, and this semester seems to be no different. As a matter of fact, I believe I've thought of Disney in class more this semester than the previous two, although Fairy Tales definitely puts up a fight. However, that was more of Disney movie thinking process, and this is most certainly stuck in the parks.

In the matter of about one sentence, my music theory class connected Haunted Mansion, Vikings and a discussion we had had in my British Literature Course about Pirates, because yes, all these things are related. And as a bonus, Epcot. 

For starters: Music Theory. We have a history class once a week where we learn about the history of music and how it came from the simple chants of the earliest days to the music we hear today, whether that be Jazz, Orchestras or on the radio. Today we happened to be discussing Opera, and the age-old question, of course, came up: "What's up with the Viking Hats?"

As far as Opera itself goes, there's actually a very easy explanation for this. The Fat Lady with a Viking Hat is NOT what opera actually is, as it actually only has to do with one composer: Wagner. As far as the rest of the operas in the world go, the Viking Lady isn't exactly the most common character. 

But of course, my mind went on a bit of a run once the Opera singer idea came up, because as far as Disney is concerned, there IS a viking singer somewhere on property...multiple properties actually. Know where?

Here's a hint: 

Know it now? Of course the Haunted Mansion has an Opera singer, although her Viking Helmet seems to be a bit different from those we generally think of, no horns involved. But wait! There's a reason for this too, and for the answer to that we're going to have to take a detour to my English class.

My British Literature course features some of the oldest English Literature that has been found, and it's translated so that we can make some kind of sense of it. I honestly don't even remember how we got on the topic, but sometime last week we were discussing Vikings, and how for the most part, Vikings were basically Pirates, or at least were the equivalent to the groups we were talking about. 

And with all this talk about Vikings (and Pirates), I decided to do some research. 

Turns out, Vikings never actually had horns on their helmets. That's purely a misconception. So that Fat Viking Lady that sings Opera isn't even really a Viking Lady, hence the reason her helmet looks different in the Haunted Mansion (or maybe it's just because she's a ghost and the wings are a humorous addition). Either way, I read up on Vikings, not a lot, but enough to get a sense of what we were talking about and couldn't help but think of Norway and Malestrom. I'm one of those people that generally sits and watches the film unless it isn't running, and I'll be super sad to see the entire attraction go if Frozen does indeed take over (and now's when the next blog post will get really confusing because all I'll do is talk about how much I love Frozen). 

But either way, I guess you could say that within that one question about Viking Hats in Opera, I associated Music to the Haunted Mansion to Pirates to Malestrom to Frozen. Now that certainly doesn't happen every day. 

Have a magical day! 

Day 408: Norwegian Fairy Tales

Classic and Contemporary Fairy Tales is a fun class. Like, a really fun class. I mean, we laugh all the time, and it's really really interesting to see how everything fits together so perfectly when it comes to these stories and the different versions. I mean, here and there you can see these little snippets of things that came through in the Disney films or on Once Upon A Time. And sometimes, you can even find connections to Disney things in places you least expect.

Today we started out class by watching a story called "The Ashlad and his Good Helpers." The main character, The Ashlad, is the star of many different Norwegian folk tales, and when it comes to the story you can watch by clicking the link below, I only had one thought on my mind (ok...other than the whole flying ship thing that made me super distracted because of OUAT).

You can watch The Ashlad and his Good Helpers here! 

Anyone have an idea as to what was running through my mind?

If you guessed Epcot and World Showcase and the Norway Pavilion and Trolls and Maelstrom, then you'd be exactly right.

I mean, I guess it is a Norwegian fairy tale so it would make plenty of sense for it too all match up, but I still had to laugh a little bit because of how these things find me. No wonder I am so winning at the fairy tale spotting contest. I don't even look and these things find me!

Who knows what I'll learn next time? At this rate blogging for this first semester should be super easy!

Have a magical day!