This month is Disney Guru’s anniversary month! We are so thankful for each and every one of you and all of the support you give us. We are hosting Awesome August right here at Disney Guru. The Guru Girl’s have worked up some truly “Awesome” posts just for you!! Many of our posts this month are going to be focusing on our senses while we are visiting the parks and how Disney stimulates our senses to make for a truly magical time! You will notice that each Guru Girl has interpreted this topic very differently. So sit back relax and enjoy Awesome August!!! Don’t forget to check out our weekly giveaways.
In honor of Disney Guru’s first anniversary, we are focusing on the sensory experience of Walt Disney World. When you experience attractions in Walt Disney World, it’s more than just seeing and hearing things.
Let’s take a tour of attractions that do more than show you something.
Our first stop is in the Magic Kingdom. In Fantasyland, you can find the 3-D movie adventure called “Philharmagic.”
Not only are we watching some of our favorite animated films on a super huge movie during Lumiere’s rendition of “Be Our Guest” we are treated to the scrumptious smells of fresh baked goods as the dessert carte is wheeled by. Finally, Disney uses its powers of smell dispersal for GOOD! As the champagne bottles pop open in excitement, we feel the air on our faces!
When we see the brooms carrying the buckets of water from the famous “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” scene, we are splashed with the water dumped out of those buckets.
Let’s move over to EPCOT and visit Soarin’. This innovative flight simulation puts you in the front row to view amazing vistas throughout California. Disney doesn’t stop there. You can smell citrus while floating over orange groves and while watching the sun set over the surf, you notice a whiff of beach. (I don’t know the actual scent, but when you smell it, you will say “it’s beach!)
EPCOT also uses smell in Spaceship Earth. When Rome burns you can smell smoldering ashes. I don’t know how they keep that odor from moving through the entire ride, but it’s only in that scene!
Over at Hollywood Studios there are two attractions that take full advantage of sensory immersion.
Muppet Vision 3D takes the humorous approach to its attraction. The gags are corny but cute. They admit they are resorting to common pranks but in doing so, endear us to them. Squirting flowers and snake out of the can are some of the tricks you will see. It’s Muppet magic at its best.
The Voyage of The Little Mermaid is a live-action show that chronicles the story of Ariel. When you enter the theater, you are surrounded by coral and other effects that take you under the sea before the show even begins.
Water is an integral part of the show (being it’s about a mermaid). Streams of water serve as curtains, mists of water shower down upon the audience. Light jets of water replicate splashes.
Laser light effects, wind and bubbles are also used to make you feel like you are IN the story with Ariel and Eric.
Finally, at Animal Kingdom, you can find “It’s Tough to be a Bug” located within the Tree of Life.
I am going to be honest. I don’t really enjoy this attraction. Sometimes Disney goes all out with its sensory immersion and I get a little freaked out by it. This attraction and Alien Encounter and Honey, I Shrunk the Audience all have this affect on me.
Let me tell you my ITTBAB story. . .
In 1998 Animal Kingdom had just opened and I was still lucky enough to go on family vacations with my parents, brother and sister even thought I was of adult age! I was old enough that I invited my current husband then serious boyfriend to join us during the trip. Remember this detail as it comes in handy later.
Again, 1998 and we were exploring a new park. Animal Kingdom was a different park compared to the others in the Florida Family. Asia didn’t exist, and lots of attractions were still being tested out. We rode the safaris first since that seemed to be THE attraction to visit. Then we waited in the winding lines of the Tree of Life to the cavernous waiting area for ITTBAB.
Disney’s first sensory treat is the visual trappings of the waiting area. The room itself is more like being at the root base of the Tree of Life with large roots stretching from ceiling to the ground.
Even your 3-D glasses are black with spider leg trim unlike the typical plain yellow used at other 3-D attractions.
Along the walls you will see posters advertising clever bug themed musicals adding to the theme of a Bug-Run Theatre. You will hear background music such as honeybees buzzing “Beauty and the Bees.” There is lots of clever wordplay in the posters and music before the show.
Once inside, the theme continues as it looks like you are sitting in a theatre carved out of the roots and dirt of the tree and seats are customized logs. The “orchestra” is tuning up with insect sounds while a familiar buzzing sound emanates from inside the “wasp nest projection booth.”
Flik, from A Bug’s Life, is our Master of Ceremonies here to show us humans why it’s tough to be a bug. Various types of bugs arrive to show us their amazing powers. Things go wrong and we are subjected to jets of “acid” sprayed on us and stink bug emanations.
Hopper stops in to remind bugs that humans are not friends to bugs and this is when things get scary. Spiders drop from the ceiling and you will get poked in the back by “wasps.”
There is a happy ending of course and a lovely singing finale. Disney gets the last laugh when our announcer proclaims that “. . . honorary bugs remain seated while all the lice, bed bugs, maggots and cockroaches exit first.” Ewww is all I have to say.
Here’s my personal story. This attraction opened 8 months prior to A Bug’s Life opening in theaters. We thought the effects were pretty cool but had no idea who Flik and Hopper were. On subsequent vacations we would recall this story. (family tradition to tell past vacation stories on current vacation).
My husband would hear this story every time. Finally, in about 2004 I was going to tell the Tough to be a Bug Story and I looked at my husband. “I think you came with us on that trip didn’t you?” Husband laughs and laughs. My family had been telling him this story as if he hadn’t been there for 6 years. And he was sweet enough not to burst our bubbles for all those years.
Now the story goes “Remember that time we saw the bug movie and we thought you didn’t come with us?” Next time you visit Walt Disney World, pay attention to the layers of sensory experiences you are exposed to. When you walk by Casey’s, you can smell ketchup. When you go on Aladdin’s Magic Carpets you might get “spit” on by a camel. When you catch a whiff of funnel cake in the American Adventure pavilion, think of me!
Jenn aka Dis Savvy
1 Comment.
Jenn, you hit the nail on the head… Great sensory attractions there!