Back to one of my favorite topics! (Disney Update time!)

     Hey friends, as I've said before, my blog is mainly about video games, movies, TV shows, and theme parks. It has been a really long time since I wrote about parks, and even longer since I've been able to write about new things happening in the Disney Parks, especially the ones in the US. I'm happy to say that as of a few days ago, both Walt Disney World and Disneyland both got new additions to the park, some more substantial than others, and so we'll talk about them both a bit today! This will just be on the two biggest things that happened recently, but I do have to give a quick shout out to the giant statue/topiary of Te Fiti from Moana over in Epcot. Epcot has obviously been under some major construction in the last few years, but it's nice whenever we get a new hint at things coming along there. With that out of the way, let's head to Anaheim for our first new development!

If nothing else, this ride certainly looks amazing!

Mickey's Toontown: Back in Action!

    Toontown has been going through some refurbishment/reimagining over the last year (or so) in preparation for Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway, and while that ride was already opened earlier in the year, Mickey's Toontown officially reopened in its full capacity on March 19, 2023. This land looks to be more child friendly than a lot of the park as there are tons of play structures, water features designed for kids to play in, or to maybe just cool off visitors on a hot California day. Goofy has a whole area around his house that kids can make all sorts of sounds in different activities around his yard, and inside his house is a candy-making station, where kids can apparently make their own candy? I'm not sure how that works, but it sounds interesting. Donald's Boat is also parked near Goofy's house, has play structures on it as well (I would imagine having to do with water), and you can also apparently look through the portholes into his boat house and see Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Webby having fun inside! If you're looking for rides in this area, of course we have the aforementioned brand new Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway, now open on both sides of the country (at Walt Disney World, it's at Hollywood Studios inside the building where The Great Movie Ride used to be, as I've written about before), which is a great and very immersive ride through the cartoon world, led along by Goofy. In addition to the new ride, there's also Chip and Dale's Gadgetcoaster and Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin, which have both been in this land for a while, so it's nice to see them reopening after the re-imagination process has finished. One of the biggest changes in this land with the reimagining is that Pete, Mickey's constant rival, is finally available for meet and greets for the first time in the world! It's honestly shocking that he hasn't had character meetings this whole time, considering he has been around for as long as Mickey has, he was even in "Steamboat Willie" back in the day! Either way, I'm very happy for Pete to be in this land and I really hope he'll ham it up while meeting people. I hope Pete will come to Walt Disney World soon, along with some other characters (like Oswald please), but we'll just have to wait and see if that's in the cards.

Enter the Grid!

    A few years ago, Shanghai Disneyland opened, and with it, there were lots of new attractions, with one of the stand-out rides being "Tron Lightcycles Power Run." Luckily the exclusivity period has ended for this attraction, and it has now opened in Florida's Magic Kingdom park after years of construction and delays. I hope this is worth the wait, and it certainly looks pretty amazing just from the videos that I've seen of the ride so far. It's certainly like "Flight of Passage" over in Animal Kingdom in that it's hard to get a full impression from the ride just based on videos. It's pretty dark, and it has a strange ride vehicle, which is inspired by the "Light Cycles" from the Tron movies. This means that the ride has you leaning over on a motorcycle for the duration, which could be pretty uncomfortable, and potentially unrideable for some park guests. This probably will be similar to "Flights of Passage", with a cushion on your back and securing you pretty tightly, especially since this is a full roller coaster versus that other ride, which is a slightly more intense version of "Soarin'." While the Animal Kingdom ride utilized cool technology to make you feel like the "Banshee (or Ikran)" that you were riding on was actually breathing, this coaster is more devoted to keeping the rider safe. As far as I'm aware, it has been very safe in China, or else we probably wouldn't be getting this ride in the states. The coaster looks like it goes up on the walls, and the version in China (which I believe is the exact same as this Orlando attraction) goes upside down over the crowd waiting outside, which makes me feel like I might not try this ride, but if I do, I'll have my eyes closed for a lot of it, especially that part. I'm excited for my friends who are more into roller coasters than I am, but I'll try to get my wimpy self to ride it sometime. Either way, I'm very excited for this addition if for no other reason than having Tron representation in the park, especially since they redesigned the entrance to Tomorrowland a few years ago to be a bit more sleek, and potentially more Tron-like. They've certainly been working on construction for that long, even if it wasn't a completely intentional choice!

    Thanks so much for reading this short update about the Disney Parks as they're beginning the 100 year celebration (of the company, not the parks obviously). It's clear that there's a lot to celebrate, but are these the steps that you would want taken for this special occasion? I'm sure we'll be getting many more surprises as the year continues, and it's nice that as the Walt Disney World 50 Year celebration comes to a close later this month, there's still something to celebrate, even though I'm sure most of the attention will be focused on the California parks. I hope you'll all have a great week, and thanks again for your support! Until next time, I'm Jonathan, your Self-Proclaimed Disney reporter, and I'll see ya real soon!