Tag Archives: tour

A year of daydreams!

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During this week of celebration I wanted to look back at some of the posts which I have shared over the past 12 months.

I know that when I discover a new Disney blog I tend to read the first couple of posts and the ‘About Me’ page; unfortunately when the blog has been running for a while you don’t always have time to go back and read some of the older entries.

So here’s my selection of posts which have been the most fun to write and share with you all. I hope that they still give you that few minutes of Disney filled daydreaming!

 

Expo Exposure – discussing the fun from the D23 Expo in Disneyland.

Sharing My Celebration – my favourite place outside of Walt Disney World.

Let It Snow! – sometimes getting to WDW can be an adventure.

A Letter to Walt – discussing the events of 2011 with our dear Walt.

Home Sweet Home! – making the ‘resort’ decision.

Orange Tuesday – welcoming back the Orange Bird.

I’ve Got The Key! – going behind the scenes at WDW.

 

See you tomorrow for more Daydreaming Disney!!!!

 

:) :) :)

 

 

 

Three steps to WDW….

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Everyone has heard of the game ‘Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon’ haven’t they?

The game is based on the belief that any individual involved in the movie industry can be linked to the actor Kevin Bacon within six steps…. Well I think that Walt Disney World fans have the same ability to link any everyday situation to Disney in a very small number of steps too!

And here is my example…. I visited the Warner Bros. Studio tour on Saturday to look at the Harry Potter exhibition, it reminded me of being at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Orlando, being at Universal reminds me of being at Walt Disney World…

So there you have it; in three simple steps I have connected Harry Potter to WDW and have completely justified why this blog post is appearing on my Disney blog!!!!

I also wanted to share this experience with you, and write about the amazing amount of magic and talent that I saw as I walked around the studios. It’s the same feeling that I get when Disney announces something new coming to the parks or when I read an interview with an Imagineer and yet again I am amazed by their achievements.

I will try to give you an outline of the exhibition without giving away too much detail, so that I do not spoil it for any readers who are lucky enough to be visiting themselves. If you are overseas and won’t have the opportunity to visit in person then search Google for more details, I’m sure you will not be shocked to see how many people have written and posted photos of this place.  The official website is a good place to start.

The Warner Bros. Studios are located in Leavesden, Watford (just outside London) and for over ten years these studios were used for the filming of the Harry Potter movies. In fact filming started here for the first film on 29th September 2000.

After the filming ended Warner Bros. invested over £100 million into the Leavesden Studios to create ‘Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden‘, a permanent UK film production base for the company. As part of the redevelopment the Warner Bros. Studio Tour London was set up, a permanent behind-the-scenes walking tour which currently holds props, costumes and sets from the Harry Potter collection.

The collection / tour opened to the public on 31 March 2012 and has been received with rave reviews. I had the opportunity to organise a group visit for the staff association at my workplace; the tickets were so difficult to come by that I bought them in November 2011 for a visit date that wasn’t until June 2012!

The tour is self guided and the official notes advise that it takes about three hours to get round everything. We were walking round for about three and a half hours but it felt a lot longer, and we certainly did not rush through anything!!

The first thing that made me think of WDW was the queue. Once you had entered the main building your ticket was scanned and you could join the queue for the next group of guests to be let into the exhibition space. The queue snaked backwards and forwards allowing a lot of guests to queue in quite a small area, just like queuing up for an attraction in the parks.

Groups of guests were then led into a room for a welcome video….again reminding me of a Disney attraction. After the introduction the tour leads into the first sound stage holding The Great Hall (this is the ACTUAL hall which features in the films and is AMAZING), costumes, sets (such as Dumbledore’s office and Hagrid’s Hut) and so many amazing props, designed and built by such talented people.

There are videos playing on screens and boards next to most exhibits, giving you as much information as you want to take in.

After the first sound stage the tour moves to an outside area. Here you find the larger items; such as the triple-decker Knight bus, the Chess Pieces and Number 4 Privet Drive.

This is also the stop for a glass of Butterbeer…something which I missed out on when visiting Universal Studios so couldn’t wait to try…personally, I LOVED it!!!!

The tour then moves into the second sound stage and features the creative department. Lots of masks and creepy crawlies in here! You get to walk along the wonderfully designed Diagon Alley; the detail on these buildings is superb. There is also a display of White-Card Models which were built by the Art Department to assist the director and production designer look at size and scale before the actual set construction began.

And then…..the Hogwarts Castle model. I had seen it in photos and on tv but nothing prepared me for the sight in real life. I just wanted to capture every angle with my own camera. The actual model was used for aerial photography in the films and digitally scanned for CGI scenes. I just can’t get over the skill of the people involved in making this model.

After passing through the ‘wand room’, a room containing labelled wand boxes for more than 4,000 people who worked on the Harry Potter films, you end the tour in the gift shop. Well, it wouldn’t be an attraction if it didn’t end there!! Oh and in true ‘theme park’ tradition there are two souvenir photo opportunities along the tour, for an additional price of course ;)

The exhibition doesn’t look anything fancy from the outside but when stepping through the doors of the Great Hall at the start of the tour you are immersed in magic and make-believe. It just gave me that same feeling which I get walking around the parks and it gave me the opportunity to daydream even though I was still in the ‘not so sunny’ UK!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this review and forgive me for a non-Disney post!!! For those of you in the UK I hope you also get to visit and see the amazing work that went into making these films. I’ve already bought tickets to go back in September….so I guess I’ll see you at Hogwarts ;)

 

 

 

Thank Disney it’s Friday – June 15!

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Good afternoon fellow Disney friends!! I don’t know about you but I’ve been filling my time this week reading all the exciting news coming out of Disneyland….those Imagineers continue to amaze us :)

 

But now….direct from the bright lights and star filled streets of Disney’s Hollywood Studios….here is your Friday question…..

 

Which do you prefer ‘Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show’ or the ‘Studio Backlot Tour’….and of course….why???!!!

 

:) :) :)

I’ve got the Key!

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What does a Disney fan do when they’ve exhausted all attractions, shows and eateries in every park but still craves something new? Well if they’re anything like me…obsessed with Disney history, the Disney Company and the behind the scenes organisation of the parks…they’ll book up one of the Walt Disney World tours!

During my last visit to the World I FINALLY got to attend the Keys To The Kingdom tour in Magic Kingdom. I’d spoken to friends and family who raved about it…I’d read reviews that were ‘so, so’ about it. Knowing that I have a craving for knowledge of what goes on behind the magic I knew that I had to experience it for myself in order to have my own opinion of the experience.

Now I’m not going to go into the finer details of the tour as I don’t want to spoil it for any of my readers that have yet to take part but I will say that personally I thought this tour was AMAZING!!!

I understand from reading reviews that your tour guide can make or break the tour. Our guide was knowledgeable, with a fun but dry sense of humour and even strict in some places. By the way, their costumes are awesome! We had a great time with our guide and he even let us know that he used to be a ‘friend’ of Goofy’s!

We booked the first tour of the day which meant that we got into Magic Kingdom before the park opened…cue photos on an empty Main Street! As an extra bonus we were waiting outside City Hall for the tour to start when the performers turned up for the park opening ceremony and one of the male dancers stopped to make a fuss about my “awesome” hair!

You are given a ‘guest’ badge to wear on the tour and boy did I feel special walking around MK all morning showing off my ‘guest’ pass ;) Other guests look at the group; you can see them wondering who you are and why you are part of a group with a guide…it makes you feel like a VIP.

There were so many highlights of the tour for me. We got to ride Haunted Mansion, but jumped the queue by using a cast member entrance! We got to go backstage; seeing the back of Splash Mountain, some of the parade vehicles being worked on and we might have even seen one or two characters on their break!

And then…the moment I had been waiting for all my Disney fan life….we went into a shop on Main Street, passed through a ‘cast member only’ doorway, descended some steps…and entered the Utilidors…..

Yes, I know they are only corridors, there’s nothing magical about them….or is there? You see to me there is….I like stripping back the pixie dust and seeing what makes Walt Disney World operate. Down in those corridors it felt like any other workplace, in any other part of the world. There were notice boards with motivational messages, staff rooms, training rooms, lockers and tired looking staff. To me it’s important that we don’t forget the effort and energy these people put into making our special place so magical….and that’s why seeing the Utilidors was so important for me.

Were there any negatives of the tour for me? At a push I would say the lunch at Columbia Harbour House…the food was just okay…but then again, it was nice to eat somewhere I hadn’t been before.

And if that wasn’t enough magic for one morning something else happened that will always make me smile when I think about this tour. When you arrive at MK for the tour you report to a cast member in City Hall who is responsible for signing you in, giving you your badge and taking your lunch order. That same cast member is also around at lunch time to show you to your tables. Well, a few days later we were walking around Epcot and I saw that same cast member walking by talking to a couple of people in smart dress. The cast member interrupted his conversation with these important looking people and went out of his way to say hello to us and asked if we were enjoying our vacation. I felt so humbled that he had remembered us from the tour a few days before and that little gesture made me feel like a valued guest.

So would I recommend the Keys To The Kingdom tour? Yes…if you want a small glimpse of what goes on behind the magic…but don’t expect to learn every secret of Walt Disney World…. because some things do have to be left to your imagination ;)