[palmickey]

Originally Posted by Cavey

That might be worth trying this trip. Renee, was the seafood fresh? I know you said it's not your kind of food, but was everything prepared well?

It is not something that we normally eat but they were good. I can tell you that there were guests there with heaping bowls of clams and they seemed to be enjoying them.

[alicefan]

Originally Posted by palmickey

heaping bowls of clams

That made me crack up for some reason.

I love the clam bake....but I love clams so go figure.

[Cavey]

Originally Posted by palmickey

It is not something that we normally eat but they were good. I can tell you that there were guests there with heaping bowls of clams and they seemed to be enjoying them.

And is it on the dining plan?

[Dopey]

Originally Posted by Cavey

That might be worth trying this trip. Renee, was the seafood fresh? I know you said it's not your kind of food, but was everything prepared well?

I can tell you what I thought.... the first time we ate there, it was absolutely outstanding, very fresh and tasty and well, just great.
Last November, it was absolutely horrible. Inedible. We left, not finishing, it was so very bad.

[Dopey]

Originally Posted by alicefan

I love the clam bake....but I love clams so go figure.

[alicefan]

Originally Posted by Dopey

WHAT?!?!? What is so confusing about that statement that you had to break out the 's on me?

[palmickey]

There were seven guests and Alex. We all received a personalized menu with our names, the date and the Imagineer information in it. We started with introductions and the waiters were there to start taking our drink orders and we talked all the way through the meal and after. The waiters kept bringing food and we ate and no one took one picture.

The presentation of the food was unbelievable. I wish now that we had taken pictures. This is the menu.

Appetizers (we got both of these)

Mushroom Bisque with Sherry Vinegar Gastrique and Truffle Creme Fraiche

Individual Classic Cobb Salad with Finely Chopped Greens, Turkey Breast, Bacon, Egg, Tomatoes, Crumbled Bleu Cheese, Avocado and Cobb Salad Dressing

The Entrée we choose was

Grilled Rib Eye Steak with Arugula, Crispy Sweet Onions, Gorgonzola, Red Bliss Potatoes, and Oven Dried Tomato Vinaigrette

Dessert

Grapefruit Cake - Light Layers of Yellow Cake with fresh Grapefruit Cream Cheese Icing

Again, sorry that I have no photos but trust me it was beautiful and delicious!

[palmickey]

Originally Posted by Cavey

And is it on the dining plan?

Yes it is on the dining plan.

[palmickey]

Now, I tried to remember everything that he told us. This part of the trip report will get long but it was a 2 hour talk that I found very interesting. There is also some big news at the end of the conversation.


His office is a trailer behind Space Mountain and he gets to listen to people scream all day long. Before that he was the MGM Studios Art Director and his trailer was behind the Tower Of Terror where they screamed all day. There is one art director per park. He said that he rides all of the rides at least twice a year. Rides that will need worked on he rides a lot more. In the last 4 weeks he has ridden the Jungle Cruise every week preparing for the refurbishment. He said that a lot of times they will have their meetings on the ride.

Although his title is Art Director he does not draw. He said that occasionally he will sketch something out but not very well and then someone else will take it from there. He has a lot of meetings, he said that one morning he arrived at 6:00am and by 9:00am he was at his fifth meeting of the day already.

He also pointed out that although he rides all the rides he does not like roller coasters and he does not like Tower Of Terror but he does have to or has ridden all of them at some point. He said he was doing a television interview for a Canadian television show and he had to ride Goofy’s Barnstormer three times in a row with out getting off followed by BTMRR twice without getting off.

He said that they work really odd hours. They have meetings any day of the week at any time of the day. They are in the parks at night and early in the mornings doing all kinds of things. He said that they do not have someone in the castle every night of the Year Of A Million Dreams as they do need to work in the parks and you can not do that with someone trying to sleep in the castle. He said that running a jack hammer at Cinderella’s Carousal would not be good if you were trying to sleep in the castle.

He said that he is very protective of (his) castle. He said that when Stitch opened and they wanted to put toilet paper all over his castle he just had a fit. He said he called California and said “do you know what they want to do to my castle?” Of course he said it was only for one day and they did do it but he was not thrilled. He also said that the pink castle was NOT his idea. He said to this day sometimes they will walk into a meeting and he will just say the work PINK and everyone will just laugh. He did say that there were people that did love it but there were more that did not. He said sometimes you just have to take a chance and try things and see what happens but again, it was not his idea.

[palmickey]

Here are some things that the Imagineer told us about Walt Disney:

These are stories told to him by someone who had worked with Walt. She just passed away about three years ago after working for Disney for over 63 years.

He said that not many people know this; Walt was a heavy smoker so therefore he had a hacking cough. Some of the Imagineer’s learned to imitate his cough and every once in a while they would start coughing down the line to make everyone think that Walt was coming.

Walt’s parents lived in Tallahassee, Florida before moving to Chicago so there was some history in FL long before Walt went to Florida to build WDW.

When asked about changing things like POC vs. leaving them as they were made originally and what Walt would say, he told us this about Walt. He said that the thing that Walt did not like about the movies was that there was no way to change them once they were complete. He said that Walt would have not hesitated to change the POC or anything at the parks. He said that Walt was all about change, even when building the parks he would say that even the plants will change as they will grow getting bigger and better.

Walt was the type of person that wanted to know everything. She had a present on her desk one day that she was going to give to her son. When Walt came in that day he immediately wanted to know what it was and he went over it in every detail. That was just the way he was.

Walt drove a corvette. He said that he didn't know why but he found that very interesting.

[palmickey]

Magic Kingdom –

These are some of the highlights of the refurbishment of the HM that he was proud of. He picked the color of the new awning, it was between a hunter green and the burgundy and he picked the burgundy. He also doubled it in width and made it another 12 feet longer in order to get more guests under it. He talked about the new stretch pictures and said the old ones are currently hanging in his trailer.

The ceiling picture in the stretch room is now one 15 foot wide picture. They printed the entire picture at once – no seams.

Madame Leota, unfortunately Leota had passed away and when they went to do the refurbishment and they could no longer use the original projection of her face. So, they made a bust of her daughters face and that is what they used in the refurbishment as she has the same bone structure as her mother. On a side note the daughter also works for Disney in California.

He was very happy that he had the two spiders removed from the HM. He said that he believed that they served no real purpose, just everyday haunted mansion stuff and that they did not belong there.

He talked about the wallpaper changes and how you can not go out and just buy wallpaper with all those eyes on it.

He did tell us that the CM’s that work at the HM are very dedicated to what they do. He said that they will call him and tell him that there is one light that just does not look right and he needs to come and take a look at it. He said they know everything about the HM and exactly where everything should be and how it should look.

One big thing that he is most proud of is he himself put Mr. Toad in the pet cemetery. He told us that he had always thought that he needed to be there after they had closed the ride. One day when doing a walk through with the executives he told them that he thought that Mr. Toad belonged in the pet cemetery. They told him to go ahead and put him there. Well, they did not give him a $20,000 check to do it with. So he was trying to figure out how to do this. About that time he found out that they were selling fully painted statues of Mr. Toad in the park. He did some more investigation and found out that there were some that they had some at a reduced price in the back somewhere. They wanted $50.00 for them. He used a Disney discount and purchased one for $22.50.

He did not want the CM’s to know what they were doing so he had someone in the paint department paint it. He got a couple of workers to meet him at night, dig a hole and fill it with cement for a base. He then went back the next morning and attached it to the cement.

He went back to his office and told someone there that he had did it; he put Mr. Toad in the pet cemetery. They went over to look at it. Now, there is a CM at the haunted mansion that knows everything, has been there 18 years. Just as they arrived she came out with a group of CM’s giving them a tour.

Alex said they started looking at the Hurst and talking about changes that needed to be made so that no one would realize why they were there. Some of the CM’s would say there is the dog, there is something else and then someone said there is Mr. Toad. The long time CM said “I have never seen that before. That was not there. There must have been a bush there and I never saw that before.” He said as time went on the CM’s started talking about taking it out as it did not belong there and they could not figure out where it came from. He said he then pulled the CM’s together and told them that he put him there. He was very proud of the fact that he was the one that came up with the idea and put him there, himself.

He said that the biggest challenge at the MK is Tomorrow Land. He said that because tomorrow is ever changing it is very tough to try to keep up with tomorrow land. He said that the COP is a great example, even though it has been updated there are still a few things that need changed. The girl still talks about the day that everyone has a phone in their car but now we are all walking around with cell phones. They also talk about video telephones and have been for the past 40 years but that has never happened.

[Dopey]

Originally Posted by alicefan

WHAT?!?!? What is so confusing about that statement that you had to break out the 's on me?

Explain that to me. What is the "but" doing in there, or am I completely off the rocker today?
"I love the clam bake....but I love clams so go figure."

[palmickey]

The Jungle Cruise

I asked him about the refurbishment at the Jungle Cruise and if there were going to be any changes. He said that the one thing that he wants to accomplish is to get the fog or mist working again. He said that they shut it down years ago because it was ruining the fur on the tiger. He said that it really changes the feel of the ride and he wants it get it back on. They still can not run it from behind the tiger as it will ruin the tiger but they have an idea of how to still get it in the area they need and he is hoping that when they reopen the Jungle Cruise the fog will once again be working. They are also just doing some general painting, plants and flowers, working on the boats and draining the flume just to clean it out. He said that it takes two days to drain it and two days to fill it back up.

Overall at the Magic Kingdom, he said that there is a lot of room for expansion if they wanted to. He said that there is plenty of room at Toon Town, Tomorrow Land, some at Frontier Land but they are land locked at Adventure Land.

[palmickey]

The BIG news……are you ready? …………are you sure? …………..













He said that of course he could not tell us what it was but something BIG is coming. Not only is it coming to WDW but it is coming to the Magic Kingdom. They are just waiting on someone in California to sign the check!

He said when it is announced we can say --- We knew that was coming!

[alicefan]

Originally Posted by Dopey

Explain that to me. What is the "but" doing in there, or am I completely off the rocker today?
"I love the clam bake....but I love clams so go figure."

I don't know! It made sense to me before but now it is like looking at a sentence written by a 4 year old. Me love clams - yum! Clam bake good!

.....but you are definately off your rocker...........