The Epcot Explorer's Encyclopedia

Because we spend entirely too much time on Twitter, we managed to submit our names early enough to attend the Disney Parks Blog “Treat Up” at the Magic Kingdom last night.

We didn’t take a ton of photos, heck, we pretty much only took that photo. So, apologies in advance. However lots of folks around the internet with much better nighttime camera equipment did. You’re certainly not missing out if you know how to use Google. We’ll just provided our own personal color commentary or the night’s events for your enjoyment.

The above photo is from the parking/registration location at Blizzard Beach. We sat comfortably watching an electrical storm in the distance for about an hour at Blizzard Beach’s bus stops while everyone checked-in. Occasionally a roach would run by – yes, this is Florida at night. The Star Tours event earlier this year checked-in at Blizzard Beach as well and followed roughly the same protocol. There was the requisite DJ Hummer (literally a hummer with lots of speakers and a DJ) and Disney trivia being asked to win vinylmations.

A little bit late – these things always run a little late – we were all boarded onto Disney Cruise Line buses and were shuttled over to the Magic Kingdom. Like the Star Tours event we were brought in through the backstage areas of the park. Never having had a chance to really explore Magic Kingdom’s backstage in the past, it was interesting to see all the little buildings and equipment. The buses brought us in through “Park 3″ which is an area behind Frontierland by Splash Mountain where the parade kicks off from. We essentially came in through the parade gate.

We did get to see all the floats for the daily parades lined up in parade storage backstage. The ever-existent mirror castle float was safely guarded by dozens of other smaller floats flanking it, as if they were its bodyguards. Heaven forbid anything happen to that float.

Once inside we were paraded down the route to… not the Haunted Mansion. The Haunted Mansion was lit up, and the event details mentioned the Haunted Mansion.. but instead of turning left at Liberty Square we were trucked straight ahead into the Hall of Presidents.This utterly confused most attendees.

Was this some nefarious plot to force educational material on unsuspecting bloggers? Safely sequestered inside the Hall of Presidents theater, we were greeted by a giant.. umm.. well it didn’t look like a turkey leg but it was in fact a giant talking turkey leg. If you watch the videos you’ll know what we mean.. That aside, the talking turkey leg was a Disney Parks blog person in costume and we were soon introduced to the head of Disney social media, and then WDI’s Jason Surrell talked a little about Haunted Mansion.

After thankfully not having to actually watch the Hall of Presidents, we were released back into Liberty Square – being given a trick-or-treat bag half filled with goodies as we exited the theater. There were treat stations set up at the Diamond Horseshoe, Riverboat, and outside the Hall of Presidents. We managed to fill the bag easily before the night was over.

Having pushed and shoved our way out of the Hall of Presidents as rapidly as possible, we ventured over to the Haunted Mansion where the real events of the evening were taking place. We lined up and were stopped by a CM right at the “scenic graveyard route” and “normal bypass-the-crap” queue split. There were going to be guided tours of the new queue expansion by the imagineers who worked on it. Groups of 25 guests at a time, so there was going to be a little bit of a wait.

Being composed of two minds, our party disagreed on whether this tour was a good idea. Haunted Mansion was otherwise a walk-on, but the tour was unique to this event and the collective “we” (not quite the royal “We” – give us time) had seen the attraction itself numerous times. We had also seen the queue updates and not been impressed.. most certainly not by the capital expenditure at an attraction that doesn’t need any help while literally dozens of others desperately need funding.. but alas, we somehow decided we’re going on the tour. It was probably the fact that everyone else in the area was excited about the tour. Peer pressure, we gots it.

Turns out our tour was pseudo-famous. If possible, someone would have forced it to become anthropomorphically embodied and gotten its autograph right next to their swirly Ariel signature with a fat pen. Instead it was caught on film by several people – enough that we felt safe hanging in the back, hearing next to nothing the real live imagineer said.

Small detour: Some of you, loyal readers, know that “we” have in fact been to design school. We have the paperwork to prove it. There, our professors seemed to great joy in insulting our presentational skills and insisting we be able to clearly discuss our work and chiding us for not speaking clearly and loudly enough for everyone to hear us. That’s why we’re gratingly loud, opinionated, and outspoken – we were trained to be like that.

This imagineer, while pleasant, was not. As we had suspected though, finding video of our tour was quite easy. Here’s Inside the Magic’s video of our actual tour. You can spot us at the end not hearing anything he’s saying while using his indoor voice in an outdoor setting and checking our iPhones to see if anyone had tweeted anything interesting. True story.

We may not agree with what you’ve done to the Haunted Mansion queue, Mr. Imagineer, but we’re not unreasonable. We know that the funding direction and what projects get chosen isn’t your decision, really, and that some powers-that-be chose this over fixing the Wonders of Life or finishing Spaceship Earth or even tossing a little bit of money in the “eventually build a new World Showcase Country fund” – but it doesn’t mean we have to like. Ok, that’s enough editorializing.

We are quite proud of ourselves for not bringing it up at the event though – as previously mentioned we are loudmouthed and outspoken. Other guests were having fun and seemed quite enamored – why ruin their good time? Not mention our tirade would have been seen by dozens of ready video cameras. We’re classier broads than that. Besides, this was an internet social media event, we’ll use the internet for it’s intended purposes and complain here semi-anonymously like the noble bloggers we are.

Anywho…

We eventually got to ride the Haunted Mansion and were disappointed to learn that our “glow in the dark” Mickey ears we purchased for the event were defective. Also, the stretching room is far less effective if the door remains open the entire time. Show quality – classy. The broken speaking book during the “tour” was a nice touch too.Oh well. Finally we were deposited back outside into the relatively empty theme park.

The covered snack kiosk outside Hall of Presidents was converted from its usual healthy carrot-stick and apple-schlock to offer chocolate truffle confections in the shapes of eyeballs and spiders along with rice krispie treats. Also, free bottled water and cans of soda.We would later learn this was an inportant outpost of sustenance as it was revealed we were really sequestered in the park. No one was allowed to leave until after midnight.

At the Star Tours event people could leave as they felt like it and the buses cycled back and forth to Blizzard Beach. For this event – you were in the Magic Kingdom and you were going to have fun whether you liked it or not. Some folks did not.. and we tried consoling them with another bloodshot white chocolate eyeball on a bed of moist cake.. but that approach was ineffective.

We wandered and trick-or-treated a little bit. The Diamond Horseshoe had special-stuff for people with blue wristbands, which like the Star Tours event, we again were not. Who gets those? We don’t know. It was just an autograph on the Haunted Mansion poster they were giving out. At the time we didn’t know we’d get the poster too, so it seemed sorta crummy, but we just decided to eat more of their chocolate to make up for dissing us like that.

After a bit of aimless wandering we settled on the stockades. If we were going to be trapped in the Magic Kingdom we thought we’d best look the part. Parade route ropes had been put up when we arrived. There’s no real reason to just have parade route ropes up in the middle of the night for a social media event with such a small number of people. The little paper in our treat bag said there was going to be a “special appearance” right before midnight.

So the Headless Horseman was going to make an appearance. The parade control people take his ride quite seriously and everyone must be behind the ropes as so not to get trampled to death. The riders apparently can’t see much of anything from the costume and the horse is trained to followed the route while the rider just kind-of holds on.

And he did – and the horse phoned it in. We’ve seen the ride before with the horse running full speed through the park at other events. Tonight? The horse seemed as groggy as we were by this hour. Lots of folks in attendance called it awkward and a bit strange, but we appreciated the attempt at theatrics. It’s a horse and it doesn’t want to be up at midnight anymore than the rest of us. Plus we’re pretty sure the horse knew this whole event was centered around the extended queue at the Haunted Mansion and was protesting quietly just like us.Animals are quite intelligent you know.

Moments later we were told to “get out” – literally, but in a joking fashion – and we were escorted back to the buses. Along the way we were given that Haunted Mansion poster that blue-band people had gotten signed as well as a headless horseman vinylmation.We considered giving back the desserts we had consumed in protest for not getting a poster earlier as blue-band people but decided they probably didn’t really want them back at this point.

At the bus loading area the mirror-castle float seemed to have gotten some extra small floats from the electrical parade to protect its right flank from siege. Back to Blizzard Beach we went. Leaving the backstage part of Magic Kingdom a whole line of contractor vehicles – painters, builders, electricians, etc.. – waited to get into the park at the security gate.There’s a Fantasyland that needs building don’tcha know. That line of vehicles blocked the sight-line of our bus and we almost got t-boned. Thanks to some swift braking and swerving we were saved from having to write an article about a bus crash or fire from inside an actual bus that had crashed or caught on fire.

And.. that’s about it. We’re sure we missed some things and glossed over other bits.. like the videos played on the bus showing them decorating the park for the holiday and the ghosts wandering around and singing. Other people will have that online soon, we promise. Cameras outnumbered humans at this event.