Friday, May 27, 2011

Today at Disneyland: Star Tours - The Adventures Continue

It was a gorgeous Southern California day today at Disneyland, with temperatures in the 70s and a light breeze.

The park's traditional summertime red, white, and blue bunting on Main Street came out for Memorial Day Weekend:


Summer flowers were out in full force today:





We arrived before "rope drop" and headed straight to the remodeled Star Tours ride. Star Tours - The Adventures Continue officially opens on June 3rd but is currently in its "soft opening" phase, when the ride is tested out with guests.



The remodel was nicely done, with many fun tributes to both the films and the previous edition of the ride. For instance, the woman who used to give the pre-boarding video spiel is now one of the passengers in the seat belt instruction video. The great variety of story options for the new ride, with 54 different possibilities for characters and story scenes, should prevent it from becoming "stale," as happened with the previous version.


Another "value added" feature is that one of the passengers is identified by Darth Vader as a Rebel spy. On our very first ride, the Rebel spy shown on screens in the Star Tours vehicle turned out to be our 16-year-old daughter! We got a kick out of that.

I have some reservations about the 3D glasses possibly making the flight simulator ride a little too real, as my stomach lurched uncomfortably for a couple moments (grin). However, I felt fine during most of the ride so hopefully that won't be an issue in the future.

We also rode Pirates of the Caribbean today so we could check out the video image of Blackbeard (Ian McShane) being used in the ride this summer in place of Davy Jones.

Coming soon: The new Mary Blair exhibit at the Disney Gallery, and our first ride on The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure at Disney's California Adventure!

Update: Today at Disney's California Adventure: The Little Mermaid - Ariel's Undersea Adventure.

Update: Disneyland: The Colors of Mary Blair.

6 Comments:

Blogger Irene said...

I had my AP preview of Star Tours on Wednesday. I loved it and knew what to look for thanks to the article on MiceAge. I rode it 4 times (not in a row!) and got different experiences each time. I haven't been on Little Mermaid yet. I hope to do that next Wednesday for the AP preview. And I highly recommend the new parade! I went to see that yesterday. Two days in a row at Disneyland :))

11:10 PM  
Blogger Laura said...

Glad you got to ride it this week too, Irene! I'm really looking forward to checking out the different experiences. After we left around 4:00 our kids stayed in the park with friends and got to enjoy it a second time. :)

They also gave the parade a thumbs up. They didn't like it quite as well as what they call the "Welcome to Our Family" parade (grin), but they liked it way better than Celebrate! Hope to see it soon!!

So glad you've had fun at the park this week too!

Best wishes,
Laura

11:34 PM  
Blogger DKoren said...

We're hoping to do a trip to Disneyland to check out the new Star Tours in the near future! My sister is worried about it making her sick. She did okay on the old Star Tours, but horribly on the Star Trek ride at... um... Universal? or Las Vegas? I don't remember. So, she really really wants to go on this, but is a little worried. Is it like the old ride in that the screen is in front of you?

7:53 AM  
Blogger Irene said...

To DKoren - yes the screen is in front of you just as before. The 3D effect is done very well and I'm not a big fan of 3D in general. I went on the ride 2 times in a row and felt a little queasy after the second one. So I took a break and walked around, etc. After my 3rd trip I was queasy again and so took a longer break (drank a Sprite and listened to the pianist at Coke Corner for 30 mins.) The Sprite settled my stomach and I was ready for the 4th trip. If your sister did ok on the original, then she'll do fine on this one :)

9:09 AM  
Blogger DKoren said...

Irene -- thank you! That's exactly the kind of first-hand report she was looking for. Appreciate it!

11:03 AM  
Blogger Laura said...

Irene did a good job covering the ride! Same screen, same motions -- just a more "vivid" picture thanks to the 3D. (I was able to overcome that in part by simply reminding my brain I was really just being shaken around in a box, LOL.) I think there's a good chance your sister will be fine if she was OK with Version 1.0.

Best wishes,
Laura

6:05 PM  

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