The Little Mermaid WDCC: Seaside Serenade

By Nick

While these pictures were  obviously not taken at the Seaside, looking at this terrific Walt Disney Classics Collection piece, I can hear the waves crashing on the rocks, and hear Ariel singing of her longing to be part of our world.

This was the 2006 Walt Disney Collectors Society Membership Sculpture.

Her tail is painted with opalescent paint.

She measures 6 inches tall.

I think this may be one of the finest WDCC sculpts, as I feel it captures the emotion of this pivotal scene perfectly.

I am not sure why this sculpt doesn’t have a production mark.

I really don’t have enough Little Mermaid pieces, despite it being one of my favorite Disney movies, so I was really happy to find this on eBay for a very reasonable price, and make her part of my world.

Voyage of the Little Mermaid in Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom

By Lisa Green 

In Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, Fantasyland has always been a favorite place for parents and grandparents to take small children and enjoy some of Disney’s more whimsical, milder rides and attractions.  These are the ones made for every age – low or no height requirements, no rough twists and turns, no scary surprises – The kinds of rides Walt Disney himself had a hand in creating so children and adults could have fun together.

As part of the Magic Kingdom’s new Fantasyland expansion, the Little Mermaid ride (officially:  Under the Sea-Voyage of the Little Mermaid) is an adorable tribute to Ariel’s story – full of all our favorite characters and scenes.  Tucked beneath Prince Eric’s castle, guests board clammobiles for a fun and fanciful journey through familiar scenes – brought to life, straight from the movie!  As you approach the attraction, there’s a great photo op and most likely a Disney photographer will be standing by to snap your picture in front of a ship with Ariel as the figurehead!

The queue is full of clever surprises – so much so that I was actually disappointed that the line moved quickly and I couldn’t look at the details as long as I would have liked.  The queue starts outside where you’ll feel just like you’re at the seaside walking in and out of caverns carved by the ocean’s waves.  Look down and you’ll see a variety of seashells under foot.  Look along the walls and find starfish and barnicles.  Once you go inside, there are interactive parts to this queue involving Ariel’s treasures and some cute and funny little blue crabs.

The indoor part of the queue is cool and dark – as is the ride itself.  Lighting effects make you feel like you are truly going under the sea in your clam shell.  Unlike Epcot’s The Seas With Nemo & Friends which offers a new storyline continuing where Finding Nemo left off, Under the Sea – Voyage of the Little Mermaid (similar to Peter Pan’s Flight) offers only a selection of scenes straight from the movie. This is what divides visitors’ opinions about this attraction – Little kids (and Mermaid fans) love seeing the familiar scenes reproduced in great detail and larger than life.  Big kids and adults are often disappointed by the scenes’ simplicity and how the ride offers nothing new or different – basically just replicates parts of the movie exactly (with low-tech animatronics to boot).

Judge for yourself!  This attraction is worth at least one visit for the experience.  The highly detailed, interactive queue is very well done and the ride itself is a great place to sit down and cool off for a bit from the Florida heat.  This is a continuously loading attraction, so you may want to save a FastPass for something else as the line moves pretty quickly.  Personally, I liked the ride okay, but I LOVED the queue!  I have to agree with the folks that would have liked a little something new or different in the Little Mermaids story – there seems to be wasted potential.

Have you ridden the new Little Mermaid ride?  What did you think about it?

This article was originally posted on Lisa's Living a Disney Life Blog.
She can be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/LivingaDisLife and on Twitter at @life_of_green

Please be sure to check out Lisa along with me and David Hodges on The Disney Exchange Podcast!

Wordless Wednesday : Disney Royalty

December '14 Walt Disney World Trip Report : Part 5

By Nick

Wednesday, December 10th

Barbie and I had breakfast at Roaring Forks, the counter service restaurant at the Wilderness Lodge, and met up with the rest of the gang and headed to the Magic Kingdom for the day.

 Jill, me, Barbie, Josh and Nicole

We stopped at Gaston's so Jill, Nicole and Josh could get a bite to eat.

Have you seen the Cinnamon Roll at Gaston's? It's the size of a small child.

We rode Under the Sea-Voyage of the Little Mermaid and followed it up with a photo with Ariel.

We hit several more attractions before breaking for lunch at Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn and Cafe.

A few more attractions, various photo ops...

...and a lot more walking made us hungry for dessert, so Josh, Jill and I got ice cream from The Plaza Ice Cream Parlor while Barbie and Nicole got popcorn.

Barbie got me the Mickey Elf popcorn bucket!

We picked a spot for the Festival of Fantasy Parade.

We headed back to the Wilderness Lodge where we had to sadly say goodbye to Nicole.

That evening, Jill, Josh, Barbie and I headed to Epcot, where we stopped at several photo spots, really trying to get the most out of Memory Maker.

We had dinner at La Hacienda de San Angel...

 ...with the perfect end.

No, not a shot of tequila and a beer!  Illuminations Reflections of Earth, with the special Holiday tag.

Earlier Parts of the trip report:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
                                         

All By Myself

by Gaylin

When I went on the Disney Cruise last summer, I took my first selfie . . . wasn't too impressed with it, my camera was a bit old and slow and standing with a fake smile waiting for the camera to click felt silly.

Before I left for WDW in May, I bought a new camera. Still a point & shoot, nothing fancy but much faster than my old one. Traveling on my own again, I decided to take a few selfies – just for the heck of it.

I had fully intended to take a few every day, turns out that once I am tired and worn out from the heat, I forgot to take them. Oops. Here are the ones I did take!

Me and a tiki, outside of the Jungle Cruise.

Ariel and I, she called this a 'shell-fie'. I call this a bad photo that gives me a big double chin . . .

Next up are Elsa and Anna from Frozen, turns out they are not supposed to take photos with only one sister at a time, guess I was charming and fast enough with the camera to get separate photos! They called them 'snow-fies'.

The lovely Aurora and I.

This is a very nice young lady, Alicia, at the Canada Pavilion, turns out she is from my hometown, that seemed to be a good reason to take a selfie as well.

Of course, there needs to be a photo wearing 'bug-eyes' at It's Tough to be a Bug.

I think this is the Lego version of Princess Sofia but not really sure, whoever she is, I only got half her head in the photo!

And finally that plastic Cinderella with the slightly creepy blank facial expression.

Selfies, when you are traveling alone, they are a great way to be in a photo. Not saying they will all be good photos – mostly good for a laugh.