New Toy Story Midway Mania! (Warning- Lots of Pics)

[Gdad]

Went to the AP grand opening yestarday- aside from the air conditioning not working in half the queue it was a pretty cool ride. Not much for dark-ride photography as I had hoped as most of the attraction is interactive 3D screens- but thought I would share with the group. Enjoy.

The outside looked more like an office building than a ride...

This was not open yet- I wonder what the 'Camera Dept' is?

The queue seemed kind of cheesy and low-budget...

Except for the interactive Mr. Potatohead talking smack- Yeah that was ME in the red shirt man...

Finally an hour later we were there (fastpasses were down)

Lauren taking out plates...

My score- dominating a 4yo even with a camera in my hand...

The rest of the pics can be found HERE.

 

[Master Mason]

Nice shots as always, I believe it opened concurently in DCA as well. But don't have time to get down there till next month.

I loved this one

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Nice shots as always, I believe it opened concurently in DCA as well. But don't have time to get down there till next month.

I loved this one

That's priceless. Great shots (as always). I can't wait to try the ride in January.

 

[DVC Jen]

Hmmmm I think the 4 yr old may have one up on you Jeff. Did you look at the accuracy compared to the total score?



And - she is one stylin girl in her 3D glasses as well. VERY CUTE!


Thanks for posting the pics - very interesting. Do you have any idea when the ride will be open to more than just AP holders? Any idea if it will be completely open in early/mid June?

 

[aeryn]

I was able to ride TSM today during the 2nd day of AP previews. The ride was down for about 3 hours before they reopened the queue.

It was reported in the Orlando Sentinal as well as confirmed by a few area managers that the ride is scheduled to open 'full time' on May 31st.

My pictures are here:

TSM Preview

 

[wkrider]

Is it supposed to be a dark ride? Didn't look like it was. Great pictures, your daughters are adorable.

 

[Groucho]

First off, nice shots as usual Gdad. It seems like you've been at WDW almost every day lately! You're getting solid use out of your APs apparently.

I replied in the POTD thread but I'll repeat it here since it's more "on topic".

When I was there, I spoke to a couple CMs for probably 5-10 minutes (they were eager to chat ) who were outside the construction walls by the entrance. At the time, they did say that opening had been pushed back a week or so. So, I didn't get a chance to ride it.

I can't say that I was too heart-broken. I recall that when rumors since came out, it was supposed to be a Spiderman killer (ie, blow away the Spiderman ride at Universal, which I still haven't ridden). Now that it's here, I'm distinctly underwhelmed.

First off - midway games? Didn't the guest disdain for the midway games at California Adventure and the Dinorama section in AK tell Disney anything? That maybe people come to Disney to avoid that kind of cheap tacky stuff?
Second, don't we already have a Toy Story-inspired interactive shooting game?
Third, what's the connection? I fail to recall any carnival or midway content in the Toy Story movies. It seems like a rough fit, especially in DHS where it's stuck next to a bunch of "back lot" sets.

OK, it doesn't help that the 3D effect at Disney hasn't been working well for me for a few years (hopefully new glasses/contacts will fix that), but regardless - this doesn't exact sound like the kind of ride to get them shaking in their boots over at Universal. It's a shame, too, that they didn't go with the loose-but-tethered guns like at Buzz in Disneyland, rather than the bolted-to-the-vehicle guns like Buzz in WDW, which are much more difficult to use.

But hey, hopefully I'm just being overly critical and I'll end up loving the ride. Who knows? I do hope Disney doesn't go overboard with this "interactive" stuff, I don't want every new attraction to have guns, touchscreens, buttons, or whatnot in front of me.

Sorry for the non-photography related rant, just had to get it out of my system.