Somebody also posted this from the D23 magazine. The slide sounds awesome!!!!
...Re-creating this sense of of romance and adventure was precisely the challenge Imagineers faced when envisioning the
DCL and that vision took shape and became reality with the launches of Disney Magic and Disney Wonder. Soon there'll be a new member of the family, when Disney Dream joins the fleet in January 2011.
The ship, 40 percent larger than its sisters, will be another beauty. .. "We only need one smokestack," Joe says, "but because those classic ships had two, we put two smokestacks on it. And for the bow design on the Dream and the Disney Fantasy (which takes its maiden voyage in 2012), we spent extra time just to change the front profile of the ship, to have that elegant steamship look."
Immediately upon boarding the Dream, your heart will flutter just a bit faster than usual as you enter the opulent and spacious main atrium. It spans three decks, and there will be an old friend to great you. It's a life-size statue of Admiral Donald Duck.
...Imagineers are also dreaming up wild ideas for the adult areas on the ship. Joe is tickled by Pink, the champagne lounge. When you're there, it looks and feels like you're inside a champagne glass, surrounded by the bubbles. Remember the pink elephant sequence in Dumbo? Imagineers took a cue from that. As you're sitting in the lounge with acrylic bubbles all around, every so often a little pink elephant will appear inside a bubble, and then pop! It disappears. Not a big moment, but one of the countless Disney touches throughout the Dream.
Plenty of new art has been commissioned for the Dream and will appear in some unlikely quarters. Even the elevator shaft in the aft of the ship will put on a show. "We thought, because the elevator is moving up and down, we could kind of animate it," Joe says. Taking inspiration from the Haunted Mansion stretch room and using a theme of flying Disney characters, and idea was born. "You'll see Buzz Lightyear, and as the elevator moves down, realize that Woody's holding onto his foot. And we have Dumbo there, and as you ride in the elevator, you see the peanuts falling. Then, as you go down, you see the crows from the film flying below him gathering up the peanuts. There's a series of those things."
Another splashy first-of-its-kind is the Aqua-Duck, the Dream's signature slide. And not just any slide - it's "the Slide!" as Joe calls it, and you hear the exclamation point in his voice. After climbing stairs to the top of one of the smoke stacks, you'll get launched out through a clear acrylic slide tube. "It's cantilevered over the edge of the deck," he explains, "which means you're literally suspended out over the ocean, 140 feet above the surface of the sea in clear acrylic. And that's just the start. You do a spiral, and when you come out of the spiral, we launch you uphill. We're taking slide technology that we introduced at Typhoon Lagoon, where we launch you uphill. (Water Parks-loving DIsney readers, think: Crush 'n Gusher.) Then you do another down, and then we launch you up again, but this time we launch you into the funnel on the backside of the ship...so you're actually going inside now, inside the funnel. You come out the other end, and finish off with a final drop and run out at the end. It's like a ride experience. In fact, it's the duration of one of our coasters. it's geared for the family, though there will likely be a height limit.
Unique guest experiences will abound on the Dream, with gusts of details to be unveiled in the months leading up to its launch. There will be everything from new itineraries and dining options to animated characters that interact with guests (think Turtle Talk with Crush) and even call you by name. When talking about Animator's Palate, one of the ship's elegant dining rooms, Joe promises it will be an immersive experience, but there will be even more interaction between the room and the guests. "Let's just say the Animator's Palate will be so cool, you'll want to do a whole story on it. You're really going to be interacting with the room," the Imagineer continues. "It's absolutely cutting edge."