For Our Friends in Japan

I find it challenging this week to write about the details and stories of the Disney Parks at home, when my heart and mind are with my colleagues abroad. Friday's earthquake and tsunami continue to impact the people of Japan and will do so for some time. My wife and I took our first trip to Japan and the Tokyo Disney Resort eight years ago today. It was an incredible experience. The parks there are spectacular, and the people are among the most friendly, kind and helpful we've ever met.

All reports indicate that our fellow cast members and their families are safe, and there has been minimal damage to the resort facilities. The neighboring communities, however, continue to struggle. For that reason, Oriental Land Company (OLC is the company which owns and operates the Tokyo Disney Resort) has decided to cease operations at their parks and resorts for an undetermined period of time, so their cast and potential guests may focus on what is truly important right now.

OLC is helping the community in other ways. Freed of the responsibilities of work, Tokyo Disney Resort cast members have been volunteering en masse to help their neighbors recover and rebuild. Ceasing operations also allows for the conservation of critical water and energy resources. To help preserve as much fresh water as possible for drinking, OLC has even taken the step of turning over the massive water supply within Tokyo DisneySEA to nearby Urayasu City, for use in plumbing and other non-potable functions.

The Japanese are wonderful people and incredibly resilient. Eventually, the Tokyo Disney Resort will reopen, and cast members there will resume the business of creating magical experiences for their guests. Until then, we wish them the best in their recovery.

If you're able to help, please do so. You may donate to the American Red Cross directly via their site or text REDCROSS to 90999 (U.S. only) to give $10 to support Japan earthquake and Pacific tsunami relief efforts.

The Walt Disney Company has given $2.5 million in humanitarian aid to the Red Cross and has offered to match cast member donations up to $1 million. My wife and I have already contributed. If you're a fellow cast member, we urge you to join us and give whatever you can afford. You'll find the link in the message from Bob Iger on the Home page of The Hub.

Weekend Trivia: International Disney Parks

This week's edition of Weekend Trivia took you around the world to Disney's international destinations. How did you fare on these questions? Check your answers in the comments section below.

1) What was the first Disney Park built outside the U.S.?

2) Disney Resort Paris is built on former beet fields in what town 20 miles east of Paris?

3) What is the name of the island on which Hong Kong Disneyland was built?

4) A third Disney resort in Asia is in development for construction near what major city?

5) What is the name of the Downtown Disney-like shopping, dining and entertainment district at Tokyo Disney Resort?

6) What was the original name of the property now known as Disneyland Resort Paris?

7) What two Disney resort hotels are located at Hong Kong Disneyland Resort?

8) What land/port is considered the "Main Street" of Tokyo DisneySEA?

9) Which international Disney Resort features only one theme park?

10) Which of the following attractions is found in all three international Disney destinations?

A - Big Thunder Mountain

B - Space Mountain

C - Splash Mountain

11) What are the three official hotels of the Tokyo Disney Resort?

12) What popular Disney Cruise Line show is performed daily at the Storybook Theater in Fantasyland at Hong Kong Disneyland?

13) What can be found beneath Le Chateau de la Belle au Bois Dormant in Disneyland Paris?

14) What name is associated with the monorail system at Tokyo Disney Resort?

15) Before it was decided to build Disneyland Paris in France, what other European country was a prime contender to host the resort?

BONUS) Name the opening dates for each of Disney's five international theme parks.

Ex-Train-eous Information

Walt Disney's affinity for trains has been well-documented, most notably in Michael Broggie's excellent book, Walt Disney's Railroad Story. That passion manifested in the creation of the original Disneyland & Santa Fe Railroad and has spread with the development of every Disneyland park since.

This bulletin, found on the lower level of the Main Street Station at Walt Disney World, pays homage to Disney's railroad heritage.

CAROLWOOD PACIFIC - This was Walt Disney's miniature railroad, built in the backyard of his home in Holmby Hills.

GRIZZLY FLATS EXPRESS - Grizzly Flats was another backyard railroad (albeit full size), operated on animator Ward Kimball's property. Ward was a fellow train enthusiast, and it was his invitation for Walt to join him at the Chicago Railroad Fair in the late '40s that inspired many of the ideas behind Disneyland.

C.K. HOLLIDAY/E.P. RIPLEY/FRED GURLEY/ERNEST S. MARSH - These are the names of the trains on the Disneyland Railroad, each named for a key figure in the history of the Santa Fe Railroad, the original sponsor of the Disneyland attraction.

RAINBOW CAVERNS LINE - The Rainbow Caverns Mine Train toured Guests through the Living Desert in Frontierland at Disneyland, starting in 1956. In 1960, the area was expanded, and the attraction became part of the Mine Train thru Nature's Wonderland. The line was retired in 1979 with the opening of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

RIO GRAND/COLORADO/MISSOURI/MISSISSIPPI - These locomotives operate on the Western River Railroad in Tokyo Disneyland. Different from their American counterparts, the trains in Japan don't provide transportation from one point to another. They simply run a circuit around Adventureland and Westernland, returning to the same station.

W.F. CODY/G. WASHINGTON/C.K. HOLLIDAY/EUREKA - The trains of the Disneyland Paris Railroad bear the names of William F. Cody (better known as Buffalo Bill), George Washington and C.K. Holliday (founder of the Santa Fe Railroad). A fourth engine was added after the park opened in order to increase capacity. It's name, Eureka, comes from the exclamation often used by prospectors when they found a bit of gold.

WILDERNESS LINE - This narrow gauge railroad operated from 1973 to 1980 at the Fort Wilderness Campground in Florida, taking Guests from the parking lot back to Pioneer Hall and River Country.

ROGER E. BROGGIE/WARD KIMBALL/LILLY BELLE - These trains, along with the Roy O. Disney and Walter E. Disney, run at the Magic Kingdom. The Ward Kimball, named for the animator, was only in Florida for a short time while some of the other locomotives were being refurbished. It now calls the Disneyland Railroad its home.

WHISPERING CANYON LINE/SILVER CREEK EXPRESS - These names don't refer to specific trains, but to locations at Disney's Wilderness Lodge (Whispering Canyon Cafe and Silver Creek Springs pool area). In the lobby of the adjacent Villas is the Carolwood Pacific Room, featuring a display of memorabilia from Walt's early backyard railroad.

D. CROCKETT - Apart from Fess Parker's connections to Davy Crockett, Frontierland and Disneyland, the actor also starred in the Disney film The Great Locomotive Chase in 1956.

WILDLIFE EXPRESS/EASTER STAR - This reference comes from Disney's Animal Kingdom, where the Easter Star Railway operates the Wildlife Express route between Harambe and Rafiki's Planet Watch.

This prop was added to the Main Street Station prior to the opening of Hong Kong Disneyland, so that's why there are no references to the trains from that park (Walter E. Disney; Roy O. Disney and Frank G. Wells, named for the former President of the Walt Disney Company).

Still Glowing Strong

It all started with the grand opening of Walt Disney World. For October 24, 1971, the night before the official dedication of the Magic Kingdom park, an Electrical Water Pageant was created to parade across the Seven Seas Lagoon for the press and invited Guests. The show was such a hit, it continued night after night (right to this day), and work soon began on bringing a similar production into the park.

The original iteration of the Main Street Electrical Parade (commonly known as the ELP) ran at Disneyland from 1972 to 1974. It was much more like the Water Pageant, with flat tableaux created in lights and pulled down the parade route. After a hiatus for the Bicentennial-inspired America on Parade, the ELP returned to the park in 1977, enhanced with the fully-dimensional floats that we've come to know and love.

That same year, a second version of the parade opened in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. The ELP played there until 1991, when it was replaced by SpectroMagic for that park's 20th anniversary. The Florida parade was then packed up and shipped to France, where it played at Disneyland Paris from its 1992 opening through 2003. It has since been retired in favor of Disney's Fantillusion.

A third Electrical Parade made its debut at Tokyo Disneyland in 1985 and played for ten years. Disney's Fantillusion replaced the ELP in Tokyo from 1995 to 2001, before finding a new home in Paris. Today, Tokyo Disneyland Guests enjoy the updated Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade: Dreamlights, featuring new versions of classic ELP floats along with units inspired by Winnie the Pooh, Toy Story, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo and Beauty and the Beast.

While the original parade at Disneyland remained the same over the years, a number of promotional units joined the procession at different times, celebrating everything from the release of The Fox and the Hound in 1980 to Return to Oz in 1985. There were even floats created in honor of Mickey's 60th birthday (1988) and Disneyland's 25th and 35th anniversaries (1980 & 1990).

Some of the classic units that remain part of the ELP today were originally created to promote Disney's "newest" productions. King Leonidas, playing the circus calliope, is from Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) and Elliot is the oversize star of Pete's Dragon (1977), the Walt Disney Studio's big release for the summer of the parade's debut.

The Disneyland Main Street Electrical Parade was retired from the park in 1996, making a one-night-only appearance a year later in New York City for the world premiere of Hercules (complete with a custom-built lead unit featuring Pegasus). It was also the Disneyland version of the parade that played the Magic Kingdom during a special engagement from May 1999 to April 2001 and returned to the Disneyland Resort (this time at Disney's California Adventure) that July.

As part of the Summer Nightastic! promotion in 2009, the parade received a pixie-dusted facelift and a new lead unit featuring Tinker Bell. With Summer Nightastic! being celebrated at Walt Disney World starting June 6, the Main Street Electrical Parade is once again making the journey east to march through the Magic Kingdom.

As it approaches its 40th anniversary, this "spectacular festival pageant of nighttime magic and imagination" is still glowing strong "with thousands of sparkling lights and electro-synthe-magnetic musical sounds!"

TomorrowSEA

Port Discovery at Tokyo DisneySEA transports us to an undefined future time, one very much inspired by futuristic ideals of the past. This is the home of the Center for Weather Control, where scientists from around the world gather to study the earth's weather systems. Today, the research teams of Port Discovery are celebrating the success of their StormRider initiative, designed to neutralize hurricanes before they reach populated areas.

As part of the celebration, Guests at Port Discovery are invited to explore some of the CWC's research vessels and even take a spin on the Aquatopia, a kind of technology workshop where the scientists test new navigation and propulsion systems.

A ride on Aquatopia is unpredictable to say the least. As each 2-3 person vehicle "floats" across the surface of Horizon Bay, it spins and twirls through an obstacle course of rocks, fountains and whirlpools.

While it may appear that the vehicles are floating on a pool of water, they are actually rolling on hidden wheels (the water is only about three inches deep). Their seemingly random movements are guided by a trackless Location Positioning System (LPS) that keeps track of all the vehicles in the area and directs each one where to go next. A similar system is used on the Pooh's Hunny Hunt attraction at Tokyo Disneyland and is planned for Mystic Manor, opening at Hong Kong Disneyland by 2014.

Konichiwa

This dramatic torii gate, a symbol of good luck, welcomes us to Japan. Torii are found throughout Japan at the entrance to ancient shrines. This one is a replica of the gate at the Itsukushima Shrine on an island in Japan's Inland Sea. Just like the original, this torii displays signs of weathering from the ebb and flow of the tides, as well as a growth of barnacles at its base. The difference is that here those details have been painstakingly added by artists from Walt Disney Imagineering.

The pagoda standing above the entrance courtyard of the Japan pavilion is also modeled on an actual structure. This time, the inspiration was the pagoda of Horyuji Temple in Nara, which dates to the 8th century. Different from a Chinese pagoda, the Japanese style typically features less color, a less-curved roofline and much less ornamentation. Instead, the pagoda emphasizes simple lines and purity of form. The five story pagoda, Goju-No-To, represents the five elements which Buddhists believe make up the universe. In ascending order they are earth, water, fire, wind and Heaven.

At the back of the pavilion is a reproduction of Shirasagi-Jo, the White Egret Castle, which overlooks the Japanese city of Himeji. Fortresses like this were built during Japan's feudal period to guard the country's ports and waterways. Here, the castle guards a hidden space once intended for an attraction. The show "Meet the World" was designed as a carousel theater presentation of Japanese history. It played at Tokyo Disneyland from 1983 to 2002, but never made the trip west to Epcot. Today, the space is occupied by gallery exhibits, an expansion of the Mitsukoshi Department Store and a backstage maintenance facility.

Meet the Robinsons

Taking another turn into Adventureland, we start to spy the remains of a wrecked ship in and around the rocky landscape. We know we can't be far from the treetop abode of the family Robinson. Inspired by Walt Disney's 1960 film Swiss Family Robinson, the original Swiss Family Treehouse opened at Disneyland in November 1962 and was a natural for opening day at the Magic Kingdom in Florida.

The tree housing the treehouse is the very large, very concrete Disneyodendron eximus ("out of the ordinary Disney tree"). It's artificial of course, but based in reality. The design of the tree was inspired by banyan trees, which send additional branches down from their limbs, eventually creating the appearance of a forest of trunks all from the same specimen. In this case, the root trunks allowed the tree's designers to provide the outer limbs with necessary structural support.

Moving closer to the tree, we begin to hear the strains of the "Swisskapolka" and are introduced to the family - Father, Mother, Fritz, Ernst and Francis - as well as their fate as survivors of the wreck of the Swallow. Through this sign, the Robinsons tell us that "From the wreckage we built our home in this tree for protection on this uncharted shore." Similar journal-style signs throughout the attraction continue the story of the Swiss family's adventures and provide us information about each of the rooms of the treehouse.

One of the most fascinating details of the treehouse, though, is how the wreckage from the ship is used to create almost everything we see. The entrance sign is made from a broken oar:

Spindles and rope form the fence along the entrance, while cannons from the ship are poised and ready to meet any approaching danger. It's no coincidence that the cannons are aimed in the direction of the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction, deeper into Adventureland. If you recall, pirates figure heavily in the Swiss Family Robinson film.

More rope from the rigging and bits of the masts have been cobbled together to build this bridge across the river:

Of course, not everything the Robinson boys built came from the ship. Combining wood from the ship with bits of bamboo and other items from the island itself, they fabricated this incredible water wheel. Stop to watch, and you'll discover it actually works. The flowing water in the stream turns the wheel, cranking the gears and pulling the bamboo cups into the water below. The cups are then hoisted up to the top of the tree, dropping their load into an elaborate plumbing system that runs through each of the main rooms.

The Robinsons apparently enjoy island living. They may have left their Disneyland home (passing that treehouse on to Tarzan in 1999), but they still maintain treetop residences at Walt Disney World, Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland Paris. With incredible treehouses in so many vacation hotspots, it's little wonder the family chose to neither return home to London or sail on to New Guinea. They seem to like it here just fine.