Classic Epcot Takes Center Stage in Park Piano Collection

Musician Tom Ameen is quietly becoming a bit of a hero to theme park fans. He has a knack for turning Disney attraction tunes into beautiful, relaxing piano performances. His album, Piano and Pixie Dust, is a must-own for any park music collector, and especially for Epcot fans.

Take a look at this track list:

Tapestry of Nations
One Little Spark
Main Street Electrical Parade
Magic Journeys
Epcot Medley: Beneath the Waterfall/The Land/Canada
Illuminations
It's a Small World
There's a Great, Big Beautiful Tomorrow
Universe of Energy
Horizons
Tomorrow's Child

Now, combine that with his three earlier tracks from the EP Solo Piano Moments...

Golden Dream
Fantasmic
The Wonderful World of Color

...and you've got an amazing collection of quality piano tunes to play while relaxing, reading, working, dreaming or dining. All tracks are available to purchase online from iTunes and Amazon MP3. Highly Recommended!

Disney Infinity: A Park Fan's Review

Disney Infinity will delight you, inspire you, challenge you and cheerfully empty your wallet. Its methods for coaxing you to buy more and more of its world could be considered ruthless, except for one important factor: Like a Disney park, it gives you more than your money's worth.

In that respect, you could easily think of Infinity, the company's toys-come-to-life-in-a-video-game juggernaut, as Disney Parks: The Home Edition. If you laid it out in theme park terms, the experience would look something like this:

The game is stuffed with elements geared specifically toward park fans, from actual park music and vintage sound effects to an impressive Matterhorn complete with a working bobsled rail slide. Epcot fans will love the inclusion of Spaceship Earth, plus the game's introductory sequence that casts you in the role of One Little Spark of inspiration.

Mrs. Incredible parks her Tron Recognizer in Tulgey Wood.

The clever design sends you into a vast, anything-goes "toybox" world where you can combine themes and characters in any way you wish, selecting from hundreds and hundreds of parts to build your own games with your own rules--anything from racetracks and shootouts to pinball machines, obstacle courses and soccer fields. You don't have many parts available at the start, however. To get them, you have to venture from the toybox "hub" into the Playset worlds, which are large, scripted film-specific adventures (Infinity's version of E-Ticket attractions).

Review: Disney's Official Park Albums Hit iTunes

Today, for the first time ever, Disney's new Official Albums for Disneyland and Walt Disney World are available for digital download on iTunes, Amazon and Disney's own online music store.

The Good News: Most of the tracks are available for individual purchase, so great new selections from both coasts such as "Radiator Springs Racers," "Test Track," "A Suitcase and a Dream" and "Be Our Guest" can be added to fans' playlists without purchasing both entire albums ($19.99 each). This is a great plus for buyers who already own most of the tracks from previous editions of the park CDs.

The Bad News (but we knew this was coming): Longer tracks (and a couple of short ones, such as Pooh) are only available if the entire album is purchased. There's no way iTunes would offer the nearly 20-minute long Fantasyland Dark Ride Suite for $1.29, after all.

Whether you call Disneyland or Walt Disney World your "home" resort, both of these albums are terrific collections of some of the best music ever produced under the Disney banner. There's actually very little duplication between the two albums. Toy Story Midway Mania, for instance, is represented by two completely different tracks on each set.

What follows is a quick overview of the collections. I'm going to assume most of you already own most of the classic tracks. If not, you can't go wrong buying both albums in their entirety.

WDW 1993: More Wonders of Life

No, this isn't Universal's latest Halloween Haunt, it's another look back at 1993 Walt Disney World. Today we've returned once more to Wonders of Life. The eclectic, wonderful pavilion had something for everyone, and everyone seemed to love the Sensory Fun House.

The game seen above, where you reached into a hole and tried to identify an object by touch alone, was the sort of exhibit you can find in many museums and zoos, but Disney had the brilliant idea to make the back of the box open to spectators, turning it into a true "What the --" moment for guests who didn't know what they were looking at. This kind of simple, well-executed fun (also seen in the Forced Perspective Room) never gets old.

WDW 1993: Dreamfinder & Figment

Epcot's original Journey Into Imagination quickly became one of my top three favorite attractions in all of Walt Disney World when my family visited the resort in 1993 (it tied with Horizons and Cranium Command). I couldn't get enough of Dreamfinder and Figment, and took several trips through the ride during our stay.

Journey Into Imagination astonished me with its ingenious little vehicle trains as they swiveled sideways to follow the revolving stage for the song One Little Spark -- what a brilliant way to stage a full-length musical number on a ride!

The musical and dramatic interplay between Dreamfinder and his newly-created friend Figment throughout the remainder of the ride made the adventure a warm-hearted, unforgettable experience. I'm very glad Figment still exists on the reworked version of the ride, and I hope someday Dreamfinder returns to the park as well. They're too good as a team to keep apart forever!

WDW 1993: Epcot's Wide Open Spaces

The vast skies and stunning vistas of 1993 Walt Disney World formed the biggest ongoing "Wow" factor during our first-ever visit. We particularly loved the surreal and wonderful landscapes of Epcot. The weather was a real character, too, and we experienced more than one of the awesome 2:00 P.M. cloudbursts which lasted just long enough to sucker us into buying ponchos. We learned our lesson; the next time, we just shopped 'till it ended.

Different view, same day. I think I rode Journey Into Imagination eight hundred times. Okay, maybe more like six...(It tied with Cranium Command and Horizons as my favorite thing in Epcot).

WDW folks say it a lot, and it's true: pictures don't do World Showcase Lagoon justice (especially mine). In person, I could just stare out across the water for an hour. And I would've, but I really wanted to get to Maelstrom.

More WDW 1993 soon!

WDW 1993: World of Motion

In this installment of WDW 1993, we're back in Epcot for a look at World of Motion, one of four grand, high-capacity omnimover-style attractions operating in Future World back then -- and that's not even counting the Living Seas' seacabs!

Our group loved World of Motion's humorous approach to edutainment. In the tradition of classic Disney cartoon shorts, a mock-serious narrator (Gary Owens this time) gave a calm, jovial tour through the history of transportation, completely unaware of the chaos breaking out in the scenes he was describing.

World of Motion was a shutterbug tourist's dream, and so there are many photos on the internet of this attraction's inhabitants. My paltry collection can't compare to the amazing wealth of shots found in Disney Tourist Blog's tribute, so be sure to check it out if you haven't already. The above scene is certainly well-documented, but the world can't have enough chickens, so here's my shot of the ruckus.

Another view reveals one of my favorite gags: Manhole Guy With Vegetable on Head.

World of Motion was an incredibly good-natured adventure the whole family truly could experience together. It also had the catchy theme song, "It's Fun to be Free." Long before our trip, I'd memorized that song via the great original Music of Disneyland, Walt Disney World and Epcot Center CD (odd title, considering Epcot is part of WDW). Based on the song alone, World of Motion was a "Must-See" on that first trip, and it did not disappoint.

More WDW 1993 coming soon.

WDW 1993: Cranium Command

1993 marked my Disneyland-lovin' west coast family's first trip to Walt Disney World. Like any good Disney fans back then, we'd read our Birnbaum and Unofficial Guide. We had a mere four full days to see as much as possible.

When our touring brought us to the Wonders of Life Pavilion, I expected Body Wars to be my favorite attraction there. I enjoyed the simulator, and nearly passed up the pavilion's second-biggest star, Cranium Command -- then I remembered a friend back home had recommended it.

I'm forever grateful for my friend's advice; Cranium Command turned out to be the single best, funniest and most ingenious show I've ever seen in any Disney park, and one of my top three favorite attractions in all of Walt Disney World.

The hilarious first-act "induction" movie knocked me out with its great character animation and Monty-Python edge as it introduced rookie brain pilot Buzzy and the non-stop blustery shouting of General Knowledge. The General truly made this show awesome; I can't think of any other Disney attraction in which a character loudly calls the audience "meatheads" and "miserable toads." He, of course, also shouted the immortal words, "Where do you think you are, Disney World?!?"

This fast-paced masterpiece intro was directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, who became superstar animation directors with their very next film, Beauty and the Beast.

The General's banter continued as guests entered the main theater ("Are you waiting for your mamas to seat you?!?") It didn't take long for guests to realize the theater represented the inside of a boy's head, with forward screens functioning as the eyes. Cranium Commando Buzzy, now in audioanimatronic form, tried to guide his assigned human through a  disastrous day while managing and directing the heart, stomach, left/right brain, adrenal gland and bladder, played by 80's-90's era  celebrities such as  George Wendt, Jon Lovitz, Charles Grodin, Bobcat Goldthwait and Dana Carvey, all providing frantic input via video screens.

Everything worked, and the show flew by with the intensity of a great ride. The comedy was brilliant, and both stories -- Buzzy's quest to be a good brain pilot and the human boy's extremely bad day at school -- all came together (via surprisingly kind advice from General Knowledge) for a completely satisfying, uplifting conclusion. I saw the show a half-dozen times during our trip, and the audience cheered loudly at the conclusion each time.

Essentially, Cranium Command presented an entire feature film's worth of plot, characterization and comedy within its 17 minute running time, staged in a unique and ingenious theater. It's a pity the show couldn't remain in Epcot forever. The one element that wouldn't age well  -- the celebrity cameos -- could have easily been swapped out with new guest stars. The story itself was timeless.

I vote for Cranium Command as the best non-ride Disney park attraction of all time. Any other Buzzy & Knowledge fans out there?