Under the Sea: The Best Scene in a Controversial Ride

Here's a burst of color for a June Sunday. In a previous post, we've mentioned a couple of things we like and dislike about The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure. Today, let's simply enjoy the very best scene on the ride: The Under the Sea room.

In this chamber, the Imagineers had to create one big, active environment based on a movie scene that's mostly composed of many quick, individual shots. This ride may not have much in the way of thrills, but it can certainly boast one heck of a cheerful centerpiece.

Plus, it no longer features Dole-Whip-Hair Ariel (a horror Florida fans never had to encounter).

Lego Genie in Downtown Disney

Today we're back at Downtown Disney's amazing Lego Store. The place is loaded with great brick sculptures, but even among such masterpieces as Maleficent and Beast, this model of Genie is jaw-droppingly amazing. At first, you'd swear the model-builders must have cheated and used something besides Lego to create this character's curving, smoke-like shape...

 But, no, it really is all Lego bricks. I'd love to know how much this thing weighs.

In the first shot, you can see Lego's mascot, Brickley the sea serpent, peaking out and looking as though he knows he's being upstaged. For more about Brickley, including a great shot of his perfect location at Walt Disney World's Lego Store, check out this March post from Ryan P. Wilson's Main Street Gazette!

Stuck on the Nemo Subs

Have you ever been stuck on the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage during a moment of technical difficulities, staring at the same big, ugly fish for fifteen minutes? We have.

We named him Blarg the Magnificent.

Fortunately, once the ride resumed, we had a smooth, Nemo-full adventure with everything working perfectly...until the end, when something else happened just shy of the docks and we had to wait another fifteen minutes. We got to listen to "Beyond the Sea" over and over again.

Bottom line: even though this ate up our "Extra Magic Hour" morning, we all disembarked in a good mood. If we must get stuck somewhere, may it always be in a submarine at Disneyland rather than out in freeway traffic in the "normal" world.