PirateDiva
Looks Like They are Officially doing it!!!!
From the Orange County Register
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Pirates invade Tom Sawyer Island
The Disneyland attraction will add live buccaneers and games to the classic Disney playground.
By SARAH TULLY
The Orange County Register
Disneyland officials are saying "Aye!" to pirates, but "Arrr!" to looting Tom Sawyer Island.
Officials announced Friday that live pirate characters and games will become part of Tom Sawyer Island, the classic Disneyland playground designed by Walt Disney himself.
Disney officials also announced plans to open the Toy Story Mania! ride next year in Disney's California Adventure. The interactive ride will incorporate game technology, similar to the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters attraction in Disneyland. Riders will put on 3-D glasses and shoot at targets with toy cannons along the track. The ride is under construction.
In regard to the island, it leaked out late last year that Disneyland wanted to banish Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, and instead turn it into another Pirates of the Caribbean attraction.
In the end, designers decided to integrate the pirate subplots from Mark Twain's books, calling it "Pirate's Lair at Tom Sawyer Island."
"I think that the word getting out sort of helped it remain a little bit more Tom Sawyerish than it would have been," said Al Lutz, editor of Miceage.com, a Disney watchdog Web site that reported the news last year.
The makeover is to coincide with the planned May release of "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," the third in the movie series that popularized pirates and is based on the Disneyland ride.
Rob Doughty, Disneyland's spokesman, said the island will retain Walt Disney's original vision. Old concept drawings show pirate imagery, including Jolly Roger flags on the rafts used to get to the Frontierland island.
Pirate details will go in Tom and Huck's treehouse and Smuggler's Cove, keeping the rope and barrel bridges. Visitors will search for buried treasure on the island, while live pirate characters wander.
Margot Wright, an Anaheim resident since 1954 who lives about a mile away, said she worries the island will become too commercialized.
"I prefer to leave it just as an island. Why tie it into pirates? We've already got Pirates of the Caribbean and enough stuff in New Orleans Square," said Wright, 56.
http://ohjohnny.net/news.html
From the Orange County Register
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Pirates invade Tom Sawyer Island
The Disneyland attraction will add live buccaneers and games to the classic Disney playground.
By SARAH TULLY
The Orange County Register
Disneyland officials are saying "Aye!" to pirates, but "Arrr!" to looting Tom Sawyer Island.
Officials announced Friday that live pirate characters and games will become part of Tom Sawyer Island, the classic Disneyland playground designed by Walt Disney himself.
Disney officials also announced plans to open the Toy Story Mania! ride next year in Disney's California Adventure. The interactive ride will incorporate game technology, similar to the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters attraction in Disneyland. Riders will put on 3-D glasses and shoot at targets with toy cannons along the track. The ride is under construction.
In regard to the island, it leaked out late last year that Disneyland wanted to banish Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, and instead turn it into another Pirates of the Caribbean attraction.
In the end, designers decided to integrate the pirate subplots from Mark Twain's books, calling it "Pirate's Lair at Tom Sawyer Island."
"I think that the word getting out sort of helped it remain a little bit more Tom Sawyerish than it would have been," said Al Lutz, editor of Miceage.com, a Disney watchdog Web site that reported the news last year.
The makeover is to coincide with the planned May release of "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," the third in the movie series that popularized pirates and is based on the Disneyland ride.
Rob Doughty, Disneyland's spokesman, said the island will retain Walt Disney's original vision. Old concept drawings show pirate imagery, including Jolly Roger flags on the rafts used to get to the Frontierland island.
Pirate details will go in Tom and Huck's treehouse and Smuggler's Cove, keeping the rope and barrel bridges. Visitors will search for buried treasure on the island, while live pirate characters wander.
Margot Wright, an Anaheim resident since 1954 who lives about a mile away, said she worries the island will become too commercialized.
"I prefer to leave it just as an island. Why tie it into pirates? We've already got Pirates of the Caribbean and enough stuff in New Orleans Square," said Wright, 56.
http://ohjohnny.net/news.html