Cars Land to Replace Avatar at Disney World???

In the last couple of weeks the only rumors that I have been actively following have been ones surrounding the new iPhone, and if Apple will introduce a new smaller iPad. But one rumor that perked my ears up was the one saying that Cars Land could be making it's way east on Route 66 to Disney's Hollywood Studios. Things really seemed to be lining up for this, what with Kathy Mangum coming to Florida on assignment and all, but I didn't really buy into the whole Avatar Land dying a slow death... But it appears that where there is smoke there could be fire.

I really try not to get into the whole rumor spreading thing. With Disney there is so much to talk about that is happening, I have never felt the need to fill lines with the hundreds of credible, or insane rumors that pop up like pre-teen girls at a One Direction concert. I'm not connected to any sources at Disney to get comments, and I'm not a reporter who is expected to find leads on these types of stories. I'm a tennis coach who lives in Bucharest, Romania! I'm about as disconnected as you can be, so I rely on the hard work of people on the inside to get me my information! 

One of the people that brings this stuff to light is Kevin Yee. He has written a very good article about how Avatar Land could be shelved in favor of an east coast Cars Land. 

When the Avatar announcement was made, I like many people were taken by surprise. I also had mixed feelings about it, and I wrote about it in a post last September. The concept sounded really cool, and I thought that the Imagineers would do a great job with it, but I just thought it was a bit of a stretch. That combined with the stories of James Cameron being a bit of a pain to work with, kind of scared me that there would at best be delays. As rumors started to spread that Avatar might be downsized from an entire land to a couple of attractions, or even shelved completely, I thought it was just because of the fact that no new news was coming from the project. I shrugged them off thinking they were just a result of an impatient public, or from people that never liked the idea (there were plenty out there) who were looking for any reason to paint it in a bad light.

So how do I feel about this? Overall I am excited. Cars Land in Disney's California Adventure looks spectacular, especially the Radiator Springs Racers attraction. But a part of me thinks it should be exclusive to California Adventure. I for one love that all of the worldwide Disney parks have things you can only see there. It gives me the excuse to go see them all! But once again I trust the Imagineers to make a Disney World Cars Land different enough that people will want to see both. I also know that the designers always "plus" things as they re-imagine them. They learn from the previous attractions, lands, and parks, and tweek them to make them better. I have seen this with my own eyes from visiting the Magic Kingdom in Florida (opened October 1971), and the Disneyland Park in Paris (opened April 1992). There are a lot of improvements there, some little, some small, but if you pay attention you will see them.

So will Jake and Neytiri be moving out to make room for Lightning McQueen and Mater? We'll just have to wait and see! 

The Jedi Training Academy

Here is the first of the videos that I promised to share with you, some footage from the Jedi Training Academy at Disney's Hollywood Studios!

This was not a totally new experience for us, as Alyssa was chosen to participate in the show back in August 2009, when there was no sign up procedure like there is now. (You can see her battle Darth Vader in flip flops here.) And to be honest, I much preferred it the old way. In my opinion it made for a much magical moment, but I can say that because my kid was picked, and I didn't have to deal with the tears that would have come if she hadn't been! I understand why they changed the procedure... It was, and is, a very popular thing, and there were probably a lot of dissatisfied families chewing on guest relation's ears about how their child(ren) didn't get to participate. But now it has just become another line on the touring plan.

We didn't really plan on doing it, but it occurred to me that we could while we were making our way over to Star Tours: The Adventure Continues (fabulous rennovation by the way, but we'll save that for another day). It was our 2nd rope drop at Hollywood Studios this trip, and it was my wife's turn to make the Toy Story Mania FastPass March. We told her we would meet her at Start Tours after she braved the crowd, and since we had time, we stopped by the sign up for Jedi Training Academy. We were not the first people there, but we got our ticket to return and were on our way, knowing we would be back in a couple hours.

So when the time came I noticed that there were A LOT more kids in the show now! I think there were 12 kids on the stage, and another 12 on the ground in front of the stage! How would they be able to get all of these Padawans (Star Wars knowledge) to battle Darth Vader in the

time they had set aside?

Enter Darth Maul... So it turns out, that the kids on the ground level actually face him to complete their training. It seemed like the older kids were the ones that would face him, and it made sense, he was creepy lookin! Smaller kids could get freaked out!

So even though I wasn't able to get that classic shot of Alyssa dueling against Darth Vader, I was able to get some new footage of her fighting the most feared dude from Episode One! No not Jar Jar Binks...

Enjoy the video!