Starling Travel

When we were in California last February, we were able to visit Star Trek The Tour. It is currently at the Queen Mary and is destined to travel to 40 U.S. cities, but we couldn’t be sure Salt Lake City was on the list, so we saw it while it was in California.

Star Trek The Tour is a collection of the props, sets and costumes from all the Star Trek television shows and movies. The coolest part was the staff allowed us all to take as many pictures and video as we wanted. I took so many pictures that I could fill the screen with them all. Here a couple of highlights:

When you first walk into the place, the Guardian of Forever is there to greet you. They let you walk up to and jump through it all you want. It’s awesome!

There were dozens of these exhibits with props from the original series. I loved how much attention to detail they gave them. Some of them were labeled as props, but repainted. Others were in original condition. If they were replicas, it said so on the little card.

Here is Captain Picard’s office with his desk and even a photo from Deanna and Riker’s wedding. It was fun so see all of the sets from television in real life.

You can see ALL of the photos I took here:

• Star Trek The Tour - a photoset on Flickr

At the end of the tour, you go through a Star Trek Experience. It was a lot of fun and this video doesn’t really do it justice:

Download this video for your iPod

The experience leads you out into the gift shop. If you think that it’s just ordinary Star Trek paraphernalia, then you would be mistaken. I bought my Starfleet Academy school ring there and I haven’t been able to find anything like it anywhere else. Not even The Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas has them.

Ssandart got video in the Borg Simulator. Since these kind of rides make me motion sick, I avoided them. Looks like they were pretty cool, though. Skip to the 2:06 minute mark to see the video of the simulator:

Here’s a commercial for Star Trek The Tour on YouTube:

A special thank you to Wil Wheaton for announcing this on his blog:

• WWdN: In Exile: announcement two of four (collect them all!)

I wouldn’t have known about this if I hadn’t read it in his blog, so I’m so glad I was able to play with all the fun at Star Trek The Tour!

Wil Wheaton visited Disneyland recently and posted his photos on Flickr. You can see them all here:

• WilWheaton’s Disneyland slideshow on Flickr

He included the obligatory photo of himself in front of the Haunted Mansion. At this time of the year, it is all decked out in Nightmare Before Christmas goodness.

I have never gone to Disneyland in October, so I’ve never seen the Halloween decorations on the Haunted Mansion. I’m really wanting to jump in the car and take a road trip right now for a quick jaunt to CA. Stop me, okay?

Ward and Andrea Jenkins moved to Portland this year and they are enthralled with their new home town. You can read about their enthusiasm here:

• The Ward-O-Matic: Portland’s calling

Portland has been a gas stop on the way for Mt. Hood for me, so it’s inviting to hear what a newly transplanted family thinks about the place.

“It’s been so easy to love this new city of mine, with what seems to be TONS of things to do with kids in tow. We just recently checked out the Oaks Amusement Park this past Friday, and, even though it wasn’t like good ol’ Six Flags Over Georgia (Monster Plantation, anyone?), it still had the wonder and awe that only old skool rides can make for summer memories. They even had a roller rink, which I SWEAR had the exact smell of the 1970’s — they should somehow bottle it up and sell it on the street corners of America. I’d buy it. Ava and Ezra were loving the kiddie rides, all of which bordered on the “carny” side. In fact, the entire park screamed CARNY — they just never left town. (The park’s been a staple of SE Portland since 1905!) It was the perfect ending to a great summer.”

Ward has been a faithful lover of Atlanta, but it looks like Portland has won his heart. Welcome to the Wild West, Ward!

Back in June, Disney opened the long-closed submarine ride. It had been changed into the Finding Nemo ride, which caused a lot of uproar about changing the classic Disney rides. I read complaints that EVERY ride at Disneyland needed to have some sort of movie tie-in, while completely ignoring the fact that original submarine ride was an advertisement for 10,000 Leagues Under The Sea, a Disney movie.

During all the complaining, it seems like no one noticed that Disney went above and beyond the call of duty to make the ride handicapped accessible. Since it’s impossible to get a wheelchair down the spiral staircases and into the submarines, they created a new observation deck experience.

• Disney makes submarine ride accessible - Yahoo! News

The “Imagineers” at The Walt Disney Co. couldn’t retrofit the hatches and spiral staircases of the original 52-foot submarines to accommodate wheelchairs.

So they did the next best thing. The undersea voyage has been photographed with state-of-the-art equipment, and the high-definition images will be displayed on a 61-inch plasma screen in a theater designed to resemble an observation outpost.

The viewing site is also intended to accommodate people who are claustrophobic.

Kudos to Disney for taking care of everyone on this ride. Okay, everyone except the Disney purists.

Imagine my surprise to find that instead of the usual space trip around the galaxy when we rode Space Mountain at Disneyland this year, we were treated to Higher Ground by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

After I got off the ride, I looked at my folded and mangled guide to Disneyland. There it was, right on the cover, but I hadn’t noticed it. I had just opened it to the map and headed on my way.

Part of me was pissed. Space Mountain is about SPACE, man! It’s about science and space and NASA and all that stuff! It ain’t about the Red Hot Chili Peppers!

The other part of me was sick of all that space stuff. Honestly, how much science did I ever learn from Space Mountain? None, nothing, zip. It REALLY was about the new Disney movie The Black Hole, when I was a kid, but even that movie was light on the science.

I rode Space Mountain again (it was a rainy day and the lines were pretty short) and I totally LOVED it. They somehow mixed the song to match the ride perfectly. When the music speeds up and gets manic, the coaster speeds up and starts whipping you around in a circle.

Then another part of me felt so proud and happy for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They are Orange County Boys. They probably went to Disneyland a hundred times in their childhood. They probably rode Space Mountain ever since the year it opened. They probably spit on the eye in Adventure Through Inner Space. I felt this huge surge of happiness. What better band than the Red Hot Chili Peppers to soundtrack rides at Disneyland?! WAY better than Michael Jackson’s 3D monstrosity.

I didn’t ride California Screamin’, the huge roller coaster in California Adventure, but I heard that ride was Rockin’ the Peppers as well. Everybody else who rode it weren’t able to tell me which song was playing. I think it was because that ride is just so intense that they didn’t have a chance to even think about the music.

Just based on the look on their faces, I think that’s the case…

Have you ridden any of the Rockin’ rides at Disneyland? What did you think about the changes?

Kitykity and her family went to Disney World last month and she has posted a couple of videos of their fun. You can see them here:

Disney World: Part 1: Traveling and Blizzard Beach

I forget how much of traveling is actually getting there. It looks like Kitykity made it fun with her family by filming videos and keeping them occupied. Since I’ve never been to Disney World, I would have liked to see what Blizzard Beach was like and to see the kids playing on the water rides.

Disney World: Part 2: EPCOT Center, squishing pennies and playing in the fountains.

Click To Play

There is a eighty-year-old woman in me that saw the children playing in the fountains and thought, “That ain’t no way to spend time in Disney World! Ya gotta gitchyer money’s worth, kids!” Of course, they’re there to have fun. If they’re having fun with the fountains and squishing pennies, then you got your money’s worth.

Kitykity regularly posts interesting videos on her vlog. Check her out there: kitykity’s vlog.

I wrote an article earlier about Lagoon when I was a child:

• Starling Travel » Reminiscing About Lagoon

It is still around and a favorite summer time activity for the kids in Northern Utah. Local hotels sell “Lagoon Packages” to attract visitors from neighboring states.

This website has a webcam installed where you can see a aerial picture of Lagoon updated every five minutes:

• Lagoon Is Fun

I found Google Maps to be much more appealing, even though the photos are out of date, the color is so beautiful:

Sadly, my two favorite rides, The Terroride and Dracula’s Castle, are just huge boring buildings and an aerial shot of them is strangely disappointing when I think of all the “spine-tingling” fun I’ve had on those rides.

There are many locally owned amusement parks like Lagoon all over the United States. If you are feeling a little bored, plan a trip to one for the weekend. You might be surprised at how fun a trip to a local amusement park can be.

Re-Imagineering is a weblog written by Pixar employees about what is wrong with the current Disneyland and how to fix it. Most of the time they are right on the mark, but this entry is completely WRONG in all capital letters this time.

• Re-Imagineering: Elemental Losses: Earth

Their entry argues that because the parking lot of old Disney was so drab and boring it was a stark contrast to the magical world of Disneyland. That might have been true. Maybe even back when they built California Adventure, the parking lot WAS better than the new addition, but now, they are WRONG.

We visited Disneyland this year and I was truly impressed with the parking situation. The moment our car got on Disney property, I felt like we were already in the Magic Kingdom. Friendly employees directed our car to the structure and then within the structure, they even directed us to a parking spot. It went so easily and we weren’t driving around and around looking for a place to park our car like we did at Universal Studios.

It was so easy to remember where our car was because we were on the Goofy floor. Even the kids remembered where our car was parked, “Goofy!” Each of the floors were assigned a Disney character, which is so much easier to remember than Floor 5.

When we went down to the trams, we could take an elevator or the bank of escalators. All the escalators went down, so it was very easy to get out of the parking garage and to the tram that quickly came to take us to the park.

When we returned, all the escalators were going up instead of down. I had no idea that they even made reversible escalators, but the Disney Imagineers planned long and hard on this parking structure to make it an easy experience for people who are tired and just want to go home.

I think the writers for Imagineering need to look at the current incarnation of Disneyland with new eyes. Look at it as if you never saw the Disneyland of 1958. Look at it as a parent of today and imagine trying to get three tired kids back to the car and out of the park. The parking structure is one of the things at Disneyland that WORKS. It works so well and so efficiently that people probably never even notice it.

Pictures Via Flicker:

• disneyland parking lot: about 1958 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

• Parking structure on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Jeff Voris has a Flickr Slideshow of the pictures he took while he was at the county fair in Orange County, California. You can see it here:

• Orange County Fair 2006 Slideshow - by Jeff Voris

These are my two favorite photos:

Summer is the time for county and state fairs. If you need a break for the weekend, plan a trip to your county or state fair and enjoy all the weirdness that your local area has to offer.

Via: Boing Boing: Unusual photos taken at OC fair

This video is almost 25 minutes long. It is a Disney film made about Disneyland and shows Walt Disney’s ideas for his new amusement park, The Epcot Center. It shows Disneyland as it was in the early sixties. If you went to Disneyland as a child and are shocked to see how different it is today, this video is great for reminiscing.