Jolly Holiday – The Penguin Cafe

Not much to say this time – just here’s a new piece I did visualizing the penguin scene of the ride. The vehicle moves around the island in a circle while really great animatronic penguins dance away (and maybe jump through the canopy of the ride vehicle!). 

As always I love feedback and hope you enjoy! For everything Jolly Holiday check out the project page

Jolly Holiday – New Site Plan

Happy New Year! (Again, I think – I need to log on to this site more). Today I come with a new, more detailed site plan for Jolly Holiday. This is probably the closest I’ve gotten to something that could actually be built, and also stays relatively compact. I’m really happy with it. The only thing I would change is that currently there are two maintenance areas – one for vehicles, and one for the horses – and I think there’s enough room that they could just be combined into one.

MP_Site_Plan

While I’d be happy to see it anywhere, the design has always been geared towards Epcot and the UK pavilion – so as I’ve refined it I’ve definitely kept that in mind. As you can see it fits very nicely there (obviously getting rid of Millenium village is necessary )and leaves plenty of room next door for a new pavilion.

MP_Site_Plan_Map

So what do you think? Love feedback as always.

In Praise of Traditionalism

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Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean is probably the pinnacle of traditional design.

Okay, since I constantly seem to get sidetracked by this issue any time I try to write anything about theme parks, I might as well talk about it now.

First some quick definitions. David Younger in his fantastic book aptly titled “Theme Park Design” (add link) outlines a few different design styles that have been applied to theme parks in their relatively short history. Here they are along with their (paraphrased) definitions.

Traditional: the classic form of design that originated with Disneyland that seeks to immerse you in environments. Characteristics include almagations of different kinds of spatial entertainment (not just rides), a trend towards experiential vs explicit story, loose theming. Pirates of the Caribbean or The Haunted Mansion.

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Jolly Holiday Update! The Horse Race.

Today here’s an image from the climax of the ride where you join the horse race and the jockeys ride alongside you accompanied by a rousing score. The scene takes place in a series of 3 speed tunnels laid out in the shape of a horse track. The backgrounds are project but the jockeys are animatronics that ride along side you, neck and neck. Eventually Mary Poppins sends the wind to help you along and you’re lifted above the riders to the finish line.

horse race in jolly holiday

For the full rundown of the Jolly Holiday attraction please check out the page. What do you think?

Jolly Holiday Storyboards!

I’ve started working on some story boards for Jolly Holiday. They’re kind of crap but it’s nice to have something. I’ve gotten up to the carousel scene. (You can see how the quality drops as I got tired and started to speed up lol). Let me know what you think!

For more information on this attraction check out this page.