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Disney Vacation Planner  >  Walt Disney World  >  Downtown Disney  >  West Side  >  Disney Quest
Last revised Mon, 26-Nov-2007 15:08
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[Disney Vacation Planner]

At A Glance Large multi-floor amusement center

View Disney Quest photo from the gallery.

Like Innoventions in Future World, this cutting edge amusement center and multilevel arcade boasts the latest in gaming technology, including an interactive play area with laser tag, virtual reality adventures, and the latest grand-scale arcade games.

Some of the advertising material bills it as being the worlds first indoor ultimite interactive adventure park. Whilst I certainly wouldn't go that far, it makes a very interesting high-tech update to the old style "Fun Houses" that populated many of the British seaside resorts.

Gone are the older climbing areas, rolling walk-through wheels, pinball machines, and humorous mirrors replaced by high-tech interactive pinball, total imersion virtual reality adventures, and ultra high tech video games.

Within the 5-story building you can Climb aboard a real river raft, grab a paddle, and shoot the rapids in a virtural prehistoric world. Buckle into a motion simulator and ride a roller coaster of your own design. Or even fly a magic carpet through the bazaars and alleyways in an ancient city. All brought to life via motion simulators, and virtual reality devices.

Disney Quest is designed to be the ideal safe hangout for teens age twelve to twenty. Admission is via a pass charged at a daily rate (currently $29 for Adults).

As with most things from Disney, DisneyQuest is designed to drop guests into an entirely different world. Disney Imagineering has turned a simple "blue, wavy-roofed building" into a five-story maze of virtual adventure. To jazz up the outside, huge versions of the swirling "Q" from the DisneyQuest Logo (affectionately known as "Hurricane Mickey") on the front and back of the building.

Inside the building, there is no hint of the outside world, except what can be seen through glass doors on the front entrance and gift shop exit. The layout of DisneyQuest is almost as complex as the experience itself. Staircases swirl from floor to floor. The zones, or levels, are designed to flow seamlessly, one into the next. Some zones keep the action to one floor; others let you peek from floor-to-floor, with the end result a labyrinth of pathways with an adventure around every corner.

DisneyQuests also has its own naming conventions. Employees are called "navigators." The entrance is not an entrance, it's the Departure Lobby. It features gold pillars with faces of Disney characters engraved into the capitals of the columns. The floor is a huge compass designed to point your way to the adventure that lies ahead, with "Aladdin's" Genie guiding you along with a hilarious voice-over.

The "Cybrolator" - an elevator to you and me - takes you on a comic jolt-of-a-journey to the third-floor Ventureport, the start of your adventure. The Cybrolator is almost a ride itself.

The Ventureport is the entrance to DisneyQuest. Its huge vaulted ceiling and armillary sphere -- an old astronomical instrument composed of rings showing the positions of important circles of the celestial sphere -- point the way to DisneyQuests's zones: The Score Zone, Explore Zone, Replay Zone and Create Zone

Zone Guide

The Score Zone features futuristic versions of typical virtual reality games, where guests don VR headsets and take up arms against all types of villainy or engage in more civil play. In what officials call "a competition city," guests can become a pinball, in the Mighty Ducks Pinball Slam. Players stand on giant discs in front of a huge video screen. As the discs are inflated, players find their corresponding ball on the screen and score points by using their whole body to maneuver the disc, and thus the ball, into various pinball hot spots. The Mighty Ducks goalie guards the highest score spot. He's good, but not impenetrable.

Other Score Zone attractions include a four-person virtual reality game where guests battle extraterrestrial intruders called Invasion! An Alien Encounter and the fantasy VR challenge Ride the Comix. In Ride the Comix, guests wear a virtual reality headset, sit on a round "hover seat" and grab a laser sword. As you propel yourself through a futuristic comic book world, effective use of your sword makes mincemeat out of all sorts of cartoon rogues. Alien Encounter puts four players on a journey to save interplanetary colonists from outer space bad guys. One player drives and the other three are gunners, shooting aliens as the craft picks up colonists. The 360-degree adventure sets you right in the middle of all the action.

The Explore Zone is a land of pure Disney fantasy. Visitors run, jump, explore and play their way through huge sets from Disney's adventurous films. The Tiger's Head from "Aladdin's" Cave of Wonders leads the way into the land of the Virtual Jungle Cruise, a combination flume/raft/video ride that takes you from the primordial jungles of pre-historic times to the 21st Century. Guests work with Wayne Zalinsky from "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" on his latest invention - a time machine. A huge raft, complete with sensored oars, allows rafters to feel every twist and turn as they paddle your way through the jungles of time. All of the action is played out on a huge video screen before you.

A maze of caverns lies beneath the floor the Explore Zone, and it's your job to search the subterranean grottoes for fortune in Treasures of the Ancient Incas. Players use remote-controlled jeeps to survey the caverns. Cameras perched on top of the jeep show your way. When you find the hidden treasure, your jeep can run into the grotto, grab the treasure and it appears on your screen.

Characters from Disney's animated film "Hercules" also inhabit the Explore Zone. Hercules in the Underworld is 4-player, 3-D adventure where guests can choose to be either Hercules, Meg, Pegasus or Phil. As the characters, players run through the underworld picking up lightning bolts and searching for Pain and Panic (Hades' henchmen) who have hidden a cart filled with lightning bolts. Once you've collected all the lightning bolts and found the cart, the characters race toward Hades' lair. Pegasus drives the cart as the other characters try to destroy Hades with the bolts.

Explore Zone also offers Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride, a virtual reality ride through the Cave of Wonders. Wearing virtual reality headsets, competitors climb aboard motorcycle-like vehicles to begin their journey. Players become Abu, the monkey, and are charged with traversing the cave on Aladdin's flying carpet to find the Genie of the Lamp. Players compete against each other and the clock to see who can find the Genie first; but beware, the evil Jafar has laid traps throughout the caverns.

Guests of the Replay Zone are treated to a futuristic midway of games of skill. Fans of the movie "Toy Story" can play Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blaster, two-seated, bubble-topped bumper cars, equipped with cannons on their hoods. While one player bumps the other cars, the other blasts opponents with foam balls. A direct hit puts your adversaries into an out-of-control tailspin. Guests can also enjoy traditional midway-type games with classical Disney-character themes such as Whack An Alien and Dumbo's Water Race.

Replay Zone also offers a wide array of traditional video games from old-time favorites like "Zaxxon," "Dig Dug," "Centipede" and "Tron" to the newest arcade hits like "Street Fighter," "Top Skater" and "Daytona USA."

The Create Zone is a private Imagineering studio where guests can live out their greatest artistic flights of fancy. Bill Nye, "The Coaster Guy," helps Quest-goers create their own roller coaster on the premier attraction of the Zone, Cyberspace Mountain. First, you pick from one of four different environments you want to coast through. Adding your coaster features comes next. You can choose from real coaster specialties, like vertical loops, corkscrews and spirals, or get really creative with otherworldly options like jumping from track-to-track or leaping through hyperspace. (You get 10,000 feet of track to play with.) Once you've got your coaster designed, you can rate it on a "thrill scale" of 1-10. Finally, you enter a VR simulator that lets you ride the very coaster you've created.

The Create Zone also provides numerous outlets for traditional artistic creativity, with a futuristic spin. You can paint, draw, construct and sculpt with high-tech instruments, plus learn take advantage of artistic and animation techniques provided by Disney artisans. Sid's Create-a-Toy allows kids to jump into the movie "Toy Story" by grabbing pieces of broken toys and combining them to make "super toys."

Future Picassos, Da Vincis and Van Goghs can let their burgeoning artistic talent flourish through the Living Easels, video canvases where kids combine backgrounds, colors and characters to create a masterpiece. The Magic Mirror also allows kids to put themselves into their art, adding their photos to different backgrounds and manipulating it in a variety of ways.

As an added bonus, Create Zone offers mini art classes with Disney artisans in the Animation Academy. Animation 101 teaches Quest-goers to draw their favorite Disney characters; while in Animation 202, you delve further into the creative arts.

Many Disney-created rides and games have been designed to extend your experience after you leave the building. If you create that perfect gadget with Sid's Create-a-Toy, you can actually purchase the toys you design. Pictures and paintings produced with the Living Easels and Magic Mirror can also be printed out, bought and taken home.

As your adventure comes to an end, visitors exit the building through DisneyQuest's main gift shop, The DisneyQuest Emporium. The shop showcases hundreds of T-shirts, mugs and pins featuring the DisneyQuest logo and items from your favorite games. It can be accessed without going into the complex and is already open to the public.

Amenities

The California-based Cheesecake Factory is providing all the food for DisneyQuest. The Cheesecake Factory's Express concept will create two dining opportunities for Quest guests: The Wonderland Café and FoodQuest.

"The Wonderland Café" will be a cross between an old-time soda fountain/sweets shop and a coffeehouse of the future. Coffees, teas, pastries, smoothies, cakes, ice cream and - of course - a myriad of varieties of cheesecake will be the order of the day. With a decor straight out of the Mad Tea Party, The Cafe will also feature sandwiches for heartier appetites. While they eat, guests can surf the Internet and explore a specially created Intranet full of chat, message boards and other opportunities to interact with others.

FoodQuest has a food court atmosphere with more substantial fare than the Wonderland Café. Cheesecake Factory delights such as Sliders; Chicken Littles; Tex-Mex, Crispy Vegetable and Avacado Egg Rolls; and the Factory's famous french fries, are featured on the menu. FoodQuest also features salads, hot and cold sandwiches, soups, pastas and rotisserie chicken. The Cheesecake Factory Express will also provide a catering service through DisneyQuest.

Overall

DisneyQuest is poised to be one of the most successful franchises in Disney history. Mixing favorite Disney characters with interactive virtual reality was an idea of mammoth proportions; and the execution is even better than any expectations.

Disney's claims on being "The Ultimate Interactive Adventure" are more than justified. Adept game players and novices alike will find something to whet their appetites. Kids will want to play the VR games over and over; and parents will love the imagination-spurring magic of Create Zone.

The Disney-Imagineered rides are sure to become crowd favorites. Cyberspace Mountain packs all the thrill of a great coaster, minus the "death factor." It's great for coaster enthusiasts and those who tend to be a bit squeamish. Multi-player games such as Mighty Ducks Pinball Slam and Alien Encounter provide fun for the whole family or a bunch of friends. The Virtual Jungle Cruise takes a little practice. Don't be discouraged if you can't get the hang of it on your first cruise.

Unlike traditional video games where you get a certain number of plays and then it's over, Disney has designed its games to last from three-and-a-half to five minutes. This provides a more-level playing field - video game neophytes and masters the same have the same time with each game. It also ensures that you really get your money's worth.

This popularity of the attraction may be one of the biggest hindrances to DisneyQuest's success. Thousands of people - tourists and locals alike - flock to Downtown Disney every day. Officials say "the DisneyQuest experience" is designed to last 2-3 hours for each guest. Disney is limiting capacity for the building to 1,000 people. You do the math. Disney Regional Entertainment officials say that capacity may be increased as the attraction grows.

For more information, call 407-828-4600.


 

 

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