Typhoon Tech: Behind-the-Waves at Typhoon Lagoon

I'm not a big water park guy, but I love how Disney themed Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon, and I love how my oldest child can be dispatched to one of those water parks in the morning so my youngest child can spend a hassle-free day in Fantasyland riding Peter Pan over and over again.

(With me. Here we go!)

Even though you won't often catch me in the water parks, I'm fascinated by how Disney does, well, everything, and that includes creation and maintenance of Typhoon Lagoon, the subject of Dawn Bachers' short article last week on JimHillMedia.

Among other tidbits, Dawn explains how Disney fills the wave pool, how long it takes, and how they manage to do it on land that not long ago was a swamp teeming with snakes, gators, and Gramps' buried moonshine.

If you've ever snorkeled in Shark Reef, as Dawn often does, you may have been snookered into thinking the coral reef was real. It's not. Dawn reveals that it's fiberglass coated in non-toxic paint. Part of Typhoon's annual two-month maintenance period likely involves touching up all the non-toxic paint on all that fiberglass.

And maybe searching for any of Gramps' left-over moonshine.

MORE: Jim Hill Media (Dawn Bachers)

Epcot's Viking Gallery of Wax

That last hullabaloo about boycotting Disney was pretty intense. When things start getting too intense, I usually like to slow it down with some news about the waxen figure of King Olaf.

HousesOfWax is a massive site, perhaps the world's most massive site, of nothing but waxen figures. Every so often it spotlights one of the few waxen figures at Disney World, and last week it continued an unofficial series about the waxen figures in the Gol Stave Church at Epcot's Norway Pavilion with a brief photo essay featuring King Olaf II.

(The photos, unfortunately, are marred by over-zealous watermarking.)

King Olaf is Norway's patron saint, a former Viking converted to Christianity, who became Norway's monarch in 1015 and united the country until jealous rivals killed him in battle many years later.

HousesOfWax also has photos of Erik the Red, a resolute explorer, and Rognvald, a rapacious warrior. Together with King Olaf, they're the trio of Norse terror currently on display in Stave Church.

MORE: Houses of Wax (Bob)

The Disney Boycott: Hammering the Corporate Hydra

There's a fascinating article today in the St. Petersburg Times' on-line edition, TampaBay, by Sharon Kennedy Wynne about a mother in Minneapolis named Lisa Ray who decided to boycott Disney.

As Sharon tells the story, Lisa didn't like how Disney drummed into her daughter's head the importance of good looks and finding a rich prince. (In other words, Lisa Ray didn't like reality.)

So no more Disney, thundered Ms. Ray, who also publishes a blog called Parents for Ethical Marketing, and decreed that for her daughter there would be no more theme parks, no more Princesses, no more Marvel Comics, no more Winnie the Pooh books, no more anything in which Disney holds even a smidge of financial interest.

Lisa Ray then promptly started a new blog, A Magical Year Without Disney, to chronicle the experience and provide links to other anti-Disney sites and books.

Cheap publicity stunt? At first, I thought so. But then I went to the blog (which in July got nearly 8000 unique visitors) and realized that Lisa Ray had tapped into something rather important, something that seems to resonate with many other people: the anacondian grip and protean reach of corporations like Disney. Even Lisa, despite her vigilance, admits how difficult it is to boycott such corporations. Case in point: her husband's recent purchase of hot dog rolls with an ad for Camp Rock unnoticed on the back.

The article has many more details of Lisa Ray's Disney boycott, including excerpts from people interviewed about the boycott and an eye-opening list of the media properties that Disney owns.

I doubt Disney is worried. Boycotts almost never work, and in this case the boycott is more of an intellectual exercise than it is genuine consumer outrage.

For many of us, Disney elicits sweet memories of childhood. Boycott those, too?

MORE: St. Petersburg Times (Sharon Kennedy Wynne)

Epcot's Club Cool: Where Genghis Khan Came to Drink

First of all, congratuations to Ashley Metz for coming up with one of the best names yet for a Disney blog: IStinkinLoveDisney. Stinkin' awesome.

Something else that's stinkin' awesome is Club Cool, the former Ice Station Cool, a small attraction in Epcot's Innoventions Pavilion 'hosted' by Coca-Cola and packed with merchandise no one seems to purchase but free soda everyone seems to drink.

The soda comes in flavors marketed by Coke in foreign countries. After you've tried them, you'll ask yourself why Coke doesn't market those flavors here, too.

Or rather, market some of them here. A few of the flavors might be delicious in other cultures, but I have a hard time holding down more than a sip of bitter Italian Beverly. I have no such problem with Israeli Kinley Lemon, an ambrosial beverage I could drink all day (a taste I have in common with Genghis Khan's troops, if you believe the story on the placard above the soda dispenser, which of course I do because I've always fancied myself in a past life as a fierce nomadic warrior).

You're supposed to limit your soda intake to samples dispensed in tiny paper cups, but as Ashley points out, some people abuse the system and fill up their own large cups and bottles. Wouldn't it be nice if the soda machine was programmed to dispense vinegar when someone took much more than his fair share?

Nah. That's mean. Besides, I stinkin' love Club Cool.

MORE: I Stinkin' Love Disney (Ashley Metz)

We Still Have (Disneyland) Paris

In the August 25 edition of the Disney Dispatch, I gave some hullabaloo to Heather Stimmler-Hall who shared in her blog, Secrets of Paris, tips for getting to Disneyland Paris and doing so as cheaply and efficiently as possible.

Now, in Part 2 of her series, "How to Survive Disneyland Paris", Heather rates a few of the rides she rode once she rode in there and points out various highlights of the park.

I'm not sure it's a highlight, but she tells a humorous story of a woman and her son who handed back their ice cream for a refund because it was too cold. I know what you're thinking: American tourists. Wrong! Italians. An American would have eaten it first then asked for a refund.

As with her first article, this one has interest even for those unlikely to visit Disneyland, and it has a glut of photos, including one of Heather herself behind an unsuspecting Captain Jack Sparrow.

Many of the folks I headline have interesting lives outside the Disney-verse. As an American expat living in Paris, Heather is no exception. She offers customized tours of Paris to people unfamiliar with the city and in 2008 she wrote a book, Naughty Paris: A Lady's Guide to the Sexy City, which you can buy on Amazon at a discount (even if you're not normally naughty). Heather has no plans at present for a sequel aimed at ladies who wish to be naughty at Disney theme parks.

MORE: Secrets of Paris (Heather Stimmler-Hall)