Pirates, pirates, Jedi, princesses, pirates, and pirates

Tom Sawyer, Pirate

The Disney portion of the Internet has been aflutter since rumors sprouted that Disneyland's Tom Sawyer Island would be replaced by a Pirates of the Caribbean-themed attraction. Disney fans protested that Tom Sawyer Island was one of Walt Disney's favorite areas (he had played there as a child), that the reason nobody ever visited the island was that most of it was currently closed/broken/lame, and that it didn't make a heck of a lot of sense to have a Caribbean island surrounded by the Rivers of America.

Well, the Walt Disney Company -- always attuned to the wishes of Disneyland annual passholders and assorted Mouse fanatics -- announced late Monday that they had a solution. They would go ahead with the pirate-theming plans in order to please younger guests who didn't know any form of literature that hadn't been converted into a video game, but they would combine it with the traditional theme, thus making everyone happy.

Expect to see the new Island of Captain Tom Sawyer (pronounced "Tom Soy-arrrr") open in time for the new Pirate movie premier in May of 2007.

New Turnstiles

On one of your daily visits to the Disneyland Resort, you may have noticed that the parks now have new turnstiles at their entrance gates. The new high-tech entrance devices are intended to cut back on ticket and annual-pass fraud by using a complex series of sensors and algorithms to detect guests attempting to enter with ticket media that is not appropriate. Violators are tagged with indelible red dye, similar to that used in explosive dye packs intended to foil bank robberies.

On Sunday evening, a six-year-old girl who was handing all of her party's tickets to the entrance cast member was blasted with red dye (covering her from head to toe and throwing her more than six feet). Cast members reminded her shocked and flabbergasted family that guests are required to hold their own tickets, and that in recognition of the girl's age, the park would not be pressing charges.

Jedi Cutbacks

The Jedi Training Academy began performances at Tomorrowland Terrace this past week. Hoards of young Jedi wannabees crowded for their chance to learn basic lightsaber technique and fight Darth Vader, Darth Maul, and (when crowds are particularly large) Jar-Jar Binks. There were a few glitches in the first performance, as the Jedi who was supposed to choose participants based on their "fullness of the force" refused to choose anyone because he couldn't feel the force emanating from any of the children. The cast member was not present at later performances, and an internal Disney memo announced a policy of never hiring method actors ever again.

Another small problem arose the first day when Darth Maul, wielding an extremely cool looking double-lightsaber created by Imagineering, accidentally lopped one ear off of a kid's Mickey hat. All lightsabers used in the show are now plastic models with no magnetic-field-contained plasma fields or anything else particularly geeky-cool. Bummer!

Year of a Million Dreams Update

As of Monday morning, the "Dream Team" had already given out all 1,000,000 of the Year of a Million Dreams prizes. "We didn't expect them to go so fast," said one cast member, "but it was so fun we just couldn't stop." Management is still trying to decide whether they will change the name of the event to "Week of a Million Dreams" or just hope that nobody notices. In any case, it is much to early to announce next year's "Year of a Million Pirates" campaign.

Princess Fantasy Faire

The Fantasyland Theater has reopened in its new incarnation as the focus of everything princess. Young girls of all ages can now come here to meet a princess, have their hair done, get a new gown, learn how to act like royalty, or hear a princess tell a story. All of this princessly wonderment is available at no charge to guests (unless they want to meet a princess, have their hair done, get a new gown, learn how to act like royalty, or hear a princess tell a story).

The Princess Fantasy Faire opened just in time for an announcement from Disney Marketing that it would be closed and replaced with the Tinker Bell Fairy Fantasy Faire.

New Disney Legends

There was a ceremony on Monday at Walt Disney Studios to formally induct a number of new people into the list of official Disney Legends. This year's inductees include:

• Pecos Bill
• Paul Bunyan
• Babe the Ox
• Sluefoot Sue
• The Killer with a Hook for a Hand

Congratulations, official Disney Legends!

Matterhorn Update

The Matterhorn Bobsleds are set to reopen mid-December. This is right on schedule, even though the conversion of the Abominable Snowman audioanimatronic figure into a Davy Jones figure is taking longer than anticipated.