Dec 1 - Dining with an Imagineer

Yep, that's right we had lunch with a real Imagineer!!!!!!

I'm on a break right now so I'm getting caught up from yesterday.

I had scoped out dining with an Imagineer a while back.  They don't have these opportunities very often.  As we found out during our lunch, it really depends on the availability of the Imagineers.  They try to have it once a week for lunch at the Hollywood Brown Derby at MGM.  They also have a dinner at Flying Fish on the Boardwalk, but that's really hit or miss.  It's maybe once or twice a month.  I would have loved to have done the Flying Fish thing because we've never eaten there, but hey, any opportunity was great.

We headed to MGM for the morning, thinking we'd take in the park for a couple of hours before lunch.  We got up, drove that super long drive to MGM (like 2 minutes), parked in the front row and walked to the park entrance.

We and hundreds of our new closest friends waiting to make the fast walk to Toy Story Midway Mania at rope drop...only to find that the ride was down for "technical difficulties" and no one had any idea when it would be back up.

They weren't even going to start a queue.  We waited for 10 minutes and decided to move onward.  Bryan wanted to do the Animation Academy.  Stefan had zero interest in doing that so he headed to Rockin' Roller Coaster and was going to ride that until we showed up there.

Bryan, Cate and I walked over to the Animation Academy area and got in the holding area to wait for the first class at 9:30am.  Meanwhile, Stefan texted me to say that RNR was down with "technical difficulties."  I felt bad for the people who didn't have Park Hoppers.  Toy Story down.  RNR down.  Star Tours under refurb. That's three main attractions out of commission.

Anywho...we got in to the class and the animator was so nice...she let the class pick which character we'd like. We were in a class with a lot of repeat classmates so trying to find a character that everyone hadn't drawn was a challenge for our animator.  We ended up drawing Dale.

After the class, we texted Stefan to find out where he was. It turns out RNR was running again, but he was stuck on it.  More technical difficulties.

Cate joined up with Stefan while Bryan and I shopped a bit.  Then we decided to check and see if Toy Story was up yet.  It was and it had a 50 minute wait.  No thanks.  We decided to go see Voyage of the Little Mermaid since we hadn't done that for a real long time.  Very enjoyable show.

We still had a little time before lunch so we checked out Pin Central.

Then Chip & Dale came out and Bryan thought it would be cool if Dale signed his picture.  So we got in line for that.  By the time we were done, it was time to check in at the Brown Derby.

There were a total of 10 of us at this dining experience.  We were seated in the exclusive Bamboo Room inside the Brown Derby.  It was a beautiful room off the side of the restaurant. There we met our Imagineer, Dan Flynn.

Dan was a great Imagineer to have for this event.  He was very engaging and willing to talk about details (that were public knowledge, of course.) which was completely fun.

Our lunch started with the manager taking a group photo, like she always does for all diners in the Bamboo Room.

Our server handed out our personalized menus and took our drink orders.

We all had the same Lobster & Mussel Soup and the famous Brown Derby Cobb Salad.

For the main dish, we had the choice of an Oak Grilled Filet of Beef, Thai Chicken Noodle Bowl or Blackened Grouper.

For dessert, we could choose from the famous Grapefruit Cake or Chocolate Creme Brulee.

Bryan, Stefan and I chose the filet. Caitlin had the noodle bowl, which was gigantic, by the way!
Cate & I had the Grapefruit Cake.  We both thought it was a good blend of sweet and puckery.
Bryan & Stefan had the creme brulee.  I didn't really ask them about it, but both dishes were scraped pretty clean so I'm pretty sure it was yummy!

Back to our Imagineer...Dan is in show development.  That means if it's not a ride vehicle or the building the vehicle houses, he's involved.  I got the impression that it involves all those thematic pieces that gives us the Disney "magic."

Right now, he's working on the new resort in Hawaii, Aulani.  He was telling us about this one effect that's in the lobby that they were currently constructing that is a series of bowls in the stream.  Each bowl has a fountain.  Inside each fountain is an LED light.  But it's been designed so that at night, it doesn't just light up, it looks like the bowls are on fire. How wicked cool is that?

He also told us about how they've taken great pains to make this resort reflect the Hawaiian culture.  That Hawaiian comes before Disney.

I asked him about what he thought was a cool aspect of the resort that he's been involved in.  He told us about the "Hawaiian Adventure" game that they are constructing around the resort.  He described it as a next generation Kim Possible game.  Woo-hoo!  Love that game!

Anyway, they are going to use wireless technology for it.  Dan said, "Think iPad, but smaller" in terms of the handset you'll use to play the game.  And it's going to be smart tech.  Your game will be tied to your room key so you'll never play the same elements twice.  So if you are in room 123, and you check-in to the game with that room number, you'll always have new stuff to find.

I also asked Dan about the Star Tours refurb and what he knew about it.  Since he's not on that project right now, he didn't have anything new to say.  But what he did have to say rocked my world.

At one point, he was part of that project.  He was out in LA and got to experience a "draft" of the ride in one of their simulators. I say "draft" because Dan said he only got to experience the visuals.  There was no audio whatsoever - that's how early in the process this was.  Keep in mind that this is going to be 3D.

Dan said that he was blown away by what he experienced...WITH NO SOUND.  He knew the programmer and asked if the guy would set him up once more.

Here's another juicy tidbit...the programmer said that that was the first draft ILM (Industrial Light & Magic) sent over and that they were embarrassed by it.  Embarrassed by it!

Oh my gosh...if that was ILM's draft, and they were embarrassed by it, and the Imagineer said he was blown away by the draft with no sound...

Can you freakin' imagine how cool Star Tours 2.0 is going to be?  I get a sugar rush thinking about it.

I commented that I had read that there were something like 53 different permutations one could experience on the new Star Tours.  Dan replied, "Something like that."  

Stefan asked him if there was a Tron ride coming to Magic Kingdom.  Dan replied, "I don't know." in a pretty monotone tone of voice.  Hmmmm...was he messing with us? Who knows?

At the end of the meal, we were each presented with a commemorative plate that Dan had signed and dated for each of us.  Way cool!

I loved this experience.  My only thoughts on improvement would be to make it even smaller.  A group of 10 was really too many.  We were at a long table and it felt awkward making conversation.  It also was rather lengthy.  Our ADR was for 11:30am and we didn't leave until shortly after 2pm.

We had to scoot because I had made Photopass portrait reservations for 2:30pm at the Beach Club.  We still needed to change and get there on time!

Thankfully, we made it.  Our photographer was a peach to work with and very accommodating with the shots I asked for.  We got the DVC discount and just got everything put on CD.  I'll share some pics later.

We had a relaxing rest of the afternoon.  After dinner, we headed over to Fantasia Gardens for some mini golf.  The sun had gone down and it was a little brisk, but we had a good time.

Coming up:  December 2!