Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech
Speaker 1: are you? It is Friday. It is time for a
Speaker 1: classic episode of tech Stuff. This episode originally published on
Speaker 1: June twenty second, twenty sixteen. It is titled how the
Speaker 1: Disney Magic Works The Disney Magic being a cruise Ship.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy. Now, before I jump into this show,
Speaker 1: I just want to let you all know Disney had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with me choosing this episode, apart from
Speaker 1: the fact that I'm going on a cruise anyway, this
Speaker 1: is not a sponsored show. I'm not getting any perks
Speaker 1: for recording it. In fact, Disney's not even aware I'm
Speaker 1: doing this. They wouldn't know me from anybody else out there.
Speaker 1: And I say this because I am a Disney fanboy.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna geek out over Disney stuff as well as
Speaker 1: the cruise ship technology stuff. And it's important you know.
Speaker 1: I have a completely biased opinion, but it comes to
Speaker 1: me honestly. Now that being said, the company, if they
Speaker 1: decide they want to sit me on a cruise they
Speaker 1: can do that. I'm not gonna turn it down. I
Speaker 1: love them. I'm really hoping that I can actually get
Speaker 1: a bridge tour this cruise, but they don't tend to
Speaker 1: do those, so if it happens, it will only be
Speaker 1: because somebody took pity on me. All right, So let's
Speaker 1: talk about the history of Disney in the cruise industry.
Speaker 1: Before the Disney Company actually commissioned its own cruise ships,
Speaker 1: it partnered with an existing company called Premiere Cruise Line.
Speaker 1: Back in nineteen eighty five. Premiere became known as the
Speaker 1: official cruise line of Walt Disney World, and Disney characters
Speaker 1: would appear on Premiere ships. It was one of the
Speaker 1: things that set Premiere apart. Premiere was also known as
Speaker 1: the big Red Boat because some of their ships were
Speaker 1: big and red, big ish. They're not as big as
Speaker 1: the ones that you would see today in the industry,
Speaker 1: and the nickname of its flagship, Starship Oceanic, was the
Speaker 1: Big Red Boat, and it actually became the official name
Speaker 1: of two of their other ships. They actually renamed them
Speaker 1: because both of those ships were older. With the exception
Speaker 1: of one of their ships, the Starship Atlantic, which was
Speaker 1: built in nineteen eighty two. The company's fleet consisted of
Speaker 1: ships built between nineteen fifty five and nineteen seventy, so
Speaker 1: they were a little on the creeky side. The partnership
Speaker 1: with Disney ended in nineteen ninety three. Premiere would eventually
Speaker 1: go out of business in two thousand and Out of
Speaker 1: all the ships in their fleet, only one still exists,
Speaker 1: and that is the Atlantic. All the others have either
Speaker 1: been sold for scrap or they sank. So Disney had
Speaker 1: kind of dipped its toe in the cruise partnership world.
Speaker 1: And once that partnership with Premiere ended, you know, it
Speaker 1: was an agreement to last a certain amount of time,
Speaker 1: essentially a little less than ten years. The Disney Company
Speaker 1: started to hold talks with other cruise lines, including Carnival
Speaker 1: and Royal Caribbean, but neither of those companies could agree
Speaker 1: to Disney's terms, essentially how much money they would have
Speaker 1: to pay Disney to allow Disney characters to appear on
Speaker 1: those cruise ships. By nineteen ninety four, the rumors were
Speaker 1: that Disney the company was looking at creating its own
Speaker 1: line of cruise ships. Now the actual Disney Cruise Line
Speaker 1: Department was founded in nineteen ninety five, and Disney commissioned
Speaker 1: two ships from an Italian shipyard called Fincantieri. The two
Speaker 1: ships would become the Disney Magic and the Disney Wonder,
Speaker 1: and according to a website called Hidden Mickeys, the Magic
Speaker 1: costs three hundred and fifty million dollars to build. I've
Speaker 1: also seen that figure go up as high as four
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars to build, So between three hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty and four hundred million dollars. So a big, big
Speaker 1: investment on the part of Disney in an area that
Speaker 1: they had not really explored. But they saw an opportunity because,
Speaker 1: as Disney representatives will tell you, the issue with the
Speaker 1: cruise industry was it was mainly geared toward adults and
Speaker 1: a lot of senior citizens as well, but not so
Speaker 1: much to families with children. And so they saw it
Speaker 1: as an opportunity to do to the cruise industry what
Speaker 1: they had done with theme parks and hotels and other
Speaker 1: things like that. So they decided to take this plunge. Now,
Speaker 1: Michael Eisner was in charge of Disney at the time,
Speaker 1: and he wanted the ships to have a classic ocean
Speaker 1: liner feel, so something akin to what you would have
Speaker 1: seen back in the old days of ocean liners, we're
Speaker 1: talking like the early nineteen hundreds, and to take those
Speaker 1: lines to kind of update it with modern acts, but
Speaker 1: to still have that classic style. So that's exactly what
Speaker 1: the engineers did. They started to design this so it
Speaker 1: kind of had this sleek look of a classic ocean liner,
Speaker 1: complete with two smokestacks, even though those were not both
Speaker 1: necessary more on that in a second. And they decided
Speaker 1: that the interior decoration was going to be in the
Speaker 1: Art Deco style for the Disney Magic the Wonder actually
Speaker 1: has an Art Nouveau style. Now, the ship was constructed
Speaker 1: in two halves. You had the bow and the stern,
Speaker 1: the front and the back. The front half of the
Speaker 1: ship was built at the Encona shipyard and the back
Speaker 1: half was built at the Margera shipyard. And those two
Speaker 1: shipyards are more than one hundred miles apart from each other.
Speaker 1: So once they finished building out the four half, the
Speaker 1: forward or front half, they had to tow it back
Speaker 1: to the other shipyard, and they did this by placing
Speaker 1: it on a giant kind of floating barge essentially, and
Speaker 1: towed that more than one hundred miles to the other shipyard,
Speaker 1: and then they had to fit the two together. Now,
Speaker 1: remember that this ship is like a small city. It
Speaker 1: has all of these independent systems that make up the ship.
Speaker 1: That includes a water system, so lots of water pipes,
Speaker 1: and electric grid including electric generators, climate control, and more.
Speaker 1: I mean everything that you would expect to have in
Speaker 1: a nice hotel has to be on the ship, which
Speaker 1: means all those systems have to be self contained. And
Speaker 1: that means that all of this stuff laid out had
Speaker 1: to fit together perfectly. You could not have any misalignment
Speaker 1: or else. The conduits where you would allow electrical wires
Speaker 1: to go through, or the air duct systems or the
Speaker 1: water pipes they wouldn't match up. So they had to
Speaker 1: make it precise and hope that they could fit it
Speaker 1: together exactly the way needed to. And this is not
Speaker 1: a small challenge. It's actually pretty tough. So once they
Speaker 1: got to the point where they were ready to put
Speaker 1: the two halves together, each half had to be put
Speaker 1: on a giant rail system and this allowed them to
Speaker 1: very slowly bring the two halves until they met in
Speaker 1: the center, and then they started to weld the ship together,
Speaker 1: and that's where you get the full ship the Disney Magic. Now,
Speaker 1: this construction project encountered multiple delays throughout the process due
Speaker 1: to other construction projects being a little slow at the shipyards,
Speaker 1: and it meant that Disney had to keep pushing back
Speaker 1: the date of its initial sailing, and it ended up
Speaker 1: being almost five months late as a result of this.
Speaker 1: The Magic finally set sail across the Atlantic to its
Speaker 1: home port in Florida over at Port Canaveral and was
Speaker 1: ready for its first cruise several months later than was
Speaker 1: originally planned, and I believe it was July of nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight, so a little bit later than what they
Speaker 1: had hoped. At any rate, it does take a long
Speaker 1: time to build one of these ships. There's a lot
Speaker 1: that goes into it. In the design process, you have
Speaker 1: the imagineers, that's the Disney term for the engineers who
Speaker 1: bring Disney's flare into whatever projects they're making. So Disney
Speaker 1: imagineers are responsible for pretty much anything physical that you
Speaker 1: encounter within Disney. So you think about the Disney parks,
Speaker 1: the imagineers are the ones who were designed, who had
Speaker 1: designed all the theming, all the rides, everything that you encounter.
Speaker 1: An imagineer has had a hand in designing. Same thing
Speaker 1: is true for the cruise ships, but it meant that
Speaker 1: they had to design things and then shipbuilders actually had
Speaker 1: to make it happen. So it was an interesting relationship
Speaker 1: because this was not something that they had done before.
Speaker 1: So imagineers typically use three D rendering software to build
Speaker 1: virtual representation of a space that they wanted to create
Speaker 1: within the ship. So you had a virtual model, and
Speaker 1: then you had to plan out how could you achieve
Speaker 1: this physically, and in some cases it might mean that
Speaker 1: you had to go back and redesign. That's why you
Speaker 1: have to use that three D approach so that at
Speaker 1: least it's less complicated than building something out and then
Speaker 1: realizing it's not going to work. Now. Part of that
Speaker 1: included building out spaces specifically for kids. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is Disney we're talking about, and in fact, kids have
Speaker 1: a couple of different areas on a couple of different
Speaker 1: decks of the various Disney cruise ships that are dedicated
Speaker 1: just for them. Adults, apart from the supervising adults are
Speaker 1: not allowed in that space. So the worst part is
Speaker 1: these are some of the coolest areas of the ship,
Speaker 1: and typically you only get to see it maybe when
Speaker 1: you first board. Sometimes the Disney allows adults to tour
Speaker 1: the spaces before the ship gets underway, because you might
Speaker 1: be looking at it in order to decide whether your
Speaker 1: kid will go to the Oceaneers Club, for example, and
Speaker 1: maybe you don't have a kid, but maybe you do
Speaker 1: want to be an Avenger, so you go anyway. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying I've done that. I'm just saying I'm not
Speaker 1: above doing that at any rate. A lot of really
Speaker 1: interesting spaces, and when the imagineers were designing these spaces,
Speaker 1: they had to take concertain considerations in mind that you
Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily think of for other spaces. So they actually
Speaker 1: built out some rooms that had lower ceilings, which makes
Speaker 1: the kids feel taller because they're in a space that
Speaker 1: is scaled more to their size. They also created different
Speaker 1: stories for different areas, like there's a toy story area,
Speaker 1: there's a Pixie area, there's the Avengers area, which is
Speaker 1: the one I really want to go through, and then
Speaker 1: they're like the Oceaneer's Lab, which is more of a
Speaker 1: sciency ocean voyage themed area. And all of this had
Speaker 1: to be done on computers first before building out the
Speaker 1: actual physical stuff that would fill up these spaces, and
Speaker 1: then there had to be the installation phase. So all
Speaker 1: of this is very technical. It takes a lot of
Speaker 1: work on the front end before you ever get to
Speaker 1: a point where a guest actually walks onto the ship. Now,
Speaker 1: the ship's tonnage is eighty four thousand tons. That means
Speaker 1: the ship has the volume of eighty four thousand tons.
Speaker 1: That's typically what tonnage means, and it's a pretty big ship,
Speaker 1: though not as big as the Disney Dream or the
Speaker 1: Disney Fantasy, which are two of the younger ships in
Speaker 1: the Disney cruise line, and of course there are other
Speaker 1: cruise lines that have ships much much larger. So the
Speaker 1: Magic is nine hundred eighty four feet long and one
Speaker 1: hundred and six feet wide at the beam. That means
Speaker 1: just the widest part of the ship, and it's one
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy one and a half feet tall. The
Speaker 1: draft of the Show is twenty five point three feet Now.
Speaker 1: The draft refers to the distance from the water line
Speaker 1: to the bottom of the hull, also known as the keel.
Speaker 1: So you measure that distance and that's how you get
Speaker 1: the draft twenty five point three feet. Now, when it launched,
Speaker 1: the Magic was one of the largest cruise ships in service.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think it was the third largest ship
Speaker 1: in service at the time. Now since then it's been
Speaker 1: eclipsed big time. There's a Lure of the Seas, which
Speaker 1: I believe is the largest cruise ship currently in service
Speaker 1: that's run by the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line. That one
Speaker 1: is one hundred and eighty one feet long and two
Speaker 1: hundred eight feet wide with a tonnage of two hundred
Speaker 1: twenty five two hundred and eighty two tons, So enormous, huge,
Speaker 1: much bigger than the Disney Magic. But when Disney Magic
Speaker 1: was first built, it was considered to be a pretty
Speaker 1: big ship. Now, the Disney Magic has five sixteen cylinder
Speaker 1: Solzer diesel engines, each of which can has output of
Speaker 1: fifteen four hundred forty eight horse power serious horse power.
Speaker 1: There the total horsepower for the ship is seventy seven
Speaker 1: two hundred and forty three Now that means the Magic's
Speaker 1: engines have the power equivalent to one hundred Formula one
Speaker 1: race cars running full speed. There are also two nineteen
Speaker 1: megawatt general electric propulsion motors that's what actually turns the
Speaker 1: provides the power to turn the propellers in the propulsion system,
Speaker 1: and the ship has a fuel capacity of twenty thousand
Speaker 1: gallons of diesel fuel, so it's running on diesel to
Speaker 1: run these engines, which also provide the electricity for the
Speaker 1: entire shit. And the ship's hull has a special coating
Speaker 1: on it that's designed to actually make it move through
Speaker 1: the water with less resistance, which reduces the amount of
Speaker 1: work the engines have to do in order to move
Speaker 1: the ship. So this was an effort to reduce the
Speaker 1: fuel consumption of the disease cruise line ships and also
Speaker 1: means that the engines themselves don't have to do as
Speaker 1: much work, so they don't need to be replaced or
Speaker 1: repaired nearly as frequently, although of course every cruise ship
Speaker 1: out there undergoes a period of maintenance. It's called dry dock.
Speaker 1: It's when you bring a ship in, you elevate it
Speaker 1: above the waterline and you're able to really work on
Speaker 1: it and make sure that it's ship shape. Now, there
Speaker 1: are three bow thrusters and two stern thrusters, each eighteen
Speaker 1: hundred kilowatts, and the arrangement allows the ship to turn
Speaker 1: into plate turn in place without moving forward. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, you can rotate the ship three hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty degrees and not be moving forward at the time,
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool. And I've actually seen it done
Speaker 1: because that's how well I've seen it done with one
Speaker 1: hundred eighty degrees, because that was how the cruise ship
Speaker 1: would pull into one of the ports of cal the
Speaker 1: Disney's private island. They would actually turn the ship completely
Speaker 1: around so that you would back into the space. I
Speaker 1: don't think they actually have a rear view camera to
Speaker 1: do that, but maybe they do. Actually, they have lots
Speaker 1: of cameras all over the place in order to be
Speaker 1: able to navigate the ship. Now, like I said, the
Speaker 1: ship has two smoke stacks, but one is used for
Speaker 1: exhaust and the other is decorative and actually houses some
Speaker 1: other stuff in it. So only one of the two
Speaker 1: smoke stacks actually is for exhausting smoke from the engines.
Speaker 1: But they decided that they wanted to have the two
Speaker 1: smoke stacks on the cruise ship to give it that
Speaker 1: classic look. The cruising speed that the ship can attain
Speaker 1: is twenty one and a half knots. It has a
Speaker 1: maximum speed of around twenty four knots, although I've read
Speaker 1: that it can go as fast as twenty six knots,
Speaker 1: which might be after the Magic has had a couple
Speaker 1: of renovations. It's been upgraded both in twenty thirteen and
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen. More on that in a little bit. One
Speaker 1: of the interesting things about the Disney Magic is that
Speaker 1: they have their lifeboats painted a yellow color to match
Speaker 1: the color of Mickey Mouse's shoes. This was actually a
Speaker 1: big deal. The US Coast Guard has a standard for lifeboats.
Speaker 1: They're supposed to be a bright orange, which is considered
Speaker 1: to be one of the most visible colors on the
Speaker 1: surface of the ocean. So if you are in a lifeboat,
Speaker 1: you want to be really visible so that you can
Speaker 1: be rescued. And Disney had to prove to the Coast
Speaker 1: Guard that the yellow they wanted to use was in
Speaker 1: fact just as visible as the orange, or else the
Speaker 1: Coast Guard would have said, I'm sorry. I know you
Speaker 1: want to have this beautiful color because you want it
Speaker 1: to fit the theme of your boat, but people's safety
Speaker 1: is more important than theming. But Disney was able to
Speaker 1: prove that the yellow was in fact just as visible,
Speaker 1: and so they were able they were allowed to paint
Speaker 1: their lifeboats yellow, and in fact the cruise ship in
Speaker 1: general is designed to have the color palette of Mickey Mouse,
Speaker 1: so it's essentially white, black, red, and yellow. It has
Speaker 1: eleven passenger decks and three I think crew only decks,
Speaker 1: but eleven decks that passengers can go on. The Decks,
Speaker 1: of course, are floors, kind of like floors of a building.
Speaker 1: And it has the capacity to hold twenty four hundred guests,
Speaker 1: although according to some sources I've read the actual limit
Speaker 1: is closer to twenty seven hundred, and it has a
Speaker 1: crew of about nine hundred and fifty people, so you
Speaker 1: have just shy of one thousand people working on this
Speaker 1: ship to make everything go, and then another twenty four
Speaker 1: hundred who are guests, as a lot of people to
Speaker 1: be on one boat. There are eight hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: five staterooms, two hundred and sixty two of which are
Speaker 1: inside staterooms, which means you don't get a view of
Speaker 1: the ocean, which is kind of sad. But you have
Speaker 1: six hundred and thirteen that are outside state rooms, and
Speaker 1: out of those, three hundred and eighty four have a veranda,
Speaker 1: which is really nice. And there are three major thiet restaurants,
Speaker 1: Lumier's animator's palette, and what used to be parrot key
Speaker 1: and is now Keriokas. Plus you have an adult's only
Speaker 1: restaurant called Palo and a buffet restaurant called Cabanas. And
Speaker 1: every restaurant has its own galley attached to it, and
Speaker 1: a galley is a kitchen, so every single restaurant has
Speaker 1: its own kitchen. And on the big ships that's seven
Speaker 1: galleys total. Now this was actually a new approach in
Speaker 1: cruise ships. A lot of cruise ships have a single
Speaker 1: galley that provides all the food for any of the
Speaker 1: places where you can get food. And in fact, a
Speaker 1: lot of the cruise ships only have one restaurant that
Speaker 1: you go to. Disney was different and had all these
Speaker 1: different themed restaurants. So by having a galley attached to
Speaker 1: each restaurant, it meant that the white staff doesn't have
Speaker 1: to travel a ridiculous distance or use escalators or elevators
Speaker 1: to get food to where the guests are. So this
Speaker 1: was another innovation in the cruise industry. Addition, guests rotate
Speaker 1: through the restaurants, I mean not literally, you actually go
Speaker 1: to a different restaurant each evening, you get an assignment
Speaker 1: when you get to your stateroom that tells you which
Speaker 1: restaurants you go to on which evenings, and you travel
Speaker 1: one to the next. And if you also get your
Speaker 1: weight staff to travel with you. So the people who
Speaker 1: are doing your drinks and food service go restaurant to
Speaker 1: restaurant as you do, which means they get to know
Speaker 1: what you like, what you don't like, any allergies you
Speaker 1: might have. This is another big innovation in the cruise industry,
Speaker 1: something that you don't see in other cruise lines. So
Speaker 1: some of the innovations that Disney came up with aren't
Speaker 1: necessarily technological, but they were big changes to the way
Speaker 1: things had been traditionally done within the industry. Before we
Speaker 1: talk more about the Disney Magic, we need to set
Speaker 1: Saale to listen to these messages. Now. Out of the
Speaker 1: major restaurants, Animator's Palette is probably the most technically sophisticated
Speaker 1: in the original incarnation aboard the Disney Magic. The way
Speaker 1: this worked was you walked into Animator's Palette and the
Speaker 1: restaurant starts out with just everything in black and white,
Speaker 1: the tablecloths, the walls, the columns which were designed to
Speaker 1: look like paint brushes. Everything's in black and white. Even
Speaker 1: the white staff's outfits were all in black and white.
Speaker 1: And as you sat down to dinner and dinner commenced,
Speaker 1: you would start to hear music from various Disney movies,
Speaker 1: and if you looked around the restaurant, you would see
Speaker 1: that there were portraits from Disney movies, all in black
Speaker 1: and white all around you, some of which were static portraits.
Speaker 1: They were just they were drawn essentially onto the walls,
Speaker 1: but they had had a frame set around them. Others
Speaker 1: were actually displayed on LED television's score essentially, and if
Speaker 1: you listen to the music and you recognize where it
Speaker 1: was from, you could actually look for the corresponding images
Speaker 1: on the walls and slowly color would seep in. Now,
Speaker 1: with the LED screens, that's pretty simple. You just you know,
Speaker 1: you have a little animation program that allows us a
Speaker 1: black and white sketch to be infused with color. But
Speaker 1: for the static portraits, what they used were fiber optic
Speaker 1: cables that were behind the walls. So you have a
Speaker 1: computer system that is timed with the soundtrack for the dinner,
Speaker 1: and as certain songs play, the computer sends the command
Speaker 1: to light up certain fiber optic lines, and those portraits
Speaker 1: would slowly go from black and white to color. Animator's
Speaker 1: palette has changed quite a bit since the renovation that
Speaker 1: happened in twenty thirteen, where a lot of these static
Speaker 1: displays were removed and new LED screens were put in place.
Speaker 1: So I'll talk a little bit more about that when
Speaker 1: I get to the renovation side of things. But this
Speaker 1: was one of those those experiences that people really felt
Speaker 1: had the Disney touch. You walked in, you sat down,
Speaker 1: the restaurant transforms around you, even so much that the
Speaker 1: weight staff would change into colorful outfits. They would go
Speaker 1: backstage essentially and change it to their colorful outfits, come
Speaker 1: back out, and this would be the big dessert celebration
Speaker 1: part of the dinner. And it was incredible. It's certainly
Speaker 1: like you might if you're a grouch, you might roll
Speaker 1: your eyes at such a thing. But to see all
Speaker 1: the families and kids get really excited when this transformation happens,
Speaker 1: It's like going to Disney World for the first time
Speaker 1: and having that experience of discovery. Now I've done this,
Speaker 1: it'll be ten times by the time you hear this.
Speaker 1: So for me. I still enjoy it, but there's not
Speaker 1: a whole discovery left for me at this point. That
Speaker 1: being said, I still think it's one of those experiences
Speaker 1: that really sets the Disney cruise line apart, because it's
Speaker 1: pure Disney. There are two theaters aboard the Disney Magic.
Speaker 1: One of them is specifically for live performances, although they'll
Speaker 1: also show movies in that one, and the other one
Speaker 1: is specifically for movies, although they'll also hold live conference
Speaker 1: type things in there, like sometimes they'll have special guests
Speaker 1: aboard the cruise ship that might give a talk in
Speaker 1: the second theater. So the big live action theater is
Speaker 1: the Walt Disney Theater and the cinematic theater is the
Speaker 1: Buena Vista Theater. So the live action one can set
Speaker 1: around nine hundred people and the Buena Vista one are
Speaker 1: about two hundred and eighty or so, and they're both
Speaker 1: really impressive. In fact, the Walt Disney Theater has a
Speaker 1: lot of different interesting technologies behind it. It's got a
Speaker 1: stage that's about forty feet wide. It's pretty impressive considering
Speaker 1: it's on a boat, and it has an advanced fly
Speaker 1: system which doesn't involve zippers necessarily. Anyway, a fly system
Speaker 1: in theatrical terms is a term for a rigging system,
Speaker 1: and the rigging system is a bunch of ropes and
Speaker 1: pulleys and they're meant to do things like move curtains
Speaker 1: or lights or scenery and sometimes even people. So if
Speaker 1: you've ever seen a show where a person is in
Speaker 1: a flight harness and they're flying around, that's because they're
Speaker 1: part of the fly system. And of course in Disney
Speaker 1: that happens a lot. You've got characters like Peter Pan
Speaker 1: who fly around over the stage, so they are part
Speaker 1: of this or dependent upon this pretty impressive flight system
Speaker 1: or fly system. The stage also has several lifts, so
Speaker 1: they have lifts that can elevate or recess below the stage.
Speaker 1: There's a storage area below the stage where scenery can
Speaker 1: be or actually characters can wait so that they can
Speaker 1: dramatically appear on stage the being lifted out from underneath.
Speaker 1: And it's really pretty incredible to think about that you're
Speaker 1: on a moving platform, you're on a ship, and the
Speaker 1: ship is at sea, and you have these theatrical elements
Speaker 1: that have to be placed on elevators to go up
Speaker 1: or down. So you might think, well, how do they
Speaker 1: make sure stuff doesn't slide around if the ship is
Speaker 1: rolling a little bit. And there are two things that
Speaker 1: they do. One is that the stage itself has tracks
Speaker 1: built into it, and the scenery can be placed on
Speaker 1: these tracks. They look like almost like if you remember
Speaker 1: old slot cars, It looks kind of like the slots
Speaker 1: for slot car racing, and you set the scenery into these,
Speaker 1: and you can even have it all computerized and automated
Speaker 1: so that the scenes can come on and off through
Speaker 1: a computer control. But the tracks actually limit where the
Speaker 1: scenery can move so that way it doesn't just roll
Speaker 1: all over the stage if the seas get a little choppy.
Speaker 1: The other thing they can do is they can also
Speaker 1: alter the shows, so they can take out stuff that
Speaker 1: isn't necessary for the show if the sea is acting
Speaker 1: up a bit. So what they'll do is they'll simplify
Speaker 1: a sequence so that there's not as many elements on
Speaker 1: the stage, or they might remove some of the dance
Speaker 1: moves that the performers need to do so that they
Speaker 1: aren't endangering themselves while they're trying to perform. And so
Speaker 1: it's a combination of changing the performance itself and depending
Speaker 1: upon this technology. If you talk to people in theater.
Speaker 1: They often will refer to the cruise ship stages being
Speaker 1: as advanced as something you would see on a state
Speaker 1: of the art stage on Broadway or London's West End.
Speaker 1: That's the amount of detail that Disney put into this stuff,
Speaker 1: including things like LEDs that are inside the ceiling where
Speaker 1: you'll get a starlight effect inside the theater. It creates
Speaker 1: this more immersive experience for the audience. They also have
Speaker 1: pyrotechnic capabilities, so you'll actually get some fireworks in some
Speaker 1: of the shows. And these are all things that you
Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily think to find on a cruise ship or
Speaker 1: even just a regular theatrical stage. I've got a chance
Speaker 1: to do a behind the scenes tour of the stage
Speaker 1: as well. Disney used to do a lot more behind
Speaker 1: the scenes stuff, several like more than a decade ago now,
Speaker 1: and I took those opportunities to take those tours. It
Speaker 1: is really interesting to see how they made as much
Speaker 1: use of the space as possible. This theater doesn't have
Speaker 1: very much wing space, so everything has to go either
Speaker 1: up or back or down from the stage because there's
Speaker 1: not really a whole lot of room stage left or
Speaker 1: stage right, and It also showed how technical these shows were.
Speaker 1: They had to be timed just right for multiple reasons.
Speaker 1: They had to be time just right so that the
Speaker 1: scenery and the lighting and the effects are all coming
Speaker 1: on at the right time. So you have all these
Speaker 1: very sophisticated computer systems that keep all of that synchronized properly,
Speaker 1: and you also have the time it right because of
Speaker 1: the schedule that people have in the evening, you would
Speaker 1: either be coming from dinner and seeing a show, or
Speaker 1: you'd see the show and then go to dinner, and
Speaker 1: you don't want anything to run too long and interfere
Speaker 1: with the rest of the schedule. So it was really
Speaker 1: cool to see how they had set up these computer
Speaker 1: systems that were all specifically designed for each show. And
Speaker 1: keep in mind, if it's a long cruise, they do
Speaker 1: multiple shows. They do two shows a night for the
Speaker 1: two different seatings that they have for dinner. There's an
Speaker 1: early seating that kids tend to go to and then
Speaker 1: they go see the show afterward, and then there's the
Speaker 1: late seating that adults tend to go to. They see
Speaker 1: the show earlier in the night, they see it before dinner,
Speaker 1: and that means that you have to have a sophisticated
Speaker 1: technical system that can handle all of the needs of
Speaker 1: each show, do it twice a night and then be
Speaker 1: switched over for the following night, and it is really
Speaker 1: neat to see this stuff backstage. If you ever get
Speaker 1: a chance to check that out, you should. There are
Speaker 1: also several documentaries more or less commercials for the Disney
Speaker 1: Cruise line that do show you some of the behind
Speaker 1: the scenes stuff, and it's cool. Sadly, most of them
Speaker 1: are pretty limited in what they show you, so if
Speaker 1: you ever get a chance to actually do a behind
Speaker 1: the scenes tour, I highly recommend it because it is
Speaker 1: really cool to see how they put this stuff together.
Speaker 1: And keeping in mind, this is all on a ship
Speaker 1: that's moving around. I as a performer, I've done some
Speaker 1: stage work. I've done musicals where I have to dance
Speaker 1: and sing. I'm not great at it, and to think
Speaker 1: about having to do that on a stage that's actually
Speaker 1: moving is terrifying. So let's talk about some of the
Speaker 1: other technical stuff about this ship, not just the which
Speaker 1: obviously I'm a huge fan of, but the actual things
Speaker 1: that make the ship itself work. The most technically complicated
Speaker 1: area of the ship is undoubtedly the bridge. The bridge
Speaker 1: of the ship is where the ship's senior staff, who
Speaker 1: are in charge of the systems that keep the ship
Speaker 1: running and navigate, navigation, as well as actual steering the ship.
Speaker 1: All of that is located on the bridge, and then
Speaker 1: you have other departments that are obviously very important where
Speaker 1: those officers would be located elsewhere they would not be
Speaker 1: on the bridge. That's where your ship's captain is going
Speaker 1: to be most of the time. And if you were
Speaker 1: to take a look at it, look a lot like
Speaker 1: the Star Trek Enterprise set. I mean, you have these
Speaker 1: different consoles with computer screens and lots of complicated looking controls,
Speaker 1: and they're all very important for the control and safe
Speaker 1: operation of the ship. There are stations for communications, navigation,
Speaker 1: and other critical systems all on the bridge, and you'll
Speaker 1: see lots of screens showing stuff like current sea conditions,
Speaker 1: whether any sort of a naval traffic that's going through
Speaker 1: the area, ship status, that kind of stuff. They do
Speaker 1: have a ship's wheel, so you could stand behind the
Speaker 1: wheel and use the wheel to steer the ship, but
Speaker 1: they also have an option to route all the ship
Speaker 1: controls into a joystick, so you could actually have the thrust,
Speaker 1: the steering, all of that in a single joystick, which
Speaker 1: is particularly useful if you are maneuvering in or out
Speaker 1: of a dock. You can also hand over controls to
Speaker 1: a land based system if necessary, but it's really interesting
Speaker 1: to see that all of these complex controls like the
Speaker 1: thrusters and the steering and all of these other elements
Speaker 1: can be boiled down to a single joystick control when necessary.
Speaker 1: In normal operations, you wouldn't be using that, but for
Speaker 1: something where you're using precise movements and you're trying to
Speaker 1: maneuver so that you can dock or something similar, then
Speaker 1: it becomes necessary. They also have a semaphore flag station. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the cruise ships still uses semaphore flags in case other
Speaker 1: communication tools are unavailable or not working, so semaphore you've
Speaker 1: probably seen it, the idea of holding flags that have
Speaker 1: symbols on them and then you move your arms in
Speaker 1: a particular way. It usually looks very robotic, very stiff,
Speaker 1: but those are specific ways of communicating messages to other
Speaker 1: ships when your communications tools have otherwise died down. It's
Speaker 1: all visual based and you can send messages like we're
Speaker 1: in distress or you know you know, we've got we
Speaker 1: need some help, whatever it might be, And they have
Speaker 1: a whole cabinet filled with the various semaphore flags they
Speaker 1: would need in order to communicate at any part of
Speaker 1: the world, which is pretty cool that they have the
Speaker 1: low tech version of long distance communication along with the
Speaker 1: more high tech versions as well, because you want to
Speaker 1: have some redundancy in those when you're talking about more
Speaker 1: than two thousand guests, you've got to have those redundant
Speaker 1: systems in place just in case something goes wrong. There's
Speaker 1: also apparently a bridge simulator for the kids in ocean Quest,
Speaker 1: but that's a kid's only area, so that's one of
Speaker 1: those things I've heard about but I've never actually seen,
Speaker 1: because despite my sense of humor and my general personality,
Speaker 1: I am not a child, so I'm not allowed to
Speaker 1: go there. But they apparently have a live camera feed
Speaker 1: from the bridge that serves as the vision they see
Speaker 1: like the they have windows or actually their displays, but
Speaker 1: they look like windows up in front of them, and
Speaker 1: that's coming from the live camera feed from the bridge.
Speaker 1: And then you have controls that you can use as
Speaker 1: a kid that simulate the way it would work if
Speaker 1: you actually on the bridge of the ship itself, which
Speaker 1: sounds so cool that I wish that all the State
Speaker 1: rooms had one of these because I would play with it.
Speaker 1: But again, I'm not allowed to go there, so I
Speaker 1: haven't been able to experience this myself. Some other interesting
Speaker 1: technical details. When Disney Magic anchors when they have to
Speaker 1: lower the anchor, they're lowering an anchor that weighs twenty
Speaker 1: eight two hundred pounds, So imagine the torque necessary on
Speaker 1: the motor to be able to lift twenty eight two
Speaker 1: hundred pounds worth of anchor. The ship has seven propellers.
Speaker 1: They has two primary propellers and then five thruster propellers.
Speaker 1: I mentioned the thrusters earlier. You have two in the
Speaker 1: stern and three in the bow. The two primary propellers
Speaker 1: weigh eighteen tons each. They are enormous and heavy and
Speaker 1: in order to limit the amount of rolling that the
Speaker 1: ship does. Rolling is the side to side motion, like
Speaker 1: if you're looking four, meaning you're looking forward from the
Speaker 1: position you are in on the ship. Rolling would be
Speaker 1: the left right mission the import and starboard rising and
Speaker 1: lowering as opposed to the fore and aft that's rocking,
Speaker 1: So you can rock and roll on one of these ships.
Speaker 1: The stabilizers are meant to reduce that rolling. They are
Speaker 1: actually two large wings that can retract into the ship
Speaker 1: or extend outward if the seas start getting choppy and
Speaker 1: it's beneath the water line so you don't see it
Speaker 1: as a passenger, but beneath the water line, these two
Speaker 1: wings extend outward and create some stabilization, and they look
Speaker 1: like plane wings and they're pretty big, so they, according
Speaker 1: to Disney, they reduce roll dramatically. They actually sat up
Speaker 1: to ninety degrees, which is pretty amazing, and I'm not
Speaker 1: entirely sure how that's possible, but at any rate, they
Speaker 1: are meant to reduce that rolling so that you don't
Speaker 1: get that seasick feeling walking around inside and being rocked
Speaker 1: all over the place. I am not prone to sea sickness,
Speaker 1: so I haven't really had an issue with it, apart
Speaker 1: from I think one cruise where for some reason that
Speaker 1: was affecting me. But I do know that even with
Speaker 1: the stabilizers, some folks are a little susceptible to that.
Speaker 1: So if you ever do go on a cruise, look
Speaker 1: into dramamine. That can help you out a lot. Now,
Speaker 1: one of the other things you have to think about
Speaker 1: is when you're on a ship and you're out at sea,
Speaker 1: you are a completely self contained community, and that means
Speaker 1: you have to figure out how you deal with other
Speaker 1: stuff like garbage and waste, and how do you conserve
Speaker 1: water and energy so that you're not being wasteful. So
Speaker 1: one of the things I do is they actually have
Speaker 1: a way of collecting the condensation from air conditioning. So
Speaker 1: as air conditioners work and water condenses, water from the
Speaker 1: atmosphere condenses on the equipment, they can actually collect that water.
Speaker 1: They harvest it, and they use that water to wash
Speaker 1: the decks, and they also use it in the laundry system.
Speaker 1: It's perfectly fine. It gets filtered through into everything. It's
Speaker 1: just condensed water from the atmosphere. It's actually pretty clean stuff.
Speaker 1: But Disney estimates that this approach saves them up to
Speaker 1: twenty two point three million gallons of fresh water every year,
Speaker 1: so it's a pretty interesting way to get around the
Speaker 1: issue of how do you deal with all of these
Speaker 1: needs without wasting fresh water. The ship can also distill
Speaker 1: two hundred tons of fresh water from seawater every day,
Speaker 1: and the total potable water storage capacity aboard the ship
Speaker 1: is eighty two thousand gallons. They also recycle used cooking oil,
Speaker 1: so they go through about two hundred and sixty four
Speaker 1: gallons of cooking oil every week. Now that oil is
Speaker 1: taken by a company called the Bahamas Waste Management Company
Speaker 1: and they convert it into biodiesel. They also have a
Speaker 1: partnership with BMW and there's several BMW vehicles that run
Speaker 1: on this biodiesel in the Bahamas. Disney estimates that recycles
Speaker 1: nine hundred tons of aluminum, paper, plastic, and other odd
Speaker 1: recyclable stuff every year from their cruise line. Now, going
Speaker 1: back to the Disney Magic and talking about its original cruises.
Speaker 1: It sets sale and it's made in voyage on July thirtieth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight, out of Port Canaveral, Florida, And originally
Speaker 1: it only sailed for three or four day cruises. In fact,
Speaker 1: the first time I ever went on one, it was
Speaker 1: a four day cruise. Then a year later the Disney
Speaker 1: Wonder joined the fleet. The Disney Wonder and the Disney
Speaker 1: Magic are nearly identical. The theming is different. It's Art
Speaker 1: Deco and one Art Nouveaux in another. Some of the
Speaker 1: spaces are themed a different way, like the different nightclubs
Speaker 1: and stuff that you can go to have different themes.
Speaker 1: The main restaurant on the Disney Magic is Loumiere's. The
Speaker 1: main one on The Disney Wonder is Tritons. Helmsman Mickey
Speaker 1: is in a statue in the lobby and the Magic
Speaker 1: and Ariel the Little Mermaid is on the Wonder. But otherwise,
Speaker 1: apart from some superficial differences, they're largely the same. So
Speaker 1: once the Wonder came online, it started doing the three
Speaker 1: and four day cruises, and the Magic began to do
Speaker 1: seven day cruises, which meant that Disney had to come
Speaker 1: up with all new ways of entertaining guests and feeding
Speaker 1: them and making sure they had enough variety on their
Speaker 1: menus so that people weren't just tired of eating the
Speaker 1: same thing over and over. So it came up with
Speaker 1: new challenges. Well, we're getting ready to conclude our episode
Speaker 1: about the Disney Magic, but before we returned to port,
Speaker 1: let's listen to some more messages. In twenty thirteen, the
Speaker 1: Magic went in for a massive facelift. Disney actually called
Speaker 1: it a reimagine, which makes perfect sense when their engineers
Speaker 1: are called Imagineers. Now this time they took it to
Speaker 1: the Navantia Shipyards in Cadiz, Spain, so they weren't at
Speaker 1: the same place that they were when the ship was
Speaker 1: being constructed, and there was another dry dock period in
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen that updated a few more features. The twenty
Speaker 1: thirteen dry dock lasted two months and involved taking a
Speaker 1: part about eighty percent of the ship for upgrades, including
Speaker 1: stripping the ship completely of paint. So you can see
Speaker 1: pictures of the Disney Magic and dry dock from twenty
Speaker 1: thirteen and it looks pretty pretty banged up because all
Speaker 1: the pain has been removed. In twenty fifteen, they upgraded
Speaker 1: the engines aboard the Magic to be more efficient and
Speaker 1: reduce fuel consumption further along with that special coating on
Speaker 1: the hull. And one practical addition to the ship was
Speaker 1: the duct tail. And this was not a Donald Duck reference.
Speaker 1: The ductail is an industry term. It's essentially a tank
Speaker 1: that's placed in the back of the show that adds buoyancy,
Speaker 1: and it's distributed so that it provides buoyancy without making
Speaker 1: the ship list to either side. This is really important
Speaker 1: because during this renovation period They added a lot of
Speaker 1: features onto the Disney Magic, which increased the weight of
Speaker 1: the ship, and it wasn't built to hold that much weight,
Speaker 1: so they had to adjust the design of the ship
Speaker 1: in order to account for that. To account for the change,
Speaker 1: Disney added a second water slide. There was already one
Speaker 1: small water slide, which they actually replaced and made a
Speaker 1: slightly larger one, and this new water slide, called the
Speaker 1: Aqua dunk is a is a slide that's designed to
Speaker 1: do a pretty rapid drop into water. It's actually a
Speaker 1: twisty slide. It goes two hundred and twelve feet and
Speaker 1: twists that way, and part of that includes a twenty
Speaker 1: foot clear section that extends out over the side of
Speaker 1: the ship and over the ocean. So for a twenty
Speaker 1: foot stretch of that, you're directly over the ocean. You
Speaker 1: can look down and see the ocean about one hundred
Speaker 1: feet below you. Sliding down takes about five seconds, so
Speaker 1: you have to look fast. It's actually a really tough
Speaker 1: thing to have water slides on a ship. This is
Speaker 1: another engineering challenge. Water slide technology is pretty simple. You
Speaker 1: pump water up to the top of the slide. You
Speaker 1: let the water go down using gravity as your main
Speaker 1: force to the bottom, and then you collect the water,
Speaker 1: filter it, pump it back up. Not a whole complicated
Speaker 1: technology there, but the engineering when you're talking about a
Speaker 1: water slide on a cruise ship is much harder. And
Speaker 1: the reason for this is that cruise ships can twist
Speaker 1: and torque, they can bend in different ways. They also
Speaker 1: can expand and contract because the body of the ship
Speaker 1: is made out of metal, and all of these mean
Speaker 1: putting extra stresses on what is supposed to be a
Speaker 1: water tight tight water slide. So if you want a
Speaker 1: watertight slide and you're going to have all of these
Speaker 1: different motions to take into account, you have to build
Speaker 1: it out a very special material, and you have to
Speaker 1: figure out a support system that will move along with
Speaker 1: the ship while keeping the integrity of the slide intact.
Speaker 1: On top of that, you have engines running at different
Speaker 1: levels throughout the cruise, which means you're going to have
Speaker 1: vibrations sent through the ship. And yes, if you're quiet
Speaker 1: and you're in a quiet spot, you can feel the
Speaker 1: vibration from the engines pretty much anywhere on the ship.
Speaker 1: Of course, you can feel it better when you're closer
Speaker 1: to where the engines are. But if you're very quiet
Speaker 1: and you just touch a wall, you can pretty much
Speaker 1: feel the vibrations. Well, that slide has to take that
Speaker 1: into account too. You are constantly being rattled. So this
Speaker 1: was actually a pretty tough challenge for the imagineers to
Speaker 1: create a slide that was fun and safe and would
Speaker 1: be resilient to these different stresses on it, and I
Speaker 1: think that's pretty impressive. One of the other changes they
Speaker 1: made was to the ship's horn. Originally, the horn only
Speaker 1: played the first few notes of when You Wish upon
Speaker 1: a Star, And if you're a Disney nut like me
Speaker 1: and you hear it for the first time on your
Speaker 1: first cruise, it's a pretty phenomenal experience. You are surprised
Speaker 1: and delighted to hear this little Disney touch early on
Speaker 1: in your cruise experience. It's also fun to see all
Speaker 1: the families and kids kind of light up at it.
Speaker 1: These days, when I go on to Disney cruise, I
Speaker 1: see a lot of returning cruisers because you can tell
Speaker 1: the more cruises you go on, the different lanyard you
Speaker 1: will get, like you have a silver level, a Gold level,
Speaker 1: a Platinum level, and I just went on my Platinum cruise,
Speaker 1: so anyway, I see a lot of returning guests. So
Speaker 1: the ship's horn doesn't have quite the same effect that
Speaker 1: it used to. But the upgrade allowed them to create
Speaker 1: new tunes for the horn to play, and they're all
Speaker 1: Disney related or one of the Disney properties are property
Speaker 1: owned by Disney. Like Star Wars. There's an Imperial March
Speaker 1: horn now as well. Also, this is kind of dorky
Speaker 1: but awesome, there is a physical button to sound the
Speaker 1: ship's horn. You have to make an announcement first to
Speaker 1: let people know, hey, by the way, we're going to
Speaker 1: sound the horn, so be prepared for that. But the
Speaker 1: button itself is on a console and around the button
Speaker 1: is a little frame in the shape of Mickey Mouse ears.
Speaker 1: So the button's in the center and you got the
Speaker 1: two ears on either side. And I know it's dorky,
Speaker 1: but I love Disney, so I think it's awesome and
Speaker 1: I want to push that button so badly I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to resist it. That, of course, is on
Speaker 1: the bridge, so it's right there along with all the
Speaker 1: other controls. There's a console area where there's the ship's horn,
Speaker 1: and you usually sound that whenever you're entering or leaving
Speaker 1: a dock area. The parent Key restaurant during this renovation period.
Speaker 1: The thirteen to one was changed at that time, so
Speaker 1: parrot Key, which you can no longer go to, had
Speaker 1: a Caribbean theme. Actually, I don't know. The Disney Wonder
Speaker 1: might still have parrot Key, but I haven't been on
Speaker 1: the Wonder in years, so I'm not sure. But the
Speaker 1: magic the parrot Key is gone. So I had a
Speaker 1: Caribbean theme. It was a lot of the cuisine was
Speaker 1: Caribbean in inspiration. They have now replaced that with a
Speaker 1: restaurant called Karriokas, and Karaokas is named after Jose Karaoka,
Speaker 1: a Donald Duck character in the Three Caballeros cartoon. I
Speaker 1: don't know why I'm suddenly adopting an accent here, but
Speaker 1: the Three Caballeros cartoon is a very fun classic Disney cartoon.
Speaker 1: And so the Three Caballeros takes place in South America,
Speaker 1: and the cuisine at Kaiokas is largely influenced by the
Speaker 1: food of Brazil, so it's a different change, different style
Speaker 1: of cuisine, and they did different theming, different lights in
Speaker 1: order to give it this much a pretty large change
Speaker 1: in identity, and another space that got a major overhaul
Speaker 1: was the Oceaneer's Club. That's when they ended up being
Speaker 1: able to incorporate stuff like Marvel Avengers and toy story
Speaker 1: things that weren't as prominent back in the late nineties
Speaker 1: when they were building the ship in the first place.
Speaker 1: So when you go to like the or when your
Speaker 1: kid essentially goes to the Avengers Academy, they can train
Speaker 1: to become a superhero. No word yet. If Captain America
Speaker 1: whispers hell Hydra to each recruit, that's a reference to
Speaker 1: a storyline that's going on right now in Marvel that
Speaker 1: I'm not crazy about. I also wonder if the Captain
Speaker 1: America aboard the Disney cruise ships is getting any flack
Speaker 1: about being a secret Hydra agent, because they do have
Speaker 1: lots of different Disney characters aboard these various ships, including
Speaker 1: Marvel characters. Typically it's Captain America. They've also had Star
Speaker 1: Wars characters as well. They've done Star Wars themed ship cruises.
Speaker 1: I have not gone on one of those, despite the
Speaker 1: fact that I also loved Star Wars as well as Disney.
Speaker 1: I did not do one of those yet by stress
Speaker 1: yet now. One of the other changes they made was
Speaker 1: at animator's palette. I mentioned the fiber optics static displays earlier.
Speaker 1: The ones that were just black and white sketches of
Speaker 1: various Disney characters, they couldn't change because they were built
Speaker 1: into the wall. But then the fiber optics would allow
Speaker 1: color to come into the picture, and so they would
Speaker 1: change from black and white to color, but you couldn't
Speaker 1: change what the portrait was of, Right, like a picture
Speaker 1: of blue the bear from the Jungle Book is always
Speaker 1: going to be blue the bear. It would never change
Speaker 1: into anything else. When they did the renovation, they pulled
Speaker 1: out some of that and swapped in LED screens, and
Speaker 1: now you get a different experience. So instead of it
Speaker 1: just being images that go from black and white to
Speaker 1: color on the screens, you'll see sketches start to appear
Speaker 1: on the various portraits of various Disney characters. And as
Speaker 1: the dinner progresses, you get more details, you get color,
Speaker 1: you get animation, and they change over time, so you're
Speaker 1: not looking at just an evolving sketch of a single character.
Speaker 1: It swaps as the dinner goes on, and again it
Speaker 1: ends up being kind of a show. It's not just dinner,
Speaker 1: it's also a performance, which is kind of cool. At
Speaker 1: the end of one of the dinners at Animator's Palette,
Speaker 1: if you go twice, if your cruise is such that
Speaker 1: you go to Animator's Palette two times, the second time,
Speaker 1: they have a special show where all the guests are
Speaker 1: invited to draw a character on a piece of paper,
Speaker 1: and all of those pieces of paper are taken backstage
Speaker 1: and scanned into a system, and then when you watch
Speaker 1: the show at the end, these characters are animated and
Speaker 1: they appear on screen. So a character you drew will
Speaker 1: appear on screen and dance around and move about. The
Speaker 1: way they do this is they have special blocks set
Speaker 1: aside that you draw in things like legs and arms
Speaker 1: and hands and a head and a body and that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. And when they scan it, each of
Speaker 1: those blocks is design in such a way that it's
Speaker 1: considered to be a joint, right, like the shoulders or
Speaker 1: the hips or whatever. And so when it's animated, it
Speaker 1: animates each of these blocks in a way so that
Speaker 1: the characters can move around when you're looking at them
Speaker 1: on the screen. When I did this, I drew a
Speaker 1: pirate with a peg leg and a hook and an
Speaker 1: eye patch, and his name was Lucky. Other Disney touches.
Speaker 1: Of course, you've got the characters, You've got the Disney
Speaker 1: movies that are shown in the various theaters. If a
Speaker 1: Disney film comes out during your cruise, they show it
Speaker 1: that same day on the ship, so it's premiere on
Speaker 1: land and sea. And I think I might be seeing
Speaker 1: Finding Dory by the time this episode goes live, I
Speaker 1: will have seen Finding Dory, assuming that I it premieres
Speaker 1: while we're on the ship. I think it will actually,
Speaker 1: which is kind of cool the neat idea that you
Speaker 1: get this unique Disney experience. Disney actually also does this
Speaker 1: big fireworks display out at sea. Typically they do this
Speaker 1: with a pirate themed deck party. So if you've heard
Speaker 1: the tech Stuff episode on fireworks, you know how technical
Speaker 1: that can get. In the Disney shows. They tend to
Speaker 1: be three hundred or so shots per fireworks display, which
Speaker 1: is modest by Disney standards, but it's at sea, so
Speaker 1: that makes it different. These are also controlled by a
Speaker 1: system that is highly synchronized with music and other effects,
Speaker 1: so that you get a story throughout the fireworks display,
Speaker 1: not just stuff. Shooting off into the sky. I am
Speaker 1: blowing up, which is also pretty cool, but it's more
Speaker 1: effective when it's all synchronized with music and everything else.
Speaker 1: They actually hold several patents for their fireworks displays, and
Speaker 1: they were the first cruise line to have a fireworks
Speaker 1: display out at sea because it involves getting a lot
Speaker 1: of permissions from various nautical authorities. The fireworks themselves are
Speaker 1: made out of edible material, so when they are done
Speaker 1: exploding and they go down into the ocean, they can
Speaker 1: actually be eaten safely by sea life, so there's no
Speaker 1: pollution there. I thought that was pretty cool, so you
Speaker 1: can actually check this out and not feel any guilt
Speaker 1: about it. Some of the ships also have interactive portraits
Speaker 1: that animate or a part of an augmented reality game
Speaker 1: aboard the ship. I got to play with one of
Speaker 1: these on the Disney Dream I believe, and that's really
Speaker 1: cool too, this idea that you've got these things that
Speaker 1: look like they are static portraits from Disney movie, but
Speaker 1: if you watch, you see that they start to animate
Speaker 1: and sometimes they interact with each other. I remember coming
Speaker 1: to one hallway where there were portraits of pirate ships
Speaker 1: on either side of the corridor on either side of
Speaker 1: a doorway really and they had a battle with each other.
Speaker 1: They actually started firing cannon balls at each other, and
Speaker 1: I thought that was really a clever thing to do.
Speaker 1: And the game aspect, you can play a game where
Speaker 1: you have cards that have a low pattern on them,
Speaker 1: and when you hold them up to the portraits, the
Speaker 1: portraits have an embedded camera that can pick up the
Speaker 1: pattern on the card and tell the portrait this person
Speaker 1: is playing this particular game. And it's almost like a
Speaker 1: scavenger hunt as you go through the ship and you
Speaker 1: try to solve a mystery or help out a character,
Speaker 1: and it's really an interesting way to explore the ship
Speaker 1: as well as engage in a fun interactive form of technology.
Speaker 1: A very clever approach to using augmented reality and video
Speaker 1: interactive video. So well done there. That was the episode
Speaker 1: on How the Disney Magic Works, which published on June
Speaker 1: twenty second, twenty sixteen. These days, the Disney Cruise line
Speaker 1: has five ships. There's the Magic, the Wonder, the Fantasy,
Speaker 1: the Dream, and the Wish. Actually spent my twenty fifth
Speaker 1: anniversary on the Wish, which ended up being a longer
Speaker 1: cruise than we intended because Hurricane Ian hit Florida while
Speaker 1: we were at sea and we could not return to port,
Speaker 1: so we had to stay on the ship two extra days,
Speaker 1: which you know, there are worse ways to have to
Speaker 1: ride out a hurricane, trust me. But it was definitely
Speaker 1: a stressful time because you also had to try and
Speaker 1: arrange things like travel and stuff like that, things that
Speaker 1: you couldn't easily do because you were on a boat
Speaker 1: at sea and didn't have very much connectivity. It was
Speaker 1: a complicated time, but yeah, it was fun to If
Speaker 1: you do that episode, hope you enjoyed it. If you
Speaker 1: have suggestions for future topics, you can reach me either
Speaker 1: by downloading the iHeartRadio app, which is free to download
Speaker 1: and news. Navigate over to tech Stuff using a little
Speaker 1: search field and click on that little microphone icon that
Speaker 1: can let you leave a thirty second voice message for
Speaker 1: me let me know what you would like to hear
Speaker 1: in the future, or if you prefer, you can leave
Speaker 1: me a message on Twitter. The handle for the show
Speaker 1: is tech Stuff HSW and I'll talk to you again
Speaker 1: really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.