Video of Disney's construction company building a fence along the beach at Grand Floridian - by @TharinWhite pic.twitter.com/xfNBOesAwe
— Attractions Magazine (@Attractions) June 17, 2016
The moves come in response to Tuesday night's fatal alligator attack at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort, which claimed the life of a two-year-old boy.
Anna and Elsa move into their new home
Also at Walt Disney World today, the new meet and greet for Anna and Else opened in Epcot. The Frozen sisters return to their Norway pavilion home in the new Royal Sommerhus, which should offer a much higher capacity (and shorter wait times) than their old home in the Magic Kingdom's Princess Fairytale Hall, not to mention their original home in the Norway pavilion's shops.
How can one meet and greet have higher capacity than another, you're asking? Through the magic of multiple greeting rooms. Which means, yes, (spoiler alert!) multiple princesses working at once. If you're curious, the MK's Princess Fairytale Hall has replaced Anna & Elsa with Rapunzel and a rotating princess of the day.
May the Force be with you... getting out of that parking lot
Later tonight, the new Star Wars themed nighttime spectacular debuts at Disney's Hollywood Studios. Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular will employ fireworks, projection mapping as well as the beloved John Williams score. Update: And here's one of the fan videos of the show:
Getting psyched for Pandora
Finally, an insider dropped us this picture of the floating mountains of Pandora, now under construction at the new World of Avatar land in Disney's Animal Kingdom.
The new land opens next year. We can't wait!
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As for multiple Annas and Elsas, just knowing there will be several stations reduces the magic a little, but nowhere near as much as waiting in a queue for hours to meet some girls dressed up in an outfit... the horror
Even if this is the first incident in 45 years, I'm surprised that they allowed swimming before, like in River Country. Years ago I noticed warning signs in the town of Celebration, and I thought "Oh yeah, there are alligators in the water?" After that, I wondered why there were not similar signs around the resort.
I'm not an expert, but I'm wondering if there is a way to prevent the alligators from entering the Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake. Someone said there are many interconnecting channels. I thought you could have a grate at the connecting points, but maybe baby alligators could get through? And if they get through on land, can you erect fences at those points? Maybe it is too hard and maybe the only way is to warn the people.
I feel like the reason Disney did not specifically warn of alligators, was because they didn't want to spoil the image of fantasy and magic. Alligator warnings would bring real world danger into the fantasy. But sadly, it took this incident to make them wake up. There were signs that said 'No Swimming', but the family probably thought wading was ok. I wonder if Walt was aware of the potential of alligator danger when he bought the land, that's not a small consideration. No, I'm not blaming Walt, just wondering.
The fences are kind of ugly, but probably at this point a necessary response. Hopefully, they can come up with better solutions in the future.
When Walt bought the land, alligators were an endangered species and sightings were quite rare.
By this logic all the beaches in the state would be closed. There are gators all over florida
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