When exiting Fort Emery which we visited during yesterday’s part of the walk through Toy Story Playland to return to the area’s main walkway guests are facing the small side of the box in which Andy’s Slinky Dog came. It has been placed on top of a little hill / mount on the right side of the walkway. One long site of the box is facing toward the right from our current position (in the general direction of the area’s main entrance), while the one is facing toward RC Racer. Both long sides are opened up. Between this box and the RC Racer (in front of which the main walkway takes a bend to the right further into Toy Story Playland) the actual ride has been placed.

The ride is a Disney first however [update: another version of this ride type can be found in Tokyo Disney Sea in the outdoor section of the Mermaid Lagoon] can be found in various incarnations in many other theme and amusement parks as well as on traveling fun fairs where it often goes by the name “Music Express” or “Schlittenfahrt” (the latter in German speaking areas). To offer the guests on board the experience of going up and down the ride is much higher in the back than in the front. While Toy Story Playland already features a height difference of about 2 meter from the front to the back (where RC Racer is located), the Slinky Dog ZigZag Spin requires a higher difference. To avoid the right sticking out a small hill has been errected behind it, to hide its structure. On top of that “hill” the Slinky Dog box is located.

The side of said box facing the main walkway of the Toy Story Playland also functions as a large billboard for the ride with its name painted on. However, the actual marquee is mounted to an entrance gate which Andy created out of his Lincoln Log toys (wooden logs with which building structures can be created). Once guest have walked through the gate (which is also the position of the cast member functioning as the rides “greeter”) they find themselves in the outdoor part of the queue that leads up to the top of the before mentioned hill. This part of the line has been created of huge recreations of Lincoln logs as well. Once the line reaches the top of the hill it enters into the huge box of Slinky Dog that provides shelter from sun and rain for guests.

As with any good packing for a toy all exterior sides of the box would be printed on – certainly this is true for the Slinky Dog box housing the queue line as well. As guests can see when riding the Toy Soldier Parachute Drop the top of the box features a huge drawing of the Slinky Dog toy plus some advertising slogans. However, the interior of the box is printed on as well. As sometimes happens there is a traditional board game to be found printed on the interior of the box, with the floor as the playing board and cut outs for the playing figurines printed on the interior of the other sides, which also feature the rules. While certainly the walls are not cut apart, some extra cut out version of these playing fields have been added as decorations to the side of this interior queue area.

The board game found inside the box was created by Imagineering specifically for the design of the waiting area – however they assure guests that they tested their game and it could actually be played. However, there is no word whether it might be featured inside the boxes of Slinky Dog toys sold at Disneyland Paris. Unfortunately there is a bad news connected to this oversized board game as well: when the resort’s cast member magazine stated “Guests can play a game made exclusively for the attraction on the inside of Slinky Dog’s packaging box as they wait in the queue” it must have referred to this game (see our earlier report). However,  the game on the interior of the box doesn’t look as if it could be played while in line. So all hopes for an interactive game entertaining guests while waiting seem to have been to no avail.

But enough of the waiting, lets walk past the colorful control booth (looking as if constructed out of multicolored building blogs) and finally get to the actual ride. The ride features Slinky Dog chasing his own tail fast and faster in a circle up and down, around Buster’s dowg bowl, in which Andy placed Buster’s toy bones as well as a baseball of his as centerpiece (Buster being Andy’s dog from the Toy Story movies). The guests are seated in groups of up to three next to each other in carts that form Slinky Dog’s body. Differing from the model and released concept drawings these carts can’t be closed with a cabrio style ceiling but are open to the elements. The effect of Slinky Dog’s spring body is instead created by two silver arches over each cart. Once the ride turns these arches give the effect of going back and fourth due to the up and down in the circular track.

When talking about the ride vehicles it is also worth noting that one of the carts has been especially designed to accomodate guests in wheel chairs (while the other two rides in Toy Story Playland require guests in wheel chairs to be able to transfer onto the rides’ seats). Slink Dog ZigZag Spin furthermore has no height requirements allowing truly the whole family to enjoy the spin together.

Different from usual versions of the “Music Express” the track isn’t filled by a complete circle of carts seating guests, instead there is a small gap in the circle here. Right in front of it Slinky Dog’s tail is placed (with no seats) and right behind the gap Slinky Dog’s head (with no seats either) to give the impression that he chases his own tail once the ride starts moving. This impression is further emphasized as both elements (front and rear) feature two legs that move back and forth emulating a running motion oce the ride starts turning. In addition the floppy ears of Slinky Dog have been designed to flap while he races in circles and his tail is actually a real spring that will move around as well (in the photos it is bound down to the body).

In addition Slink Dog will bark while chasing his own tail and also talk – with the guests as well as with … oh, well … we’ll keep that as a surprise for later in our series. But one finale note before bringing today’s installment of our walk through Toy Story Playland to an end: the operations team responsible for Toy Story Playland currently plans to operate the attraction with four cast members: the already mentioned “greeter”, a “grouper” at the end of the line as well as two cast members loading and unloading the actual ride, one of which will also operate it from inside the control booth. For comparison rides such as Dumbo usually operate with two cast members only at Disneyland Paris, skipping the greeter and grouper positions.

Tomorrow, Thursday, we finally get up to RC Racer and into its line as well as the station building to take a closer look at the area’s full grown thrill ride.

This entry was posted by Dirk on Wednesday, August 4th, 2010 at 10:06 am and is filed under Walt Disney Studios. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.