Merchant of Venus Tomorrowland Photo
Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom, especially at night, is my favorite land at Walt Disney World. It has three of my favorite attractions: Carousel of Progress, Tomorrowland Transit Authority Peoplemover, and Space Mountain. It has great background music, fun puns for restaurant and shop names, and details that I love–such as the palms and Sonny Eclipse. I also enjoy the neon, which I think is quite photogenic and adds to the ambiance.
All of these things easily help the land overcome the loses of the amazing Alien Encounter and Timekeeper attractions, and the general thematic misfire and lack of cohesiveness of the land. Those issues do push Tomorrowland just behind New Orleans Square in Disneyland as my overall favorite land, but second place isn’t too bad, all things considered. A replacement for Stitch’s Great Escape that captures the spirit and dark humor of Alien Encounter without the scares would push Tomorrowland back into first place.
Tomorrowland, with its swooping lines, is also great for the fisheye. While I love my Rokinon 8mm fisheye (check out my review of it), I plan on using it a lot less on our upcoming trips. I have found myself processing fewer and fewer fisheye photos, plus, I have the new Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8, which will be getting a serious workout!
Technical details: Nikon D7000 and Rokinon 8mm Fisheye Lens. See our Disney Photography Guide for more photography equipment recommendations.
I don’t know what it was about it, but after I did Timekeeper once I never felt the desire to do it again (not that it was bad, I just didn’t love it), whereas I actually return to The Laugh Floor on almost every trip (and while they’re monsters from the present day in context, they come across as aliens — and since they’re from a parallel world, they kind of ARE aliens). And Alien Encounter was spectacularly inappropriate for the Magic Kingdom. But really, there’s NOTHING else more out of place and ill-fitting to the theme in Tomorrowland than the super-slow “Speed”way. It gets defended with the mantra that “kids love it.” Well, my little boy really loves Stitch’s Great Escape. And Tom, if Disney ever does bring back the original sterile, all-white, Logan’s Run-esque Tomorrowland from the ’70s, I’m blaming you! :p You did advocate its return once on ISO 5571, after all. I think most of the people who really want the original design back are the same ones who are too young to realize that bellbottoms are NOT cool and never were!
I still LOVE tomorrowland, but I miss Alien Encounter
Same here! I really miss it. Glad that Skippy still has a home in Tomorrowland, at least.
Agreed! 🙂 Too bad there isn’t more love for Skippy at WDW. I think he’s cuter than Figment! (uh oh…that’s sure to start a debate with you . . lol)
Current Skippy is better than current Figment. When they changed Alien Encounter to Stitch’s Great Escape, they didn’t suckify Skippy like they did with Figment when Journey into Imagination changed.
To me, Tomorrowland just hasn’t been the same since Timekeeper left. Monsters Inc. just doesn’t seem to fit the Tomorrowland theme like Timekeeper did. And now so many Tomorrowland photos have Mike Wazowski in them. Which just isn’t right. At least this area you photographed still looks good.
I don’t mind Monsters, Inc. as much as I mind Stitch’s Great Escape. Monsters doesn’t work thematically, but it’s “close enough” for me.