One of the most iconic sites at Disney’s famed theme parks remains the monorail system of transportation.  In fact, June 14, 1959, marked the start of the first urban monorail system in the U.S. when the Disneyland-Alweg Monorail System began operations at Disneyland in California.

In Central Florida, the Walt Disney World Resort Monorail System today operates 12 Mark VI monorail trains on three lines of service.  This system opened in 1971 with two routes and expanded to three lines in 1982.

The modern trains that have been in use since 1989 are each 203 feet long (consisting of six cars) and can carry 360 passengers. The trains are driven by eight 113 HP motors which are powered by a 600-volt electrical system.

The Walt Disney World Monorail operates over a span of 14.7 miles and carries about 150,000 guests per day or 50 million Disney guests each year.

The three routes on the Walt Disney World Monorail include:

Express: Express service between the Magic Kingdom and the Transportation and Ticket Center (TTC).

Resort: Round-trip local service making stops at the Magic Kingdom, Disney’s Contemporary Resort, the Transportation and Ticket Center, Disney’s Polynesian Resort and Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort and Spa.

Epcot: Service between the Transportation and Ticket Center and Epcot.

Did you know that on June 11, 1929, Walt Disney filed a trademark application with the United States Patent Office for the image of Mickey Mouse!

Save the date and your appetite because Orlando Magical Dining Month returns September 2008 for another season of low cost dining!    Beginning September 1, some of Orlando’s finest restaurants will offer $29 or $19 prix fixe three-course dinner menus sure to delight your palate and your wallet. The third annual Orlando Magical Dining Month features a wide range of popular restaurants and cuisines, including:  Emeril’s Tchoup Chop – One of the world’s most celebrated chefs, Emeril Lagasse, blends flavors of Asian and Polynesian cuisine incorporated with his signature bold “kick” of spice in an exotic Pacific Seas environment.

Roy’s Hawaiian Fusion Restaurant – Roy’s has become well-known throughout the world for its Hawaiian Fusion cuisine, featuring the freshest local ingredients, European sauces and bold Asian spices with a focus on seafood.
 

Graze Restaurant – Familiar American classics take on global tastes at this hot new restaurant in trendy Thornton Park. The modern bistro features such favorites as sea scallops, elk rack, filet mignon, Maine lobster and braised buffalo short ribs.

The Oceanaire Seafood Room –This 1930s supper club-style restaurant features more than 25 types of seafood and shellfish flown in daily from around the world.  

Other participating restaurants are BICE Ristorante, Le Coq au Vin, Fifi’s, The Beacon, Jeffery’s Restaurant, Vines Grille & Wine Bar, Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and A Land Remembered.

Flitting around like Tinker Bell, virtual visitors can now explore  Walt Disney World Resort from the comfort of their own home!  It’s all part of a new online re-creation of Disney World available on Google Earth called “Walt Disney World Resort in 3D.”  From the Magic Kingdom to Epcot and much of the rest of Disney World, you can now fly around, taking a closer look a the attractions and scenery through close-up pictures, descriptions and even videos – all while never leaving your computer! The program offers an Internet-based, computer-animated tour of the four theme parks and 22 hotel resorts at Disney World, all organized geographically on Google Earth’s virtual world map platform.To create the virtual tour, Disney photographers shot 100,000 photographs which were turned into 1,500 three-dimensional models of everything from Cinderella Castle to park benches. Google also added another 216 Disney World pictures, renderings and descriptions to further enhance the Disney World virtual exploration.

The largest package of user-generated content and the most sophisticated 3-D content posted on Google Earth, this program allows you to casually wander through this virtual Disney World with a ground level view.  While touring, you can click on any of the 276 icons embedded in the map at Disney attractions and hotels, bringing up more pictures, more video and more information.  Or you can link back to Disney’s associated Web sites.

Summer is here and it’s never too early to beat the heat at SeaWorld’s exciting new water park, Aquatica!

Stated summer hours at Aquatica at 9 am til 10 pm for the general public.  However, effective immediately, guests arriving with pre-purchased tickets will be guaranteed entrance as early at 8 am - providing an extra hour of wet and wonderful fun.

Both kiosks and ticket windows will be open at 8 am to transfer vouchers for admission.

Aquatica, conveniently located adjacent to SeaWorld Orlando,  is Central Florida’s newest adventure water park…offering guests a variety of up close animal experiences, high speed thrills, sandy beaches and waters from the  serene to the extreme!  With 36 water slides, six rivers and lagoons, and more than 80,000 square feet of beach area, Aquatic provides myriad attractions that zoom, float and splash guests through amazing animal habitats and undersea adventures!

Winding rivers throughout Aquatica offer two different journeys.  One river carries guests through gentle waterfalls, past exotic birds and into an undersea grotto with thousands of colorful fish.  The other river offers more intense thrills, jetting riders through rolling rapids, rushing geysers and racing waters!

SeaWorld Orlando has announced the next generation of SeaWorld thrills with Manta - a new mega-attraction designed to seamlessly  transition guests from the awe of encountering rays in underwater flight…into the sensation of being one.  Swooping over sea and sky, Manta will inspire riders with amazing underwater animal habitats, then soar them face down, in a horizontal position, aboard a manta-inspired flying coaster.  The new signature ride is scheduled to open summer 2009.

Guests will enter a mythical village filled with artisan-created engravings and artwork that celebrate ray legend and lore.  The queue line winds through caverns with floor to ceiling windows to huge aquariums filled with 300 rays, as well as thousands of fish and mysterious sea creatures from oceans around the world such as sea dragons and sea horses.  Shark rays, spotted eagles rays, leopard rays, cownose rays and oscillate river rays will all float past and above.

Once guests traverse the fun-filled queue line, they’ll fly face down, in a horizontal position, underneath the belly of a coaster train shaped as a giant manta.  With a wing span of 12 feet, the giant manta will soar over a 16,300 square foot lagoon - swooping and diving at nearly 60 mph, through four inversions on 3, 359 feet of track.  The manta sails from sky to sea - at a height of up to 140 feet and a drop of 113 feet - with the manta’s wings nearly skimming the waves below.

A picture is worth a thousand words, and now Westgate Resorts has found a new way for you to take those picture words and tell the full story of your vacation. In today’s digital age, many photos may not even make it off your digital camera memory card.  But Westgate will not only help ensure your photos get seen, they may even help upload the photos for you!

Starting in June, guests of Westgate’s various Orlando resort properties will be offered a free trial membership to a new social networking site called WestgateFamilies.com.Similar to popular networking sites like MySpace or FaceBook, WestgateFamilies allows you to create profiles, write blogs and post photos and videos of your vacation and more! But unlike those other sites, Westgate will share in the initial process by helping you build your memories.  That’s because photographers will roam the resort property snapping your photos and helping to capture your vacation memories.

In time, additional photo kiosks will also enable you to take your own self photos by simply scanning your room key and waiting for the automatic camera to snap the moment and post the photo to your family Web site. Guests taking their own photos can also provide Westgate staffers with their digital memory cards for uploading to their family site.  Once uploaded, you can create online photo albums, scrapbooks, slideshows and other digital media that can be shared instantly with friends and family or enjoyed once you return home.

WestgateFamilies.com also offers greater privacy than many other social networking sites.  Families can choose to password-protect their Web site and only provide the Web address to those who are provided access.  Those who visit a family site will also receive discount offers on vacationing in Orlando.

Each family that stays with Westgate will be provided with a free 30-day trial membership.  After that, the service requires a nominal fee of between $5 and $12 a month.  But what better way to share photos and communicate regularly with friends and family. 

Memorial Day weekend offers the unofficial early kickoff to the busy summer vacation season in Orlando.  In the coming months, guests from around the world will fill the myriad theme parks and attractions throughout Central Florida. 

From rollicking roller coasters to  amazing animals, the parks offer plenty of action, advenure and extraordinary fun.  While prices typically peak during such high travel times, there are still opportunities to save substantially on your Orlando travel plans.

Whether you are looking for hotel/resort accommodations, discount theme park and attraction tickets or complete vacation packages, you can start your search right here on WestgateReservations.com or other vacation sites such as www.orlandothemeparkvacations.com.

Come celebrate Aloha Friday at Universal Studios Orlando’s beautiful Loews Royal Pacific Resort. This special celebration takes place on Friday, May 23 from 6:30 – 8:30 pm. 

Get ready for some fun as you kick back in a tropical paradise and celebrate the weekend. Aloha Fridays are celebrated throughout Hawaii and now the tradition comes alive at Loews Royal Pacific Resort. Put on your favorite Hawaiian shirt or sun dress and join the festivities!

Aloha Friday features tropical drinks, beer, wine and Polynesian-inspired food, plus an islands-style party with live music!  Tickets are just $25 per person.

“It’s a ride; it’s game. It’s a game; it’s a ride.”  Based on those comments from the 5-foot animatronic “Mr. Potato Head” that sits outside Disney’s new Toy Story Mania attraction, it must be a little of both!  Visitors will find out for themselves when the unique new 3-D attraction officially opens May 31 at Disney’s Hollywood Studios theme park.

Whether you want to call it a ride or a game, one thing is certain…it’s a fun adventure for everyone! A four-person car takes riders through five interactive games of skill featuring favorite Toy Story movie characters such as Woody, Bo Peep and Ham. The cars don’t move fast or spin much, so there’s no fear of motion sickness.

The first stop on the ride features a practice opportunity for riders to learn how to fire their “spring-action shooter,” which is shaped like a miniature cannon. Then you’ll move right into a world of virtual reality, as you start firing pies at various bull’s-eye targets – and with realistic, three-dimensional effects. Along the way, you’ll progress to firing not just pies, but eggs, darts, baseballs and there’s even a ring toss. And while it’s fun to launch things, there’s not much time to relax.  It’s best to just keep firing away since the highest “scores” are the result of shooting as rapidly as possible. Launchers can fire up to six objects per second!

Although no special skills or training are required to play, various targets have different values and even some special effects. For example, if you hit a water balloon, you might feel a misty spray of water. And you can shoot at a variety of other objects, including green aliens, plates, ducks and trees. Because everything is oversized, you’ll feel a part of the game.  The scale of the ride is designed to make you feel toy-sized and the game takes place “under a bed.”   Oversized green army men, Tinkertoys, used crayons, checkers and Old Maid cards are just a few of the giant toys you’ll find. Toy Story Mania is sure to be another fun filled adventure for kids of all ages.  So grab your 3-D glasses and come along for the ride!  Or is it a game?