Sunday, December 13, 2015
By Richard Tribou
Orlando Sentinel (TNS)
The force is strong with this ship. Disney Cruise Line has brought the Star Wars universe to Disney Dream in a big way with the Millennium Falcon.
One of two new interactive play areas in the 5-year-old ship’s Oceaneer Club, the installation simulates the inside of the iconic spaceship flown by Han Solo a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
“We said what kind of Star Wars experience do we want in a kids space,” explained Disney Imagineer Danny Handke, the creative design lead for the space. “And decided that, boy, to be on the Millennium Falcon would be really awesome. Can you imagine piloting it, having the little common room with the holo-chess table. And so we started there and we met with our partners at LucasFilm who threw us some great ideas and so it just started kind of building on itself.”
The end result is an eye-catching marvel with more than 1,000 LED lights, hundreds of buttons, levers and switches and detail-oriented touches that will make any Star Wars fan smile with nostalgia.
The big draw is the two seats of the cockpit that lets little pilots make the jump to hyperspace and pilot the Millennium Falcon through a variety of scenes from both outer space such as battle scenes with Imperial Star Destroyers and planets such as Tatooine. Most of the scenes are culled from the Star Tours attraction at the theme parks, although some are unique to the Dream. Fans of that theme park ride may notice the original Star Tours video making a cameo among the many options.
“On our team we have so many Star Wars fans, and the details just started pouring in,” Handke said. “Suddenly we have R2-D2 in there and he’s talking to guests, and then we have the training remote in the common room that hovers up and down, so just little bits of magic. It’s really probably the most detail-oriented space we’ve ever designed for the Oceaneer Club.”
There’s also two common areas to either side, one of which is filled with iPads loaded with Star Wars apps and games. Both feature the hologram chess table, although you can’t actually play hologram chess. The tables though are used for arts and crafts, such as the Galaxy Builders program, in which kids are shown how to make and then build their own TIE fighter, X-Wing or other ships from the Star Wars universe using modeling clay and foam.
The space has lots of Easter eggs, such as Chewbacca’s bowcaster (aka Wookie crossbow) and bandolier, the dice hanging from the windshield of the cockpit and even the spot where Han Solo first kissed Princess Leia in “The Empire Strikes Back.” There’s a special spot that lets visitors “use the Force” and make boxes move. The buttons, though, are a big draw for the children. If you press certain ones in just the right sequence, you can get special audio-visual treats such as the sound of a TIE fighter, the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi or Darth Vader breathing.
“They don’t want to leave,” said Walt Disney Creative Entertainment Show Director Tony Giordano. “Their parents come and they say, ‘No, I’m doing this.’ I’d say they spend all day in here. There are so many buttons to push and they want to figure out every hidden secret in here that they’ll spend hours.”
There’s a slew of counselor-led programming centered around Star Wars as well.
“We do a half-hour version of the movies using video costume pieces and we have a giant storybook when our host tells the story but the kids get to be the actors,” he said.
The Oceaneer Club is aimed toward children ages 3-12, but there are times such as the open houses when those who fall outside that Disney demographic can enjoy the space.
“Obviously it’s a place we can have secure areas for the children, but there are moments during the cruise that we let adults and their kids share the space,” Giordano said.
The space along with the other new tenant aboard Dream’s Oceaneer Club, a space dedicated to the Disney Infinity gaming system, are an effort by the company to give the older set of that 3-12 demographic more attention, said Handke, who also worked on the Avengers space aboard Disney Magic that debuted in 2013.
“We have to design a space that’s cool for a 9-year-old, but it functions for that 9-year-old as well as the 4-year-old,” he explained. “Those holo-chess tables, they work as arts and crafts tables, but then we have interactivity like the cockpit which ages up more. So we want to make sure since it’s such a broad range that we touch upon everyone.”
To that end, the Disney Infinity space targets video gamers. The room has a human-size console that allows cruisers to stand and make characters move around on a screen as well as gaming stations on which visitors can choose from more than 80 characters from Disney’s arsenal of characters to play the popular open-ended video game. There’s also exclusive Disney Cruise Line digital creations for the game that cruisers can play on their home systems.