Sleeping Beauty Castle: What to do?

[BigThunder]

Ok armchair imagineers, I have an assignment for you:

A new attraction inside Sleeping Beauty Castle.

The old walk through is done, history, kaput and it aint coming back. What would you put in its place? Here are the rules of this assignment:

• Space is tight but you may expand into the small shop downstairs.
• The Castle must look the same from the outside.
• The new attraction must be secure and ADA compliant.
• You may not demolish and rebuild the Castle to make your attraction fit. You must work with what currently exists.
• You may go under ground.
• It should be a C or D ticket, but E ticket ideas are also welcome.
• Your attraction must be story based and family friendly.
• Your attraction must fit the theme of Sleeping Beasty Castle and Fantasyland.
• Your budget is $5,000,000.

Ready? Go!

[erick13]

How about opening it up to any ideas instaed of just an attraction? I think maybe a resturant would work like at WDW.

[JiminyCricketFan]

What are the physical dimensions of the castle? If I need to make it "fit" then I need to know how much room I have.

[Jspider]

Originally Posted by BigThunder

Ok armchair imagineers, I have an assignment for you:

A new attraction inside Sleeping Beauty Castle.

The old walk through is done, history, kaput and it aint coming back. What would you put in its place? Here are the rules of this assignment:

• Space is tight but you may expand into the small shop downstairs.
• The Castle must look the same from the outside.
• The new attraction must be secure and ADA compliant.
• You may not demolish and rebuild the Castle to make your attraction fit. You must work with what currently exists.
• You may go under ground.
• It should be a C or D ticket, but E ticket ideas are also welcome.
• Your attraction must be story based and family friendly.
• Your attraction must fit the theme of Sleeping Beasty Castle and Fantasyland.
• Your budget is $5,000,000.

Ready? Go!

easy peasy

add an elevator to it if it needs to be ADA compliant

reopen the walkway with stainglass windows showing the story of sleeping beauty

for the big ending though use that 3D projection technology like how they do that effect in ToT with the dragon (like DLP but a projection now)

[BigThunder]

Originally Posted by JiminyCricketFan

What are the physical dimensions of the castle? If I need to make it "fit" then I need to know how much room I have.

Good question. Not sure of the actual usable square footage inside but it isn't much. The upper level towers are pretty much unusable because they are tiny forced-perspective structures. That leaves the space that was used for the original walk-through, plus possible space borrowed from the shop downstairs and any underground space one might care to include.

I don't think there is space for a restaurant and all of the facilities that one would require. The WDW Castle was built specificly with a restaurant in mind.

If anyone has a guess at the available square footage inside Sleeping Beauty Castle, please fill us in. I do know that it is about 77' high.

[Dirton]

All right, since it is covered under the Grandfather claws I would, Physically leave it pretty much the same. I would name the attraction "Fantasy Walkthrough". Each "room" would be made over from its previous condition to have more warmth. Think "Animation room" mix with castle decor. Each room would slightly fade in colors. New flat screens would be installed in all the rooms. The First Room would be a video of the all the castles and homes of Disney movie heroes and heroines. The next room would be a movie that has brief scenes of all the characters from all Disney movies (may be a notable line from each one), excluding villains. This would greatly increase the amount of times you could go on it because you could almost see something new every time. The Next room would be all songs and theme tunes. Then we would have the "Love room" which highlights all the love stories. Next we would move on to the Villains in which it would run though all the Disney villains in the same way we saw the heroes, and heroines. Then we would have the battle room, where we could view all the various battles between good and evil. Lastly we would enter the Finale room where we see the happy endings to all the Disney movies and then you exit with "When You Wish Upon a Star" playing in the background.

[Magic Mirror]

Since we're in Fantasyland lets increase our budget to 5 billion and plate the castle in gold?

[Pizzapants]

i really don't think there's much room for an attraction other than a walk through. All in all, it is a tiny castle.

[BigThunder]

Originally Posted by Magic Mirror

Since we're in Fantasyland lets increase our budget to 5 billion and plate the castle in gold?

Its a game. Use your imagination and Disney knowledge to come up with the best attraction you can to fit the circumstances. If you don't get it, you don't have to play.

[JiminyCricketFan]

Originally Posted by BigThunder

Good question. Not sure of the actual usable square footage inside but it isn't much. The upper level towers are pretty much unusable because they are tiny forced-perspective structures. That leaves the space that was used for the original walk-through, plus possible space borrowed from the shop downstairs and any underground space one might care to include.

I don't think there is space for a restaurant and all of the facilities that one would require. The WDW Castle was built specificly with a restaurant in mind.

If anyone has a guess at the available square footage inside Sleeping Beauty Castle, please fill us in. I do know that it is about 77' high.

If we knew how wide the front of the castle was, we could use satellite imagery to determine as least an estimate of one level in the castle. The upper floors probably are not usable, but I cannot say for sure until the ground floor square-footage is determined.

[Mr. Disney]

I'm sure there is plenty of space underground for a Sleeping Beauty dark ride, like the one that was planned for Walt Disney World but never got built? They could mayber do the reverse of the queue effect on Indy... like the Mansion... go undeground but make you think you're still above ground... or you could load/unload on ground level and then go underground... and make it a two story; I think it would be great, I just pity Walt Disney World because I think their Fantasyland needs it a lot more... but first we should get things straight in Tomorrowland...

[Pizzapants]

Ah, underground. I forgot about underground. Doesn't the castle in Paris have an underground thingy?

[BigThunder]

Yes. The Paris Castle has a dragon in the dungeon.

[Disney Wrassler]

Does it have to be a walk through? Can a ride be placed under the castle (since the castle won't be added to or demolish, it would still look the same). Well anyway here is what I was thinking. You can make a queue line that goes through that area of the castle and eventually it would go underground. At the entrance of the queue will be a metal detector. Anyway, once in line, you will pass through rooms dedicated to each Disney witch, queen, & evil step mother and you hear them each seperately plotting how they will get revenge on the princes & princesses (The ride will be a gentle dark ride). Then you board the ride and you live the life of a princess until the Disney witches try to attack you. Then it is up for the princes & 7 dwarves to save you. After you are saved, you live happily ever after and exit the ride.

[kayoss]

What I'd do is reverse the order in which you walked through the castle, starting from the old exit (which was on the left hand side, looking out towards the hub) and then over to the right. I'd close the princess shop, and turn it into a new part of the castle...ala "Dragon Room" like in Paris. Contstructing a 'bridge' of sorts across the current Frontierland castle entrance to the new mini 'show building'. The castle is historical so the walkthrough portion need not be ADA compliant (like Tarzan doesn't need to be) but as an added bonus, being on ground level, the new "Dragon" AA dungeon scene could be seen by all. Okay, so maybe this is a $10 million budget, but creative imagineering could do it in $5.