Last month Disney teamed up with bubbly Travel Channel personality Samantha Brown in order to make a new web series: “Destination: Disney.” So far the eight shorts, all clocking in between three and four minutes, focus on the Disney Dream cruise ship.
Each episode of “Destination: Disney, Innovation and Technology,” finds Brown exploring different corners of the Disney Dream, usually concentrating on one of the many technological developments scattered throughout the ship. Many of the shorts talk about aspects of the ship that I’ve covered before, such as the “magical portholes” available in each stateroom or the shifting design of the Animator’s Palate dining hall.
The series kicked off with Brown interviewing Walt Disney Corporation CEO Bob Iger about the Dream, and how he directs his Imagineers to invent new possibilities every time they start a project. Brown and Iger used the example of the Dream’s Aqua Duck, the world’s only cruise ship water coaster.
The Aqua Duck is an enclosed water slide that travels from one end of the ship to the other. Riders zip from one stack sticking above one end of the ship to the other, curling around decks and sticking out twelve feet above the ocean along the way.
The “Destination: Disney” is a great series to watch for those interested in learning more details about the Disney Dream. My main question is whether or not these webisodes are a one-time-only thing about the Dream, or whether or not Brown will eventually make more about other Disney destinations and vacations.
I’d love to see a similar show, for example, on the still-under-construction Aulani resort in Hawaii. While it’s vital to do one’s research from impartial sources and know what, exactly, one is getting out of the experience, it’s always fun to see behind the scenes of the many layers involved in a Disney vacation.
That raises an important, if obvious, point about “Destination: Disney.” The show is completely biased as to just how awesome a Disney vacation is. It doesn’t help that Brown’s the host, though I expect that was intentional; I’ve watched many of Brown’s various series on the Travel Channel, and no matter where she was across the globe, I never once heard her utter a single constructive or negative thing about any of the locations she visited.
I don’t expect Brown to do anything but enjoy her vacations (especially with all the expenses paid by a television network), but when she’s nothing but effusive about every single trip, I get suspicious that I’m not receiving the whole story.
For example, at one point during her Iger interview Brown mentioned that she’s asked the same question of repeat Disney vacationers: why, when they could go anywhere in the world, do they instead decide to take annual Disney vacations? The answer: “it’s the promise of happiness, exceeding people’s expectations.”
I admit drew up short when I heard the first part of the answer: the promise of happiness? Of course that’s the exact sort of thing one expects to hear Disney’s PR department assert about Disney, but I didn’t expect a supposedly neutral third-party source to rhapsodize in such a way about the company.
Still, like I said, the behind the scenes glimpse of the Dream is fun. There’s no hint that “Destination: Disney” will continue beyond its focus on the Dream, but I hope that at some point it does.
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