marked an amazing time to be working as an Imagineer at the Walt Disney World Resort . Not only was there an entirely new theme park under construction , Disney-MGM Studios ( now Disney ’ s Hollywood Studios ), but many other exciting projects were also coming to life . These included Splash Mountain , the Wonders of Life Pavilion , Typhoon Lagoon , and Pleasure Island . I was fortunate to attend all these grand openings and have several random-yetfun memories to share from those days …
AT THE TOP OF SPLASH MOUNTAIN One of the advantages of being an Imagineer is that we were among the first people to experience a new attraction . Shortly before Splash Mountain opened , we received a preview of what our colleagues had built . It ’ s difficult to forget taking that big drop for the first time . A photographer actually captured a shot of my fellow Imagineers and me shortly after that , which appeared in our internal WDI magazine .
While I hadn ’ t been directly involved with this project , I was asked to walk through the attraction as it was under construction to document its progress and create a reference for a planned version of the attraction in Disneyland Paris that never came to be . Stepping out at the top of the mountain and getting an amazing and quite rare view of the Magic Kingdom was one of the coolest things I ’ ve ever experienced .
GIVING BODY WARS A HAND If you were fortunate enough to experience the Wonders of Life Pavilion at EPCOT , boy , were you in for a treat . Though Cranium Command remains one of my favorite attractions ever , its sibling attraction , Body Wars , was an unforgettable motion simulator experience that took riders on an exciting