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Up the Waterfall

Up the Waterfall Podcast – Episode 13 – Disney Plus Hits and Misses

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The past few weeks have been full of buzz and activity (watching activity that is) stemming from the launch of Disney’s streaming service – Disney+ (or Disney Plus). We first mentioned this new service back in episode 1, where we discussed the 10 year history of D23 Expo conventions. In the latest D23 Expo held this past August, the Disney+ presence was great, and there was even a special Expo promotion going on, to get 3 years of service for what amounted to slightly under $4/month. We signed up then, and anxiously awaited the launch date of November 12. Now that that day has come and gone, and we’ve been watching some old favorites and new original content, we thought we’d devote an episode to just exactly what makes us love (and not love) the Disney Plus service.

Disney Plus

Within this latest episode of Up the Waterfall, Scott and Zanna each go over their favorites and what they are most excited about being able to watch any time on Disney+. Additionally, they (ok mostly me, Zanna) go over some misses and what they think needs to change about the Disney Plus experience. Will you agree or disagree with our thoughts? Only one way to find out! You can download and listen anywhere you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, and many more places. Or you can watch on YouTube.com/zannaland, and SEE what we’re talking about as well. Our producer, Christian usually adds in a lot of fun visuals to illustrate what we are mentioning, and in this case, he’ll be showing a few clips as we discuss.

Disney Plus screen

We hope you’ll give us a listen, or a watch, and please take a moment to like, subscribe, turn on notifications, and even comment with your thoughts, favorites, or opinions. We’d love to hear from you! Additionally, if you could share with a friend, we’d be forever grateful as we try to get the word out and spread the Disney history (and present, and future) love! Thank you as always for listening, watching, and joining us, “Up the Waterfall”

 

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The History of Holidays at Disneyland – Up the Waterfall Episode 12

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Since the Christmas holiday season really starts at 12:01 on November 1st, we thought we’d jump right in and share the history of celebrating the Holidays at Disneyland on our latest Up the Waterfall podcast. There is SO much happening in all the Disney parks during the holidays these days, we wanted to take a look at how it all began and see how far the California parks have come in the last 64 years.

Disneyland Christmas birthday

In this episode we’ll discuss the very first Christmas at Disneyland and what that meant for the park. We’ll see how that’s changed over the years, and even touch on New Years Eve history in Disneyland. Since the Disneyland Resort isn’t just one park anymore, we’ll showcase Disney California Adventure‘s holiday fun, and the resorts as well.

Viva Navidad

You can listen to the Up the Waterfall podcast (that link will show you many options or you can search wherever you listen), but as always, we encourage you to watch the YouTube video version as well for some fun visuals of what we’re discussing.

If you enjoyed the podcast, we’d love you to subscribe, give us a thumbs up or rate us on your podcasting platform of choice, click the notifications button so you know when a new episode or video has been uploaded, and as always, we’d love you to share us with a friend.

The more the merrier and we want to hear what your favorite holiday memories of Disneyland are, or if you haven’t been, what do you most want to experience over there? I’m sure we’ll cover other parks for the holidays in the future, but until then, thank you for joining us Up the Waterfall!

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Up the Waterfall Podcast Episode 11 – The History of Space Mountain

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This week we take a stroll back in time…and space. Space Mountain that is. Pull back on your safety bar and sit back as we explore the history of this beloved attraction, from concept art to present day, and everything in between.

Space Mountain concept art
Space Mountain concept art by John Hench from the Top of the World lounge at Bay Lake Tower

Scott takes us on a journey through the years and the historic milestones of the Space Mountain attraction in Walt Disney World, Disneyland, and beyond. Believe it or not, I only rode Space Mountain at age 31. Crazy, right? Anyway, we hope you enjoy our chat and stories along the way as we share some fun facts and history of this iconic attraction that is the cornerstone of Tomorrowland (or Discoveryland) in every Disney park.

 

Disneyland Paris Space Mountain
Disneyland Paris Space Mountain in Discoveryland

 

For this episode, we highly recommend you watch the video version as well, Christian has added some great images of the topics we bring up, from the many books Scott brought out for this episode. We will link to those books on amazon below, some of which may be through 3rd party Marketplace Sellers on Amazon, or you may find them on ebay as well:

 

We hope you enjoyed this episode, if you did, please share with a friend so they can discover us too. What are your favorite memories of Space Mountain? We’d love to hear about it either in a comment below or on social media. Feel free to comment wherever is easiest for you with the hashtag #UpTheWaterfallPodcast. We thank you for listening and for your support of our passion project – Up the Waterfall.

 

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Up the Waterfall – Episode 10 – TOP 10 Disney Attraction Queues

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Enchanted Tiki Room QueueWe are not only finally through our epic EPCOT series, where we fondly remember all of the original EPCOT Center, but also discuss the future of the park, we have made it to our TENTH EPISODE! Hooray! We thank you for listening and hope you’ve had as much fun as we have recording these episodes. This week we thought a Top 10 list would be a great way to mark our 10 episode milestone.

Part of what makes us love Disney parks and the attractions within are the many details and interactive waiting areas, lines, or queues, within the different parks. As we discuss, some draw you in to the environment you are about to enter with the attraction, while others tell a story all their own. Join us as we list OUR top 10, from all the parks we’ve been to, including Walt Disney World and Disneyland’s parks, as well as the international locations in Asia and Europe.

Will your list align with ours? Did we miss any of your favorites or do you completely disagree with one of our choices? Let us know by commenting below, or at our YouTube channel for the episode, or on any of our social channels listed below – we’d love to hear from you!

If you haven’t already, we would be so grateful if you could subscribe to our YouTube channel and like the video for each episode, or subscribe wherever you download and listen to podcasts, and give us a rating there too. We are a new podcast, and hope to soon be celebrating our 100th episode, and we can’t do that without spreading the word so more people can listen and enjoy and share in the discussion. If you could take a moment to share the podcast, videos, or even just this blog post, we’d be eternally appreciative of your support.

Thank you for joining us Up the Waterfall!

Roger Rabbit CARtoon Spin

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Up the Waterfall – The Future of EPCOT

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We are finally wrapping up our EPCOT series with an episode all about the news, predictions, and possibilities of the future of EPCOT, as well as our opinions on these changes. I think it’s a nice way to finish out our 4 part series on the original EPCOT Center and our memories, with a peek into the future of EPCOT.

The EPCOT Experience

In this episode we run down the announced changes coming to EPCOT and World Showcase, including the new “neighborhood designations” vs. Future World, the water experience, Play pavilion, Guardian’s of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, the Celebration Point/Dreamer’s Point area, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, Mary Poppins attraction, as well as the new movies in the Canada and China pavilions in World Showcase. We also go over the EPCOT Experience itself, currently going on in the Odyssey building.

The EPCOT Experience

After we go over all these changes, we each share our personal thoughts on where the future is taking EPCOT, good and bad. Do you agree with our opinions or have completely different views of the park’s future?

 

 

 

 

 

 

We hope you enjoyed our series and this episode too. We’d love to hear your thoughts on the podcast, what do you think the unconfirmed changes will be? What are your predictions for the Mary Poppins attraction? Let us know in the comments below, or at any of the social media channels listed below! Thank you so much for listening or watching, we’d love you to share the love and spread the word on our little podcast passion project! Thank you!

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Up the Waterfall The EPCOT Center Episodes – Part 4

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Happy Sunday! Another Up the Waterfall episode is up to listen to or watch! We are wrapping up our EPCOT Center series with the remainder of the World Showcase countries, and some nighttime entertainment options as well.

If you haven’t been following along, be sure to listen to/watch the Up the Waterfall

EPCOT Episode Part 1: we discussed the original Future World east, including Spaceship Earth, Universe of Energy, World of Motion, and Horizons, along with a bit of CommuniCore East.

EPCOT Part 2: we share our thoughts and memories of The Land, The Living Seas, and of course Journey into Imagination. We also head back over to the east side and bring up the Wonders of Life pavilion.

EPCOT Part 3: we finish up Future World with CommuniCore discussion, and make it from Mexico to Equatorial Africa.

The EPCOT Center Series Part 4: we finish our loop around World Showcase, including a round up of all the nighttime shows as well. In next week’s episode, we’ll round out what has turned into EPCOT Month with our thoughts on the future of EPCOT, and a bonus episode with our promised Show and Tell from Scott showcasing all of his original EPCOT Center books and ephemera. Whew!

World Showcase Dancers Me with a World Showcase Dancer back in 1983, before the American Gardens Theatre had a roof!

 

Whether you are an original EPCOT Center visitor like us, or a fan, or new to Disney parks, we hope you’ll listen in and get a feel for what it was like Growing Up EPCOT. We thank you for listening in or watching, and hope you enjoy our little corner of the Disney podcasting world. As always, we encourage you to subscribe to our podcast wherever you normally listen, rate us (5 stars would be amazing!) and even comment so hopefully more people can discover us too.

You can also watch us on YouTube to see all of our silly facial expressions, and the books we reference in each episode. We’d love to hear from you, let us know what you think of the podcast, your favorite EPCOT Center memories, what you want to hear us discuss, just say hi, we welcome all feedback!

Up the Waterfall podcast

For these episodes, we wanted to give a guide of sorts to where you can learn more about the original EPCOT Center we describe, if you didn’t get a chance to experience it yourself, or if you’d just like to take a stroll down memory lane.

Zannaland’s Love Letter to EPCOT

Zannaland’s 1983 EPCOT Trip Diary

ProgressCityUSA’s Examining Epcot: The Germany Showcase

Martin’s Vids – Martin Smith has been chronicling Disney parks for decades, and compiling incredibly detailed complete history tributes to extinct attractions. We’re linking to his entire EPCOT Future World playlist, where you can experience EPCOT Center as it once was.

Here are some of the books we discussed, since they are out of print, these are all from 3rd party Marketplace sellers on amazon, but still, some good options and prices are out there. I’m just linking one of the Pictorial Souvenirs, but all of the ones from the 80’s are great fun to flip through. We’ll be doing a little EPCOT Books guide soon, so stay tuned for that as well. Click the photos below to get to the amazon* page for these books.

 

EPCOT James Beard BookWDW Pictorial Souvenir

 

FOLLOW THE ZANNALAND TEAM ON SOCIAL MEDIA, WATCH OUR VIDEOS, VLOGS AND PODCAST TOO: 

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Up the Waterfall – The EPCOT Center Episodes Part 3

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It’s Sunday, so another Up the Waterfall episode is up to listen to or watch. We hope you listened to/watched the Up the Waterfall EPCOT Episode Part 1 and EPCOT Part 2. In Part 1 we discussed the original Future World east, including Spaceship Earth, Universe of Energy, World of Motion, and Horizons, along with a bit of Communicore East. In Part 2, we share our thoughts and memories of The Land, The Living Seas, and of course Journey into Imagination. We also head back over to the east side and bring up the Wonders of Life pavilion.

This brings us to Part 3 (video version at bottom of post), where we thought we’d finish up Future World and make it at least halfway round the World Showcase, but alas, we made it to Equatorial Africa, and had to stop there. But never fear, Part 4 will wrap up World Showcase, including a round up of all the World Showcase nighttime shows as well. We’ll then round out what has turned into EPCOT Month with our thoughts on the future of EPCOT, and a bonus episode with our promised Show and Tell from Scott showcasing all of his original EPCOT Center books and ephemera. Whew!

 

zanna Mexico EPCOT 1984
My sister, me, and my brother in the Mexico pavilion, in I believe 1984.

 

Whether you are an original EPCOT visitor like us, or a fan, or new to Disney parks, we hope you’ll listen in and get a feel for what it was like Growing Up EPCOT. We thank you for listening in or watching, and hope you enjoy our little corner of the Disney podcasting world. As always, we encourage you to subscribe to our podcast wherever you normally listen, rate us (5 stars would be amazing!) and even comment so hopefully more people can discover us too. You can also watch us on YouTube to see all of our silly facial expressions, and the books we reference in each episode. We’d love to hear from you, let us know what you think of the podcast, your favorite EPCOT Center memories, what you want to hear us discuss, just say hi, we welcome all feedback!

Up the Waterfall podcast

For these episodes, we wanted to give a guide of sorts to where you can learn more about the original EPCOT Center we describe, if you didn’t get a chance to experience it yourself, or if you’d just like to take a stroll down memory lane.

Zannaland’s Love Letter to EPCOT

Zannaland’s 1983 EPCOT Trip Diary

We didn’t mention this by name, but LostEpcot.com is a great place to see some original photos and details about the original EPCOT Center as well.

Martin’s Vids – Martin Smith has been chronicling Disney parks for decades, and compiling incredibly detailed complete history tributes to extinct attractions. We’re linking to his entire EPCOT Future World playlist, where you can experience EPCOT Center as it once was.

Here are some of the books we discussed, since they are out of print, these are all from 3rd party Marketplace sellers on amazon, but still, some good options and prices are out there. I’m just linking one of the Pictorial Souvenirs, but all of the ones from the 80’s are great fun to flip through. We’ll be doing a little EPCOT Books guide soon, so stay tuned for that as well. Click the photos below to get to the amazon* page for these books.

 

EPCOT James Beard BookWDW Pictorial Souvenir

 

FOLLOW THE ZANNALAND TEAM ON SOCIAL MEDIA, WATCH OUR VIDEOS, VLOGS AND PODCAST TOO: 

We thank you for your support and for sharing the love! 

 

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases

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Up the Waterfall – The EPCOT Center Episode – Part 2

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Rainbow Minnie EPCOT Center

We hope you listened to/watched the Up the Waterfall EPCOT Episode Part 1, where we discussed the original Future World east, including Spaceship Earth, Universe of Energy, World of Motion, and Horizons, along with a bit of Communicore East. In this next episode, Part 2, we share our thoughts and memories of The Land, The Living Seas, and of course Journey into Imagination. We also head back over to the east side and bring up the Wonders of Life pavilion.

 

I really thought I’d fill an entire episode with my thoughts on Journey into Imagination, but I managed to keep it under an hour for that part. What we did realize is that we needed yet another episode to properly cover the entire original EPCOT Center experience. Watch for Part 3, where we will discuss the remainder of Future World, and head into World Showcase. If you have any EPCOT memories you’d like to share, comment below, or on any of our channels below to share your thoughts with us too! Below we’ll include more links and info discussed in the podcast as well as places to subscribe and listen or watch.

 

Whether you are an original EPCOT visitor like us, or a fan, or new to Disney parks, we hope you’ll listen in and get a feel for what it was like Growing Up EPCOT. We thank you for listening in or watching, and hope you enjoy our little corner of the Disney podcasting world. As always, we encourage you to subscribe to our podcast wherever you normally listen, rate us (5 stars would be amazing!) and even comment so hopefully more people can discover us too. You can also watch us on YouTube to see all of our silly facial expressions, and the books we reference in this episode. We’d love to hear from you, let us know what you think of the podcast, your favorite EPCOT Center memories, what you want to hear us discuss, just say hi, we welcome all feedback!

 

Dreamfinder and Figment EPCOT Center
Dreamfinder and Figment with me around 1984 when we first moved to Florida. Fun fact, this photo was used in the “Dreamfinders” fan made documentary that came out a few years ago without my permission or credit so…yay? 😛

For these episodes, we wanted to give a guide of sorts to where you can learn more about the original EPCOT Center we describe, if you didn’t get a chance to experience it yourself, or if you’d just like to take a stroll down memory lane.

Zannaland’s Love Letter to EPCOT

Zannaland’s 1983 EPCOT Trip Diary

Martin’s Vids – Martin Smith has been chronicling Disney parks for decades, and compiling incredibly detailed complete history tributes to extinct attractions. We’re linking to his entire EPCOT Future World playlist, where you can experience EPCOT Center as it once was.

Here are some of the books we discussed, since they are out of print, these are all from 3rd party Marketplace sellers on amazon, but still, some good options and prices are out there. I’m just linking one of the Pictorial Souvenirs, but all of the ones from the 80’s are great fun to flip through. We’ll be doing a little EPCOT Books guide soon, so stay tuned for that as well. Click the photos below to get to the amazon* page for these books.

 

EPCOT James Beard BookWDW Pictorial Souvenir

 

FOLLOW THE ZANNALAND TEAM ON SOCIAL MEDIA, WATCH OUR VIDEOS, VLOGS AND PODCAST TOO: 

We thank you for your support and for sharing the love! 

 

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases

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Up the Waterfall – The EPCOT Center Episode – Part 1

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journey into imagination 1983
Zanna with the original Figment topiary and mini jumping waters

When we talked about actually creating a podcast for the past 5 years, I knew that one of the main things I’d want to discuss is the original EPCOT Center. I knew that for me personally, that was where my love of Disney parks originated, and the effect that EPCOT Center had had on me growing up. I also knew that my husband, Scott, had an equally passionate love for the original EPCOT, and that we could both probably talk about it for hours on end. And boy did we.

I initially thought we’d maybe have 2 parts to this episode, Future World and World Showcase, but it soon became apparent that we’d need at least 3 episodes to properly discuss and share all of our EPCOT memories. In this first episode, Scott and I talk about how we first heard about EPCOT, and our first visits, and made it around to most of Future World east. We discuss the attractions in that section, the music and atmosphere of the original EPCOT Center, and of course, what we miss about that.

Whether you are an original EPCOT visitor like us, or a fan, or new to Disney parks, we hope you’ll listen in and get a feel for what it was like Growing Up EPCOT. We thank you for listening in or watching, and hope you enjoy our little corner of the Disney podcasting world. As always, we encourage you to subscribe to our podcast wherever you normally listen, rate us (5 stars would be amazing!) and even comment so hopefully more people can discover us too. You can also watch us on YouTube to see all of our silly facial expressions, and the books we reference in this episode. We’d love to hear from you, let us know what you think of the podcast, your favorite EPCOT Center memories, what you want to hear us discuss, just say hi, we welcome all feedback!

Journey into Imagination 1984
This is a terrible quality picture, but I referenced this in the episode. I’m the one clinging to my dad’s arm because I don’t want the ride to be over… 🙁

For this particular episode, we wanted to give a guide of sorts to where you can learn more about the original EPCOT Center we describe, if you didn’t get a chance to experience it yourself, or if you’d just like to take a stroll down memory lane.

Zannaland’s Love Letter to EPCOT

Zannaland’s 1983 EPCOT Trip Diary

Martin’s Vids – Martin Smith has been chronicling Disney parks for decades, and compiling incredibly detailed complete history tributes to extinct attractions. We’re linking to his entire EPCOT Future World playlist, where you can experience EPCOT Center as it once was.

Here are some of the books we discussed, since they are out of print, these are all from 3rd party Marketplace sellers on amazon, but still, some good options and prices are out there. I’m just linking one of the Pictorial Souvenirs, but all of the ones from the 80’s are great fun to flip through. We’ll be doing a little EPCOT Books guide soon, so stay tuned for that as well. Click the photos below to get to the amazon* page for these books.

 

EPCOT James Beard BookWDW Pictorial Souvenir

 

FOLLOW THE ZANNALAND TEAM ON SOCIAL MEDIA, WATCH OUR VIDEOS, VLOGS AND PODCAST TOO: 

We thank you for your support and for sharing the love! 

Click to download.

 

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases

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Up the Waterfall: Top 5* Worst* Disney Rides*

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Episode 4 of Up the Waterfall podcast is here! And you may have noticed a few asterisks in the title: Top 5* Worst* Disney Rides*…Welll, if you know Scott and I at all, it’s very difficult for us to narrow down anything to a manageable number, especially Scott. So while I had about 7 worst Disney rides on my list, he had about…15? We don’t list allll of those, but we do have a few “honorable mentions” (or I guess dishonorable?) in there, and we may go off on a tangent or two as we tend to do. But it’s all part of the fun and we hope it inspires you all to join in the discussion too.

Journey into YOUR ImaginationWe aimed to list ONLY worst Disney “rides” and not worst “attractions” as Disney calls them, in an attempt to weed out some of the non-ride experiences that may have made the list. Of course, then I completely break that rule right off the bat. Oops. You’ll have to listen in to hear which one that was. We also for the most part only list worst rides we have experienced and try to remain organized with our lists.

Disney’s best and worst rides can be a heated topic, so we do have a couple of controversial picks in there too! Do you agree with our choices? Think we got some wrong? We’d love to hear your least favorites or what you consider to be the worst rides at a Disney park.

There are also a few things we mentioned in this podcast that I’d like to link here in case you wanted to follow up:

One was Passport 2 Dreams where Foxxy discusses The Case for Florida’s Pirates of the Caribbean, a fascinating and detailed read, as always. If you haven’t checked out Passport2Dreams, we urge you to for amazing Disney history discussions.

Additionally, I spoke about a favorite part of the original Kilimanjaro Safaris in Disney’s Animal Kingdom, where the safari driver would say “let’s see what’s on the radio” and play this song. The song is on an album by African Dawn. The song is track 4, Hapa Duniani, and the part from the ride starts at 2:45 in. We hope you enjoy it; let us know if you remember that part of the ride!

Thanks for listening or watching as always, and if you like what you hear, we’d love you to subscribe and give us 5 stars on the Apple Podcast app or wherever you listen to podcasts, so more people can discover us and listen in too! You can also subscribe to Zannaland or give us a thumbs up on YouTube as well. Thank you for your support!

Click to download.

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Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.  

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