Monday, August 17, 2009

A Christmas Carol Train Tour

Yesterday we headed to San Antonio to see Disney's A Christmas Carol Train Tour. If you have an opportunity see this when it passes through your city or close to, take the time to do it, it was phenomenal. Disney knows how to market, and this adventure will pay off at the box office! The The entire display was free, and you even get a sneak peak of how they made the movie, plus about a 5 minute trailer. It comes out on November 6th, and I can guarantee you our family will go see it.










The tour actually has some of Charles Dickens' writings and books, the costumes used in the making of the movie, and a whole car dedicated to showing scenes from production and clips of the movie. They had a about 20-25 flat screen TVs place inside picture frames, and it was awesome. Everything they had on display was interactive and enjoyable.
The movie was computer generated, but live actors were used to get the movements, etc. Read about it, it's very neat. At the end of the train portion of the tour, we also got to morph our faces into one of the characters. Those should be interesting once they are sent to us.

Scrooge!


































Despite the fact that it was 100 degrees, we got to enjoy some Christmas carols while we waited in line. I did not envy these people at all.
One of the costumes used in the prodcution and behind it the case that contains some of Dickens' books and writings.








One of the clay models to help replicate the characters's faces. It was sort of creepy it was so real!





Another replica. This is Scrooge's house.







The suits the actors wore that allowed the movements and so on to be captured for the computer.









One of the flat screen TV images. You can't tell from this picture, but the image was as crystal clear as I have ever seen.










By the fireplace--I only wish the fireplace would truly have been needed :)













After the tour, we walked down to the Riverwalk for lunch. We at at Casa Rio, and the kids had a great time feeding the ducks. I think the ducks consumed more than the kids. In the process of feeding the ducks however, Anya's shoe went overboard and into the river. By instinct, Jack retrieved the shoe, and I am happy to say he did not go overboard too. It was a successful shoe recovery.


Pre-shoe in water.