During some of the afternoon and evenings when we weren’t at the parks, there were a couple of other things that we did at Disney World. So to conclude my blog series about my Disney World trip, I’m going to talk about the indoor arcade and amusement park DisneyQuest and the shops at Downtown Disney!

Fifteen years ago when I last went to Disney World, they had just opened up a new area of the park geared towards adults called Pleasure Island. It had some clubs and bars and stuff.  Well that part is under heavy construction so it’s not even there anymore.  But luckily, one thing that is still there is DisneyQuest.  Last time I went to Disney World I thought DisneyQuest was so cool.  It’s a five story indoor amusement park and arcade.  It has a few virtual rides, like Virtual Space Mountain, Aladdin’s Magic Carpet Ride, and Virtual Jungle Cruise.  But for me, the best part was the arcade!  One floor had nothing but racing games, another floor had other modern arcade fare, and another floor was full of classic arcade goodness!  I was in heaven.  Best of all, it was all free to play!  Granted, you do have to pay to get in, but once you’re inside, unless you buy food or something at the gift shop, everything is free!  I loved DisneyQuest so much that I knew I’d have to go back there this trip, too!

Unfortunately, DisneyQuest wasn’t QUITE as good as what I remember. Don’t get me wrong, it was still a lot of fun.  But it’s amazing how fifteen years can age a place.  Everything was still clean and maintained, granted, but it all just had a dated feel to it.  Another thing that was surprising to me is that we went on a Saturday night and I was so worried it was going to be crowded.  But the place was practically dead!  I don’t know why it was so empty; you’d think that Saturday night would be the busiest time!  Anyway, here’s a picture of the front of the building.

I didn’t do hardly any of the virtual rides, as most require 3-D vision and I can only see out of one eye. But I did ride Virtual Space Mountain, which was neat because you get to design your roller coaster track first, and then you get to climb into a simulation station and ride it.  You can make it as scary or as easy as you like.

But I was mostly interested in the arcade games! They still had plenty of classic arcade cabinets, which made me very happy.  I think I played Pengo until my eyes fell out.  It was cool to show my younger brothers some of these old games, too.  They had some neat modern games, as well.  I was surprised to see a Sonic and SEGA All-Stars Racing arcade machine.  I didn’t get to play it because some kids were always on it, but that’s OK.  They had Pac-Man Battle Royale and a Tetris Giant game where you moved the pieces around with a HUGE joystick that was half the size as I was!  But I think I was most surprised to see a Skylanders arcade game!  I even took a picture of it.  Granted, it was just a huge touch screen game, and not very good either.  Actually a lot of the new arcade games there were just larger versions of tablet touch screen games like Doodle Jump and Fruit Ninja (as also seen in this shot).

Aside from some of the modern arcade titles, the only other ‘new’ part of DisneyQuest was a special Wreck-It Ralph section. There was this statue greeting you at the entrance.

And they also had a nook where there was a bunch of Fix-It Felix Jr. arcade machines you could play. I know these were new games designed to feel like old ones, but they look surprisingly unmaintained.  Here is a picture of my brother Nathan playing one of the cabinets.

Because of the dated feel of DisneyQuest, and the lack of any DisneyQuest themed items in the gift shop, it makes me worried that they might plan to close it down soon. And I’d hate for that to happen because it would just be one less arcade in the world.  But I do think they need to update it a bit.  If I were in charge, I’d change the name to Wreck-It Ralph’s Game Central Station.  I’d beef up the arcade areas and take out some of the dated virtual rides (maybe not Virtual Space Mountain).  I’d also add a place where Disney could invite game companies like Nintendo or Capcom to come in for a few months and show off their new and upcoming games.  Like a mini-E3.  That would draw in a continuous and returning crowd, I think.  So what do you think of my idea?

Another place we went to nearby was Downtown Disney, which was a bunch of shops. They had a candy store and a pin store and a huge general Disney store.  Last time I was there they had a Winnie the Pooh store, too, but it wasn’t there this time.  Too bad.  The only non-Disney shop I saw there was a LEGO store, so I took some pictures of some things there.  Like this dragon.  Not sure if it’s Maleficent in her dragon form or whatever.

Outside they also had a LEGO sea monster in the lake. Sorry the picture is so dark; we were only there at night.  It looks much better during the day, trust me.

Inside they had a LEGO statue of The Hulk.

And a couple of LEGO statues of Toy Story characters.

And that’s really all the shops we went into. One new thing that was at every gift shop at Disney were collector’s pins of nearly every Disney character out there.  The idea is that you buy these pins and trade them with Disney employees who had pins of their own.  Some of the super rare pins you could only get by trading.  I told myself I wouldn’t get into that because of the expense, but the last day we were there, I broke down and bought more of them, as well as everything I would need to trade pins should I go back to Disney World at some point.  I have to say that whoever came up with the pin idea was pretty clever!

Anyway, here is my Disney pin collection, small as it may be. I got a Oswald the Lucky Rabbit lanyard to put them on.  I also got a Figment lanyard medallion to hang from the bottom.  I missed out on getting the Chip N Dale medallion, but I settled on the Figment one because it also came with a pin as well.  I do have a Chip N Dale pin, but I didn’t get that one on this trip.  A good friend of mine and his wife got that for me when they went to Disney World on their honeymoon last year.  But the other pins I got on this trip.  I got Mickey from Kingdom Hearts, an Oswald pin I liked, and a special Halloween pin with Chip N Dale.  I’m especially proud of the other pin I got of Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers!  I wish they’d make pins of other Disney Afternoon cartoons I watched as a kid, like DuckTales, TaleSpin, and Darkwing Duck!  I was also disappointed they didn’t have any Gravity Falls merchandise.  That’s such a great show.

Anyway, that’s my Disney World trip. I think the best part of it, though, was getting to spend time with my brothers and dad and stepmom on that side of my family.  I have to say that if you have family who doesn’t mind being around you and accepts you for who you are, there’s not much else in life you could ask for.  I hope you enjoyed my Disney World articles and let me know if you have any questions.  We now return to our regularly scheduled game reviews!  –Cary

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