DisneyQuest

DisneyQuest is an "Indoor Interactive Theme Park" located at the Downtown Disney area of the Walt Disney World Resort. It contains several virtual reality attractions, classic and recent arcade video games, web terminals, and a Cheesecake Factory cafe. It is popular as an area where parents can bring their kids to run around without them getting lost, or a place to go when the weather is bad. It is also popular with locals, who can get an annual pass for less than the cost of three daily admissions.

DisneyQuest is a five-story windowless building; upon entering at ground level, you are brought by an elevator (here called a "cybrolator," containing a short animation of Genie from Aladdin welcoming you) up to the center of the third floor, where your visit begins. Repeat guests sometimes opt to bypass the elevator and stay on the first floor by asking to take the stairs.

Some of the games and attractions at DisneyQuest are:

• CyberSpace Mountain: Design a rollercoaster on a computer program, then sit in a full-motion simulator and "ride" it.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Stand on the deck of a small pirate ship while wearing 3-D goggles; one player mans the wheel and controls the ship's motion, while the other players run back and forth to fire the cannons at other ships and sea monsters.
• Virtual Jungle Cruise: Paddle an inflatable raft (with real paddles) as you make your way down a prehistoric river, avoiding dinosaurs and occasionally getting splashed (with real water).
• Magic Carpet Ride: Wear 3-D goggles as you ride a magic carpet through Agrabah, collecting gems to defeat Jafar.
• Alien Encounter: Four players ride inside a rescue vehicle to save astronauts - one player drives, the other three shoot down alien enemies. Based off a now extinct Magic Kingdom attraction like some other attractions are based off current ones.
• Animation Academy: Regular sessions throughout the day teach how to draw and animate characters (with lightpens on computer screens), and for a fee you can purchase a printout of your work afterwards.
• Classic arcade games such as Pac-Man, Asteroids, Tron, BurgerTime, Zaxxon, Pengo, BattleZone, Kangaroo, Berzerk, Donkey Kong Jr., Joust, Robotron, Star Wars, Moon Patrol, and many others.
• Arcade games from the 1990's and 2000's such as an eight-player linked Sega Daytona USA, a four-player linked San Francisco Rush 2049, a four-player linked Sega OutRun 2, an old Dance Dance Revolution (1st mix USA), a new Pump It Up (Exceed), a number of fighting games such as Tekken Tag Tournament and Marvel vs. Capcom, a Sega Brave Firefighters, a few Sega Star Wars Arcade machines, several sports arcade games, and many others.
• Skeeball, "shoot-the-hoops," and other games of skill. Some of these can be played for free. Others cost a small fee to play and in return dispense tickets which can be redeemed for small prizes.

Except for prize-play (ticket) machines, all games and attractions inside DisneyQuest are free after admission is paid ($28-$34). When DisneyQuest was first opened it had a lower admission fee but each attraction and game required a player to swipe a card to pay "credits" for it, and the card could be "recharged" by putting it and some money into a recharging station, similar to Dave & Buster's gaming restaurants. This was greatly unpopular with parents, however, who didn't like that there was nothing to do once they stopped spending money recharging the cards, so DisneyQuest moved to a single flat fee for entry. The old card swipe consoles can still be found on many of the attractions, even though they now have little or no purpose.

There originally were to be four DisneyQuest locations. One in Chicago was built and open to the public for a while, but it was eventually closed due to low attendance; many of the games ended up at the Florida location. Construction began on a DisneyQuest in Philadelphia but plans were scrapped before it opened, and a DisneyQuest at Disneyland Resort in California never proceeded past the planning stage.

External link

• DisneyQuest official web site (http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/wdw/entertainment/entertainmentDetail?id=DisneyQuestIndoorInteractiveThemeParkEntertainmentPage)