The Norway Pavilion Epcot

Some guests regularly ask me where the big Vikingship is?
Im have to disappoint them every time by saying that the Vikings are out on new missions and won’t return in a while…

The Vikingship was built for the pavilions 10th year celebration in 1998, and removed in 2008, after a Guest had an accident while playing on the ship, it was also starting to fall a little apart.

I am sad that Disney didn’t fix this ship, instead of just removing it…
Viking panorama 

Today I got an email from my political party leader, Trine Skei Grande, regarding an email I sent her about the conditions in the Norwegian pavilion.

She said that Venstre (Liberal Party) will be asking the government questions about the pavilion and if they want to do something with it in the next few weeks. This action will require the government to give Venstre an answer within a time limit, since the government haven’t commented anything about the pavilion at all in public, this is really good.

The government in Norway is truly not doing their job good enough, and Im surprised that I need to take this matter up in parliament to get a decent answer. As I previously mentioned, my questions to the government officials was sent over 7 months ago, and still I haven’t heard anything from our beloved government…

Yesterday I saw something I didn’t quite like in the Norway pavilion, people walking around with scetches of what to change about the pavilion. If it was only that, I would be grateful that the pavilion is getting updated, but these people were wearing Lego t-shirts and were not pretty talky, which only leaves me with speculations… Lego is from Denmark…

Disney and Lego have a close cooperation and work together on a lot of projects. But when Disney let this Danish company take control over the imagineering part of the pavilion, I start to get a little nervous. Not that updating and renewal is great and strongly needed.

Lego was one of the reasons Denmark is not a part of the Norway pavilion, which at first were intended to be a Scandinavian showcase, Lego wanted a too big part and influence on the pavilion according to my sources.

I saw some of the things on their scetches, Im not allowed to say what,  but it didn’t look bad for the pavilion theme and storyline. Im just a little skeptical about a Danish company working on the Norway pavilion, since Norway government don’t care about the pavilion. One step towards a Danish/Scandinavian pavilion? Wake up Norway!!!

Finally the Norway pavilion is getting some attention, Disney have decided to renew the roofing and windows in parts of the pavilion.

They are also going to repaint some of the buildings.

Its about time though, since they are 23 years old and sometimes leaking…

Me at the entrance of Kongeparken!

You can reach the stars if you just believe!

When I was in New York my previous boss at Kongeparken amusement park back in Norway called me one morning and offered me the position as operations manager for attractions and food & beverage.

I have been working in Kongeparken for the last 4 years before coming down here this year, and now I will get to use everything I´ve learnt in Disney this year to put a high focus on guests and good show standards back home as a manager.

It will be a year with no vacation and a lot of working, but this is what I live for, so no problem.
I will start my new job the 7th of December 2011, so just a few days after finishing my program in Disney. Kongeparken is open for Christmas celebrations.

In November the rest of the leadership team is coming down here to Orlando and we have a week with training and attending the IAAPA-conference.

So yesterday me and a friend of mine went to the Halloween event in Magic Kingdom, and we loved it.

You can find some pictures of the event here. 

Its not so very scary! Its actually very fun!
The park is themes in halloween colors and everyone walk around dressed up like princesses or something just a little scary, I didn’t see anyone dressed up like a serial killer or something alike.

Its a special event that cost money besides the regular park ticket, so even Cast Members have to pay to get in, but it’s definitely worth it. Its a night of the villains of Walt Disney World, in the end of the day there is also a special fireworks called HalloWishes. You can go around and do some of the rides and trick or treat for candy around the park, pretty cool.

As you might already know, the Norway pavilion has a big lack of updating of the pavilion due to Disney´s fight against Norway government about payment and involvement in the pavilion operation.

In my opinion, the pavilions biggest problem is the movie and bad maintenance of the ride Maelstrom.
The movie is from 1988 when the pavilion opened and shows the guests a Norway with 80´s fashion, old computers and don’t give Norway a decent reputation as the well technologically advanced country we are. I do really like the movie though, because its good made and shows the timeline from the Vikings till the new oil-era that made Norway so rich.

Norway don’t have anything to do with the pavilion anymore, after we sold out in 1992 and stopped contributions in 2002, which led to Disney using our restaurant as a Princess Storybook Dining location.

Everyone wants a new movie, Norway and Disney, and the subject have been discussed many times, the problem; money!
Disney wants 17 million dollars to make a new movie, Norway is not willing to pay that much when Disney is the only one making money out of the pavilion, and the pavilion is very well run.

I understand both sides in this conflict, first of all Im curious why it would cost 17 million dollar to make a new movie.
I understand that Disney wants Norway to participate, because if Norway didn’t have to pay anything then all the other countries could do the same thing and then just leave all responsibility to Disney for doing everything. That is not the thought for World Showcase, its suppose to be an arena where the countries themselves are suppose to represent their culture and heritage. I think its a shame Norway don’t contribute anything to the pavilion anymore.

I understand that Norway don’t want to pay 17 million dollar to a billion dollar company that makes a very big amount of money on the operation of the pavilion.

But what Norway have offered to Disney, is free usage and the rights to a movie that Norway made for the expo in Shanghai; Norway Powered by Nature. Its a beautiful 11 or 5 minute film that presents Norways nature and history. Disney said no to this, because they want to make their own stuff to avoid any problems with copyrights etc… Sort of understandable, but not a good enough excuse when Norway would like to give Disney the rights to the movie.

So Disney, please get a grip on reality and do something so that our guests can experience Norway the way it is today…

You can watch the movie here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpf8MfQm8rY   (the 5 minute version, that could easily replace todays movie)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B2ZWfrAZw4 (the full 11 minute version, I believe this is great too)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upxIPyF4ydo  (todays pavilion movie)

My other problem with the pavilion is the ride and poor maintenance done by Disney.
The ride needs updating and strongly maintenance. If something breaks, its broken and will be like that for ever.
The ride used to be pretty much more adventures and good, I mean I still like it, but it used to be so much better.

The up ramp is old and you feel it by all the sounds and shaking in the boat. The Viking scene is not coordinated anymore and the speakings is bad. Theres missing a storyline between the Viking village and horn scene. The trolls are old and the seawater troll is not suppose to go so much up, there used to be smoke in the troll scene, I want that back, fog on the water with the trolls coming up would be so cool to get back. If its because people are allergic to the smoke, its possible to get smoke out of water that don’t give any reactions to people. The little polar bear have been missing for over 6 months now, he was just suppose to go and get some new fur… The big polar bear used to move more, Im also missing smoke in this scene. When you hear the rapid water there were suppose to be movement in the boats so you felt like you were in a storm/maelstrom, but this have never worked, the equipment is there, but they never got it to work in 1988. The nature scene is fun, but the boat here also makes bad mechanical/hard movements, the picture of the fjords is dirty and ruins a little of the show Disney is suppose to give. The North Sea scene used to be wilder and more like the North Sea, Im pretty sure there were small raindrops coming down, and I know there used to be bigger waves, but the wave machines stopped working some years ago and never got replaced/fixed. People should get a few drops of water on them on this ride, its suppose to be a High Seas Norwegian Adventure….

Had a blast vacation in Washington DC and New York from the 4-12th September.

I really enjoyed watching all the big monuments and history of the cities and walk around in areas Ive only seen on TV.
Here are some pictures from my DC trip:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150274535616227.331273.619951226&l=1d02708b3c&type=1

Right now Im sitting at the Orlando International Airport waiting to board my flight to Washington DC, its been exactly 9 months since I came to the states today, and Im finally getting away from Florida and Disney for a while to take a little more care of myself.

Ill be in DC for about 3 days, then Ill head over to New York until the 12th of September.

Im going to be living at a hotel right next to the White House in DC, then Ill live on Times Square while in NY.

Booked some tours around DC and NY already, like the UN, museums, Captiol etc… And Ill attend at least two concerts while in NY, Paramore and my Favourite band; Within Temptation, which I never been to a concert with before… Really looking forward to having some days off and travel the states a little, which is one of my goals when Im down here.

There will hopefully be some blogposts throughout the trip, depends if I got the time. Now they’re boarding my flight… See you real soon!

Since my I started this blog in september 2010, the numbers of unique visitors to my site (from different IP-adresses) passed the incredible 10.000 today!

Im really impressed that so many have visited my blog through this year, its incredible and nice to see that a lot of people come back regularly to check whats new. Thank you so much, and comments and feedback is appreciated on my comment fields or on email: vallhall@gmail.com.

September: 65 views
October: 300 views
November: 385 views
December: 995 views (the month I left Norway)
January: 1181 views
February: 669 views
March: 698 views
April: 1089 views
May: 1051 views
June: 640 views
July: 1240 views