The engineers who helped create the Main Street Electrical Parade in 1972 also created the first show-control program in existence. This allowed the 2,000-foot (610 m) long parade route to contain multiple radio-activated “trigger zones.” Using radio-activated triggers as each float entered a zone, the audience would hear float-specific music through the park’s audio system. Each zone was between 70 and 100 feet (30 m) long, and the zoned system meant that every person watching the parade would experience the same show, no matter where they stood along the parade route.
As to your specific Disney pin collection. What is it you collect? Sorry if this is a repeat question!
Nope! You’re the first to ask. Before I started collecting pins, my friend brought me back this one as a souvenir.
When I got to Walt Disney World a few years later and planned to start collecting pins, my sister and I were, of course, all about the princesses. But I didn’t want my lanyard to look like my four year old sister’s, or every other little girls’ in the park, so I decided that my pins would have to have the princess AND her prince on them. Or even just the prince by himself. Those boys just don’t get enough love.
I have a bunch, but these are some of the ones that I could find online. Since they started collecting pins, I have never left a Disney park without at least one new pin (hence why I had to start a second collection after finding those two awesome ones and no princes last time.)
I also have this one that I found in one of the trading books at the hotel. I believe it’s European, and probably not an official trading pin, but I love it.
The owl from Sleeping Beauty can be found on Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant in Disneyland Paris.
(photo by Jopaplayer on Flickr)
A time back I saw a lot of post saying Merida is Pixar's first face character at the parks. This is very false because the Disney Parks all had face characters for the green army men in the parades and sometimes meet n greets in Paris
Anonymous
Well, the name ”face character” is often used to describe any character that one can meet in the park, but officially, a “face character” is a character who’s costume doesn’t cover the friend’s actual face, like the princesses, Peter Pan and Wendy. Any character whos costume includes a head, like Mickey, Minnie, or the Queen of Hearts is a “fur character” or “full costume character”
So far, all of Pixar’s characters in the park have been fur or full costume characters.
Toy Story - Woody & Jessie
Buzz
Green Army Guy
The Incredibles - Mr. & Mrs. Incredible
Frozone
Monster’s Inc - Mike & Sully
UP - Russel & Dug
Carl
Cars - Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater
So technically, yes, Merida is Pixar’s first face character. 
(pics are from the unofficial disney character hunting guide)
All cast members at The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror wear a costume that resembles that of a 1930s bellhop, and is the most expensive costume in any park in the world.
I know it's not a big deal or anything (just for fyi purposes, I guess), but Hotel Santa Fe at DLP is Cars themed now and the billboard above the entrance no longer features John Wayne but Lightning McQueen and Sally instead! I stayed there a few weeks ago and it was super fun and very cutely decorated :) p.s. love the blog!
You’re absolutely right! Thanks for letting me know :)
The Hotel Cheyenne shares an area of the Disneyland Paris Resort with Disney’s Hotel Santa Fe, located on either side of a man-made river called the Rio Grande. (The actual Rio Grande is the river that form the border between Texas and Mexico.)
The Hotel Cheyenne was designed by architect Robert A.M. Stern, who also designed Disneyland Paris’ Newport Bay Club.
Disneyland Paris’ Hotel Cheyenne is devised to create the illusion that it is a Western town rather than a single hotel complex. This is accomplished through façades and other decor inspired by popular representations of the American Old West. The façades feature the names of such Western institutions as “Saloon”, “Jail”, “Billy The Kid” or “Annie Oakley”.
