Disney Cruise Line’s eighth ship is larger than Disney Treasure and Disney Destiny. The new Disney Adventure has several firsts: It is homeported in Singapore, a first for Disney Cruise Line, and the ship stretches 1,122 feet (342 meters) in length across 19 decks – its largest ship.
It’s also a ship that Disney acquired half-built, meaning the Imagineering team, who designed the rest of the fleet, had to rethink it and transform it into a true Disney ship.
Take for example the Imagination Garden space, essentially a “main street” on the sea, whose theme revolves around characters from the once upon a time there was a studio Short film celebrating 100 years of Walt Disney Animation. It is also the heart of the ship, with the first “castle in the sea” and an ambitious setting that would be a technical feat even on land.
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The screen extends nearly 30 feet high and wraps around approximately 50 feet, making it the largest screen ever installed on a Disney Cruise Line ship. Turn the center of Disney Adventure into a stage for everything from daytime character moments to large-scale performances. Think striking, vibrant graphics during a boat party, ‘Let’s Set Sail’, or more dramatic settings during a variety of shows.
“This type of venue will really give us the opportunity to expand the type of storytelling and immersion that we’re going to create for our guests,” explained Will Hastings, show lighting executive at Walt Disney Imagineering.
Shows here will include productions like “Avengers Assemble!”, in which Marvel superheroes will take to the stage (and sometimes into the sky) along with other performances designed specifically for the Imagination Garden space.
Normally on any other Disney cruise ship the main stage is on the upper deck in front of the main funnel, but that’s not the case here. Maybe intentionally or maybe since Disney left the ship half-built, but the solution was the Imagination Garden with the main stage inside an open space in the middle of the ship, surrounded by the guests’ balconies and staterooms.
To keep the experience immersive and avoid annoying cabin views with excessive sound, Disney actually hid an audio system in the LED screen instead of installing speakers throughout the garden.
“On most stages, the speakers are outside, but we wanted to do something completely different here,” said Joey Licklider, senior audio systems designer at Disney Live Entertainment.
The setup includes 27 modules in 81 arrays and approximately 2,400 speakers, all hidden behind the huge display. The screen itself uses what Disney calls an LED mesh, a transparent design where rows of pixels are removed to allow sound to pass through the screen.
But the stage isn’t just about the screen: it’s also designed for moments when characters and superheroes can literally fly.
“This technology was developed to take a performer to any part of the garden stage area,” said Andrew Cooke, technical director of Disney Live Entertainment.
Previous Disney Cruise Line sets typically allowed performers to move along a more limited air route. “Our other ships could just do 2D flight, right, X, Y axis, that’s it,” said Patrick Trzeciak, Senior Technical Director of Disney Live Entertainment.
The system relies on large winches hidden within the ship’s structure to control the performers as they fly around the location.
“The winches themselves are huge. They don’t go through any doors,” Cooke said. “So one thing we had to do was peel off the roof, kind of like a tuna can, drop the winch in there and then reseal it.”
The design of the Imagination Garden makes those flying moments even more unique, as Spider-Man or Scarlet Witch will literally fly right next to a stateroom balcony.
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Designing a space this size also presented a challenge that Imagineers don’t typically face on dry land: weight.
Cruise ships operate under strict weight budgets, and when designing this space, the Imagineers realized that their original plans far exceeded what the ship could support.
Through a series of design changes and material swaps, the team ultimately cut approximately 70 tons of steel from the project, making the ambitious stage possible without overloading the ship, as shown in the episode.
You can watch We Call It Imagineering episode 8 on YouTube now and it will soon stream on Disney+, one of the best streaming services.
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