Back in the early days of the internet Walt Disney World featured live Web Cams at the parks. Then sometime around the turn of the millennium they went off line and never came back. It was a big loss for theme park fans who used them to keep a little of the magic alive in between vacations.
For a long time Fans consoled themselves with a weather web cam erected at the Swan & Dolphin that was pointed toward EPCOT’s Spaceship Earth. It wasn’t good for much, but checking weather conditions, and the status of the Yacht & Beach Club after a hurricane rolled through. Then last year, that web cam, too, disappeared.
Well, the Swan & Dolphin has turned it back on. But it’s pointed in a new direction, this time at the Dolphin Hotel. It is still useful for weather observations, but now features a view of the Starwood brand property instead of Disney’s.
This leaves a void for the Disney fan again. Something the folks at Disney Parks and Resorts can easily fill. All we ask is one camera at each park. They don’t even have to show crowds or sensitive areas. At Disney’s Animal Kingdom (or the Lodge) there should be a Savannah Cam. At Hollywood Studios show the Light’s Motor Action stage (with the big blue hat behind it, so we can keep an eye on the Imagineering promise that it will shortly go away). At EPCOT the beautiful shot from the top of the American Pavilion across the lagoon to Spaceship Earth would be perfect. At the Magic Kingdom a view looking from Splash Mountain to the Castle or from the Contemporary at the Magic Kingdom itself, would be perfect.
All these angles avoid showing guests or maintenance vehicles in the parks. None show backstage areas that might tip off unwanted actions from guests. But they all capture a part of the magic that means a lot to Disney fans for a very small cost investment.
What do you think? Should Walt Disney World flip the switch? Are there any other views you would rather see?
Although the official Disney WebCams aren’t running a loyal group of fans do what they can do on their vacations on the eyesonears.com website. The more folks they have willing to bring down a laptop and a webcam the more chance they have of bringing some of the sights and sounds of WDW to the fans.
YES…YES…YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A view down Main Street facing towards the castle with the top of the buildings as the cut off point. A view of the Tree of Life with the tree line as the cut off point. A view of The Hollywood Tower Hotel with the bottom section as the cut off point. A wide angle view of the Lagoon from on top of Spaceship Earth would be good. It should be tall enough as to not show crowd levels.
I have been hoping that Disney would do something like this for years. I have Disney images as desktop wallpaper for my computer that I use to take me to my “happy place” when I’m stressed at work.
I understand concerns to protect privacy, etc. etc. — but the view of the castle during the fireworks displays would be fantastic!
Of course, I’m sure the IT resources necessary to keep a webcam and servers running would be mind-boggling. Every Disney-obsessed fan would log in at least once a day. That’s a lot of traffic!
Traffic shouldn’t be no more then they already get to their corporate website if they provided Time Lapsed footage like the camera in the blog does.
I agree completely…We were discussing this over on a forum (forgive me I cannot remember which.) How great would it be? But the problem of bandwidth is a problem…I don’t see a problem with the actual cameras though….One in each park and maybe one at each hotel (hoping :) ) would make the magic that much nicer!
The IT resources would be minimal. All you need is a single camera at each park that can upload a picture to a website. Would take all of 30 minutes to set up at each park.
I would love to have the view down Main Street at MK, like the old webcam was. That, along with a shot of Spaceship Earth, the Sorcerer’s Hat at DHS, and the Tree of Life at AK.
Love the Dolphin, so this makes me happy. RT @TheDisneyBlog: The Swan & Dolphin web cam is back on? http://tr.im/ykEH
While agree with all that’s been said, I am sure the plain and simple reason there are no web cams is that Disney is an organization deeply rooted in fantasy and the preservation of that fantasy. Should they put up a web cam, their fantasy gets threatened with pictures of weather that’s not perfect, people doing “un-Disney” things (Flash Mountain anybody?), and the like.
Part of the fun for me is seeing the park after not being there for some time. Like a rush when you see it after months or years!
http://www.instacam.com/showcam.asp?id=DISNY&size=S Contemporary-Space Moutain.
Alas, it hasn’t been refreshed since 2004
whoops, wrong site and cam, that was the old one lol. There is another one, form the Wilderness Lodge, I thing, I’ll see if I can find the right link.
Yeah i totally agree. IO was actually just looking for a webcam this week and was really upset upon not finding one. The one big reason I can see them not wanting a webcam is that rush that you’ll get watching it just might quench your thirst and you won’t be in such a rush to actually get there lol.
I asked via email a couple years back whether they were planning to bring the WDW webcams back, the response was that they were removed due to security concerns (after 9-11) and Disney is still considering other options.
There’s an archive of an old collection of the Disney webcam images at
http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.wdw-camera.de/
(the older dates have more material)
for those who didn’t get a chance to see them while they were up.
Comments are closed.