Back in the mid-90s Disney flirted with the idea of having webcams in their parks. They had a couple in Walt Disney World, including one looking down Main Street U.S.A. at Cinderella Castle. It was great to see if the park was busy or in bad weather, so you could decide to drop in later that night if you were a local, or just wanted to glimpse a bit of the magic if you were stuck at work. Alas these are now distant memories (although a google search might still find the old URLs, the images are now static).
Disneyland went so far as to install webcam capable cameras in various spots around the park, but they never made them available to the public. So I’ve often wondered why a couple of the nearby hotels that do have views into the park from their upper levels or roofs didn’t set up webcams. It looks like one finally has.
The HoJo Anaheim has installed the MatterCam. You can see if the Matterhorn is running, watch the alpine climbers (as in the image), even see into DCA and the esplanade. You may have to wait to take control of the camera, but when you do experiment with the presets (available in the drop down box) before working with the controls.
My memory of this is a bit hazy, but I’m pretty sure that after Disney bought CapCities, there were webcams installed here and there in Disneyland that ABC morning shows/news would cut to (as a background for displaying weather numbers, etc.) I remember in particular one showing the Rivers of America.
These weren’t static shots, but working webcams. To the best of my knowledge, those cams were not public-accessible, but used by Disney/ABC. Perhaps those cams are still there? (Since we don’t get broadcast TV in our home, I might just be pointing out something that still exists and is still used by ABC, and everyone [but me!] already knows about it. Ha!)
I’ve always wondered why Disney didn’t have webcams at all five parks around the world; I think they would be pretty popular with fans. At any rate, thanks for the link to the Howard Johnson cam. I’ll check it out in the morning!
When a popular men’s magazine recently named Orlando the angriest city in the U.S., every column I ready referred to Disney World as “The Happiest Place on Earth,” which is actually the motto for Disneyland, not Disney World, and the writers wrote about Disney World maybe not being so happy afterall.
Well, they should notice that Disney World IS NOT in Orlando, and therefore has no logical relationship to the magazine’s research.
Besides, anyone who has spent much time at Disney knows that it is a World to itself, so what goes on elsewhere doesn’t really matter much.
Thanks
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