Orange County Register

It’s one week until Toy Story Mania! and the Innoventions Dream Home open at the Disneyland Resort. Today I was able to visit both and play on the new Toy Story ride.

* Clarification: The Innoventions Dream Home name has been updated in this post. *

Our reporting group fully enjoyed the quick break with Buzz, Woody and other Toy Story characters today while the ride opened yesterday to Disneyland Annual Passholders who won tickets in a raffle. CLICK HERE for a photo slide show from the trip and CLICK HERE for a video.

Now, when I read all the reviews and reports of the Toy Story ride opening in Florida a month ago, everyone seemed to say that they’ll keep riding again and again and will do anything to try to get a high score. As a tech-geek who plays Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and the Nintendo DS — I wasn’t sure I’d feel the same way.

But I do and here’s why:

• Pulling on the “Spring-Action Shooters” is easy and you can shoot as much as you like and up to eight times per second.

• Players will want to keep riding so they can increase their scores each time. During the ride I felt like I was doing pretty well. At the end, my score was 99,600 with 20 percent accuracy, and I was proud. That is until I saw this month’s high score already recorded on the ride: 370,000. Now, I’m not saying the high score will disenfranchise players with lower scores — in fact, I predict quite the opposite.
• Just as players nationwide have ridden on Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters hundreds of times striving for improving scores, I bet players will be doing just the same on Toy Story. And the few people those few people who don’t care about getting a really high score, I still bet they’ll choose to go on the ride with different family members and friends out of a friendly and competitive spirit.

Now, I bet some of you are hoping for some super-secret tips that I can offer for getting higher scores. And, I don’t mean to disappoint, but even if you look at the extensive scoring guides online I bet it’ll just come down to practice, practice, practice.

One person who I talked with today had just gone on the Toy Story ride. John Bez of the Northwood village in Irvine said the ride is “fantastic,” “well done.” He scored 133,000 and said it helps to shoot as fast as possible at the various targets. His only suggestion: that the next-door Toy Story shop sell toys that coordinate with the various awards from the game.

Our reporting group also went on a tour of the Innoventions Dream Home today and all I can say at this time is that the attraction is still well under construction. But, and I can’t say why yet, it’s cool and I bet it’ll be a fun feature for park guests.

That’s it for now. We’ll have much, much more on Monday and even a few hidden surprise features, so be sure to check back at arounddisney.com. While you’re waiting for both attractions to open, go ahead and share your photos in our Disney photo gallery.

Related posts:

• Did you know? Toy Story Mania facts
• Toy Story Midway Mania opens to annual passholders at Walt Disney World
• Even a video game klutz can enjoy Toy Story Mania! games
• Disney gives a sneak peek to Toy Story Mania games

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