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Virtual Portholes To Make Disney Cruise Ship's Inside Cabins Less Sucky

November 23, 2009 at 5:06 PM | by | Comments (0)

Cruise lines and cruise goers long ago figured out two things about inside cabins. One, they suck. Two, installing web cams to stream outside views into the room TV makes them suck only very slightly less. But trust Disney to figure out a way to take the idea of outside web cams, create something unique, and then add a flair of animation magic for good measure.

Disney engineers started by creating rounded digital "virtual portals" on their new Disney Dream cruise ship, which bring high-def images of the horizon into people's cabins. Of course those will still looks kitschy and a little artificial, and there's really no way around that even with current technology.

Rather than see the artificiality as a problem, Disney engineers went the other way and embraced it. In addition to getting an ocean view from the outside, customers with inner cabins will occasionally get visits from Disney characters popping into their portholes. This isn't a solution that's being embraced as ideal— the designers of the new Disney Dream still went out of their way to minimize inside cabins—but at least it's something different. Travelers with children will undoubtedly appreciate the distractions, which sound very nautical: with haunted pirate ships, characters from "Finding Nemo," and of course Mickey himself.

The Disney Dream will begin leaving Port Canaveral in January of 2011, taking winter travelers away from the cold and into the Bahamas. Cruises will be three to five days and will revolve around Disney's private Castaway Cay island. You didn't know that Disney owned fully themed resort island? Of course they do. And, moreover, it looks exactly how you'd expect. When Bob Iger says he wants customers immersed in the Disney experience, they will be immersed.

[Photo: Disney]

Related Stories:
· Disney ship. Virtual portholes. Rich possibilities. [LAT Travel]
· Cruises Coverage [Jaunted]
· Disney Coverage [Jaunted]

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