Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Disney Monorail Play Sets and Accessories
My favorite toys are Disney Playsets. That's a personal preference. There is some confusion about what is a Monorail Playset and what is just a Playset unrelated to the Monorail. For illustration, Disney created two fun playsets of Spaceship Earth, the icon of EPCOT. One is a Monorail Playset, the other is not. The difference is simply that a Monorail Playset interacts with the Monorail in some way. Some playsets can connect to the monorail track using a special Attractions Connector Accessory that activates the Ride as the Monorail passes buy. Examples of these include: Dumbo, Tea Cups, Astro Orbiter, Golden Zephyr, Orange Stinger, King Triton's Carousel, Sun Wheel. Some playsets have the Monorail pass through them. Examples of these include: Grand Floridian, Polynesian, Spaceship Earth, Switching Station, Golden Gate Bridge. The Monorail interacts with all of these. The actual Monorail Playset (not the die cast monorails) has gee in Red, Yellow, Gold, Purple and Black. The new Deluxe Monorails have been made to include some cars with doors that open and a removable roof (to put characters inside). . It is available in Blue and Green. They are all models of the Mark VI (6) monorail from Walt Disney World. Disneyland had a special Monorail Playset made to gememorate the opening of California Adventure. This one was a replica of the Mark V (5) Monorail Blue. The Playset came in 2 versions: (a) Monorail Play Set with Golden Gate Bridge; (b) Mini Monorail Play Set. The Mini Monorail Play Set is the one pictures on the back of all the Paradise Pier Play Sets -- it has a circular track that is lower to the ground and a monorail with only 2 cars. Apart from the Monorail Play Sets, Disney made many Theme Park Adventure Playsets. They are in scale with the monorail so they work great together. However, they are not actual monorail playsets. These include: Cinderella Castle, Sleeping Beauty Castle, Sleeping Beauty Castle 50th Anniversary Edition, The Tree of Life, The Sorcerer's Hat, Disneyland's Haunted Mansion, Disney World's Haunted Mansion, California Screaming, Spaceship Earth, Space Mountain, Mickey's House, Main Street Train Station. The only time we have 2 versions of the same playset is with EPCOT's Spaceship Earth: the Monorail passes under Spaceship Earth in one playset; in the Adventure Playset the Spaceship Earth opens up with many accessories inside, but no Monorail interaction. I think both are fun and beautiful models. Lastly, there are the Accessories. These include the Attractions Connector, Paradise Pier Attractions Connectors, Extra Straight Track, Extra Curved Track, Attractions Signs, Monorail Accessories (Main Street USA Lamp Post, Tomorrowland Sculpted Palm Tree, Sculpted Tree). In fact, the Disney World Hotel Monorail Stations -- Polynesian and Grand Floridian -- are considered Monorail Toy Accessories. If I have overlooked anything, or if I made any mistakes, please let me know so I may fix them promptly. I hope this guide has been helpful in sorting all the Disney Monorail Playsets. I have tried to be exhaustive, so if I've left anything out, please let me know. Thank you for reading!
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