Patty Winter's
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Latest UpdatesUpdate 4/30/08 -It's been a long time since my last update, but I have a few pieces of important news for you. New site organization Did you notice that the page headline now says "Pages" instead of "Page"? If you scroll down, you'll notice that most of the information you expected to see is no longer there. :-) Don't worry--nothing has been lost! I've just decided to subdivide my Disneymarks data. The new organization will be better for those of you on slow Internet connections. It will also be great for those of you who want to view Disneymark information on your BlackBerry, iPhone, or other handheld computer while you are actually at one of the Disney properties. You can use the navigation links on this page to go directly to the section of your choice. New online caching magazine Another news item I've been neglecting to pass along is the launch of Caching Now, an online magazine for geocachers and benchmark hunters. The magazine is published by Berntsen International, the folks who make Disney's benchmarks. So you won't be surprised to learn that I wrote an article about Disneymarks for the first issue. I'm the contributing editor of the magazine, and I think we're offering excellent articles, so please check it out. New name for a WDW theme park You may already know that a few months ago, Disney renamed the "Disney-MGM Studios" theme park to "Disney's Hollywood Studios." One of these days, I may get around to renaming the Disneymarks that are at the Studios. But quite frankly, it isn't high on my priority list. It isn't just a matter of doing a search and replace on this page; I'd have to redo some other files, and also coordinate with the managers of the Walt Disney World Benchmarks group on Waymarking.com, who may or may not want to change everything there. I think everyone will be able to cope with the marks being called "MGM-xx" for the foreseeable future. Quick Links: Just for Fun | Waymarking | Auxiliary Pages | Useful Tools The Marks!Disneyland ResortThis section covers benchmarks at Disneyland, Disney's California Adventure,and Downtown Disney Anaheim. Disneyland Resort .loc file (Text file of waypoints for all the Disneyland Resort benchmarks) Walt Disney World ResortThis section covers benchmarks at all of Walt Disney World, including the theme parks, resorts, and other areas. Walt Disney World .loc file(Text file of waypoints for all the Walt Disney World benchmarks) Disney's Animal Kingdom Magic Kingdom Epcot Disney's Hollywood Studios Whole page BoardWalk Inn and Villas Grand Floridian Polynesian Fort Wilderness Shades of Green Whole page Typhoon Lagoon Transportation & Ticket Center Miscellaneous Just for FunHere's some miscellaneous stuff you may enjoy. Disneymarkers - Have you been wondering what the Disney benchmarks folks look like? Okay, maybe not. :-) But if so, click here to see a photo of us. (Photo copyright 2006 Larry Klementowski.) From left to right: Larry Klementowski, Julie Klementowski, Patty Winter, Nick Enicks, Meg Lee-Lim, Lloyd Lee-Lim. In March, 2007, Rhonda and Bill Rushing visited Disneyland, where Larry and Julie and I met up with them. Rhonda and Bill are president and vice president, respectively, of Berntsen International, the company that makes the Disney survey marks. Click here to see a photo of Larry and me with them. (Photo copyright 2007 Patricia F. Winter.) Surveying at Walt Disney World - In April, 2006, the first and current chief surveyors of Walt Disney World, Don McKinney and Bud Joiner, gave a presentation at the annual conference of the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM). I was kindly invited to their by ACSM conference chair John Hohol. John worked for many years at Berntsen International, and came up with the idea for the Disney benchmarks. My report on the ACSM talk includes some historic photos of WDW as well as images of the different kinds of WDW and Disneyland benchmarks. An article I wrote about surveying at Walt Disney World (partly based on the above-mentioned presentation and partly on subsequent interviews) was published in the September 2007 issue of The American Surveyor. You can go straight to my article and download a PDF version that has all the photos from the printed magazine. You can also see a closeup of Nick Enicks' cover photo of Spaceship Earth. Historic WDW photo - Many thanks to John Hohol for providing me with an historic photo of early surveying at Walt Disney World. The photo was taken in the Magic Kingdom (the first of the WDW theme parks) near the hub at the end of Main Street. Notice that the buildings on one side of the street are nearly finished, while the other side still has only the internal structures built so far. Cinderella Castle is nearly done, though! The Magic Kingdom opened in October, 1971, so we speculate that this photo was taken earlier that year.WaymarkingHave you heard of waymarking? It's an offshoot of geocaching in which people post the coordinates for interesting places that other people might want to visit. When you visit the place, you can take a photo of it to prove you were there, then post your photo and log that you found the waymark. It's just for fun; there are no prizes for how many sites you visit. But it gives us the opportunity to turn Disney benchmark hunting into more of a Hidden Mickey-style game. There are now waymarking categories for Disneyland/DCA Benchmarks and Walt Disney World Benchmarks. I have put links on this page from every benchmark for which there is an equivalent waymark. Now it's really easy to find out where you can log the benchmarks you see at Disney properties! The management groups for the Disneyland and WDW benchmark waymarking categories have established the following policy regarding who gets to make waymarks from new benchmarks reported on this web page:The finder of the benchmark will have one month after the date on which the new benchmark is published on this page to make a waymark of it. After one month, the original finder's exclusivity expires. If someone else then finds the benchmark and submits the necessary documentation, his or her waymark submission will be approved.So if you find a new benchmark and think it may take you longer than one month to create a waymark, please let me know, and I will hold off on publishing your benchmark here until you tell me that you've created the waymark for it (or are about to). See the relevant waymarking category for waymark creation rules. (Both closeup and location photos are required to create a waymark, so keep that in mind when you're hunting for benchmarks at any of the Disney parks. Only a location photo is required to log the finding of an existing waymark.) Auxiliary PagesAerial photos - Lloyd's Maps of Disney Survey Markers page offers fascinating visual insight into the locations of the DL and WDW benchmarks. Marker types - Lloyd's Types of Disney Survey Markers page provides both photos and written descriptions. It covers nails, scribed Xs, and other survey markers besides the disks that I'm tracking on this page (including the possible "center of Disneyland" golden spike behind Sleeping Beauty Castle). Previous and unfound benchmarks - Lloyd's Unaccounted Disney Survey Markers page is an excellent compilation of information about survey marks that have been mentioned on Web pages or in Internet forums. Some of them were at Disneyland and Walt Disney World and are almost certainly extinct, because no one has seen them recently. But others--such as the ones at Hong Kong Disneyland--are brand new and ready for someone to find (see below). If you're headed to Florida or California and want a challenge, please print out this page from Lloyd's website and go hunting! And if by chance you have old photos of the disappeared ones, please let me know. Even though they're gone, we'd like to document their existence. A Disney engineer posted to a public forum the following information about survey marks at Hong Kong Disneyland: "There are 11 markers at HKDL, one each at the three hotel locations, one each in the center of the five (future expansion...) lands in the MK, and three that mark specific locations used for monitoring the stability of the land (remember the land is man made). The latter of these have (what looks like) a telescope outline on them and sets of numbers that refer to notes on the architectural drawings." If you get to Hong Kong Disneyland, please look for them and let me know if you find any!Useful ToolsCoordinate format - Because a lot of amateur benchmark hunters are also involved in the sport of geocaching,I've used the geocaching standard "decimal minute" format (DDD MM.MMM) for coordinates. If you prefer to use degree/minute/second format, you can perform the conversion in your GPS receiver or use the handy conversion chart at Geocaching.com. .loc files - Thanks to Jeff Boulter's wonderful GPS Coordinate Grabber page, I was able to quite easily create .loc files for all of the benchmarks on this page. With the proper software, you can export these files from your computer to your GPS receiver--no more having to manually enter all the benchmark coordinates! Choose the Disneyland .loc file or the Walt Disney World.loc file, whichever you need. (Use your browser's method for downloading a text file rather than opening it in the browser.) Have you found a new benchmark at one of the Disney parks, but don't know the coordinates? Sam Mirsky has a nifty web page at www.samirsky.com/geocaching that lets you determine the coordinates for any place shown on Google Maps just by clicking on the location. Give it a try! |
